A good coauthor will make your job easier. He or she will help with all stages of the writing process, from initial brainstorming through final edits and marketing.
A great coauthor will inspire you to creative heights you could never reach on your own.
But when it’s -7º F and you’re fighting off a terrible cold, the best coauthor will pick up Thai food and snuggle under a blanket with you. You’ll want to keep that in mind when choosing your collaborator.
the mother of an 18-month-old daughterIt takes a lot of oomph to propel a converted atomic submarine into space, as Giselle found out last Tuesday. That morning she was just the mother of an 18-month-old daughter, but by dinnertime she was an admiral of sorts. Her little Elizabeth, or Bitty as she was known, was a source of more than enough oomph to get the job done.
Giselle had been asked to document how the feat was accomplished, but writing memos had never been her strong suit. “The power for liftoff was obtained from a dense deposit of Bitty’s business,” she explained to the patient boatswain. He lifted one eyebrow and asked, “‘Business’? Can’t you be more precise?”
“Well then help me write this!” Giselle implored. “It came from her diaper, for gosh sakes, but I can’t say… I mean there are some words that just don’t belong in an official memo! But my brain’s seized up — what is another word for POOP? — and I can’t think clearly.”
The handsome boatswain smiled warmly. “Zero gravity sometimes affects mental acuity, and so does the stress of parenthood. In your case, you shouldn’t worry. Because it’s the latter. When a beautiful young mother’s daughter receives a valuable present, it can be quite distracting.”
“So you agree with me that Bitty’s too little to command her own vessel?”
“I’m sure you know what’s best. Perhaps we can address that topic in a later paragraph.”
some unlikely and very large costarsThe collision of the two vehicles left a gigantic sunflower-shaped bruise on Harriet’s upper thigh. The only acceptable remedy was ice and a large dose of Vicodin. In Harriet’s mind even minor inconveniences spun themselves into operatic agonies fit for a Gothic melodrama in which she played the gloriously set-upon tragi-romantic heroine. She gazed with contempt upon the other participants in the unfortunate accident, pouting a bit at having to share her time in the spotlight with some unlikely and very large costars. Narcotics might make everything better for Harriet, it was true. But when medicine isn’t available, like for instance when the patient is a Volkswagen, Harriet conceded that she would have to find some other way to straighten out those dents. A mechanic, perhaps.
Last week was the first time in what felt like forever that we managed to have a meeting of our critique group. It also marked the first meeting since the shifting of the group’s attention to someone else’s work, which led to some embarrassment when Kent started setting up to take notes rather than give feedback.
But it wasn’t difficult at all to get into the proper mode, and it felt damn good to flex some muscles that hadn’t seen a lot of use in the past year or so. Unless you count the fact that Kent and Jen give each other feedback almost daily… but that’s not really the same thing.
On the way to the car, we were chatting with our fellow author whose latest revisions are now the group’s focus. We talked about process a bit, bringing him up to speed on our status (still brainstorming, but we have about one-third of a preliminary outline now!). The conversation inevitably slid into mutual admiration. He shook his head in bewilderment about how we coordinate everything, while we stood in awe that he does it all by himself.
This week, we generated some (probably apocryphal) prose. It was the first new fiction either of us had written in quite some time, and just like with the crit session it felt fantastic to return to something that we hadn’t done in a while.
The outside temp might be eleventy-below, but with all this newness and fresh starts it’s feeling a little like spring in the Writing Cave.
home with his sisterWandering the suburban blightscape of Simon’s neighborhood, I found myself in a cul-de-sac rimmed with identical split-level houses. I hoped Simon was home with his sister. She shouldn’t be left alone in such desolation.
Spotting the four-digit number that spelt “Simon” in the arcane addressing scheme of the development, and which was the sole means of distinguishing one house from any other, I rang the bell. Seconds later the door opened and Simone threw herself into my arms.
“Isn’t Simon here?” I asked with the breath she crushed from my lungs.
“He went up in the balloon this morning and he hasn’t come back!” Simone gasped.
This didn’t bode well. On the balloon’s previous flight, it had attained an altitude of four thousand feet and then couldn’t be coaxed to descend by the usual means. The Civil Air Patrol was called in and had to determine the best way to return Simon and his wayward contraption to terra firma.
“You could shoot down the balloon with arrows,” Simon’s brother had suggested. Minos coveted Simon’s collection of baseball cards and could be relied upon to offer malevolent advice on any topic.
The ranking officer of the Patrol was cool-headed. “No, that isn’t elegant.” The grizzled veteran glanced about the room before concluding, “We’ll use the grappling hooks!”
Now I stroked Simone’s jet hair and told her it would all be fine, but I suppressed a shudder as I recalled the cruel barbs of those hooks, and of the crewmen who launched them.
How much do you drink?“How much do you drink?” she asked.
“Like I’m on vacation on the Indonesian island of Flores,” he assured.
She eyed him with a smirk. “You look like a guy who looks pretty cute in his mugshot: vital, sunburnt, carefree. Like the bar fight you were arrested for left you dazed but not seriously injured.”
He shrugged and she admired his lazy smile. “But in any case, you have the right to remain silent.” She cuffed his wrists together behind his back. “I’ll have to ask the booking officer if I can have a copy of your mugshot to see if I’m right.”
bonus points for using them in order!
Rune Skelley uses an extensive outlining process, predicated on the theory that well begun is mostly done. We devote a large amount of time up front and reap the benefits later. Kent finds this philosophy a natural fit for any kind of moderate- to large-scale project, because it’s a key tenet of best-practices software development: don’t rush into coding, because changes are much more expensive to do in code than on a whiteboard. And there will be changes.
