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{{trope}}
A '''Round Robin''' is a story written collaboratively by a group of authors, each of whom takes a turn writing a chapter or section; the chapters are produced in chronological order, or at least in the order in which they are intended to be read. There is no agreed-upon outline for the overall plot, and the authors are all free to take the story in whatever direction they wish when it is their turn to write a section, without consulting the others, leaving those who follow to deal with the consequences of what they have written. By the same token, each must accept what previous contributors have written. A round robin may also be called an
A classic
A variant on the
A
Furthermore, it's hard to give a
A modern day Round Robin only rarely results in a publishable work. It is more commonly produced for the authors' own amusement. It has also been used in [[Fanfic]].
The
{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[DC Challenge]]'' is a rare comic book example where each issue had a different author except the final one. Each part ended with at least one [[Cliff Hanger]] and usually several, which the next writer had to figure out how to resolve.
* ''[http://piecesbooks.com/ Project Pieces]'' is an attempt to create a publishable comic where each panel is drawn by someone else. Within just a few pages it degenerated into a [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|nonsensical stream-of-consciousness.]]
* The ''[[She Hulk]]'' story ''The Time of Her Life'' was a very interesting artistic Round Robin. Each artist drew a two pages from the comic in sequence. it was an excellent example of how things can vary [[Depending on the Writer|depending on the artist]]. She-Hulk varied from huge 80s perm to normal 00s hair, from bodybuilder to slender in physique, from normal to vast in bust... Etc etc. If memory serves, there was only one writer, however.
* Done accidentally to the tune of [[Epic Fail]] in ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'', because the writers and editors apparently couldn't be bothered to look at the preceding issues to keep track of the continuity. The art reflects this as well, not just in the [[Art Shift]] as the thing was handed from one creative team to the next, but in blatant [[Did Not Do the Research]] such as the incident where [[The Flash|the Pied Piper and Trickster]] fell out of a futuristic plane at sunset at the end of one issue, only for the beginning of the next issue to depict them falling out of a regular jet in the clear blue afternoon. Methinks the series would have been far more enjoyable if it really ''had'' been a giant crack-filled bit of fun on the writers's part.
* ''[[Brand New Day]]'' was this for ''[[Spider-Man]]'' with writers changing for each story or even during the same story and one issue even has three writers, one establishing main event and then them all dealing with an aftermath from different standpoints.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20160120155147/http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/ ''Anime Addventure'']
** ''[[No Tendo]]'' is an example of a fic originally written on the Addventure. Although later revised into a more traditional format, its roots as a round robin are fairly obvious.
* [[CAPOW]] [http://capow.tripod.com (Creative Anime Prose Original Writing]{{Dead link}}; see the link for more details.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090412185553/http://www.grit-page.net/ The Global Ranma Insanity Thread], a combination round robin and text-based roleplay (with, effectively, everybody acting as the Gamemaster) that started on the rec.arts.anime.misc newsgroup and has since migrated to a mailing list.
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Four Rooms]]'' is a Round Robin [[Anthology]] film by four writer/directors about Ted the Bellhop's terrible New Year's Eve. As the only character in all four segments, Ted's characterization varies wildly [[Depending on the Writer]].
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Sorcery and Cecelia]]'' combines the Round Robin with the [[Epistolary Novel]].
* Parodied relentlessly by [[Mark Twain]] in ''Roughing It'' with a chapter about a literary magazine's serialized novel of this form.
* ''[[Cronicas De UP]]''
* There is a type of Round Robin used in the 18th century novella ''[[Little Women]]'', where ''most'' of the characters take 'turns's to tell a long story during a garden party to 'entertain' themselves...
* ''[[Black Trillium]]'' was written by [[Andre Norton]], [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] and Julian May in this fashion: each of them wrote chapters about her respective heroine ([[Lady of War|Kadya]], [[Badass Bookworm|Haramis]], and [[Princess Classic|Anigel]], accordingly), which were then compiled and edited into a single novel. However, the collaboration proved so stressful for all of them that they continued writing in the same universe independently, effectively creating three different continuities after ''BT''.
* ''[[Atlanta Nights]]'', which was specifically written an enormous, [[Plot Hole]]-ridden mess.
* ''The Floating Admiral'', a Round Robin detective story done by many of the great detective authors of the 1920's and 1930's, with each chapter done by a different author, who had to figure out without hints what needed to be deduced from the previous chapters, with the final chapter requiring real detective skills to figure out how to wrap up the plot.
* ''The cruise : a novel of murder and romance'' was a collaborative effort with many famous (and infamous) British authors including [[Maeve Binchy]].
* ''Behind the Screen'' is a short story written by several mystery fiction writers, including [[Agatha Christie]], [[Dorothy L. Sayers]] and Hugh Walpole.
* Much of the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] works out to be this, but with entire books and even trilogies; there are many writers who often go in completely different directions.
** The Bantam Era actually defied this trope to an extent. Authors usually stayed on for the entire series, and many were standalone novels. [[Legacy of the Force]] suffers from this in a huge way, partly because it was nine books, essentially three trilogies, and all three authors were writing independently at the same time. So, there would be stuff in Book 1 directly contradicted in Book 2. Naturally, pet characters were abound, but rarely saw a huge role in the other two authors's work
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* ''Dash & Lily's Book of Dares'' was alternately written by a husband and wife over e-mail. Notably, [[Invoked Trope|this fits with the theme within the actual book,]] seeing as the titular Dash and Lily communicated by writing in the same journal one after the other.
== [[Live
* In a way, virtually every TV show ever follows this. After all, the individual episodes in a [[Story Arc]] are typically penned by different writers. Examples are obviously too numerous to list.
** The difference is, most showrunners have a preplanned outline for the season, or perhaps the whole series, which the staff writers must follow. Often the storylines for individual episodes are written by the showrunner or the staff, the credited writer cranks out a draft in teleplay format, and the scripts are then revised once again by the showrunner and staff.
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** They had more games like these, for instance the Irish Drinking Song.
==
* "El cadaver exquisito" and "El muertito sabrosón" two projects hosted at http://produccionesbalazo.com/ , 19 different authors in the both of them, only Spanish but still worth to check.
* The [http://www.centerstorm.net/ Centerstorm] project, which split off from the old "Fan Art Headquarters" (now a defunct site) Impromanga project; it hosts all of the FAHQ's legacy comics and a number of new titles.
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[The Mad Scientist Wars]]''
* ''[[Draw Your Own Story]]''
* The [[Whateley Universe]] story ''Parents' Day'', which worked out in the end but took about two years to get written. [[Word of God]] says they are ''never'' going to try that again.
* In [[The Nineties]], a Round Robin called "Gary and Liz: The Return to Gateway Mansion" was one of the two main features of a website called Kidpub. It was periodically refreshed when it had spiraled out of control, but eventually, everyone just started using it as a time-delayed chat room.
* There existed a webcomic called ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130617101342/http://www.drunkduck.com/Troop_37/ Troop 37]''. The premise was that a boy scout named Jimmy is one morning [[Transformation Comic|turned into a]] [[Overnight Age-Up|teenage]] [[Gender Bender|girl.]] A few pages were made by one author, establishing his close friends and family, and then a reader would each call shotgun on drawing the next page of the progressing story of Jimmy's misadventures. The problem was that the artists kept taking a long time to produce the pages. Eventually interest petered out, and the story wound down to an unofficial end.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Literary Tropes]]
[[Category:Fanfic Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Round Robin]]
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