Writing : Team Slayer Battle - Meredith103 / rach122 VS Courtney / Bill Tucker

I'm excited to read these collaborative efforts.  Interesting.  How did it go, by the way?  Any fist fights? 

"Our first ground rule was to not get pissed if somebody edited something the other did."

That sounds sooo reasonable.  I don't know that I can do that myself, but I'll definitely impose it on my partner. 

@Meredith:  for future reference, there is a Results button up there directly above "Writing" in the thread title.

Read Meracheldith's fusion...now to the boys.

Good job both teams. Can't believe Courtney didn't mind me calling her a boy. He-he.

So these are really interesting to read. There is something about co-authored works that is distinctly different from single-authored works.

I suppose the real challenge is in achieving a consistent style and voice or taking advantage of that inconsistency to forge dynamic literary juxtapositions.

In the Meracheldith piece I sensed to distinct writer's voices--almost as if alternating passages were written by one or the other--that was interesting and perhaps could have been capitalized on more (although I have yet to team up with XyZy for Rhopane™ as of yet--so I have no idea how stuff that is) to be more effective.

Flow is the issue.

Bill and Courtney's piece flowed better. It felt like they might have gone through more drafts and fused their styles more seamlessly. It felt more co-written in a team-like manner. And although the subject matter is quite tame (would have liked some more action) the writing (aside from some tense shifts and typos) was tight. The voice was consistent.

So, although I preferred the concept and darkness of Meracheldith's co-production, I voted for the team who  I thought worked better as a team. 

Team BGS.

I haven't actually read our final draft yet, considering I've been MIA for a few days.

I just read Lights, and fuck. That was good. I see what Chester meant about the distinct voices, which is something Bill and I confronted from the very start, and I know how difficult it was for us to merge together the way we did. But that aside, this was a powerful story, and it was great.

Spoiler alert --

And to add even more the oddity of the alcoholism coincidence, I had originally included hints that Frank was abused as a boy. I wanted him to have a concrete motive to give the land back to David, but we had trouble fitting it into the narrative since we'd already done quite a bit to characterize each person before I came to that idea. It was loose and didn't really belong. If Remnants is read with the idea that Frank was abused by an alcoholic father and came along to David's aid because of it, there are more similarities between the stories than you'd think would happen with a vague prompt like that.