Writing an Omegaverse Story through Real-Time Collaboration

Today, I’m not going to talk about the Meta of our Omegaverse … because I’m going to go Meta. I want to peel back the curtain and look at how Alpha Mazeira and I crafted the Three Rivers Claimed series. It’s been an interesting journey, one that challenged how I wrote, and allowed me to tap deep into my creativity to surprising results.

How surprising? When we got through the first day of Kimber’s story, we looked at each other in awe. We realized that just the first day could function as a first-in-a-series novella. It was amazing, and I was surprised in the end how quickly we were able to craft the story. These aren’t my first novels to write, but this is the fastest I’ve ever been able two write and feel good about the quality of the story.

Collaboration Basics: The Collaborative Writing Tips Everyone Should Follow

I’ll get into our process, but I do feel it’s important to point out that we did cover four of the most important steps of co-authoring a series:

• Establishing the vision. This step is different for each team. For us, Mazeira set out the basic Meta of this world, the Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, mating, and the established taboos. As we wrote, I helped to flesh out some of the Lore, and we’ve both continued building on the Lore as we’ve considered our next projects in this specific universe.
• Determining the split. We determined how we’d split ownership of the final work and how we’d split and all proceeds.
• Setting up a schedule. For us, we kept the schedule fairly loose for the writing. You’ll understand how that worked for us once I get into the process. We didn’t give deadlines because we both have busy lives. That said, we rarely left scenes unanswered for more than a couple of days.
• Establishing the workflow. This involved three parts: choosing a platform to collaborate on, determining who had what creative responsibilities, and who had the responsibility of handling the draft writing and edits. The latter is me for reasons that I’ll get into later.

Personally, I think these four form the foundation of any kind of creative writing collaboration. I think just about any method of co-authoring a story would work on this foundation. It certainly worked well for us.

Tearing Back the Veil of the Pittsburgh Omegaverse

Mazeira and I had talked about collaborating on a book a couple of years ago. We were both interested in doing it and liked each other’s creative style. We’d even discussed writing something Omegaverse because we were both interested in the genre and liked paranormal fiction. However, at the time, neither of us had the free bandwidth to take on a new project. Then, last year, she looked at me and said, “Holle, if you were going to be an Omega, what would your name be?”

That was the birth of Kimber Faye Hartley. A few weeks after I gave her my answer, she presented to me a basic world outline and the opening of our story. I loved the opening that she created. The whole passage felt visceral and I instantly knew who Kimber was and how she took to the abrupt move from Memphis to Pittsburgh. I could feel the lingering pain over the loss of her mother, her deep affection for her family, and the crush she harbored for her father’s Beta, Lucas.

The only problem was … I couldn’t use it – not the whole thing, anyway. In bringing the story from our back and forth draft to an official “first draft”, we decided to keep the story locked into Kimber’s point of view. What I did instead was preserve it as a framing for the Prologue of the story, giving a sense that something was aware of Kimber, waiting …

Our Collaborative Writing Method

Do you know what a MUD or MUSH is? If you’re a gamer of a certain age, you probably do – you maybe do. They’re still around, but they’re not as common these days, especially since we have robust video and audio chat systems and beautiful MMORPGs. MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and MUSHes (Multi-User Shared Hallucinations) are methods of participating in ongoing, deeply immersive roleplaying games. The one I played back in the day usually had something going on all the time, though they’d schedule certain events much like roleplay troupes do these days.

A MUSH is the best way I can describe the method Mazeira and I used to write Three Rivers Claimed. We didn’t use dice rolls or other randomizers to determine success or failure. Instead, we relied on our collaborative vision and communication. Mazeira had the huge responsibility of establishing scenes and acting out the different characters Kimber interacted with. I had the responsibility of determining Kimber’s actions and how she reacted to people and events.

I already have this tendency to get deep into the minds of the characters I write about. That’s half the fun of writing a story. This, though, was a deeper level of immersion because I wasn’t the one in control of the world. Alpha Mazeira was. While we’d talk outside of the back and forth writing about what we wanted out of a scene or where we projected the story going, in the moment, I was writing the scenes as Kimber reacted to something that I had to react to. It was amazing and led to some great moments, some that had me laughing, some that had me swooning, and some that made me cry.

To the right is an example of one of the passages from Magnolia Borne. Above the white line is my portion as Kimber. Below is Alpha Mazeira, describing Lucas’ reactions.

The picture to the left picks up a little further down, deep in Lucas’ thoughts as he considered the risks involved if he took Kimber to Dead Man’s Hollow.

