If there's one thing I've come to learn as a writer online, it's that communication is key.

Whether that's communication with your readers or communication with other writers, if you don't spend time communicating with the fandom, your story won't really go anywhere. No where is this more true than if you're trying to write collaboratively.

So.

Why write collaboratively?

There are a lot of benefits I see to being in a collab. For one, you will learn from your partner(s). This will happen regardless of how good or bad you think you are as a writer. You'll be exposed intimately to a different writing style, and you'll learn writing habits and tools maybe you hadn't thought of before.

It teaches responsibility. For a collab to really work, there needs to be communication of needs between all parties involved. That means speaking up if something's not working, giving warning if deadlines can't be met, and reaching compromises.

Two heads are better than one. The more ideas involved in a story, the more things will happen that maybe you didn't see originally. The person(s) you're working with will make connections you didn't see, and you'll do the same for their ideas. It's amazing.

So now we've established why I write like to collaboratively.

But how does it happen?

I mean, for me and Flora it spawned from us discussing the overabundance of OC plots in the Band of Brothers fandom that we feel are either overused or underused. The most common "Girl Joins Easy" character is a young woman who is part of an "experimental program." I've read some REALLY good takes on this, and I am NEVER one to say a plot is bad just because it's a trope. That's false. Tropes can be GREAT.

That being said, I really do wish more writers would go beyond the "experiment" trope and maybe dig a little deeper to find their explanations.

That's what drew me to Flora's story, A Little Discord (ALD). I don't know why I clicked on it. I had no idea who she was. I think maybe it was one of the suggested reads at the bottom of one of my own chapters. Regardless, I clicked it.

And I saw her using the terms OSS and SOE. And that's when I knew she'd done a bit more digging than maybe the average story. At the bottom of her chapter were historical notes. Another indication to me that this was thoroughly researched and planned. And that's what initially got me reading.

The absolutely fantastic character of Virginia Carroll/Eris is what kept me reading. And I have zero regrets.

Somewhere along the line, we started chatting. And as only two chaotic salty INFJs can, we realized he held the power of world domination in our hands, total destruction at our fingertips.

Wait that's not right.

We realized we held the power of PARTNERSHIP in our hands. Both of us were approaching the ends of our solo fics. I was about six or seven till the end of Humanity of the Broken (HotB) and her with ALD. We were in a discord chat talking about OCs we'd like to see done by the fandom, severely underutilized historical stuff.

One of us mentioned the rarely explored Soviet women snipers. Then I said something along the lines of

"Damn it'd be so good! Why is nobody writing that!"

And we sort of both like, stared at each other. Through the computer. Or at least, that's how I imagine it.

And that's how we became the physical embodiments of the Thanos "Fine, I'll do it myself" gif.

It snowballed from there. Soviet snipers often worked in pairs, one as the sniper one as a spotter. They saw combat throughout the war. They were often women.

And then our brains went into overdrive. Or mine did at least.

The biggest part of coming up with a dynamic Band of Brothers female OC is providing a GOOD and deep explanation for what that woman is with Easy. For two Soviet snipers, that became even more important. How did they get to America, let alone join the paratroopers?

Well, it came down to the girls themselves. I'll explain my character creation for Svetlana in the next chapter, hopefully providing some examples with how to add depth to your own.

Keep in mind, there will be moderate spoilers for Sveta's backstory in this book. So don't read if you don't want to know about who she is before we start.