You know...this has been a myth for a lot longer than people think.

Jane Austen used to read her stuff to her family and friends, soliciting feedback from them.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein for a contest she and her friends (Polidori, Percy Shelley--her husband, and Lord Byron) decided to throw among themselves to see who could write the best horror story.

The Bronte sisters had one another and their brother, who was a visual artist.

And...perhaps most shockingly to most people, Shakespeare was a great collaborator. It was very common for playwrights in that era to contribute to one another's work. There are a few plays by his contemporaries that seem to have his handwriting in spots, and we know several of his later plays were co-written by his successor in the King's Men. Who knows? Maybe the reason Hamlet has so many different speeches is because a different playwright wrote each one? And, of course, there's the fact that the actors themselves changed things to suit the performance.

For as long as writing stories has been a thing, writing has been a group effort. If someone is a solitary writer, it's because that person has choose to be one.
-Quaddy

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