What Is Collaborative Writing? And Why Roleplay Is One of the Best Ways to Do It

Collaborative writing ?that sounds so intelligent, respectable, refined. Doesn?t it?

When I read those words, I imagine two authors sitting at a table in comfy armchairs at a coffee shop, with well-used notebooks, holding their favourite pens, planning and deciding who will write the next chapter of their book.

Is it ever like that? Maybe.

Realistically, though, it is 11:47 pm on a work night; you should be going to bed as you have work the next day, and you are sitting on your couch, in mismatched pajamas, staring at your laptop because someone else?s fictional character has said or done something unexpected.

And you think, well, that has ruined everything! Excellent! (Excellent in a good way, most of the time)

That is often the truth of collaborative writing.

To make it really simple, collaborative writing is what it says on the tin: two or more people creating a story together. Maybe that is writing a novel together, creating a shared fictional world or mythical race, writing interactive fiction, often in tabletop role-playing games, and sometimes, just sometimes, it is roleplaying characters in text.

Though they seem quite different, they share the same backbone: no one single writer has complete control.

And you know what, that is the interesting part of it.

You lose control of the story

If you write a story by yourself, you plan everything. You know if the heroine is going to fall in love, you know what the bad guy is going to say, you know if the fairy godmother lies. You know when the drama will happen, how it will happen, and whether it will be resolved.

Sometimes your own characters surprise you; you are always the person behind them.

Collaborative writing destroys that. Yes, you control your character; yes, you can even share the point of the scene, often the place, the ambiance. But someone else controls their character.

Unless you are psychic, you don?t know one hundred percent what is going to happen next. Sometimes we might have an idea, but we don?t know.

For example, you may write your character basically saying:

?I think we should leave.?

And in your head, you think the other character will agree.

But sometimes they say:

?No.?

And when that happens, you have a problem. And that is bloomin? wonderful.

Why? Because now you have to figure out how your character has to react to something you, the puppet master behind that character, did not invent. That little loss of control for you creates something that is so genuinely difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce when you solo write: genuine surprise.

This is why roleplay can be such good collaborative writing

Text roleplay is basically improvisational storytelling. One person writes what their character says, does, feels. Another person responds. Then you respond to that, and so on and so forth. With that, a story emerges.

For the most part, no one really knows where it is going. (Though some people do like to plan their RP? how they are going to get there and if it will happen will be a surprise)

Some of my favourite, and in my opinion, the best roleplays I have ever had have been when no one really knows how the story will end or shape up. We might have begun the scene because two stranger characters were in the same place, then within three hours, an NPC (Non-Player Character) bandit has come in, caused chaos, one has protected another, revealed a secret they have hidden for years, and the other has stolen a key and is planning their own crimes.

These events may shape your character and change the course of what they were going through. Perhaps you envisioned them becoming a hero, slaying dragons, and now they are going to commit petty theft, escalate into other crimes, and become the most wanted in the realm.

That is the joy of it. A scene that started as nothing became enormous. Or hell. Sometimes what starts as enormous can somehow end up with the two characters how it is best to have their tea. Milk first or last?

Both are valid: the big and the small moments. They all shape your character and you as a writer.

Characters become less obedient

This is one of my favourite things about collaborative writing. My characters become more difficult. (in a good way!)

When you write alone, it is very easy to protect a character from inconvenient consequences. This might look like you unconsciously steering conversations in their favour, or them having the perfect moment to reveal something, etc.

Roleplaying does not give us this luxury in truth. Conversations can take a U-turn, go down a route you did not plan. The perfect moment might not come, and sometimes you just have to be bold, risk it, and put your reveal in the non-perfect moment and find the joy in that.

Sometimes another character may misunderstand you, then you decide: are you going to roll with the misunderstanding, correct it, etc.? It helps you train yourself to portray things in the way you want them understood.

What if your lovable character is disliked by them? There is no one in the world who is loved by everyone in real life, and experiencing this and figuring out how your character would act is such a valid and thought-provoking experience to have. Is it now you realize perhaps your character is a bit too proud, a bit too sensitive, a bit too biased toward themselves? (I am not saying don?t put those traits in; flaws in a character are great and really make them more dimensional and relatable)

Anywhooooo, the list goes on. In short, roleplaying your character gives them the best character development: to have them in situations your own brain couldn't think of, and now you have to figure out what your character would do.

Chemistry cannot really be planned

Admit it or not, chemistry in stories is important. Yes, romance chemistry, but no, not just that; there can be friendship chemistry, rivalries, enemies, the strange relationship between two people who insist they don?t care for each other but continue to seek each other out.

Yes, you can design those relationships in advance. But in collaborative writing, you can discover it. Two characters that, if you had written them, you might have thought would be romantic soulmates, but in reality, they don't have much to say to each other. Two characters that, if you plop them in the room, you would have thought they would not have anything between them, and suddenly every moment between them is electric, from a look to a touch of a hand; the silence between them screams.

