It's the End of the World as We Know It

We're living in an increasingly consumer-driven society--Youtube is replacing network television, musicians can remix their favorite artists' music, and Time named "You" as Person of the Year in 2006.

Now, even the rules of literature are being rewritten: collaborative, web-based novels, written by a diverse group of writers (most average web-users, not writers) are becoming more and more prevalent. In 2007, Penguin launched the ground-breaking "One Million Penguins" Project, a wiki novel project in which the submission period spanned five weeks, but the wiki is still open to edits. Though some would contend that a user-driven collaborative novel cannot succeed, the form remains.

The University of Chicago has piloted a new project, EndOfThisWorld, a collaborative novel focused around the hypothetical end of the world. This novel uses voter input to determine which submissions will be published as part of the overall story. Submissions are open for the 5th chapter of the novel--check it out, and get writing!