Category: Writing as a Team

Two people writing as a team can have advantages over soloist authors. But to have a fruitful writing partnership we must adopt a process that utilizes our strengths, and we need a relationship that’s strong enough to support the endeavor. Here’s where we explore the matter from various angles.

Verbal Interaction

Sometimes the hardest part of writing is actually facing the empty page.

Sometimes sitting at the keyboard doesn’t trigger your creativity.

One way of dealing with those problems is dictation. Many writers speak into a recorder for later transcription, or use speech recognition software to capture their words directly into text.

Hearing my fellow writers talk about such tactics, I’m struck by the ways in which a collaborative writing arrangement offers the same benefits automatically. It’s natural to read fresh passages aloud to your partner, and hearing things aloud is one of the fastest ways to identify areas for improvement. (You could also treat your partner like a secretary on Mad Men, but that’s getting a bit personal.)

Kidding aside, we routinely give each other dictation. We work on two separate copies of the text, each on our own machine, and then sync up the changes. If the passage is long, we’ll usually swap files around to accomplish synchronization. But our revision process often consists of small edits, and these we trade verbally. It keeps the process a conversation, literally.

This conversation begins in the brainstorming and outlining stage, continues through the composition stage, and on through all the stages of editing. In future posts we’ll talk in more detail about our joint approach to the various stages, and how having an ally can make all the difference.

Constraints and Limits Spark Creativity

When two people write together, there are twice as many heads coming up with ideas. Perhaps more importantly though, there are also twice as many critics of every impulsive, creative act. This is a good thing. Ideas are sold by weight, not volume. You don’t improve your fiction via more ideas; you do so with better ideas.

A good partner makes sure your work meets the required standard. Sometimes there can be some friction if the two of you don’t immediately swoon for the same imagery and concepts. It’s natural to want unrestrained license to explore any wild notion that springs to your cortex, but that doesn’t mean it’s the path toward achieving your best work. When everything goes on the page, unfiltered, your truly great ideas are tangled up with, well, the other ones. A partner’s critique helps you filter things. Later, you can return the favor when your partner wants to wear plaid with stripes.

It feels like a paradox, but working within constraints actually increases your creativity. Cutting back on the effects budget drives you to focus on character and story. Avoiding tangents keeps your prose tight. Working by yourself, it’s often difficult to gauge when you’re going astray. In a collaboration, someone has your back.

Inspiration Strikes When You Least Expect It

In this case, it was on a bus. Jen and Kent took a trip — by bus, ‘cuz they’re such high-rollers — which gave them a bit of time to discuss what their next project should be.

As you may recall, the intrepid duo has been struggling with one of the facets of a writing partnership, namely agreeing on what to write about. Historically, Kent has been more of the big-idea guy and Jen brings characters and relatability. In this case, Jen brought pretty much everything. During the bus ride, she and Kent figured out a premise that unites a whacky (and fairly big) idea she’d mentioned months ago with the character she’s been mildly obsessed with of late. The vexing question of what to use for the hidden reality of the story world finally had an answer.

But wait, there’s more!

The new premise lends itself to a story-within-the-story, which means there is also a role for Kent’s current pet big idea, the one that they’ve despaired of ever coming to terms with. There’s even been talk of some short stories to explore the concept. Everybody wins!

So, yeah. All it took was ten hours on a bus.

Collaborating in a Critique Group

We are currently participating in a writing workshop with author Carolyn Turgeon. The format is quite different from our regular critique group, but in both cases we, being collaborators, are unique. Perhaps I should say that Rune Skelley is unique. Jen and Kent are equivalent, and thus non-unique.

Pedantry aside, how do collaborators participate in a critique group? Do you alternate who offers feedback from week to week? Do you take turns finishing each others’ sentences? The way we’ve chosen to handle it is by presenting one piece of work for critique, and adding two voices and opinions to the discussions of other authors’ work. Our co-critiquers seem to like this arrangement. It gives them twice as much input on their own piece, without requiring twice the time commitment to read our stuff.

It does take discipline though, not to launch into a private conversation with your co-author during the meeting. A reader will ask a question or make an observation that sparks a Big Idea and you’ll want to talk about it. You really will. But you have to stay focused on the meeting. No one wants to sit and watch the two of you talk cryptically, or argue. You have to save all of that for the car ride home.

The car ride home is the best time to discuss the feedback you’ve just received, while it’s all still fresh in your minds. Having a writing partner to go through it all with is an invaluable tool. There will sometimes be comments that you don’t feel are valid, and if your partner agrees, then you can probably dismiss them. Other times though, one of you will be dismissive and the other won’t. That’s when things get interesting. Chances are the critique is valid, and without that second set of ears it might have been ignored.

One caveat: when you’re both madly in love with your project, it can be terribly easy to talk yourselves out of taking any of the critique to heart.

