Progress Report
When we launched this experiment we didn’t anticipate the huge and passionate response. Three days into it we’ve seen thousands of words written and a similar number edited and deleted. Every time I refresh the page something has changed, sometimes a simple spelling correction, the creation of a new character or even the reversion of an entire storyline. We’ve had creativity, obscenity, poetry and vandalism - and we’ve still got weeks to go! I dare not sleep!
So we’re already learning lots about how people can come together to work on a project like this and I’d encourage everyone to read the main discussion page to see the really interesting conversations people are having about moving forward.
So we now have a dilemma as the creators of the site - do we take a hands off stance and let you, the community sort everything out for yourselves with the freedom and anarchy that that will bring? Or should we try and add some additional structure to this project in the hope that it will improve the experience for many and minimise the frustration caused by reversion wars?
Looking at the discussion some ideas have emerged and we’d be interested to know your thoughts on them.
- Locking chapters and allowing them to be edited one by one.
- Placing each chapter on a separate page to prevent reversion of entire story.
- Encouraging people to create new stories on new pages so that multiple stories can coexist without replacing individual stories.
I am sure there are other ideas out there - please do add them below and we shall try and act on a consensus view. Of course, if you want us to keep our sticky beaks out of it, then let us know that as well.
Jeremy
PS A big thanks to everyone for your participation so far - it is hugely exciting to watch this unfold!
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February 4th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
This is a “team” effort - and in every team there are leaders and rules.
It’s clear that you need someone to make decisions about when a chapter is finished. I also think it’s important that - at some stage - the number of characters is capped, or the book becomes a collection of random chapters. You may also want to get general agreement on a broad plot - perhaps work on this for the first week and then let the writing continue after that.
As for people who can’t follow the basic plot - and can’t refrain from randomly killing off characters - then sorry … you’re off da team! Tim
February 4th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Locking chapters is probably the only way to let a longer novel progress - at the moment the beginning has changed before you’ve read to the end… but that raises interesting possibilities of another kind of project where a text of a fixed length is constantly changing.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
ChrisM has given me an idea but I hardly dare express it in public! If the beginning keeps changing, maybe we should be focusing on the end and working backwards, or the middle and working outwards. There’s no reason why this story should be linear and travelling in one direction only.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
there is a simple solution for everyone. have two stories, one and open story where there is no control and anyone can add or remove anything and the other a controlled story where there are rules, and people who do not follow them are barred. If you look at the discussion page you will see there is a concesus building about this. Also the Open story can split into many different separate stories so there is no eraseing one whole story to stick in another, that we see happening now. The open story will thus be an “eden model” open system. The grand idea is this can test the self organizing power of the internet. If there is no template ( like wikipedia has - in the facts) does a unified structure self organize anyway? We do not know this, we can test this here…
February 4th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I have just cruised through the novel a couple of times now, turning every character name and a lot of other phrases, into definable wiki links. First, it is amazing the number of characters, the variety of names used for those characters, and of course, the multiple disparate threads. Take a peek and see all the text in red that either needs developed, deleted, combined, standardized, whatever.
When I went to bed last night, the project looked a certain way. When I logged on this morning, I could barely believe I was looking at the same project. Then five minutes later a revision warrior re-installed some of the more chaotic scenes I was familiar with.
No matter the “quality” as literature of this work of fiction, it is captures the imagination!
~ paul
February 4th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I’ve just logged on to have a look and the Big Babbooobey Ooobey thing is back.
This wiki feels a bit like a house party, everyones invited and the carpet is surely going to be ruined.
HOWEVER, theres a pool house at the bottom of the yard where some interesting things are happening. Maybe the trick is to head to the pool house and see who follows, if you get my drift.
February 4th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
There are two (at least) competing stories - some sharing characters, some not. The one I was familier with and contributed to has splintered off to “Real Novel” within the wiki - it is more structured, there is provision for a pre, current and post timeline; there are links to all the characters within the story so far with a few bio’s wrote up trying to pull everything together.