Putting the Story Together

Both of these passages delve deep into Lucas’ mind. In the back and forth writing process, it was important to have this. It helped ground me in the story and understand as the co-author what was happening. Meanwhile, in other passages, we’d have conversations carrying through as though each paragraph were a bullet point that we’d answer in kind. For example, Kimber would say Dialogue A, then Dialogue B. When Mazeira responded, she would have Finn Respond to Dialogue A, then continue and start Dialogue C, letting Dialogue B stand as it was. I would come back with another follow-up to Dialogue A and then respond to Dialogue C.

Yes, it was a lot to keep up with. It was a fun way to tell the story, though. Now, because we decided that the story would stay in close 3rd person, locked to Kimber’s point of view, I took on the role of bringing the story together into one narrative and smoothing out point of view elements. That meant removing the internal thoughts and observations of other characters or blending them into Kimber’s perceptions. In the case of back and forth dialogue, it meant pulling sections apart, putting them into the correct response order: Kimber Dialogue A, Finn Dialogue A, Kimber Dialogue A, Kimber Dialogue B, Finn Dialogue C, Kimber Dialogue C. I’d then go through and smooth out the responses and reactions so that it became one cohesive scene.

Threading

In the scene with Kimber and Lucas from the pictures above, the written draft looked like this:

“I think it’s a building we’re not supposed to go into,” Kimber said. She leaned forward and her eyes filled with mischief that all of her new emotions and senses seemed to stir even more. The corner of Lucas’ mouth turned upward as she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “I want to see if anyone else has really been brave enough to go in, though. Cause I’m not sure many have.”

She took a quick bite of her bacon and sat back. “It’s the way people talk. Finn noticed it too. The story of what the building is supposed to be slips a little. Like people don’t really know. Maybe because it’s really old. Or maybe because it’s like that old house that everyone says they’ve been in and seen the witch, but everyone is really too afraid to go across the yard.”

Lucas tilted his head, voice low, almost gentle. “You really think no one’s gone in?”

“I’m sure of it,” she said as she cut her pancakes into neat, bite-sized pieces. “Not as many as say they have, anyway. It’s what they don’t say, what they don’t describe.” Better words were there, just out of reach, but she couldn’t quite touch on them.

Lucas watched Kimber over the rim of his mug as she continued to eat. He looked to her like he was going through calculations, deciding how much risk there really was in this endeavor.

~Magnolia Borne, Chapter 1

I removed Lucas’ thoughts entirely. Then, where I knew Kimber would pick up on cues from him, I added her observation. I hated removing these internal moments from Lucas, because they show just how capable he is as a Pack Beta. Of course, that just leaves me the challenge of showing through Kimber those things later in the story …

Handling the Changes

I’ve written plenty of stories where I’ve reached the end of a scene, only to realize – the story shouldn’t happen that way. Writing collaboratively can have that happen as well. In this case, it was a choice that Kimber made in Chapter 8 of Magnolia Borne and the consequences of that choice. I had Kimber react one way, and wasn’t happy with the choice. Mazeira and I discussed it and we realized, changing Kimber’s choice would make the scene better. It went from “here’s a consequence of your carelessness” to “being smart about a situation doesn’t always mean escaping the consequences of it”. It also gave us the chance to drive home, in a visceral way, the world Kimber was now part of, and what waited for her in this Arrangement her father had made.

While we both agreed the change was for the better, we also agreed that, barring something that completely broke the story, we would keep Kimber’s future decisions. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t found necessary changes in the threading process. In some situations, Mazeira introduced a character as part of one Pack, only to realize, after they became a staple in Kimber’s life, that they would be better as part of another Pack. Other times, we planted seeds that we thought would grow one way, but they grew another instead. As I’ve come across those situations, I made the necessary changes, replanted the seeds for their actual payoffs later, and smoothed out whatever transitions needed to happen around those changes.

My Omegaverse Dream Team

Working with Alpha Mazeira on this project has been amazing. I’ve always worried that it would be hard to collaborate with another author because I can be very protective over the things I write – just ask my editor. However, with Mazeira setting the tone of the story and establishing the world, I found it liberating, allowing me to focus only on the character and her reactions and motivations. The result has been a story where I can delve into the power exchange dynamics of Alpha/Omega relationships. It’s made pacing fast and immediate, in a way that the world feels when you’re just entering into your own.

I have also never been so thankful for having experience as a ghostwriter. Co-authoring a work means creating a writing voice between authors that is cohesive. That’s a skill I learned as a ghostwriter. Alpha Mazeira has a unique voice and a strong command of prose. Blending my voice into hers to create a voice for Kimber that stands out in and against the world we’ve created has been a challenge. I think it’s made for an intriguing Omegaverse story. I certainly couldn’t have asked for a better partner in the endeavor.

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