What is Ten To One?
Ten To One is a collaborative writing project. Ten writers will work together to produce a novel-length piece of fiction which will then be published by Pigeon Park Press. Each writer will handle one of ten central characters and write the chapters focussing on that character.
Where did this crazy idea come from?
I’m a big fan of collaborative writing. In 2012, Heide Goody and I published our first collaborative novel, Clovenhoof. We put a lot of thought into the mechanisms by which two people could write one story in one voice. We were partly inspired by the novel, Draculas, a novel written by four collaborators (Blake Crouch, Joe Konrath, Jeff Strand and F Paul Wilson). Their collaborative method was quite different to ours and interesting in its own way. Go read it. It’s a seriously fun book.
A modest test-run for Ten To One called Full Fathom Five ran for ten weeks during autumn 2012 and the resulting short story will be published as an electronic chap-book in early 2013. The Facebook elements of that project can be seen here.
Why is it called Ten To One?
The unique feature of the Ten To One project is that after a round of chapters has been written (i.e. one chapter by each writer), one of the characters will be kicked out of the story. They might be killed, shipped off to Timbuktu or locked up in grandma’s cellar. Which character is written out after each round is decided by both a panel of judges and a public vote. In the end, there will be one character left out of the original ten. Ten to One.
What are the publishing plans?
Ten To One, or whatever title we choose to give the finished novel, will be published as a Kindle book on Amazon and a small print run of physical copies will be produced. These will be sold at literary events and in such shops as will be willing to stock them.
Hopefully, one of the strengths of this project is that all those people who followed the process on-line and voted on Facebook (I’m thinking hundreds of people but hoping thousands) will buy their own copy of the book.
We will promote the book heavily through the traditional electronic methods but also, because of the unique nature of the collaboration, will aim to do a lot of live events and media marketing. Wherever you are in the world, I hope to set up some interesting promotional events near you.
What are our pledges paying for?
Your pledges will be used to pay for the initial print run of the novel. A small amount of the money raised will also be set aside as a prize for the one writer who is left at the end of the novel. Without your pledges, the paperback print run will be greatly reduced.