A throwaway joke can turn into a long-running adventure friendship.

Because another person is contributing half of it, you cannot manufacture the entire thing yourself, and the unpredictability and fragility of not being one hundred percent in control is the absolute magic of it.

You learn to leave doors open

I also believe collab writing changes the way people write. It is less about ?finishing? a moment, a scene, an action, and more about ensuring there is a moment for the other person to work with, to pick up the ball, throw it about, and toss it back to you.

You can do this by a question, an unfinished gesture, a suspicious object, a misunderstanding, or one of my favourites, unfinished moments. (more about them another time)

Good collaborative writing invites: it says I trust you, I trust you to probably not do the thing that I was going to do, but I trust that you will make something of this moment?..or even sometimes, I trust you that if you don?t catch this ball I throw, it will be for a good reason.

In brief, it is basically going: Here is something. What do you wanna do with it?

That is a skill that is surprisingly useful outside of roleplay. To allow others autonomy in themselves, to understand that two or more brains are better than one.

It teaches you to create tension without immediately resolving it and, just as importantly, that tension is good; it is a journey to resolve, escalate, or both!

You don?t need to explain everything; let things be interpreted. Allow space.

It can also teach you what not to control

So we briefly touched on not being controlling. There is quite often the temptation in collaborative storytelling to plan everything. The unknown is often a bit scary, a feeling in life. Writing and putting your writing out there is quite vulnerable, and when it's not taken as you intended, it can feel like a rejection. It is not.

If you are a planner-type person, I am not saying don?t plan; I am saying don?t hold the plan so close to your heart that it hurts if it doesn?t go the way you think it will. Allow yourself to be surprised, in RP and in life. There are many good things that come from surprises.

Sometimes some planning is useful, but if every outcome is decided before anyone starts writing, your writing partners will feel more like decorative puppets. We don?t want that; you like writing with them because they are creative and imaginative, so allow them room to be so, and ensure they give you room to showcase your creativity too.

Personally, I think roleplay becomes much more interesting when writers are willing to risk things. Let your characters make bad choices, be embarrassing, have relationships fail, and let the consequences stick.

I am not saying don?t throw your character into a volcano (no, no, you who is reading this and going, oh that sounds fun to throw my character into a volcano, don?t do?.you know what, if you want to, go for it.)

But let your character lose now and again, be imperfect, be human; it is so good for them. It also makes them much easier for the reader to endear to.

Collaborative writing requires boundaries too

There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about boundaries in life. How they are healthy, how saying no is fine. This also applies to collaborative writing.

There are some roleplay spaces I have been a part of where there is the expectation that you should roleplay with everyone. And not roleplaying with a certain person is bullying them or excluding them.

Honestly, I disagree. If there is someone I do not wish to write with, for whatever reason, I should not by any means be rude or mean to someone I dislike. But just because I write shared stories does not mean that all access to my imagination, time, and effort is shared without limits.

Roleplaying is a hobby. When I put my time into a hobby, it is to enjoy it.

This part matters. You are allowed to say:

I don?t fancy writing that.

You are allowed to dislike a plot idea.

You are allowed to change your mind.

You are allowed to be tired.

You are allowed to decide that a particular story is not fun for you.

Just as someone else is entitled to say those to you. So be prepared for that. It is not rejection, but them communicating your boundaries. It is a bit of a balancing act, though; you can't expect to say no to everyone else?s ideas and have them say yes to all yours. Remember, though, if you do partake in someone else's plot, etcetera, they do not ?owe? you one in return.

Because the whole point is that two people are choosing to create something together.

The second that choice disappears, then so does fun. It is a hobby, not a duty.

Good collaboration needs generosity. It also needs boundaries. Those two things are not opposites; they work in harmony and can build trust.

And no, every reply does not need to be enormous

There is a strange belief in some corners of roleplay that good writing can be measured in paragraphs. That isn?t true. Sometimes a scene needs six paragraphs. Sometimes something shorter can be the most impactful.

The best collaborative writers are not necessarily the people producing the longest responses. They are the people paying attention to what you have written; they respond to it; they give you something to respond to.

That said, if you find yourself in a roleplay where one person is writing several paragraphs and the other is replying with a line or two, communication matters.

If you tend to write shorter replies, or you?re multitasking and keeping things more quick-fire, it can be worth simply saying so. A quick, ?I?m a bit distracted tonight, so my replies might be shorter; I hope that?s okay,? can stop the other person from wondering whether all the effort they?re putting in goes unnoticed.

The same applies the other way around. If you?re spending thirty minutes crafting each response and the other person is replying with a couple of lines every few minutes, they may simply be in the mood for a faster, lighter scene.

Neither approach is wrong. You might decide you?re both perfectly happy carrying on exactly as you are. Or you might agree to pause the scene until you?re both in the mood for something more involved.

The important thing is not expecting the other person to guess.