3 ms·

I guess it depends on how you view this. Almost all books are edited by someone professionally. So it's not the sole work of the author. They are also published

I guess it depends on how you view this. Almost all books are edited by someone professionally. So it's not the sole work of the author. They are also published and marketed and yada yada. If you say okay all that stuff and even editing doesnt count you still have huge best sellers that are team based works. All those book for sale at your grocery store? They sell massive copies and are not written by the author. Douglas Preston, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and all those romance novels... A lot of those are written by someone AND someone else. In practice they are written by someone else and they slap a big name on it to sell copies. Those books keep the literature world running even if they are not great art. Literature already is team based.

brimble 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the only reason we don't recognize this, while we do with movies, is that there aren't rules governing who's credited and what their credit looks like, as there are with movies. You don't get "Story by X, written by A, B, & C, based on characters by Z", and instead one or maybe two names are on there—you do sometimes see a writer credit (separate from the more prominent "created by") on some of those long-running series where the original author stopped somewhere along the way, or two listed for outright collaborations between known authors. If book writing operated under the same rules as screenwriting, this would all be a lot more visible.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  You might be surprised about screenwriting - the rules are mainly just about the money. Script doctors could potentially be doing anything from some minor rearrangements to whole rewrites. A lot depends on how much they care that their name is or is not on the piece.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  That makes sense. You see people thanked in books but its pretty rare to see any specifics other than an editor or publisher.
Beldin 5y ago
> Literature already is team based. Don't forget editors. Maybe in some cases their impact is limited, but in other cases whole story lines are excised thanks to them. That's basically their job: to smoothen the narrative. Most written works probably would look very different if not for the editor.

brimble 5y ago

I'm pretty sure the only reason we don't recognize this, while we do with movies, is that there aren't rules governing who's credited and what their credit looks like, as there are with movies. You don't get "Story by X, written by A, B, & C, based on characters by Z", and instead one or maybe two names are on there—you do sometimes see a writer credit (separate from the more prominent "created by") on some of those long-running series where the original author stopped somewhere along the way, or two listed for outright collaborations between known authors. If book writing operated under the same rules as screenwriting, this would all be a lot more visible.

Melatonic 5y ago
You might be surprised about screenwriting - the rules are mainly just about the money. Script doctors could potentially be doing anything from some minor rearrangements to whole rewrites. A lot depends on how much they care that their name is or is not on the piece.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
That makes sense. You see people thanked in books but its pretty rare to see any specifics other than an editor or publisher.

Beldin 5y ago

> Literature already is team based. Don't forget editors. Maybe in some cases their impact is limited, but in other cases whole story lines are excised thanks to them. That's basically their job: to smoothen the narrative. Most written works probably would look very different if not for the editor.