I think that encouraging a useful collaborative writing environment is a admirable goal, although I think this is something that is very rarely successful particularly in an online setting. I know of a pair of well-known sci-fi authors who have collaborated on short pieces, each on either side of North America, where most of the work was accomplished through email, phone calls, and the occasional physical brainstorming session. According to them, the most significant leaps were made during the period where they could meet face to face to hash out particular difficulties with the plot or characters.

Tolkien (I choose him only because I''m sure everyone is familiar with his work; there are other examples) was part of a intimate group of writers known as the Inklings (C.S. Lewis was another member, and I can''t remember the others but they didn''t achieve any real notariety that I know of). They met in a pub or smoking room and read their poetry or prose to one another for commentary. I know that this is the spirit that this forum is trying to capture, but I wonder how possible it is considering there is no face to face interaction. So much of the excitement of writing comes from being able to talk to someone close to you about your ideas, and watching that spark of understanding enter their eyes as they see where you''re going with something. I regularly bounce game story ideas off my girlfriend (not literally , and find that even if she doesn''t know anything about the genre or gaming in general, I find it helps to just verbalize some of my thoughts. Afterwards, I can return to my writing with a clearer idea in my head of where I have to go next. Nothing tests the strength of your story like having to explain it to someone verbally.

Again, I''m sure this is also something the forum is trying to do. But I find that what is disappointing is the number of postings I see (and I don''t mean to offend anyone by this, I really don''t) that say something to the effect of "critique my story", there story being two or three lines of loose plot ''development'' with little or no character, setting, or theme, and nothing much other than a bag of cliches. I find it hard to look at this stuff and get really inspired. Maybe this is just me, personally. I know that people are only looking for some input, maybe they only really want someone to talk to them about their story idea so they''ll become excited about it again (I''ve been there too), but when I think about your comment ''talented writers tend to have unique visions that tend not to mesh with other talented writers'' unique visions'' I wonder what unique visions you''re referring to.

I really don''t mean to offend anyone by my comments. These are just some of my thoughts regarding why the GameDev forums might not be successful in encouraging collaborative story development.

R.