So in fiction, don’t rush into prose. Writing is rewriting, and it’s wise to budget your heavy lifting for the places where it will pay off. Think of it this way: you’d rather spend money on an addition for your house than shoring up a sagging foundation. You expect the foundation to be solid, and if you need to work on it after the house is standing then something has gone terribly wrong.
It’s easy to imagine scrapping an entire chapter, say, once you discover where a story is going. That could happen no matter how detailed your outline was, but it’s more likely you’d be scrapping a line from your outline and never need to compose the chapter in the first place. There are more insidious traps that lack of preparation can create for you, though. Worse than a superfluous chapter is one that’s needed, and has much in it that you’re in love with, but suffers some systemic flaw. The main character’s voice finally coalesces in your head, and now there are passages that simply aren’t in that voice. The subject matter of a conversation needs to change, but you already worked so hard on that dialogue that you can’t hear it any other way.
There are people who extol writing with less structure, and there certainly are writers who have success via a totally unstructured process. Words like “fluid, creative, unhindered,” tend to get thrown around. Just bear in mind these three things:
We’re not asserting that the best writers never have to throw anything away, or he writes best who writes least. Far from it. In addition to an outline, we often generate many pages of apocrypha, prose that’s never intended as part of the manuscript. It helps us get our ear in for the voices, among other things. A lesson we’ve learned is that it’s better not to use our first chapters as the getting-acquainted phase of that relationship, for the reasons mentioned a few paragraphs ago. It’s a ton of work, no mistake, but it’s a smarter-not-harder scenario. Having a good process increases the rewards, although it won’t necessarily reduce the efforts.
How do you approach the initial stages of a new project? What level of structure works best for you?
The captain cleared his throatThe captain cleared his throat for perhaps a minute. Phoebe shuffled her feet, seeming just about bored enough to create a scene. Hoping to distract her, I reached over and rubbed her nose tip, which was cool, hard and prickly. She smiled. Finally, the captain began his speech, and I along with Phoebe and all the rest learned what real boredom can be. At last, he bade us all take our seats and the vehicle sped down the runway. And then up. The plane climbed like a firework, mashing me back in my seat and flattening Phoebe’s plumage. Our frightful acceleration didn’t seem to impede the hostess, who looked beguiling even in her uniform of a plain khaki shirt and slacks. Phoebe pecked the back of my head when I swiveled it to observe the hostess’s progress down the aisle. I wondered if perhaps the captain’s lugubrious oration might have contained important information, for the rate of our ascent continued to increase, as did the noise. Conversation was rendered impossible by sonic violence emanating from the engines. Thus I was unable to inquire as to whether, should we break apart somewhere above the atmosphere, people on the ground would still say we’d been killed in an aircrash.
bonus points for using them in order!
— now at last —For too many decades I harbored this thirst for vengeance, this desperate drive to make old Doctor Sour-apple pay for his culinary crimes. The godawful Scotch porridge he served every day for breakfast is my only memory of a childhood spent studying and training at his wretched Institute. To go unnoticed on my mission of revenge I dressed as others dressed in the twisting halls of the Institute, the way apprentices have dressed since life crawled from the sea. I kept my small nostrils wrinkled fastidiously as if I could still smell the terrible stench coming from the kitchen, even though years ago, with two jabs of a delicate needle, I severed the nerves in my nose, rendering myself anosmic. In this way, apprentice-berobed and nostrils aquiver, I made my way unchallenged to Doctor Sour-apple’s chambers and peered through the keyhole. From inside I could hear the phonograph he always played, the gargling sounds of rollicking witch laughter that passed for music in his estimation. As the cacophony reached its crescendo, I flung the doors wide and somersaulted into the room, placing three bullets in Sour-apple’s chest.
“I’ve been — waiting for you — so long,” Doctor Sour-apple gasped with his dying breaths, “— now at last — I am — released.” He shuddered and went still, a smile on his gray lips.
One of the great joys about working on a new novel (#6!) is getting to know the new characters. It’s also one of the biggest hurdles to clear before the prose will come together. Until you bond with these imaginary people, writing feels like putting words in their mouths. They say the lines, but after delivering each one they look over at you to see what’s supposed to happen next.
Kent and Jen have a few tricks they use to speed up the getting-acquainted stage with a new cast. Of course there’s tons of discussion and note-taking, filling out character sheets, learning the facts of their backstories. But facts can be dry and uninspiring. To get a richer feel for these characters, Rune Skelley likes roleplaying.
The other night, two characters from Rune’s upcoming sixth book strolled into iHop. Sure they looked like Jen and Kent, but rest assured that’s not who they were. Something even less obvious to casual observers was the temporal distortion bubble: the two individuals conversing across the booth were younger versions of themselves. A phase when they were closer, compared to the present-day events of the novel. When they could relax around each other, just chillin’ and being fictitious at a pancake joint.
Jen and Kent use roleplaying quite a lot. Another new character is a killer with a particular technique, which needed to be, um, road-tested. (A little.) It’s also useful for debugging dialogue and validating motivation, things that can come up in later stages of the writing.
Both Kent and Jen have a bit of theater background, and spent years playing Dungeons & Dragons and other FRPGs. Adopting another persona might be a bit easier because of that experience, but it’s just a matter of practice to get comfortable with it.
A solo author could of course make like Travis Bickle and role play in a mirror, but having a writing partner means you always have a costar on hand to make you feel less ridiculous.
Do you use roleplaying as part of your writing process?