The Exquisite Corpse and Role Playing

[Silver Screen Fiend]

If you don't know what it is, an Exquisite Corpse is a story whose segments are written by different authors. This is a parlor game of sorts that came out of the surrealist movement, but it's also part of a lesson on creative writing from an elementary English class I had. I want to use a similar method to write a role play, probably with just a single partner, in which we take turns writing segments of the same story, rather than "play the role" of specific characters. While it may be a hard sell to many RPers who have a strong attachment to their pet characters, I think it's the only way to not be constantly annoyed with the way some people write. My primary issue is how the beats of my own post are repeated back to me in my partner's post, only from a different character's perspective. I find that too repetitive. I also hate having to wait for a partner's character to respond to something my character did, but because that's the only way the plot can progress, it means that sometimes only seconds can pass between posts, and when you're writing two or three paragraph posts on average, that makes the story drag.

Someone told me this isn't really "role play", which is technically true. It's collaborative creative writing, but that's what I've always liked most about role playing. I want to tell a story with a like minded partner, and I want us to have equal control and access to the characters of a story so that progress can be made with each post, nothing gets repeated, the narrative doesn't have to drag, and things can progress at a nice pace. How valid is this method? Is there something I'm misunderstanding about the nature of role playing? What's the proper way to bring it up to a partner, or to ask for it in a request thread?

 

[ƒeral]

I would ask for it the way you just set out - that you are looking for co-authorship. Explain a bit more what you mean by it (like you did here) and what the 'draw' is.

I would still consider it role-play, just different from the more common variant. So as to the remainder of your questions - definitely valid, but how popular is it, who knows?

For what it's worth I've tried co-authorship once in rp at a partner's request. It was ok. I didn't dislike it and it flowed readonably well, but it did make it harder for me to metaphorically 'slip on a different pair of shoes' and figure out what that character would do. So, didn't dislike it, but didn't love it personally. But I never tried it before that, and it was an easy/quick convo to get me to try it?

Good luck.

 

[Fruit]

You're not asking for anything ridiculous. I've asked for co-authorship before and gotten a decent degree of traction.

Make sure you select a person whose writing doesn't drive you insane and you're gucci. Good luck!

 

[Jericho Z. Barrons]

I learned of this method but it was called round-robin storytelling, where 2 or more people take turns telling sections of a story. Round-robin story - Wikipedia

It's not really role-playing, no, because the characters aren't roles being played but mutually shared and controlled by both authors. It's perfectly fine though and fits on a forum like this where we do all kinds of collaborative writing.

You've explained the concept well, although maybe stay away from niche terms like Exquisite Corpse(or even round robin) because although they're the names of those parlor games that exemplify this style, it can get confusing for someone who's never heard of that before. Before opening it, I anticipated this thread being about a fandom of a series I had never heard of before, titled Exquisite Corpse. ^^;; And I was intrigued by the discussion potential but if it were the title of your RT, I would have entirely passed it off thinking it was a fandom rp request for a series that I had never heard of(and thus, would have been unequipped to write for). It does kinda sound like the title of an anime or video game.

Anyway, it might be more clear to those who are also interested in collaboration if you use more general terms in your RT like collaborative storytelling or co-authorship.