Since he died, Charles has been quite happy at his new job in a parallel universe that he's pretty sure is actually heaven. Meanwhile, his widow, a teacher named Rebecca, is back on Earth and growing tired of living forever with the help of some pretty amazing biotechnology. And what the heck happened to young Cindy's mother that led the government to pull Cindy out of Rebecca's class?

Those are just a few developments in CNET's grand experiment in crowdsourcing an original science-fiction novel as part of National Novel Writing Month. We've been at it for just over five days, and already contributors and editors from around the world have helped to shape the first three chapters of our story, set a few decades in the future and across the multiverse.

The goal is to complete a 50,000-word novel by November 30, and there's plenty of room for you to pitch in and shape the story, the characters and the universe(s) they inhabit.

It's pretty simple: Just visit our collaborative online sandbox version of the story at http://bit.do/CrowdSciFi and start suggesting additions or changes -- or add an entire chapter! (We're using a Google Doc, so if you want to get credit for your participation, you'll need to be logged in to a named Google account, but you can be anonymous if you prefer.)

http://www.cnet.com/news/three-chapters-in-cnets-crowdsourced-sci-fi-novel-is-coming-to-life/