How to crowdsource a science fiction novel, on the CraveCast
How to crowdsource a science fiction novel, on the CraveCast
3:37

How to crowdsource a science fiction novel, on the CraveCast

Culture
So some people in the chat room keep asking what the Google doc is that I referenced in the preview post for the show. The people demand Google docs. People demand Google doc news. But that has to do with the crowdsource sci-fi novel that we've been publishing for the past couple of weeks. Here on CNet we talked about it on this show since this has been going on for so long I feel like it's been going on since last year in November is when we threw a Google Doc online with an outline of a sci-fi novel and we asked everyone to help us crowdsource it And then a few months later we did actually have a semblance of a novel and then Kelsey and I and a few other people have a spent the last few months editing and endlessly editing this thing. Providing feedback shaping. So my big question on this is when it gets optioned How are you going to do writer credits? Who's writing screen plays? We've got a page. We've got a really long page for the [INAUDIBLE]. Is the screen play then going to be crowd sourced as well? I feel like So the way we did this, if you want to get to the nitty gritty of it, is we put the google doc online, and it's still actually there and anyone can still go edit it. And play around with it. That's actually CNET.com/crowdscifi, that takes you right to the Google doc we're talking about. And that Google doc is over a hundred pages, that is all creative comments, meaning anyone could build upon it Take it and change something in it, you know, make crowdsource fan fiction. I don't care. Do whatever you want. Yeah, what is amazing to me about this is it was not just completely filled with porn and you know, trolling. How did you look at that. There was a couple of instances but you know- I'm sorry about that by the way. [LAUGH] I know I'm like it is now. [LAUGH] That was surprising to me to actually. There was maybe one case of vandalism and then there were a few scenes of maybe So erotica, although they weren't actually that bad. They didn't make the final cut. I'll add my tentical paragraph later. [LAUGH] But I don't know. I like to compare it to a jigsaw puzzle, where we put this jigsaw out on the card table at a party, and people kinda Would stop and do a couple of pieces or maybe do an entire section of the puzzle and over a couple of months, and actual narrative did emerge. And Kelsey, you know, it's been kind of interesting, when you To ask hundreds of people to write a book you end up with obviously different writing voices and different writing styles so we did have to get a little creative to figure out a way to kind of preserve the crowdsource nature of it. I didn't just go in and like edit everything so that it sounds I like wrote it cuz then what would be the point of having crowdsourced it. So it's worth checking out it's at cnet.com/ crowd dash control. With ten installments up now I'm also working on a few lessons learned posts, little behind the scenes stuff. It was really an interesting process. I don't think, I don't know that we Produced a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's a co-created work with literally hundreds of contributors behind it. It was an interesting experience. I think I'm going to be figuring out what I learned from it for years in advance. It's going to take a long time to digest.

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