Kent: Man, I can’t believe how blind our readers were this week! None of them noticed the clever anagram of the name of that obscure scientist, or that we used the word “eight” exactly eight times!

Jen: I know! How could they ALL have totally missed the point of that scene?!

Do you participate in a critique group? Do you want to know more about how ours operate? Let us know in the comments.

Playing to Your Strengths

Different types of stories demand different kinds of scenes, and everyone has particular strengths and weaknesses. Maybe your protagonist has just reached the pivotal moment, in which the clever computer hacking of the villains is exposed — if your command of high-tech jargon begins and ends with “there are wires involved,” you’re probably going to struggle to make this scene compelling.

Your Achilles heel could be fight scenes, or sex scenes, or culinary scenes. And despite the vibrancy of your prose, and the depths of character you’ve established, the soufflé will fall because it relies on convincing portrayal of martial arts (or marital arts). Partner to the rescue! Each of you is good at different things, and your writing gets the combined benefits of all the variations in your styles and life experiences.

The optimistic view of these tribulations is that we can get good at whatever we put our minds to. The necessary geeky mumbo-jumbo for your hero to toss off is just a little bit of research away, give or take seven rounds of revisions to really nail the vernacular. Of course, this stuff just falls out of your writing partner, who won’t need to spend time on research or go through multiple drafts to pull it off. If you and your partner can divide the work according to your strengths, you both stay more productive.

You hope that your partner is skillful at exactly the types of scenes you’re apt to fumble. Real-world partnerships seldom embody the ideal case of offsetting all of each other’s weaknesses, but going it alone means precisely none of your gaps will be covered. Plus, partners can join forces to tackle challenges that neither of them would be up for individually. Two heads are better than one (clichéd but true!).

 

Negotiations

As we talked about in our previous writing collaboration post, we’re trying to decide what our next novel-length project will be. Kent has an idea that he is very fond of. Unfortunately it doesn’t hold much appeal for Jen. This leads us to the land of negotiations.

It’s an unusual place for us to find ourselves. Not to be too smug, but we generally share a brain really well. There is very little dissension in either our marriage or our writing partnership. When we do disagree, we usually work through it pretty quickly. We’re damn near perfect!

Except now we have reached an impasse. We are stalled. Kent loves his Big Idea and, so, is having trouble brainstorming anything else. Jen thinks the idea sounds like something interesting to read, maybe, but doesn’t feel drawn to devote a year or more of her life to it. Without feeling a connection, it’s really impossible to be invested. Kent understands that. He really does.

Jen does not currently have a Big Idea to counter with, which is both good and bad. If she had a proposal it might entice Kent enough to put his baby aside, or it might cause friction, with both of us digging in our heels and fighting to the death for our own cause. It might even lead to working solo (gasp! horror!).

As it stands, Jen wants to be persuaded. Or at least she wants the reassurance of knowing what’s coming up. As we’ve said, Jen’s all about the backstory, so the more time she has to cogitate about that kind of thing the happier she is. And so Kent keeps approaching the story from different angles, desperately trying to trick Jen into writing it with him.

Have no fear, dear reader. We aren’t just spinning our wheels. After a well-earned and highly enjoyable trip to Bermuda to celebrate our anniversary, we have our noses back to the grindstone. We’re hip-deep in a read-through of our trilogy, which will lead to one more round of edits before we turn it over to our critique group again. And after that we have a stand-alone novel that’s been patiently waiting for its own round of edits. Plus there’s always marketing. And short stories.

Meanwhile, Jen has a character name she really likes, and part of another. She’s starting to form a picture of what this character (and a half) are like, which might lead to a Big Idea.

That’s when the negotiations will start in earnest.

It Cuts Both Ways

Sometimes your inspiration starts with the Big Idea, or maybe the starting point is a particular character, or a name for a character, or a plot twist. No matter how your inspiration usually arrives, the project will ultimately rely on having all the pieces fit together.

All of that is basic, intro-to-creative-writing type stuff, and none of it is specific to collaborative writing. However, the experience of getting from the initial flash to the actual writing is a lot different for partners. It’s kind of a double-edged sword.

You have to find subject matter that both partners are interested in. No matter how well aligned your tastes and styles, it’s likely that you or your partner will occasionally feel inspired about something that the other simply doesn’t care for. The idea might be fantastic, but still not turn out to be something you can collaborate on.

On the other hand, there could be other reasons that you struggle to win over your partner to your idea. Maybe it’s not as shiny as you think it is, or maybe it’s just not quite ready yet. Working on your own, you would probably chase after your exciting Big Idea, wanting to pounce while you feel inspired. You’d only discover its problems after devoting a lot of time and effort to a draft.

