Fine-Grained Collaboration

Usually when Rune Skelley is writing a novel, the workload is divided up by scene. Kent and Jen work in parallel, each at his or her own desk, on his or her own computer, writing his or her own scene. We have both gotten pretty good at writing in the Rune Skelley voice, and our personal idiosyncrasies are smoothed out during editing. The Kent scenes become more Jen, the Jen scenes become more Kent.

Our current project has introduced a new wrinkle to our writing partnership. In a move that seems to be related to creating stubs, Jen has recently started writing little micro-scenes and then handing them over to Kent to finish. These differ from stubs in that they are, more or less, fully formed prose. Really brief sections of fully formed prose.

The first one was a seduction. Jen knew exactly how a pivotal point in the characters’ interaction would play out. Rather than risk losing its spark by summarizing it, or losing it altogether by backburnering it until it was time to write the whole scene, she typed up the part she knew, capturing the eroticism of the moment beautifully.

Kent had the challenge of working up to that exact moment, and then back out of it again, without disturbing it. He did a brilliant job, which emboldened Jen to write up several more micro-scenes that were rattling around in her head.

It’s a tricky way to work when you’re collaborating. A solo author can do exactly as he or she wants at any given point in the composition process. When you’re working with a writing partner, you need to be mindful about too many constrictions.

We believe that boundaries spark creativity, but too many boundaries can cause paralysis. A partner is a boundary of sorts, placing constraints on what you write, but in a good partnership that limitation paradoxically becomes a source of greater inspiration.