However, this doesn’t stop different stories co-existing within this story - if someone (or people) don’t like a way the story seems to be going, there is no reason why they cannot create and add links to (maintaining existing links) alternative chapters which in turn link together ; the story being more of a “tree” than a simple point a to point b affair; with all posibilities being able to be played out. Those who like certain paths would be free to chase the story down that line; even if it means we have vast splintering. Or people could just contribute to the one story.
There are rules; as there are to everything. But if everyone is nice to each other, respects each other’s abilities and ideas then we should get along fine. Making use of comments in the revision history is nice to - if you wipe out a character or remove them; adding a note “Jenny is refered elsewhere as Liz and elsewhere as Jane; have decided as ‘Liz’ to be the canon and brought other mentions in line, and amended lines appropriately re: her bio” etc.
I think all stories are valid, and have as much a reason for being as any other, however if there is a constant fighting and reversion then we’ll just end up with no more than a handful of scrabbled together incoheriant chapters.
M
February 4th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I said all that and I’m not sure I came to the point - one of the nice things with the story having people who can trim my chaff from the wheat or whatever the appropriate phrase would be.
I think, if some sort of guidance can be given. If people are allowed to diverge from the story whilst retaining the core (alternative chapters etc) then we should find some sort of stability. If everyone tries for “one story” we’ll go no-where as there has been no brainstorming, no discussion about the plot of the story - more a bunch of ideas that seem to pull together. Although it just takes one person who believes their idea is better and the work is undone. Allowing divergence and not one sole novel I think would be the way to go. We might be able to do away, or limit chapter locking and so on as people who wanted to tell a certain story would be more likely to work together in an organised fashion than “a million penguins trying to tell a million different stories”
I think that’s what I mean to say. I go on a bit.
M
February 4th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Whatever we do, we need to break it up into smaller pages quite soon, because it’s getting too big for the browser to handle. Also, the more broken up, the fewer people editing on one page at the same time, leading to fewer conflicts when you try to upload your changes.
February 4th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
There is a hidden page, that I found by going to the bottom of the first page screen (Section One) and clicking, not on the Section Two link, but on the hyperlink inside the word MORE. This allowed for a page to exist that few knew about. When I listed the characters there in the main character list, I noted people were deleting them, probably wondering where I came up with them, so I have re-inserted with annotation.
Thanks,
~ paul
February 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
It’s the opening chapter which changes every time you look at it. The middle bits are remaining static so maybe those should be locked first? Intrrrrrresting - fix the middle then do end and finish with beginnings could be the wikiway.
February 4th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
oh and forgot to leave a website!
February 4th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
I know what u mean Jeremy, when you say u dare not sleep, lol, i can only check in once a day or so, and am amazed at how things are developing. It’s a little off-putting though, to say the least. When so much changes so quickly, I find myself losing interest, which is horrible, as I had SO much enthusiasm for this on sunday night.
I definately think the opening chapters need to be restricted once they reach a certain standard, and maybe reopened after the rest of the story develops, to, enable editing toward consistancy. As for the “real” story or having dual threads, well, I’d be a bit dubious. Surely that would just morph into several completly different novels? Oh, and I think there needs to be an uneditable introduction/guide on the main page directing people to read character bios or story arc before contributing. It might encourage people try and find a way to incorparate their original input into existing storyline. Just my 2 cents,
February 5th, 2007 at 12:56 am
I think locking chapters is the way to go so that story/stories have a chance to develop. But locking doesn’t necessarily have to be a definitive decision. There’s always the discussion page where people can make a case for unlocking a chapter, as well as discussion about when a chapter should be locked. A similar thing happens in Wikipedia, where they have discussions about whether to delete or maintain problematic pages/subjects.
The idea that the ‘real’ story/stories are hidden in there somewhere, or start some time after the smokescreen of the beginning is intriguing too. It becomes like a game of hide and seek story. The first chapter could be regarded as a sandbox in which to play, so perhaps should not be locked at all. This way it might divert the vandals from where the ‘real’ story/stories starts. The unfortunate thing about this though is that it might create a split between those in the know and those not - and many of those not in the know may have a genuine interest in collaborative writing. I wouldn’t want them to be put off.
