What is collaborative fiction?
Collaborative fiction is a story written by more than one person. That's it. The form is older than the novel and turns up everywhere the parlour game 'exquisite corpse' was played — folded paper, shared notebooks, surrealist dinner parties, message boards.
A short history
The Surrealists in 1920s Paris codified the parlour game 'exquisite corpse', where each player wrote a line, folded the paper and passed it to the next. Variations have existed in classrooms, choirs and pen-pal circles for centuries. The format scales easily online — Reddit's r/WritingPrompts, forum role-playing games and apps like Storybored are all descendants.
Why it works
Writing alone is hard. You have to be the writer and the audience, the doubter and the convincer. Writing with a group splits the load. You only need to write one good line — and the surprise of what the next writer adds is, often, half the fun.
How to start
Pick a small group (2–4 works best), a title, a target length, and a rule about turn order. Then begin. Storybored gives you all of those out of the box.
Write one together
Storybored is a turn-based story writing game for 2–4 players. Pick any line above, drop it as your opening, and pass the turn.
Start a story →