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.
Thanksgiving was yesterday, but who’s counting?
Our celebration was much smaller this year. Our kids and their partners stayed safe in their apartments out of state. It wasn’t anyone’s first choice, but it was the smart thing to do. Technology let us all enjoy a visit, and everyone got enough pie.
We hope you and yours are safe and healthy.
A writing partner should be someone you are thankful for, even in a year like 2020.
When we extended the Science Novel into a trilogy, we wrote books two and three all in one big push. These are not small books, and by the time we wrapped up the last one we were completely drained. Recalling those last couple of weeks is unpleasant, because we felt so burned out.
It’s possible that we’re slow learners, because we are now doing the edits on those same books all in one big push. (Maybe. We might break it up.)
Considering that we know we were not at our best when this writing was done, we had some worries about what we’d find when we returned to it. Jack Torrance staring out at us? But, it’s really good. There are no telltales in the prose to indicate that the author was on mile 26 of a marathon.
There is, of course, editing to be done. We aren’t suggesting that total burnout is the secret to flawless prose composition. But there were no obvious placeholders or even scenes that felt sketched-in. It’s all fully fleshed out, the events are in the correct order, the pacing is good, the tension rises to the finale, and there are plenty of sparkly sentences. We’re really quite pleased.
And in a year like 2020, it’s really nice to have something work out better than expected. A writing partner is someone who will celebrate the little victories with you.
Enjoy a happy and safe Independence Day.
One of the great things about writing with a partner is that it gives you two ways to see everything.
One of the trickiest things about writing with a partner is that there are always two ways to see things.
We’re doing revisions on Son of Music Novel. The method we use has us each take a turn editing every page in tandem. Jen goes first, and at the end of every work session Kent approves her changes. We let her get about five chapters ahead before Kent started, so Jen’s fresh edits have faded a bit in his mind, and now every night she approves his changes, too. It’s a good setup for us. Two sets of eyes and all that. And, Jen can leave a note for Kent if there’s something she’d like him to fix when he reaches that point.
Of course, that works a little less well when he isn’t able to see the problem he’s meant to address. Language is ultimately subjective, and a phrasing that “strongly implies X” for one reader might feel utterly neutral about X vs Y for the next.
What happened in this case was Kent rolled his eyes a little (if he sighs, it resonates throughout the Writing Cave and breaks Jen’s concentration) and made his best effort at repairs. When Jen approved the new version, she stipulated that it hadn’t really made the issue go away. It seemed to be an impasse.
So, she used a colorful metafor to describe what she wished was on the page, to which Kent said “Why didn’t you say so?” And he promptly put the colorful metafor, verbatim, on the page. The duck-rabbit waveform collapsed and harmony again reigned in the Writing Cave.
It’s surprisingly common to find remarks from writers to the effect of, “if you don’t hate what you’re writing, then it must not be any good.” In a world awash with bad advice for writers, this stands out as perhaps some of the worst. (Especially if what you’re writing is a novel.)
Writing a novel is a commitment. It will probably take years. The writing itself will likely take many months, and then there are revisions. A novel-in-progress is often likened to a child, which is a fair analogy. If it’s more like an irritating roommate, maybe things aren’t going to work out. The idea that throughout such an undertaking you should expect to feel powerful negative emotions about the thing you’re creating… no.
You do need a certain critical distance. Saying you love the work doesn’t mean you don’t want to see it improve. That’s what the revisions are for. Allow it to be flawed, and don’t hate it for its imperfections. Circle back and put in better words.
So, why would anyone say such a thing? Why would they want you to hate your work? They don’t want that. What’s really going on there is that the writing process is often frustrating. Especially if your goals are ambitious, it’s likely that the early drafts will not really work, and it’ll be hard not to feel discouraged about that. Many novices expect the perfect flowering of their thoughts to just land on the page. That’s not typical. A common mistake is trying to combine the modes for initial creation and fine-tuning, which puts you into a very stressful bind of not being able to please the internal editor.
If you find yourself genuinely hating what you’re working on, lay it aside. Put it in time-out and give yourself a break from it. Maybe it’s not what you should be trying to write. Maybe just move on. But maybe giving yourself some space will help you see its strengths and weaknesses objectively, in which case you might feel inspired about it again.
Another thing to reflect on is your process. If you’ve always been a pantser, and you seem to spend a lot of time resenting your works in progress, there could be a connection there. Try giving yourself a rough outline, or imposing some other light framework, and see how it feels. (Full disclosure: Rune Skelley has a highly developed and structured process. That’s what most of these blog posts are about. But, we’re all different, so what works for us might not be the answer for you. If you’ve used a detailed process and you’re still having trouble? Maybe what you need to do is write without a net sometimes, take a break from planning.)
The final point to make about this “hate your own work” ethos is that it’s probably often borne of isolation. Writing is generally seen as a solitary occupation, but Rune Skelley is here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way. Working with a co-author inoculates you from the creeping doubt that can afflict someone toiling alone. If you don’t have an actual writing partner, form a good partnership with some beta readers, or participate in a critique group. A network gives you support as a human being, and (hopefully) constructive input about the issues in the work.
We do most of our writing in the aptly named Writing Cave, but from time to time, especially in the winter, we like to hole up and work in the Auxiliary Writing Cave. It has a fireplace, you see, which makes it extra cozy. It’s also the only room in our house we hadn’t gotten around to redecorating. This year we’d finally had enough of the dingy yellow paint, and a decision was reached: it was time for a change. Once we hauled out all the mammoth bones and gave the place a good sweeping, we decided a little bit more than a coat of paint was needed. We would update the fire. As part of the process, we had to put in a false wall.
