Actual writing, that is. We looked over the first batch of stubs, and Jen liked the looks of scene number two whereas she wanted Kent to tackle number one. So with our initial assignments figured out we dove in and each wrote almost a thousand words.
We’re off!
A writing partner is someone who can double your daily output.
As-Yet-Untitled Ghost Novel #1 is in the hands of our beta readers. We have turned our attention to Also-Untitled Ghost Novel #2.
Book One had rested for a few weeks, so we began with another read-thru of that installment. It was even better than we expected (not that we’re trying to influence our beta readers). Kent had been fretting over possible pacing issues in the first part, but it flowed very nicely. There are a few pages of heavier-than-necessary exposition here and there, but those will be easy to deal with. (To be clear, such infodumps are always Kent’s doing.) So, having made some notes, we moved on to the next step.
Utilizing both whiteboards, we set up the rainbow for Book Two. Perusing it was quite entertaining, because Jen’s got quite a wit, but also a little surprising. There were some placeholder character names, and some plot beats that have been superseded now that we actually wrote Book One.
We also have a long-form synopsis, which we usually refer to as the prose outline. That was created later, in parallel with the manuscript for Book One, so it should be up-to-date. Guess we’ll find out.
A writing partner is someone to accompany you on a journey of (re)discovery.
After completing the read-through on the freshly completed first draft of As-Yet-Untitled Ghost Novel #1, we jumped right in on edits. The first step was to go through it together and deal with all the easiest issues. These were mostly things like missing “the”s and other typos that were discovered during the read-through. After that, Jen started at the top of the comments list and Kent started at the bottom, and we hunted down other low-hanging fruit. Now that we’ve had several work sessions devoted to this, the lower branches have been plucked clean and we’re tackling slightly thornier stuff.
Not that any of it counts as “thorny.” We haven’t found anything that throws the whole plot into question or makes us wish our vocation was something easier like yacht-racing. But there are minor continuity things that are spread throughout the manuscript, for example. And there are minor continuity things that only affect a few places, but we need to establish how the story physics do actually work before we can settle on the preferred version and get everything aligned to it. Some of it will take a little discussion, but even the biggest issues that we marked aren’t all that large.
Meanwhile, Jen has also been sneaking in some sessions while Kent day-jobs (can we call it moonlighting if she does it while the sun is out?), and she just completed the 20-page prose outline for Book 2! Then she made Kent read the whole thing aloud in one sitting, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
A writing partner is someone to divvy up the chores list with.
We are back to actual writing again on Untitled Ghost Novel Number One. The new batch of stubs will take us up through some significant turns in the plot, with new characters arriving and a few new avenues of conflict opening up. Plus, of course, hauntings.
The first thing we did when they were ready is make Kent read them aloud. We discussed them to make sure there were no glaring holes that should be filled before moving on to the next step. (There weren’t.) Then we divvied up the first few of them. Sometimes we both have our eye on a particular scene, and sometimes we’re both hoping the other will pick up certain ones. This time, though, it was easy. We agreed right down the line and got a fairly even division of labor. As we check these off, we’ll have quick chats about who should do which ones next and keep rolling down the list.
One big advantage of our stub-based workflow is how it facilitates writing scenes out of order. Stubs contain enough info about each scene to protect continuity as we jump back and forth. Especially in a co-authoring situation, it’s essential to have that flexibility. With both of us writing, something’s always being done out of chronological order. Right now, for example, Kent’s in the middle of the scene that comes after the one Jen’s writing.
A writing partner is someone who helps keep your system running smoothly.
As this post is being written, our wordcount on the Ghost Novel stands at 42,901.
By the time you read these words, it should be higher than that!
A writing partner is someone who lets you get away with very brief blog posts, sometimes.
We spent more time on planning and plotting for the Ghost Series ahead of the actual writing than on any previous project. Yet, when Jen wrote the first scene where the ghosts would show up, it turned out we hadn’t entirely agreed on how they should look. Many of their characteristics were decided, but some pretty basic stuff had gone unspecified without either of us thinking to bring it up.
It felt weird in the moment, and we had to figure out those details on the move, but the fact that this happened is a good sign.
First of all, no matter how diligently you outline, the prose should always feel alive while you’re working on it. Outlining isn’t meant to take away words’ ability to surprise you, just to get you moving in the right direction.
Secondly, this was a sign that all those hours of pre-writing had been invested in the proper things. We focused on mapping out the story and understanding the people in it, rather than being drawn to shiny objects.
