Click here to acess the Google Doc directly if the embedded collaborative novel is not appearing below.

On November 3, 2012, the bravest digital writing experiment of all time took place: over 60 writers attempted to write a 50,000-word novel, collaboratively, in one 24-hour period. Following the tremendous, if slightly surreal success of DigiWriMo’s midnight launch collaborative poem exercise, the army of DigiWriters pushed the limits of what’s possible in communal, digital writing. Are two heads (or five hundred) better than one? How many cooks is too many cooks in the kitchen? Was the adage about monkeys and typewriters finally proven right?

Photo by Victor Nuno

 24 hours. 50,000 words. Plot, characters, setting, action.
How many words will you contribute?

The work was done inside a Google Doc, embedded right inside this post and also available here, which was released promptly at midnight Eastern time on November 3. The document closed just as promptly exactly 24 hours later.

Because such an endeavor deserves some planning, @DigitalEnglish hosted a planning session in Twitter under the hashtag #digiwrimo at 6:00PM Eastern on Friday, November 2. You can view the planning document here.

The mission, which many chose to accept, on Saturday, November 3, 2012, was to write the world’s first massively-coauthored-in-a-day, digital novel. While we didn’t quite reach 50,000 words, participants rallied as the word count increased exponentially throughout the day, topping out at 41,184 words during the 24-hour period.