four authors write the same pitch
this is actually an idea for a fandom event that i've wanted to do for a number of years now, but since for whatever reason, i seem to attract artist friends much more than writer friends, by the time i had enough writer friends to pull it off, i~~~ was whisked away from that fandom into genshin hell 
.
anyway, thanks to a Literal Co-Op Miracle™, i have At Least One writer friend in genshin now, so i am going to take this as an excuse to write this page detailing my thoughts on the origin and intent of this event! :D
this idea originates in a youtube series titled "four producers flip the same sample" by andrew huang, which in itself originated in a series by a different youtuber i do not know where four photographers would shoot the same model. the spirit of the idea is basically to observe the stylistic differences between creatives of the same type, even when working with similar equipment or time constraints, and as such, my goal with this proposed event is to similarly observe the ways different fic authors will present the same events in meaningfully different ways, or how even when starting from the same initial idea, will take it in different directions, or focus on different themes, so on n so forth.
anyway, my idea for how all this would work goes as follows:
- four (or any number above one, really) fic writers agree on the same outline or weirdly specific premise.
"what constitutes a 'weirdly specific premise'?"
idk man! it's up to you to decide what that means to you! the example i gave a friend when first asked this was, "idk. maybe like a bdsm hanahaki au?"
"how detailed of an outline are we talking about here?"
again, idk man! it's once again up to you n the people you're working with to decide what this means to you.
though really, this is definitely one of the questions i ruminated over the years of sitting on this idea. since the objective, at its core, is to showcase authors' writing styles, one could say that it should be detailed as possible, with cause n effect for each event written in, so as to minimize variables n isolate writing styles. that certainly would be a very scientific way of doing it, n i think that would be cool!!!
however, not everyone works very well off of rigid outlines, so i think it should be left up to the participants' discretion as to how much detail they want to put into an outline, or if they just want to have a weirdly specific premise instead.
- without sharing their progress w/one another or discussing details further, all four write their pieces.
"how come sharing progress is barred?"
since the point is to see how different authors will interpret n write based off the same prompts, discussion btwn participants might lead to cross-pollination of ideas.
by barring discussion btwn participants, any similarities between fics outside of the agreed-upon parameters will be entirely incidental.
"do the pieces have to be complete?"
i think yes, absolutely. this is for several reasons.
- having participated in many fandom bangs through the years, i've noticed that a lot of people, when allowed to post incomplete works for a fandom event, will subsequently never update that fic ever again. i have my pet theories for why this is, but that's beside the point rn
- for maximum effect, i think all the fics should be posted at the same time, kept anonymous for some period of time. if one person spreads their fic over some length of time, then it's not really fair to the people who only have their fic show up once on the recently updated (default sorting) page.
anyway, i'm not the boss of anyone, so that's just my two cents.
"how much time do people get for this? is there a limit?"
personally, i'm fine with just waiting until everyone is done, even if that might take a long while. sometimes ideas escape us n get much longer than we intended, or life happens. however, i do think that placing a limit on the amt of time people have to make stuff is a reasonable modification to be made, though that limit should be smth agreed on by participants. sometimes we just have to be strict in order to get things done. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"what if someone's idea goes off the rails from the outline?"
personally, i think this is fine, for the most part. i think that as long as something isn't outright stated or forbidden in an outline or premise (so like, as long as the specifics of your weirdly specific premise remain intact, or your outline doesn't SAY that you can't just have this all take place in space), then it's okay.
then again, i'm also a very permissive person when it comes to making art. i think that the people involved in doing this should talk abt what they want to see happen if someone deviates too much from a chosen outline, but honestly, i think that if it's smth that doesn't affect the outline, merely inserts smth into it that wasn't there before, like a subplot or a side ship or whatever, then it should just be allowed.
- then everyone posts on the same day (or within the same short span of time, so that the similarities are obvious)
"how will people know they're all related?"
there are a couple ways you could do this! you could require some number of specific tags be used (and accurate to the fic). you could have everyone mention it in their summaries or author's notes.
easiest, i think, is to just keep it in a collection made for these purposes.
"what if one of the participants is more well-known than the others, or vice versa? posting at the same time seems a bit unfair in that situation, where one or more people might get overshadowed."
this is why i think that fics should be first posted anonymously for some minimum agreed-upon time. subjecting fics to the mortifying ordeal of existing pretty much only in the raw tag stream, seeing if anyone notices anything when checking it themselves… lol
that said, this is what making a collection just for the event would be useful for! that way, when posting rolls around, participants can still advertise to their audience by linking to the collection, but not specifying which fic they themselves wrote.
this way, the spirit of examining personal writing differences remains, whilst still allowing for people to talk abt this thing they've partaken in! :D
all right, so that's the gist of the process, but what should a group's starting point look like once everyone's been gathered? this was honestly something i was also pretty unsure of until i actually, like, started talking abt it w/the others, but the discussion notes basically looked like this:
basics (strict):
this includes everything you guys agree must be present in everyone's submissions.basics (loose):
this includes the stuff you guys may end up discussing, but for whatever reason, have decided not to make a strict requirement. maybe it got to be too restrictive from a creative standpoint, or maybe it's someone's squick– the nitty-gritties don't really matter here.
basically, it's acknowledgement that if this stuff comes up, it was a group discussion point.ideas for pivotal moments:
weirdly specific premise" seemed too loose and vague, while "same outline" felt a bit too creatively restrictve during discussions, so what ended up happening was the agreement that we'd basically agree on "Moments™" that many ships or canons tend to have.
for example, in xv, the dihua flute moment (wherein venti saves xiao from succumbing to his karmic debt by playing the flute) can be considered a Pivotal Moment™ that gets written into most every au about them in some way, shape, or form, no matter how wildly different the setting is from canon. there's like, some Essence™ abt the moment that gets preserved between the different interpretations and reinterpretations, recognizably paralleled to everyone familiar with the shared canon or fanon.
originally, we were going to have five Pivotal Moments™, but eventually decreased it to three for our own purposes. this is the part where people can go as ham as they want with the ideas!!
discussion between authors during writing period: [ barred / allowed ]
discussion with non-participant friends during writing period: [ barred / allowed ]
time limit: [ true / false ]
since this is, to my knowledge, not a thing that has been done in fandom before, we have no frame of reference for this! since we happened to agree on being strictly oneshots, we decided to set three months as a tentative deadline, but to reconvene once writing had been underway for a while to get a feel for a more concrete deadline.minimum anonymity period: [ true / false ]
[choose minimum period if true]author's note restrictions: [ true / false ]
never underestimate a person's recognizability based off their notes chatting style :P
there can be a sliding scale for the [true] option, for what sorts of things people are allowed to put in their notes, but if [false], then the only thing allowed in the a/n during the anonymous period would be references to the fact that this was a Deliberate Event Thing (for example, a link to the event collection).anon comment replies: [ barred / allowed ]
(i actually forgot to bring this up w/my group lol, but similar reasoning to a/n restrictions)posting period:
this is where you agree on stuff like:
- whether everything should be deliberately posted all on the same day
- whether you're doing only oneshots, multichapters, or allowing either to exist
- whether multichapters will be forced to post everything all on one day or be allowed to have chapters spaced out
- whether everything must be complete or not
- …pretty much anything else you guys can think of that isn't already listed here
aaaaaaaaaaand honestly? that's basically about it! happy writing~ ( •̀ ω •́ )y