Thereafter is built on the foundation of collaborative writing.
The experience that we have tried to create on this website is best described as ‘collaborative storytelling’.
This is different from what many would call classical storytelling, in several important ways.
Here, we will explain the fundamentals and how they make Thereafter!
Collaborative storytelling is nothing new
By definition, collaborative storytelling combines two longstanding concepts: collaboration, meaning to work jointly with others, and storytelling, the art of telling… well, you know the rest.
The most common form of storytelling, in literature and other mediums, involves one person writing or speaking a true or fictional story. In contrast, collaborative storytelling involves more than one person telling the tale.
This form of storytelling is done using many different methods. In its simplest form, it can involve multiple people saying parts of a story out loud. This is quite a traditional form of storytelling, used even before a method of writing or drawing tales had been conceived by humankind.
Collaborative writing on Thereafter
Here, on Thereafter, writers and readers work together to collaboratively tell ‘the story’, which builds up over time (currently week by week). Different writers submit their suggestions for the next part of the story, and the number of votes for each suggestion determines what happens next.
The process goes like this:
- After reading the story so far, people submit suggestions for what should happen next.
- People vote for their favourite option from these suggestions.
- After a set period of time (currently each week), the suggestion with the most votes is automatically added to the end of the story.
- The process starts again!
The inspiration for this website came from the childhood game ‘consequences’, where one part of a story is written on a side of paper, then folded over and passed to the next person, and so on, until a story is written.
The voting functionality Thereafter is built on has led some people to call this process ‘democratic storytelling’, as people’s choices for what happens in the story are fairly represented.
Taking part in the storytelling process on this website is completely free, which is another thing that makes it truly collaborative, because anybody can take part. We want writers at all skill levels to feel welcome on Thereafter, and all readers too, of course!