February 5th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Beldarin - I know what you mean. It is hard keeping up with everything - especially with there being no coherent plots or ideas.
I think my suggestion allowing people to branch off was meant that we would see which “version” was the popular one; kind of like a community brainstorming to pick our threads which we follow for the story. Where the main story is now, I’ve no idea - with random rewrites and switches back and forth.
Thinking though, rather than my “tree” arangement where the reader / writer can pick their way through the story, we might want to go for some sort of structured approach where we have multiple versions and have a method of deciding which is “the canon” for the story; then we would be able to lock things in. In deciding the “canon” for a chapter; we’d either vote, get a group organised to “edit” or we would look at how many people were interested in adding / working on a chapter.
Once we had our canon then that chapter would be locked and we would move to the next chapter; same process again. If anyone had anything they’d want to bring into previous chapters it could be done through the discussion - making a note and identifying the reasoning behind the changes; and again it would be decided upon by the community. Possibly using something like the blog rather than the various discussions to say “I’ve an idea for chapter 4 that will tie in nicely with chapter 17″ etc.
As part of the “Real Novel”
I put together character bios (or links to) which I’m happy to say seem to have found their way into the main novel (excellent being an influence on structure), also I have provisionally put in notes about a timeline to manage where and when the events are happening (okay, I’ve not found time to sit down and work this out) ; the idea being to help all writers with the plot. If we have a pre-novel time line, a current timeline linking the events and a future timeline (post novel/things yet to be written) then we can all look and refer to; suggest things etc. (although we would have to be disciplined in not changing things that had already been refered/alluded to in the novel.
M
February 5th, 2007 at 2:49 am
I think a new web page per chapter would make it easier to ’see’ the novel.
I think that it might be interesting to let this novel mutate into other novels as well. See how far we can stretch this genre.
Is there a cut-off date by when the novel should finish? Or will it change and mutate forever?
February 5th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Perhaps, locked chapters, so that the story can be developed.. but maybe limt the novel to say 30 chapters, and then once all the chapters lock, that becomes the “draft” and then subsequently each chapter is revisited, unlocking, for a time, and then locking again so that minor modifcations and improvments can contyinue, once this cycle is completed that novel can be retired and archive in a “finsihed” manner.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:06 am
That’s a good idea from jansen there, about there being a first draft, before continuing refinement. Maybe the first 3/4 weeks go on in creative mode, with the final week devoted to polishing up the novel…?
February 5th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Question - we are all talking about making a novel, but are we agreed on what a novel is? Can anyone suggest a list of essential properties that a novel must have, something that can be used as a checklist by which we will know that we have produced a ‘novel’? E.g. must it be linear or can it be hypertextual? Can it contain images, video and audio etc? (I ask this as a provocation).
February 5th, 2007 at 9:26 am
We actually discussed allowing images to be uploaded prior to launching the project and while I agree this would be a great addition to a truly multimedia Novel, it was decided agaisn’t for copyright reasons. I also wonder that if you start allowing the ability to add video and audio it has a risk of diluting the focus of creating a vision with words.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Tim, I see your point and this brings something else to mind - people can of course extend the narrative by linking out to Youtube or whatever - so, for clarity, are we to consider the body of the novel to be only that material which is held on this server within the wiki? I’m assuming the answer is yes, but it might affect the way some people build their narratives.
February 5th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Hi to all, nice project.
In may 2005 I started an online project to write a community novel:
each registered user can add a one o more page simply adding a new
page from a previous one.
- the system permits to edit tha page only to the own author
- each author can comments the content of page (as a comment of a blog post)
- each author can vote the page (1 time for each page)
the final version of novel is the ‘best’ possible for the community,
and bad pages are simply dead way, because no one attach his page to a
bad page.
(final map –> http://www.keeboo.org/rab/images/rab_schema.gif)
site –> http://www.keeboo.org/rab/ (site is in italian)
So if you need my collaboration or my system, … i’m here.
