As we mentioned a few weeks ago,  it’s field trip season around the Skelley fiction compound. These recent excursions were great fun, and they gave us a lot of discussion time as we sped down the highway. We did a lot of brainstorming about our next novel, and came up with some excellent ideas. More about that in a future post.

When we go on a trip, Kent is the driver and Jen is the navigator. It occurred to us that this is also how it is when we write. After collaborating on the broad strokes of plot, characters, and outline (choosing a destination), Jen gets down to the nitty gritty of mapping out how to get there. She loves to develop backstory, and she’s always the one in charge of the stubs (our step between outline and first draft), just as she is always in charge of the map. But a map doesn’t do much good without a driver, and an outline doesn’t do much good without a writing workhorse.

During the composition process, Kent keeps his feet on the pedals and his hands on the wheel, and awaits further instructions. He propels the story forward, but knows that he can’t just go in any random direction. There needs to be a plan.

We could drive this metaphor into the ground (see what I did there?). We could talk about how when you’re driving you encounter detours, much as in fiction writing when you explore an intriguing side plot. We could compare traffic jams to writer’s block. We could change lanes entirely and write a big flowery paragraph about the journey being as important as the destination, but we think you get the point.

Much as having a navigator can improve a road trip, a coauthor can make writing easier. They share the burden, and they’re much more fun than arguing with the GPS.