Good news! The Internet offers a lot of tools that writers can use when planning and drafting. Writing is a process and for some it never ends. When Walt Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass he seemed to think of the work as something that was never finished and continuously made changes to it in subsequent publications. That’s right, after it was published he still went back and kept improving on what he had created. Although this is not the approach the vast majority of writers take, there are great tools out there that enable people to explore the craft of writing
One great resource for group drafting is Google Drive. It allows the author of a document (presentation, word document, spread sheets, and more) to not only create the artifact but to share it with many users. When a document has been shared, all of the people in the group can manipulate the document in real time. This allows for long distance collaboration between users who have free Gmail accounts. It is simple to use and everything is automatically saved to the cloud. Among my favorite and most used web 2.0 tolls, Google Drive is at the top of the digital heap.
Evernote is another great collaborative tool that allows the creator to use text, photographs, and other digital sources to create presentations and keep track of ideas and thoughts. It can be shared between different users and makes distance collaboration very simple and affective.
One of my favorite writing web sites is Zopler. Once you have created a free account, the rest of the story is yours and your friend’s and your friend’s friend’s. Anyone can create the beginning of a story, and anyone can add to the story as everyone gets to watch it evolve. If you choose, you can limit the circle to friends or people in a specific group, or you can let anyone and everyone add to it. Zopler is a great way to show off the creative potential for group writing. And most importantly, it’s a lot of fun.