Dilemmas

I'm on the horns of a dilemma, one partially of my own creation.

In the course of writing a story, I became part of a semi-collaboration. I have added other authors to my tale (with their permission), and made it possible for them to help the story evolve. This seemed like a very good idea at the time. After all, we all got into writing fan fiction for the fun of it.

The thing I forgot to take into account is group dynamics. For a man who minored in psychology, that was pretty stupid.

One of the writers has begun to encounter problems with others. I do not have the specifics of the problem, as it occurred in a chat room when I was not present. It has potentially damaged the integrity of the characters of my story, in that if they cannot work together in the real world, asking them to do so in this tale won't work either. The writer involved has left it to me, as the story's author, to decide what to do.

So, do I take him out of the story or leave him in? Do I get involved in any personal squabble these writers have, or stay away from it? Instinct tells me to stay out of the mess myself, and perhaps do some rewriting so that this person stays in, but does not have to necessarily deal with the others when the story planning is done.

It is my story, and so up to me. I just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.

This is what happens when you start writing around real people instead of just the fictional ones.