Issues with fellow writer

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I have been friends with this one boy since middle school. When we first met, we discovered that we had a lot in common. For one, we both happened to be huge fans of Japanese monster films, particularly those made by Toho. We were both writers, and according to my mother, he had HFA/Asperger syndrome as well, despite the fact that he didn't even know about the disorder or even suspected that he would have it. He comes from a devout Catholic family, and attends church practically everyday. He is a very affable and polite young man, and not once in our friendship has he shown any hostility whatsoever.

And then, I joined the creative team of his Godzilla fanfic a few days ago.

Ever since we met, I knew we were going to create something together. What better way to pay tribute to the King of the Monster than to write an epic fanfic? We've toyed with ideas over the years, trying to find the right combination, the right formula. However, no progress has been made. Like me, he has a problem putting stuff down on paper, only ten times worse. At least I make attempts to do something; my friend can propose a fanfic/project/whatever and proceed to procastinate for years on end, yielding no results.

All this time, I wanted my Godzilla fanfic to pay tribute to what has made the series so great, and at the same time, explore what makes the character tick. An excellent example of this would be Daniel Craig's Bond trilogy. My friend, however, has other ideas on how the King should be handled. Some of them are quite radical. For instance, Godzilla never would have attacked Tokyo in 1954, nor would he have been killed by the Oxygen Destroyer, prompting another Godzilla to seek vengeance. Instead, he would be awoken in modern times by the testing of a "plasma grenade" by a rogue superpower. He would then proceed to go on a bloody rampage that goes on for, according to my friend's plan, five arcs that will be illustrated by another friend, who is an artist.

That's the whole plot in a nutshell, really. It's so convoluted and bloated that I have troubled keeping up the pace. My friend's narrow-mindedness in regards to proper storytelling and character development does not help matters. When I joined the project, I insisted that the story be both entertaining and enlightening, bedazzling the fans with explosive action and suspense while also serving as a character study. After all, what I love about Godzilla is that anybody can have their own interpretation of him. The problem is, my friend has a very, very conflicting take. He essentially wants Godzilla to be an uber-badass borderline sociopath who reduces everybody, good and bad, to gory goop. Think the Space Marine from Doom or any hardcore nineties comic book "hero". While cool and all, it doesn't really make Godzilla too sympathetic.

Another thing that has been bothering me recently is my ambivalence towards whether or not this boy is a good friend. He is nice, and very friendly, but to be honest, he needs a lot of schooling in the writing department and needs to be more open.

Well, it sounds like you both have very different interpretations of the Godzilla mythos and would have a difficult time co-writing anything. The only compromise I could think of is that he would be in charge of overall plot and action sequences while you would have characterization and dialogue control. Then it's just a matter of mapping out the story and figuring out who writes what when.

As for the other thing...yeah, that's tough. Nobody wants to be the one to say, "You know, you're not really that good a writer, so why don't you let me handle this part." But where better to get practice than fan fiction, where you already know the characters and universe, and your audience does, too. Yeah, it'll be shaky at first, but he might just get better and grow into the writer he thinks he already is.

You can be friends with someone and yet not be able to work with them. Probably best to have a chat along the lines that you have your project that you want to go ahead with, and that if he wants to collaborate on something else then you'd be happy to.

I have a buddy who wanted to work with me, but my way of working and his didn't really match up. In the end, he decided he'd rather be my sounding board for ideas, but that he would leave me to do the actual piece.