Disagreeing with a co-writer.

I recently agreed to help a friend write a Halo machinima series he thought up. While I try not to change anything in the story that he wanted, it all seems very flawed to me.

In the part I'm working on, the main characters are being accused of deserting the military because they left during the middle of an attack on their base to rescue a mute sniper who was being held hostage.

In this universe, if you run off, you take a bullet to the head; However my friend said that their superior decides to let them live because they're his best soldiers.

I'm still kind of new to the whole writing thing, but that seems a bit too Mary Sue-ish to me. What do you think?

edited 4th Jan '12 8:26:48 PM by Gringoamericano

The court passed the judgement to send them into exile and announced that the punishment is deadly. They ended up in a deserted planet or something...and the rest is Hollywood cliche.

Compromise mutually if you wish the work to live.

This is the lesson I learned when a co-writer and I broke up a few years ago...

The Mary-sue is dependant on execution, not the base idea. Frankly, nothing ever sounds good out of context, I'm sure that it flows together naturally in the prose, or should after the both of you have edited and re-written it. Though I can't see an officer going against regulation for something so small, that's all I have to say on this matter.

Well, I don't know about mary-sueish. But it does seem to strain my belief a little that a military officer would do that (unless it's a fairly informal and corrupt military).

I guess you could just talk to your friend and explain that you think it's a little far-fetched, and come up with some suggestions to make it more believable. Maybe there's something else going on and he simply can't lose any soldiers. Maybe he decides to just delay the courtmartial until later, or something.

While you do have to make compromises in any sort of group project, that doesn't mean you have to do everything your partner says. Talk things over, brainstorm together - your story will probably come out better for it.

When you disagree with a collaborator, you have these options.

Come up with an idea that resolves the disagreement or avoids it completely. With luck this idea will start a productive discussion, and you can continue work.

If your partner rejects your idea, or you can't resolve the disagreement, one of you must become the alpha writer. If he is the alpha, you become subservient to his vision. Don't complain, don't argue, just be a reader for him. If he doesn't use your ideas, don't take it personally.

If you're uncomfortable with being subservient, end the collaboration immediately. Don't ruin an otherwise successful relationship.

I recently had a similar oddity with a co-writer and friend of mine. He wanted to make a TV show based on Christian people to highlight the oddities of the Christian church culture. I feel in love with the idea, and started running with it, adding some of my own ideas into the mix and suggesting ways to portray characters and such.

I ultimately found out that the show he wanted to make wasn't just to make it comedic yet poignant, but to be an "I believe this" platform concerning how he saw our religion being practiced. I never got the chance to tell him that if he wanted a platform, he'd have to make it himself, since soon after, school caught up with him, he became incredibly busy, and near abandoned the project.

A house divided against itself can't stand.