Don’t Double-Team

We tend to each “adopt” a certain subset of the cast. Then as we sort through the stubs, we know which of us is the default assignee based on whose viewpoint each stub is from. But that relies on one of two things: either one of us feels strongly drawn to that POV, or one of us has written several of that character’s scenes already to establish a pattern. Well, the current batch of stubs brings in someone new and it’s making our load distribution calculations rather interesting.

It’s sort of a perfect storm, because there’s a POV that’s new, and we both sort of vibe on it, and also it has several scenes. In the end, we did split them up between us.

But we gave ourselves one rule: we couldn’t both be working on the same new POV at the same time. We’d each be inventing this person’s voice, and they wouldn’t match up, and then we’d have the challenge of getting them synced. The restriction really only applies in these very early appearances for the new viewpoint.

So, as it happened Kent jumped on his new-POV scene first. Jen is working with one of the existing characters’ POV in the meantime.

It’s possible to imagine making the opposite strategy work — both writing partners could deliberately work on the same voice in parallel, and then use syncing them up as a chance to see the character from unexpected angles. We feel there are too many pitfalls lurking in that approach, but different things work for different people.

A writing partner is someone who harmonizes with your voice.