jgeorge: I beleive you have received praise already for your English ability. I think your English is very good and needs no apology. By the arrangement of some of your words, it appears it is a second language to you...but by not means difficult to read and understand. Cres: Interesting comments. Plausible idea on a third party, sort of an arbitrator. Or if more than two people involved, someone desiginated with that "task". "(And any hints on whom you're collaborating with, what you're writing, and how long before we see it in print?)" Yeah, RIGHT! (...in my best Bill Cosby voice!) jstro: WELL, after browsing your link, I must say I'm a bit awed by your detail. Ugh! Also, interesting application of collaboration...the manual you directed. Other thoughts: Collaboration would take more planning, I think. For example, a single author might write, modify, delete or add a character, shift the plot, etc. "on the fly"...meaning as the mood or need occured. This person may have just had a general feeling of a plot, several characters, and jumped right in to writing. But, with a collaboration, it would seem a general outline would need to be set. Then a detailed outline with detailed descriptions of major characters agreed upon. For a novel of, say, 250 pages, I would expect this detailed outline to cover plot, red herrings, introductions of characters, personalities, major clues, removal of characters (evil grin), etc. I would envision 10-15 pages. THEN, perhaps "actual" writing would begin after this document had been agreed upon. With various tasks of the group decided upon. This, of course, only addresses the actual development of the manuscript. Another item I mentioned above would be legal issues. Of course, this would assume a serious endeavor is being made and the ultimate goal is to publish and get paid. Who would own the work? Pay distribution. Credits. Should their be a legal entity formed? What if someone dropped out? Etc.... Finally, in closing, someone once said the best way to increase the amount of time a task took to complete was to form a committee to do it...LOL. I wonder if collaborative efforts increase time to submittal.