Hello, all! I’m Tami from TamiMoore.com. Some of you may remember me as Vonya from the Egotistical Priest. I read Arrens’ cry for guest post help and decided to bend my keyboard to his plight.

“Role-playing” means different things to different people. For me, it has always been a vehicle for telling a story with someone else. Anna and Arrens do a lot of in-game RP, but they also produce a lot of roleplay fiction – a topic near and dear to my heart.

History, Nutshell Version
In the past, collaborative fiction was an excruciating process. Author 1 (we’ll call him Jack) would write some pre-determined amount of text, then mail off the document to Author 2 (let’s call her Jill). Jill would then add her own writing to the bottom of the document and send it back.

Rinse. Repeat.

What you end up with is a chapter-by-chapter story that feels like what it is – a monster, stitched together with the writings of two different people.

Collaborative Fiction in the Internet Age
We’ve now progressed to the point where that old, outdated system is no longer necessary. And no, I don’t mean that now you can email documents back and forth.

Enter Googledocs.

Googledocs is a free word-processing platform and document archive. Through the magic of interwebtubenets, multiple people can be in the same document, at the same time, writing together. Furthermore, Googledocs stores archived versions of your writing, so you can always revert to or refer back to an older version if you need to.

MAGIC.

Jack starts typing. Jill watches the words appear on the screen, as he’s writing. At the bottom of the document, they have a section marked off for comments back and forth, like a chat program. She can comment on what he’s writing, and vice versa. If she likes or doesn’t like something, they can discuss it immediately.

Plus, he can write one line or paragraphs, depending on their writing agreement. She can go in and add her bits, folded neatly within his own so that the writing forms a cohesive whole.

There’s never a concern about god-moding or one person writing another’s character incorrectly – both players are together, at the point of writing, and can discuss anything they like “behind the scenes”.

Result
The result is a document that looks like a story, feels like a story, reads like a story, but is actually interactive roleplay. Both writers were intimately involved with the writing and their characters, throughout. They both edited, both put their unique style in.

Most importantly, it flows well and is readable by a third party. It’s a fantastic way to share your roleplaying stories with folks not involved in the original roleplay, as those of you who have followed the romance between Aely and Arrens have already noted.

Recommendations
A few writing recommendations, if you choose to try out Googledocs for your roleplay needs.

1. Choose a point of view character. It doesn’t matter if you have two, five, or ten players involved in the roleplay – few authors “jump heads” when writing because it’s jarring to the reader. Let the story live in the emotional headspace of a single character, and make all references to other characters be through that first character’s eyes. This can be as simple as changing “Jill was incredibly frustrated with what Jack said to her.” into “Jack could tell by the look on Jill’s face that she was frustrated with what he was saying.” Work together on this. Communicate. This is important in all writing, but VITAL if you’re writing in first person. How else will the reader know who “I” is?
2. Choose a single verb tense. Remember, kids – Time travel is immoral. “Jill smiles as Jack hands her flowers. Jack toed the dirt, hoping she couldn’t see his blush.” It’s subtle, but readers DO notice. You want them to be so lost in your story that they forget that they’re reading and LIVE in that moment, don’t you? Don’t boot them out of the spell because you were too lazy to check your verbs!
3. Create a section at the bottom of the page for comments. Don’t put your comments in the text itself. Trust me, it’s a bear to peel those comments out later.
4. DO let the other person know when you’re done writing. Jill has a great idea for what she wants her character to say, but she’s also got a powerful thirst. She gets up to grab a soda and when she sits down, Jack’s barreled ahead, assuming she was finished by the silence, and now there’s really no good place for that line. A quick “Jill sez > Your turn!” at the bottom of the writing works wonders. Remember. Communication.
5. DO let the other person know if you have to quit for the day, and let them know when you might be back. Don’t leave them blinking at the screen, wondering whether you just got up to grab a soda or if you caught parent aggro and have to go rake the back yard or something. “Jill sez > Gah, sorry Jack! I have to head out. I’ll be back in tomorrow at around 10am CST (that’s noon, your time) to get some more done. Feel free to add on to the end, I’ll catch it when I get back.”

Summary

Googledocs is an incredible collaborative writing tool. I started using it for writing WoW RP fiction for my old guild, Mellonea. One of my RP companions and I meshed together so well that we’ve actually written a novel together and are currently editing it with the hopes of publishing. I have never met this woman in real life, and our husbands cannot tell which lines were written by her, and which by me.