Cooperative Storytelling

From n'Fwiki

The idea behind Cooperative Storytelling is to write stories by working with others. With several people each doing what they do best, the result is (hopefully) better than one person can do on their own. Plus, working with others to write a story is just plain fun. With Cooperative Storytelling a person can dabble with developing things that are new to them. You can make a specific idea shine while letting other people handle things you aren't ready for.

Cooperative Storytelling is different from roleplaying -- taking on an individual role for a game or interactive story. Normally in roleplaying someone has already set up a particular path and the players follow along. With cooperative storytelling, everyone is involved with the narrative. There are no rules to lock the participants into or out of options. Those decisions need to be made collectively, on the basis of what makes for a better story. Participants can still restrict themselves to individual characters, but they may (and are often expected to) develop other story elements as well.

Of course, not everyone has, or is interested in developing, writing and storytelling skills. People who want to just develop detailed worlds, draw maps, create characters, design monsters, or just about anything else can also contribute to Cooperative Storytelling by developing story elements for other people to use. The key is cooperation. Just as a storyteller can't just have a character overpowering everything in his way, but needs to cooperate with other storytellers to tell a good story, other types of contributors need to cooperate (with storytellers and others) to see that their ideas get used.

As this site is based on cooperation, forming into groups to work on various projects is expected and encouraged. Groups can use each member's strengths, like people with good character description skills and good emotional development skills complementing each other. We also encourage groups to be open to new members and helpful to those wishing to improve or develop skills.

It is an unfortunate fact that many, if not most of the the story elements a contributor creates will never be used. This is simply part of the world design and writing process. If people don't seem interested in your ideas, talk to them and try to work with them to develop something they can use. It might also help to see what else is going on around the site. Perhaps your skills would be more helpful to someone else.

Story Elements

Story Elements are the components of a story. Think of them as answering the questions who?, what?, where?, why?, how? (and occasionally when?). Elements may be used in different stories, or in just one. On this site, to help resolve disputes about story elements, each one will "belong" to a specific person. The original controller is the person who created the element in the first place. Even if the creation was a group effort, it still "belongs" to a single controller. (The one who contributed the most unless otherwise arranged.) Once created, however, an element may be given away, traded, or just loaned out for development.

Of course, it would be pretty pointless to have story elements that can only be used by a single person. Contributors may use elements controlled by someone else, but they are expected to be polite about it and talk with the controller before doing anything significant. To that end controllers are expected to define how much control they want over particular story elements. The following four groups are suggested.

Major elements are the ones that a storyteller has a particular interest in and wants to retain special control over. If another storyteller wants to use these elements, "No" can be expected for anything except a passing mention, but nothing is set in stone. A controller may want something developed that they themselves aren't good at or have other reasons for letting people develop their major elements.

Secondary Elements are things which a storyteller has some interest in, but is willing to let others play with in a limited way. For example, a storyteller might have plans for the family of a major character, but might be willing to allow other storytellers to use that family, within limits. Other storytellers may use secondary elements, but are expected to clear most changes and developments with the controller.

Minor Elements are those which a storyteller has only a slight interest in, but still wants to maintain some control over. For example, a storyteller may want an organization to act in a particular way for his own stories, but doesn't care about the organization except for that one storyline. Minor elements can usually be developed freely by other storytellers, but should be cleared with the controller.

Background Elements are the ones that a storyteller doesn't care about at all. For example, a storyteller might need a livery stable, so he puts one in a story. If another storyteller wants to blow the stable up, the controller won't care. A storyteller can expect to freely use the background elements of another, but should check to make sure they are background elements before destroying or transforming them out of recognition. Usually someone who wants to develop a background element will become the controller of that element.

Contributors should note the various elements they control on their user pages. Hopefully each listed element will link to its own page. (See User:Ferwe for an example.)

Contributor Conflict

With the best will in the world, events will still lead to conflict between different storytellers. Whether it's a mismatch between writing styles, differing ideas about the ability of a character, or different ideas about the plot, sometimes a story will grind to a halt because the storytellers think different things should happen.

When this happens, everyone is expected to stay polite. Can the problem be resolved by rewriting previous events? Is there some way to arrange the story so that both ideas happen? Is one party willing to drop out of the storyline? If the conflict continues, then those involved need to go to a third party, preferably one not directly involved in the story and one acceptable to both parties. N'Fwiki maintains a list of arbiters for this purpose. If the disputing parties cannot agree on an arbiter, the site administrator will arbitrate the dispute or assign an appropriate arbiter. Any decisions made by an arbiter are final and may not be changed, but also may not overrule decisions made by the site administrator.

As the whole idea of Cooperative Storytelling is new and still developing, there is a great deal of room for how disputes should be handled. Please add your ideas, and we will test them to find out what works.