A chain novel or chain story is a type of
collaborative fiction
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story.
Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally – many collaboratively written works have bee ...
written collectively by a group of
authors. The novel is passed along from author to author, each adding a new chapter or section to the work, with the rule that each subsequent chapter or section should elaborate and follow the plotline of preceding chapters or sections.
The story continues through the participation of others; no one knows what happens next except the next person to add to the story. This method of writing is a shared project and often leads in unexpected directions. This collaborative effort is used to stimulate creativity and the exploration of new ideas.
One problem with chain stories is they can become long and complicated due to the number of different people adding new bits and twists.
Legal theorist
Ronald Dworkin has compared
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
to chain novels by suggesting that
judges, like chain novel authors, must elaborate and follow the
laws
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
set before them.
Examples
* ''
The Floating Admiral
''The Floating Admiral'' is a collaborative detective novel written by fourteen members of the Detection Club in 1931. The twelve chapters of the story were each written by a different author, in the following sequence: Canon Victor Whitechurch ...
'', a
1931
Events
January
* January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.
* January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa.
* January 22 – Sir I ...
detective novel
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...
which was written consecutively by 13 notable authors including
Agatha Christie,
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
,
Anthony Berkeley,
G.K. Chesterton and Canon
Victor Whitechurch, with each of the authors providing their own suggested solution to the mystery as an epilogue.
* ''Wicked'' and ''Deadly'',
Australian
children's fiction
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
by
Paul Jennings and
Morris Gleitzman
Morris Gleitzman (born 9 January 1953) is an English-born Australian author of children's and young adult fiction.[Exquisite corpse
Exquisite corpse (from the original French term ', literally exquisite cadaver), is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. ...]
, a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled
*
Mosaic novel
A mosaic novel is a novel in which individual chapters or short stories share a common setting or set of characters with the aim of telling a linear story from beginning to end, with the individual chapters, however, refracting a plurality of viewp ...
, a novel where individual chapters or short stories share a common setting or set of characters with the aim of telling a linear story from beginning to end, with the individual chapters, however, refracting a plurality of viewpoints and styles
*
Short story collection
A short story collection is a book of short stories and/or novellas by a single author. A short story collection is distinguished from an anthology of fiction, which would contain work by several authors (e.g., ''Les Soirées de Médan''). The s ...
References
External links
Chain Stories a European Union funded education project to promote language intercomprehension in young learners.
Examples of novels and essays
Collaborative fiction
Novel forms
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