Tagged: Divided Man Series

Tag! You’re It!

The Rune Skelley approach to collaboration is normally a very planned-out and measured type of experience. As we’ve said in earlier posts, we like to keep things structured.

Well, this week has been interesting, in that we’re operating in a decidedly more seat-of-the-pants mode. We do have an outline for what we’re doing, but as the words are falling out it’s become kind of a relay race. The chapter is a highly kinetic sequence made of short scenes and alternating points of view, so during a work session there has been a lot more “tag! you’re it!” than usual.

What it reminds me of is something I would normally not recommend as a way to write with a partner. We call them chain stories, and they’re a sort of game where the object is to build from where the other player just left off and throw the tale in an unexpected direction for the next player. As a game it’s a lot of fun, but the results are seldom coherent. So far though, we’re really getting good stuff and we’ve been very productive. It’s probably made easier because this is the last chapter of the third book in a series. We know these characters like they’re real people, and we know our target.

The lesson is, there’s no single correct way for writers to work together. If you get into a flow, if the “jazz” approach is working, then go with it!

Happy writing!

Editing With a Partner

Once the fun of writing is out of the way it’s time to edit, and that’s another case where having a writing partner can be extremely helpful. You got yourselves into this mess, now you can work together to get yourselves out.

It’s sort of like having a child. The creation is the fun part. Once it’s there you both need to parent, and everyone will be happier if you’re on the same side.

We like to let a manuscript rest for awhile after the first draft is complete before we get into the editing process, to be able to see it with fresh eyes. When we do pick it up again, we start with a full read-through. On this first pass we mark major problems (plot holes, bad dialog, overexplaining or underexplaining) and any typos that we happen to catch, but we save the line-editing for later.

After each chapter we have a quick (and sometimes not so quick) conversation about what we’ve noticed. The goal is not to fix the problems on the spot, just to make each other aware of concerns so we can pay attention to them going forward.

A writer working on his or her own lacks the built-in sounding board a collaborator provides. The author might sense that there’s something wrong with a passage, but without a coauthor steeped in the minutia of the project to discuss it with, might be unable to diagnose the problem.

You do need to be careful, though, not to talk each other out of necessary edits. We’ll talk about that more in a future post.

Once the first read-through is done, it’s time to start working on those edits. Don’t worry, as you get in and start making changes, you’ll find a million other things to tweak and finesse. It’s fun! Honest!

If you were working on your own you’d be responsible for everything, but since you’re smart and have a writing partner, you can share the load. You can break it down by chapter if you like, or you can make assignments a different way. Set one partner to beefing up character descriptions and the other to improving dialog.

In our edits we’re currently dealing with the fallout of my darling partner deciding that the ending was too abrupt. This derailed all other work while we had lengthy brainstorming sessions and walked laps around the neighborhood, getting some exercise while we confused any eavesdropping neighbors with our cryptic conversational shorthand. We’re coming out the other side of that quagmire now, and I have to admit the finished product is going to be better for it.

Thanks, writing partner!

Sharing the Load with A Writing Partner

Last night was an interesting case in our collaboration workflow.

We’re revising the first draft of our third novel, after poring over all the marked-up copies from our critique group and also doing a fresh read-through of our own. The result is that we have about one hundred significant notes marked throughout the manuscript (Along with another couple hundred picky mechanical things).

This book is the last of a trilogy, which means it relies on knowledge from the first two. In an ideal world it would stand on its own, but this is not an ideal world. The need for recap and reminders about previous events applies somewhat in any sizable work, but it’s especially important to manage it well when the information spans more than one volume. Due to the somewhat unusual structure to our trilogy, this problem did not arise in volume 2, which makes this the first time we’ve had to attempt this delicate balance. Too much recap and the reader gets bored, too little and the reader gets lost.

So after flagging all the notes as “recap” or “other,” we discussed how to divvy up the load. One of the main advantages to working with a writing partner is that many hands make light work. With both collaborators working at the same time you can get done sooner. I proposed that I could take all the recaps, because it looked like roughly half of the work and it felt like there would be a mode to get into with it. My writing partner would tackle all the “other” stuff. My theory was there would be less shifting gears if all the recap-type stuff was given to the same person.

My partner was reluctant to embrace the idea, largely because this recapping is new territory for our collaboration. She was concerned that if I started out headed in the wrong direction I might get lost in some backwoods swamp of info-dumps and “as you know Bob.” We talked about it a bit more and came up with a plan that addressed the concerns. Because we don’t have an established model to follow, we agreed that I’d only do one to start off, and then we’d look it over and make sure we both liked the approach.

That first discussion did lead to some minor alterations, and the same thing happened with the next one. We’re finding the right groove, and soon I’ll be able to cook up batches of three or four at a time. Or, if she gets tired of hunting down minor plot inconsistencies and describing settings and character clothing in greater detail, we will be able to trade off assignments and maintain the level of stylistic consistency we need.