The (Too) Many-Worlds Hypothesis

Lately, we’re dividing our time between three fictional worlds (four if you count consensus reality). We’re brainstorming about the Ghost Novels, editing one of the Science Novels, and getting critique feedback about one of the Music Novels.

Back when we started this writing partnership, one of our policies was to avoid splitting our focus like this. We would dwell in one fictional universe at a time. Of course, that was a lot easier to stick to when we only had the one. Our concern, theoretical as it might have been, was that we’d waste too much mental energy switching between worlds. But you know what? It’s not been that hard, really.

A couple of years ago, we felt we had to bend our rules in order to accomplish our goals. It made us nervous, and there was a little bit of a learning curve. But like playing an instrument, or speaking a language, or anything else, it’s a trainable skill. We can do, now, exactly what we assumed wouldn’t work: hold three story worlds in our heads at the same time, and keep them straight.

As we flit about our various universes, we stay together. The critique notes about the Music Novel, we look at together and discuss. When it’s time to do Science Novel edits, we both knuckle down for that. Brainstorming about ghosties is a team sport. We find we can do just about anything as long as we’re doing it together. Probably the only time we’ve sent Kent off to one universe while Jen visited another is when there was cover artwork involved. (And, that worked just fine too. But we prefer to stay in sync.)

A writing partner is someone who’ll straddle three icebergs with you and help you not fall in.