In the past when we’ve done projects around the house, we’ve written messages on the backside of drywall before installing it, and on the floor before tiling over it. Fun little surprises someone might discover in the far future. This time we got a little more creative.
The fireplace redo is the first major renovation project we’ve done since self-publishing our Divided Man books. Jen thought it would be fun to hide signed copies of the books inside the wall for some future homeowner to find. Kent heartily agreed.
We think it looks amazing. It’s hard to imagine anyone ever wanting to replace the tile, so perhaps our secret hidden bookshelf will never be discovered.
As we sit here in the Writing Cave, planning out our next writing moves, it’s becoming clear that 2020 might be a year that very little actual writing gets done.
We set January 31 as the deadline for Sibling of Music Novel, a target which seems easily reachable. There are two scenes in progress, and five more after that waiting to be written. Easy peasy. After a small champagne toast, the rest of the month will be spent going back through the manuscript and filling in the placeholders, fixing things we changed our minds about halfway through, and addressing all the other little fiddly things that we know need attention. It will still technically be a first draft, but it will be a pretty clean one. That’s how we like ’em.
To celebrate the completion of the Music Trilogy we’ll pop open the BIG bottle of champagne.
As of February 1 (assuming all goes according to plan) we will have four completed novels that are in need of major edits. For the past few years we’ve concentrated heavily on the writing side of the equation, and now it’s time to turn that around and get some things polished up and gorgeous.
We have two Music Novels and two Science Novels to edit, and we have yet to decide what order we’re going to do them in. On the one hand, we’re pretty immersed in the Music story world at the moment, so it makes sense to stick with that. On the other hand, Sibling needs some time to rest before we can effectively edit it, so it makes sense to switch our attention to the Science story world. Plus that’s the one that our critique group is looking at right now. But the Music Novel is the one our agent is shopping around, so maybe we should stay focused on that?
Around and around we go.
Wherever we decide to start, each novel will go through several stages of editing, and will rest in between.
And in the background we’ll still be tinkering with ideas for the Ghost Series. Jen is a little concerned about what our workflow will look like if we finish up everything else before we start on the ghosts. At various stages of our process we find it helpful to switch our attention to a different project to let our batteries recharge. What will happen if we don’t have anything else to turn our attention to? Kent is a little concerned about having an ever-increasing pile of first drafts that never get readied for publication, and he points out that there will inevitably be projects after the Ghost Series, so when we need a break we can figure out what the next one will be and work on that.
These best laid plans might all fly out the window when our agent sells Music Novel, because then we’ll have plenty of distractions, what with selling the movie rights, and going on all the talk shows, and hobnobbing with celebrities, and buying yachts and all that.
Happy 2020 to all of you!
As we close in on the end of both our novel-in-progress and 2019, we’ve been thinking about endings. And beginnings. The opening and closing scenes of a novel are arguably the most important. With two of us writing, how do we divvy those up?
Fairly evenly as it turns out.
Of our nine novels, Jen has written three 1st scenes and six last scenes, while Kent has written six 1st scenes and two last. If he writes the last scene of Sibling of Music Novel when we get there, we’ll have a lovely sort of symmetry.
We didn’t consciously set out to divvy things up this way. Kent more often writes the opening scene due to logistics. After the plot rainbow, the prose outline, and the traditional outline, the next step in our highly structured method is for Jen to write the stubs. Once she gets a couple of those lined up, Kent can jump in and start the actual prose composition while Jen knocks out a bit more of the pre-writing.
As to the endings, Jen seems to be drawn to them. She’s better at wrapping things up (just ask Kent who’s better at wrapping presents), and since Kent’s shift started sooner, it makes sense for Jen to be the last one out the door.
Of course no scene is ever the property of just one of us. We both edit. We both poke and prod and add and clarify and remove. As our unpublished novels make their way through editing, it’s possible that the beginnings and endings will change and this whole beautiful symmetry we’ve got going on will fall apart. We’ll find out next year.
Happy Solstice!
There are many differences between the novels that Kent and Jen write together and the chain story that has all but taken over the blog.
There are the obvious things, like our novels having actual coherent plots and rational characters, while the chain story is made of ridiculousness and populated by maniacs. And, long as they are, our novels have endings. Despite Kent’s fervent desires, the chain story doesn’t have one of those yet.
Less obvious, perhaps, from the readers’ side of the page is our underlying approach to these different projects. When writing the chain story we often try to fuck each other over. With our novels we try to surprise each other.
That surprise can often be a difficult thing to accomplish, since we’ve worked together for months hammering out and outline and breathing life into our characters. It comes in the little details that we choose on the sentence-by-sentence level. A snappy bit of dialog here, a quirky scenic detail there. It’s what makes writing with a partner delightful. No matter how well you know the story you’re telling, your coauthor sees it from a slightly different angle.
There are probably writing teams that don’t operate this way. They might enjoy creating impossible problems and handing them over to their partner to solve. And that probably works just fine for certain authors and certain kinds of projects. But for us, it’s better to collaborate on the full-length works and save the gleeful dickishness for our little bits of prompted writing.
There is much to be thankful for in the Writing Cave, most of all each other. Happiness is a writing partner who’s a fantastic cook! Happiness is a writing partner who washes the dishes!
This time of year brings many disruptions to the routine — houseguests, baking, shopping, travel — but those are also things to be thankful for. We hope everyone enjoyed their annual family feast as much as we did.