Crowdsourcing has brought us some wonderful things: Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, Threadless, Khan Academy—just to name a few. But a novel written by the Internet? We’re not so sure that’s a good idea.
The Collabowriters, which was conceived and created by Chicago-based artist Willy Chyr, is “an experiment in creating a crowdsourced novel.” To participate, all you have to do is register. From there, you can submit content and vote on what lines should make it into the story. The novel is being pieced together sentence by sentence as users enter submissions (of up to 140 characters) and the rest of the community votes—giving the proposed sentence a score of either +1 or -1.
According to the project’s website, “The submission with the highest score becomes the sentence in the novel, or at least until another submission surpasses its score. In order to proceed to the next sentence of the novel, one of the submissions in the current sentence must receive at least a score of 5.”
Here is an excerpt from the novel so far:
It was a dark and stormy night. Zachary, wet and miserable, had been dispatched by his father to scamper across town to pick up some drugs for his step-mother. From the road, he could see the still frozen river. It was only March but it was starting to melt. In a week, the ice would be gone. The barbed sweet stenches of sewage wafting up between the ice cracks on the canal were arrogantly broadcasting an early spring. From somewhere across the canal, a soft sound was barely audible over the moan of shifting ice and garbage: "Help."
Zachary stopped, at first unsure of what he had heard. But through the sound of the rain, he heard the cry again, this time louder. Apprehensive but curious, he gingerly approached the source of the noise with deliberate steps. Zack found the source of the sound and froze: a two-way radio. While common in the past, batteries hadn't existed for at least two decades. What was something so precious doing in the slush next to the canal? "Jackpot," he whispered.
Hmm . . . it’s no masterpiece but it isn’t completely terrible either. Frankly, we’re curious to see if this book will ever actually be finished. According to
Publisher’s Weekly, the median length of a
novel is about 64,000 words. So far
The Collabowriters have agreed upon around 550. With no word or time limit, the end of this story could be a long time coming.
What do you think SodaHeads? Is crowdsourcing a novel a clever idea or a recipe for disaster?
I've seen several instances where the amorphous public improved on catch phrases written by professionals.
The one that comes to mind is Churchills' "Blood Sweat and Tears" speech.
As originally delivered it went "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
The British public used that part as a catch phrase that "went viral" in a 1940's sort of way.
The mass of the public shortened it to "Blood sweat and tears" which was a significant improvement. Ultimately the people tend to be right.
Oh, I forgot.....he's an "artist".
Adverbs often don't work well in fiction — and that's due to the inexperience of those using them. While writing a report, or at least simple descriptions for an overall non-fiction piece, their implementation can often be successful, regardless of who's straggling them in said composition. But they reek of inexperience when used so childishly in fiction. Not that they can't be used in fictitious work, but it sounds really bad here. Heh, probably due to the fact that they're being imposed by so many people; there's no sense of balance or concord,
This is not his creative vision ..
this is the creation of others ..
An Artist should stand alone on their creativity ..
Not rely on others to produce their product ..
(and I'm sure that is in the near future .. he'll put his name on this too ...)
This could be fun for many people. But if they wanted to copyright the finished novel, well that might be a nightmare.
Take care,
Above all, is innovative.