(system based on PHP/MYsql, the version online is without voting enabled and tree visualization)
February 5th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I can’t keep up with this. Everytime I look it’s been majorly rejigged; it’s hard to get a handle on the story before it’s changed again, currently looking vandalised, tho some of the new chapter titles are quite funny.
Perhaps it’s time the Penguin people decided which way they want to go and locked up some stuff they like or else let us stop struggling to keep it in shape and allowed it take its bizarrest, graffitified form?
February 5th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Wow, very interesting. It’s like Burroughs or Pynchon without ANY meaning. As a social experiment. . . brilliant. As writing. . . ATROCIOUS.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:45 am
I was also soooo excited about this about 5 days ago too but it is nothing like it started out to be, the nature of the beast I guess.
One thing that has remained about the same is the length of the story thus far. I can’t see it becoming an epic to say the least as everything changes so fast, (argument FOR locking here), too fast for someone to read a substantial part of a novel and then add something to it….
There seems to be a kind of urgency to add and change things which aren’t allowing the story to get any longer (“No time to read the whole thing as once I’m done reading and wish to add something new the reference to my something new may no longer exist!â€)
Perhaps a solution is temporarily lock the whole story a few hours at a time (or day) to allow reading something resembling the length of a novel, otherwise what ever it turns out to be, it will be the shortest novel in history….
February 6th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I like M’s idea from earlier
we might want to go for some sort of structured approach where we have multiple versions and have a method of deciding which is “the canon†for the story; then we would be able to lock things in. In deciding the “canon†for a chapter; we’d either vote, get a group organised to “edit†or we would look at how many people were interested in adding / working on a chapter.
Once we had our canon then that chapter would be locked and we would move to the next chapter; same process again. If anyone had anything they’d want to bring into previous chapters it could be done through the discussion - making a note and identifying the reasoning behind the changes; and again it would be decided upon by the community.
and good ideas since then too.
February 9th, 2007 at 8:43 am
It’s so interesting…I’ll write in Survey!
Hi everybody, I’m from Vietnam.
February 9th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Hi,
This is a really interesting project. One blogger mentioned about the definition of a novel. The Macquarie dictionary defines a novel as “a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length, usually having a plot that is developed by the actions, thoughts, speech, etc., of the characters.”
Having said that, the beauty of a novel is always its evolution and its stretching boundaries. It is conceivable that a novelist(s) may attempt to write in a non-linear, non-sequential stream of thought kind of prose, (which is how I am reading the present version at the moment). As I read it I can’t help but think that it has flashes of brilliance, that lets the mind and the imagination run free. Part of me wants to go in and make it logical and linear, but there is a certain beauty in the free flow that is happening.
cheers.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Leperflesh and I had a few ideas that we discussed on the Main Page Discussion page. Look under “A Structured Approach”.
Basically create a system where anyone can start a novel and choose a few initial starting rules. Whether it be One person in control and only invited people to contribute, or a complete free-form like we sort of have now, or some other configuration.
So far I’ve imagined four basic scenarios:
.One Chief, many indians
.Council with citizens
.Free-Form
.Open-Vote-System
And then possibly a way to work out the story ark before any text is authored.
Each project chould have its own place to have a detailed discussion.
February 10th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I know there is not one desired outcome, and what i am about to say is not intended to be rude, but, i think out there, there is an assumption that a successful novel is going to look just like any other novel in a bookstore. But, with respect, what’s the point of that. I also suspect that those who are developing, for want of a better word, a more orthodox tale, if one removed all the ‘comedic’ and ‘left-field’ interventions, and forced everyone into a standard logic, linear novel, you would soon see that what we have is a rather (sorry not trying to be rude) cliche ridden meoldrama spy novel, which, whilst coherent and poetic, really is not necessariloy adding things to the great canon of literature. So, I reckon, even though this takes us into really uncomfortable ground, we must be faithful to the premise that this is truly an organic novel and not one contricted by too many rules. For, with rules, comes limitations and ’standards’ and its hard to bring something entirely new and fresh from the chains of standard.
cheerio
February 10th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Perhaps we need a “site map” that would show all linked and unlinked pages.
