Collaboration is evil!

This is a post about my own opinions and complaints. That is all. No advice or research on the act of collaborating. I might do a better version of a collaboration topic later. Now, I've cooled down, I am ready to post this.

 

image from smartmoneydaily.com

I have never been a fan of collaboration. On writing.com there are some people who enjoy doing campfires, where each person takes turns adding to the story. I've tried it a couple of times but have not enjoyed any except for one experience. The one I liked was the one I had to create for a contest, and I liked it because people had control only of their own characters. I am territorial when it comes to my character and I don't want anyone else to mess with them. What I worried about with the campfire is someone taking my character and making them doing something that they wouldn't do. This is mainly things like trying to have get with a woman when I have the character as gay. That kind of thing.

I don't like sharing my stories or doing writing in any other way but my own. I have done one story where I was a co-writer. Me and my buddy from the angel army on writing.com did a story together for a contest. We discussed the genre and then each chose a character of our own. She had her character, Mary, from her mercenary type stories. I had my character, Danny, who is involved in a mafia family. We combined them, having the characters meet in a story, and each took turns writing sections of the it (as the contest required). Before that we had discussed in email the details of the characters and how to keep them true to their form, and had read each others work to understand their style. I think because it was that cooperative and such, it worked.

However, my beau wants to do a collaboration with me. Problem = he is completely different in his process and opinions. We agree on the genre of fantasy but not what goes into the genre or what is more important in the story. Not that we're writing at this point. (For those who are concerned, no I haven't started writing yet another book. So, relax. lol) Per his idea, we started doing some world building. Even with 2 first drafts done of novels and at least 5 other novels started, I have never done world building. I have done some pre-novel work for the month before nano but not to the extent or detail that is usually done in the world building process. We're already having issues, and by that I mean I'm having issues.

Issues:

He loves vampires. I dislike and find them boring. (though vampires with elves and humans does sound different)

Fantasy trope/genre formula - I don't believe in following it just because that's what most in the genre do. In fact, that makes me completely against the idea.

Main hero and love interest is male/female. Boo Hiss. I like having a strong female main character to spark the plot but blah to heterosexual.

Disagreeance on fantasy elements. How many gods and goddesses, who believes what, which element the race is in control of, how much power the groups have, etc. Structure of religion.

The human role - I don't agree with their role that he has dictated.

So far it's about what he wants and not what I see.

And this is just the beginning.