We knew our ghosts were going to look cool. And they do! We needed to make sure we also knew that the plot wouldn’t become a haunted house of cards.
A writing partner is someone who’ll hold your hand when your ghost story gets scary!
The rainbow for Book 2 is proving to be a lot of work, but we’re certainly glad to be identifying all these gaps now rather than later. With as many times as we’ve done the rainbow process, the challenges of this series have been something of a surprise.
We think a big part of it is the fact that all four books are in play during this pre-writing stage. It means that when we lay out the rainbow for any one of the books, we’re also aware of the other segments that make up the whole, giant thing. It’s like the ghosts of the rest of the books haunt the discussion.
Too bad we don’t have a room in our house that’s big enough to lay out the entire tetralogy-spanning Bifrost. The Auxilliary Writing Cave is sufficient for only one at a time. On previous projects we’ve spread out rainbows on the dining table or down the hallway, but those aren’t wide enough this time around. Oh well.
A writing partner helps you keep track of hundreds of colorful paper squares and the supernatural realms they represent.
We thought we were all set with names for our ghost series, until we started watching Supernatural. We’re about a decade and a half late to that particular party, but better late than never, right? The problem is that we were going to have a character named Jensen. And he was going to be peripherally involved with our ghosts. And for those of you who, like us, spent the past 15 years living under a rock, one of the stars of Supernatural is named Jensen Ackles.
Nothing against Mr Ackles or the character he plays. They’re both quite handsome, and we’re definitely enjoying the show. The issue is that our Jensen wasn’t going to be much like Dean Winchester. But with an uncommon name and a similar occupation, we were concerned that readers would immediately picture Dean/Jensen. We didn’t want to fight against that. It would be like having an archeologist in your novel and naming him Harrison. Everyone would expect him to wear a fedora and fight nazis.
So our Jensen has a new name now. And we’re mostly used to calling him by it. Jen is tickled by the idea of naming a dude character after herself, so Jensen is filed away, waiting patiently for a different story world. One in which he will be free to be himself without a bunch of preconceptions.
A writing partner is someone to enjoy old TV shows with, and brainstorm new names for your characters as an indirect result.
By which we mean, our Ghost Story is becoming more concrete. A preliminary prose outline is taking shape. Jen has taken point on this initiative, and is so far going at it bare-brained. Later, we’ll peruse all our notes and use them to fill in where appropriate.
At this point, the outline covers roughly 25% of the saga that we’ve generated and recorded in a mixture of typed and hand-written notes. The thing about the notes is, they reflect the chronology of our brainstorming sessions, not the saga itself. And they’re riddled with continuity bugs, because we’re still brainstorming.
Even at this early stage, though, arranging our facts into this more refined structure is providing us with new insights. (Insights about fuzzy plot logic, sadly.) Brainstorming is fun, but to do it right you have to be sort of willfully negligent about how any of the shiny ideas could be useful or if they even fit together. So, after several weeks of brainstorming, we’d become a bit attached to a vision of the narrative that’s just not feasible. Oops. It’s much harder to persist in magical thinking when all the pieces are lined up in the correct order. That’s what this prose outline has already begun to help us with. And it’s much easier to put something on the docket for the next dog walk once you know it’s there (or, not there, as is more often the case).
A writing partner is someone who helps you mend the holes in your plot.
It’s hard to refine and improve on something without a sense of its shape. So, to help us visualize our stories we lay them out on multicolored paper squares. It’s become an important part of our process, and some of them have been 15 or 20 feet long.
Fittingly, the first take on a rainbow for the Ghost Story is as pale as bleached bones. And — so far — it fits on the dining room table. Rather than festive notepaper squares, this one uses index cards (which make Kent uneasy, but in this case that just helps set the mood).
The main reason Jen set it up was so we could look at the timeline. It’s a multigenerational epic with a sizable cast (which seems to grow every time we take the dogs for a walk) so there’s a lot to keep track of, and doing it all in our heads was becoming a challenge. We had to make sure that when we put all the events in order, they actually were, you know, in order. Also, we needed a gut-check on how old everybody was when it was time for them to do Significant Things.
So, yeah, technically this wasn’t a rainbow. We didn’t refract the plot threads into different colors and line them up in parallel with each other. It isn’t time for that just yet. But when it is, we’ll give it as much space as it needs so we can bring our ghost tale to life.