Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words called the cadavre exquis (or an exquisite corpse). It was similar to an old parlor game called Consequences, played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.

The technique got its name from results obtained in initial playing, "Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau" (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine).

We have played a variant here. 15 authors wrote short fragments of a story over 17 days. These fragments of prose hopefully reveal  the "unconscious reality in the personality of this group of talented writers", and certainly make for a really interesting read.

We then continued with a sequel, hoping to end the story. The sequel had 10 authors working for around 3 weeks. The final piece is now up.

Complete. 25 Chapters.

Author guidance for This exercise

Round 1 -
List of Participants :

ixarux
iamkathybrown13
darkliquid
Rac7hel
Henny
moonwalker
Elorithryn
Elemental
watermark
Abc_adams
BDrewCollier
Gabriel
ElzuWolfe
zvxasdf
LuneXian

The authors are initially randomized.

Rules : 1) Authors get only the last few sentences of the previous chapter and a word that describes the chapter.
2) They continue on that, writing a piece of prose between 250-450 words.
3) They provide one word that describes their chapter.

We put it all together and get what you see on the left hand side.

The exercise is not ratable for obvious reasons. If authors want to assert their property rights on the individual pieces (for ratings or otherwise), I can recreate this exercise and allow people to post their chapters in the right order.

Round 2 -
ElzuWolfe
Sly
Gabriel
iamkathybrown13
AmandaQuirky
Moonwalker
darkliquid
zxvasdf
watermark
ixarux

The pieces were shorter this time - 100 to 150 words. And the authors were to try to end the story, keeping in mind the first many chapters. The final author was given leeway on the word limit in an attempt to give the final touches to the ending of the story.

The story is flagged mature to allow writers to use profanities.

And thus it ends. I hope the writers enjoyed this, as much as I did coordinating it.

updated Jun 19 '11 by ixarux