That said, I am intrigued by the collective model, two of which Dan referenced above. I'm looking into that both for a future post as well as personal interest.

As a publisher myself, I actually think Nash has the most interesting model I've seen, and he gets my vote for “most likely to succeed”; as a writer, I'm still not fully convinced about its value to most writers, nor its long-term viability.

PS: Holy shit; I didn't realize you were THAT Henry Baum! I have a copy of Oscar Caliber Gun; picked it up from the office when we were working with Sander on Burning Down the House. Good stuff; wasn't quite my tastes back then, but it's totally up my allety these days! I'm going to have to re-read it now.

I think that's the point I would make. Fiction as the product of one consciousness is a very new idea (I'm guessing people will place its origins with Piers Plowman although there's a case for NeoPlatonist mystics). Stories always were communal property and TOLD by many tongues (like Homer). It's only time and the fact we see them in a book not around a campfire that makes us think of them otherwise.

But I get your point – about unique voices. I'm experimenting with The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes at the moment – my “interactive, real time Facebook novel” The voice is 100% mine, but readers tell me what questions they'd like to see answered, and I answer them in my way. It's a back and forth collaborative thing, but I never lose my hand on the rudder. A bit like the Platonic model of the tripartite soul, in fact.