A person could then navigate to the location that interested them and have
some remote hope of return.
Right now it is like the two old boys who went fishing and caught lots of fish.
‘Be sure and mark this spot one of them said’. ‘Okay’ said the other. They caught
their limit and went back to the shore.
‘Did you mark the spot so we could return?’ asked the first.
‘I sure did, right there’ said his buddy, pointing a an X on the side of the boat.
I feel like I am trying to find that X every time I go looking for a lost page or a
hyperlink that I read before. It can take, literally , hours!
Thanks,
Paul
‘’see also” [[Banned Chapters]]
February 10th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Thanks Paul - we’re learning as we go along, but one tool that might work for you is using the ‘watchlist’ feature - of course if anyone has any other ideas as to how we might improve navigation, let us know.
jeremy@penguin
February 11th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Locking chapters bit by bit as they are completed (perhaps in an agreed time frame) sounds like a good idea; but as for agreeing on a plot, that’s just silly. Having competing input down to the last minute of a deadline to lock a chapter could shape the next chapter and so on, till it eventually shapes the book. A real collaborative effect.
February 11th, 2007 at 10:18 am
A million penguins is a great idea though I think the enormity of the project is starting to hit home.
Unlike Wikipedia which aims to be based on predominantly objective information, this project relies on people’s creativity - certainly a subjective construct! There are so many styles and what appeals to some people just wont appeal to others.
That said I think there needs to be some structure and guidelines. My suggestions would be:
1) Lock all of the current chapters until a character list has been developed - then lock this. It seems that some people are just adding characters at whim hoping someone will add it to the storyline. The list of characters at present is just far too long. Perhaps setting a deadline of a week or so would be helpful in ensuring the development of well thought out characters.
It then follows that chapters can be written based on these characters and their interactions.
2) A contentious suggestion would be to also work through chapters progressively. Perhaps a daily vote could be tallied to determine a consensus as to when that chapter is finished (& then locked) and the next chapter opened. Perhaps a 95% affirmative vote would seal that chapters fate. Just a thought!
Looking forward to where this goes….
February 13th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
The Future of collaborative creativity.
It is in the truly creative enterprises that the intelligence (or lack thereof) of a crowd meets it most formidable opponent in the “one great genius.†In most areas of creativity, the crowd will soon win. The contest is much like the one which occurred when computers battled humans for supremacy in chess, and won. “Computers†in this contest were not sentient robots, of course, they were mobs of human programmers, who collaboratively, eventually came up with the robust algorithms that could respond to any challenge initiated by their sneaky and creative little human opponent. Computers don’t think on the fly, and neither can mobs – they have processes and sub processes and sub-sub-processes.
In creative endeavors, writers are often loath to examine or formalize their processes, and hope for great bursts of inspiration to see them through. Collaborative writing cannot work this way. Collaborative editing will require editors to see the process the way a computer would see it – as processes. Govering processes, sub-ordinate processes, structure, structure structure.
Where to begin?
Wiki literati might start with writing sitcoms. And might save the world from bad TV in the process. The discipline of the sitcom is perfect for wiki because it eliminates most of the zaniness that overwhelms the Penguin experiment.
1. Develop a short list of archetypal characters.
2. All plots must resolve to “normal†– everything back the way it was before – this implies that “normality conditions†must be explicitly stated.
3.Objectify the plot devices – experienced writers have been saying for years that there are only so many stories. The wiki literati must embrace this and use plot templates.
I hope penquin continues to keep the lights on in this experiment long enough for order to evolve from chaos.
February 17th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Hi
When I first I came to know about it I was doubtful about the whole idea as how would penguin blend thousands creative minds and thoughts together. I strongly feel that storyline should be locked and finetuning or finishing touch could be given by masses. Else the storyline become very confusing, not clear and not getting connected to the readers.