Never-Ending Story: Writing with a Wiki

Effort to write a children’s novel as a wiki goes live

By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2007

Imagine working on a story that’s never done. Drafts change constantly, edits fly in even as other sections are completed. To most writers, this scenario might sound like a nightmare—but to Kelly Herold it’s the next generation of storytelling.

Herold, a professor of Russian at Grinnell College in Iowa and the children’s literature blogger behind “Big A little a” (kidslitinformation.blogspot.com), wanted to write a children’s novel as a wiki—an open-styled Web page that allows any registered user the opportunity to write and edit at will. Her idea? “I wanted to see if a good novel could be written by a group of people,” she says. “I know some [books] are written by committee, but I wanted to see if one could be written by people all over the country, and out of the country, without anyone being the boss or even directing it.”

So began Witches and Wiki (www.witchesandwiki.com/pmwiki)—a children’s novel written wiki-style that debuted on Feb. 9. The project has attracted a modest group of eight writers, including one teen, who have cobbled together a first chapter about a 10-year-old would-be burglar named Moctor Fall in less than a week.

While co-authors are not unheard of, most people believe the process of crafting a novel requires a single voice and vision. Mark Twain and Herman Melville hardly worked by committee. Nor Dr. Seuss. Still, when any hopeful writer can publish her or his work with just a click of a button on a blog or Web page, so too, can anyone edit those precious words when they appear on a wiki.

Herold originally launched Witches and Wiki last year—but after potential scribes failed to come out of the virtual woodwork, she took the site down. Then came word in early February of British publisher Penguin Books’s new project—a wiki novel titled A Million Penguins (www.amillionpenguins.com).

As soon as Penguin’s site went live, writers began to flock to the wiki, the story morphing as fast as fingers could click across the keyboard. But, of course, everyone is a critic—even writers. While the narrative reportedly started with a man named Carlo walking his dog, by week two, Carlo had been replaced with Jim, “a man with a severe case of dwarfism.”

Herold took Penguin’s project as a sign. So, with encouragement from fellow blogger Elizabeth (Betsy) Bird, creator of “A Fuse #8 Production” and children’s librarian at the Donnell Central Children’s Room of the New York Public Library, Herold put Witches and Wiki up again.

While Herold is not writing the novel, she’s hardly playing the role of editor either. Instead, she’s acting more like an omniscient agent—a sort of virtual cheerleader, giving her charges a little push here and there when they seem hesitant to take the next step. “It’s funny watching it happen,” she says. “People seem to be scared to move to the next chapter, and they need a little kick so they can say, 'Okay, now I can go on from here.’”

So what was the initial carrot? The first line for chapter one: “It was a dark and rainy night, when….” “Of course, what I wrote is now gone,” Herold says, laughing.

Herold might add to the wiki—perhaps allowing illustrators to add images and providing a forum where users could exchange feedback. She also hopes to attract more teenage writers, believing that the experience could sharpen their skills and give them practice at writing for publication.

Does she want to have the novel published? “No,” she says, pointing out that the novel’s only at chapter one. “But it’s a good chapter.”