In our case, an idea can fall down at the conceptual stage mainly due to not being quite the right kind of science fiction. There’s a certain type of world-building that we do well together. Our story worlds generally only diverge from consensus reality at a submerged level. They look superficially like the real world, but harbor deep and sinister differences. So, for example, a far-future setting represents a major stylistic and procedural shift for the writing — different kinds of research, different pacing for exposition, different priorities. Meaning there will be an uphill journey for a Big Idea that needs a far-future world in which to thrive, and if we come up with a different inspiration we’ll probably follow it instead.

Not that it’s impossible for us to imagine working together on different types of fiction, just that it’s not healthy for the partnership to try to force things.

What’s The Big Idea?

Today we’re going to talk about the very beginnings of the journey, the Story Concept. How do you decide what to write about? Where do you get your ideas?

Obviously there is no concrete answer to those questions. Everyone takes inspiration from different things that they encounter in their lives. There is no formula. Except in our writing partnership there kind of is. Kent is the concept guy. Jen is the plotter.

Here’s how it usually goes:

Kent: Hey, I have an idea for a story.

Jen: Do tell.

Kent: Okay, there’s a world where all of the molecules are rotated 90° counterclockwise!

Jen: ?

Kent: Get it? Because then all the molecules are rotated a quarter turn!

Jen: So what happens next?

Kent: I don’t know.

There are probably some of you who would love to read Kent’s 100,000 word treatise on the partially rotated molecules, but I suspect there are many more who would find, without characters or a plot, it might be a little boring.

On the other hand, Jen can spin plot complications all day long. She will happily devote days to drawing up timelines for characters’ actions, more days to filling in their family trees, and still more days to sketching floor plans for their (and their parents’) houses. Jen is all about the backstory, but generally doesn’t have the moment of inspiration that produces the hook.

And then we act out an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial:

Kent: Hey! You got your plot complications in my big idea!

Jen: Hey! You got your big idea in my plot complications!

And that’s what writing partners can be: Two great tastes that taste great together.

 

Together Time

Some couples spend their weekends antiquing together, others golf, go to clubs, attend concerts, garden, go to the movies, or watch TV. We write. Together. All the time.

For the solo author, writing is a solitary activity, and can be very lonely. Of course, some writers enjoy the solitude, but for others it can become tiresome. That’s why so many people write in coffee shops. We save a ton of money on frothy coffee drinks by writing at home, together.

A member of our critique group was recently talking about how hard it is for him to find time to write. His family obligations and job take up a lot of his time, which is the case for many writers. Our situation is a bit different though. Since we write together, couple time is one less thing to take away from writing time, because writing time is couple time. Every evening we sequester ourselves in a cozy room and tune out the rest of the world. Over hot beverages, or the occasional alcoholic concoction, we engage in deep and far-ranging conversation. While enjoying our favorite music, we engage in the primal act of creation.

This intense together time would not suit all couples, but it suits us very well. We both are introverts and homebodies. We honestly would not rather be at a party. Working toward a common goal is the perfect way for us to feel connected.

What do you think? Could you and your spouse write together?

Stop the Presses!

Time for another potential downside of having a writing partner: interruptions.

If you don’t have a fortress of solitude to write in, then you’re probably familiar with being interrupted. You’re thinking that it affects us all, with or without a collaborator. True, but with a writing partner there’s an added wrinkle.

 Soloist author's spouse: "Did you see that thing in the news?"
 Soloist author: "Sorry, Honey. I'm working right now."
 Soloist's spouse: "Oh, sorry. I'll tell you about it later."
Collaborative author's partner: "Did you see that thing in the news?"
 Fellow author: "Which thing?"
 Partner: "The missing dog. It got me thinking about that scene in chapter six..."

Notice a difference? It’s easier to give your spouse the old brush-off than it is to stay on task with a chatty partner. Sure, conversational overtures about irrelevant topics can distract you, but the special problem with your partner’s interruptions is precisely that they’re on-topic.

It’s no good to say, “Sure, sure chapter six. Whatever. Tell me when it’s finished.”

It’s also no good to heave a sigh and roll your eyes before saying, “Missing dog for chapter six? Do tell.”

Obviously, there’s no guarantee that your partner will always have something important or relevant to say. Sometimes people just talk a bit too much. But that’s an easy problem to fix: “I’m sorry, but this is work time. We can discuss [current popular tv show] later.” If that doesn’t do the trick, then you might just have a bad partner.

The deeper challenge is with partnership per se. You have to talk to each other, and once in a while that need conflicts with other noble aims. Which is to say, even if you have the ideal partner and you’ve found the optimal fiction project to collaborate on, you’ll run into this problem from time to time. (Voice of experience! Hey, partner!)

The final thing to say on this subject: embrace the interruptions, as long as they’re pertinent. If you try to curb your partner’s tendency to break your concentration, you’ll curb his or her enthusiasm for working with you. To be successful at writing in collaboration, you must adapt to a bit more interruption. It’s worth it.