Rewriting the Illiad
Hi,
My name is Jon and I work at Penguin’s Viking imprint. I’m going to be the editor on this project, meaning that I will pay close attention to how the novel is developing with particular attention paid to the plot, characters, dialogue and prose style. I am not going to do any actual editing to the text - because since all of you will have the capacity to edit that’s partly your job - but I will provide a kind of running commentary on the story, suggesting changes, revisions and possible directions it could take.
In our dusty corner of the menacing Penguin skyscraper in London’s West End (which, if you’re not au fait with London geography, means central London), not a day goes by without at least a couple dozen unsolicited manuscripts turning up in the post. In the main these don’t get read, since we, like most publishing houses, tend to acquire books from literary agents. What’s more, we take on only a tiny fraction of books which come from said agents leaving one to conclude that getting published is a rather difficult business. One role that publishers entrust to agents is that of a filter, since - and in no way do I want to sound precious here (but it doesn’t mean it’s not true) - there are a lot more people writing books than are writing publishable books.
I’m saying this because I guess I want to get something out of the way: the wikinovel experiment is not a place to prove to Penguin we should publish your book. I hope very much that the project shows evidence at some level of brilliance, but that this will stem from the collaborative nature of what you’re doing rather than the individual contibutions. I would expect that some bits will be stronger than others, since naturally there will be all sorts of people, with varying degrees of talent, getting involved.
If you’re thinking of contributing to the wikinovel, please be prepared to put in a bit of time familiarizing yourself with what’s already up on the screen. This means getting to grips with things like its genre, context, characterization, narrative development and tone. In an ideal world we could throw in a sense of plausibility, balance and humour. That’s asking a lot, and in truth I’ll be happy so long as it manages to avoid becoming some sort of robotic-zombie-assassins-against-African-ninjas-in-space-narrated-by-a-Papal-Tiara type of thing. Or whatever.
And when it’s all over maybe we can go for a nice long lunch.
Jon
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February 1st, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I like the idea of a running commentary from you, Jon; someone to keep an overview etc. If you see something that’s not working - you say you won’t edit - what will you do, where will you be commenting and sharing your ideas?
February 1st, 2007 at 1:59 pm
this idea very pleased, write much, but if who to will wear away my work, it is offensive.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:05 pm
[…] The project is another brainchild of Penguin’s Digital Publisher Jeremy Ettinghausen, who’s also behind Penguin’s extensive Second Life presence and other forward-thinking projects. Viking editor Jon (no surname given) will be guiding the project, acting as a regular editor, giving ideas on direction and revision. Knowing what editing one author’s work is like, I don’t envy the job of doing the same for a potentially massive authorbase (we need some new mass nouns here). He’s certainly open-minded about the end product, as long as it isn’t a “robotic - zombie - assassins - against - African - ninjas - in - space - narrated - by - a - Papal - Tiara type of thing”. Shame. […]
February 1st, 2007 at 10:13 pm
What’s a second life, then?
February 1st, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I’m confused. It’s a novel (ha!) idea, but seems seriously flawed from the outset - much like a million monkeys writing the collected works of Shakespeare by banging on typewriters. Surely the starting point should be plot and character outlines, not trying to create schmultzy sentences. How can a readable novel ever come out of this project if there is no plot, no ending, no character profiles, nothing of value at all really. I think it’s just a publicity stunt.
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:39 am
Of course it’s a publicity stunt. But it’s also a neat experiment. And no one will call it in as a bomb threat. The wiki thing seems to work well for certain kinds of collaborative projects, e.g. wikipedia. It seems highly unlikely to work for novel-making. But assuming a collaborative effort from the participants, it will be interesting to see how close it gets to character, plot, structure, etc.
Also, yes, I suspect Jon’s running commentary is going to be entertaining to say the least.
Power to a million penguins!
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:37 am
What do you have against African Ninjas?
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:05 am
What is to stop people actually developing the plot before the various chapters are being written? You do realise that this is a wiki, meaning you can write and develop things are you see fit. Very easy to have a page that lays out the general overall plot. But by this stage, doubt that is going to happen, as people are already going nuts writing the story
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:21 am
Actually, that is exactly what is happening, look at the Talk page at http://www.amillionpenguins.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Welcome
February 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 am
I’ve been watching the wiki grow with fascination but one thing surprises me - why are the authors not linking out to other sites or creating new pages? Why are they not turning it into hypertext? I thought they would, but they haven’t so far. They’ve stayed with the constraint of linearity. Perhaps that’s an indication that those participating to date are mostly from a print-based tradition rather than coming from new media? Interesting.
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Jon, I work as a reporter for the Brazilian newspaper “Folha de S.Paulo” and I’d really like to send you just a few questions about the “millionpenguins” project. If the idea pleases you, can you tell me so by email?
Thanks a lot.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
[…] In one of his early blog posts on the project, Jon, the guy from Penguin providing the running commentary on the developing story says “the wikinovel experiment is not a place to prove to Penguin we should publish your book”. Is that gonna cut the mustard? There is still gonna be a lot of people more interested in showing their individual talents than their ability to collaborate on a wiki. Still, enough people are taking it on in the right spirit, and even in these early days, I’ve read a couple of great posts and am greatly enjoying watching it all unfold - if you do go over there, don’t forget to look at the discussion. It is, I think (and as I’ve already said), an extremely interesting development for both writers and readers. […]
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
I am an English Teacher and find your concept interesting. Do you know if there is any wiki-novel software which will allow one to set up a wiki novel web site. I am thinking of having my high school students use the Wiki format to create short stories and other projects where they can add, edit and change eachothers work and the changes are kept in a history.
Thanks
Dane Sorensen
United States
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Dana
We’re using the mediawiki engine which is the same software that powers wikipedia - we’ve made some slight tweaks to it - but these are more cosmetic than anything fundamental. Feel free to contact us if you want more details.
jeremy@penguin