I’ve had a few people ask how co-writing works, so here’s
the secret:
…
You write a book with another person.
Blog over.
But, no, really, how does co-writing “work,” you might say.
Is it harder than writing a book by yourself? Easier?
Well, yes, it is.
This isn’t going well at all, you might tell me.
You make a good point. Let me try again.
How Laura & I Started
Co-Writing
Back in the day, there once was a serial fiction website
named JukePop. It was a happy place where Laura Morrison and I met and
frolicked with a group of fledgling writers all working on and sharing
different pet projects. We encouraged each other and made up fun games for each
other and talked incessantly about our work. These were good writing times.
Laura and I enjoyed many of the same things in writing and
in life, and we would frequently do first reads for each other and give each
other ideas about where to go next or serve as sounding boards for what’s working
and not working. In general, I'd say Laura is the better active listener and I am the
better idea vomiter. We all have our strengths.
One year, as part of Nanowrimo, we decided to write The
Co-Ed Files together. It was magical how that story clicked. We had our two
main characters split geographically because they were attending different colleges, and each girl pursued her own
mystery. Laura and I would throw out ideas for each other and carve out time to
write combined conversations, but the bulk of the writing was separate—two distinct
stories we managed to weave together at key points.
Around then, much of our writing crowd tried to dip into
the publishing world—self-publishing, traditional publishing, querying for
agents indie publishing, short stories, script-writing, podcasting, etc. The
publishing world was dark and soul-sucking and filled with faceless rejection and
deafening silence. We realized to survive, we would have to work on projects
that were fun, things we enjoyed writing despite writing only for ourselves.
During last year’s Nanowrimo season, Laura and I decided to
work on a project that was still fun, but possibly an easier sell with a more
focused young adult audience. The idea was based around a paper-making book
Laura was reading one day. The book advised using poisonous flowers as a
decorative paper element, and Laura and I agreed that sounded just like a mystery
Felicia and Emily would handle—death by poison paper. Of course a camp where
they had summer jobs was a natural setting for this mystery, and suddenly we
had the beginnings of an entire story.
We still divided up chapters based on points of view, but the
girls were in the same place at the same time a lot more during this mystery. More
frequently we had to match the styles of each girls’ speech patterns or
behavior, and we had to be pretty comfortable adding description or dialogue or
changing things around in each other’s chapters. We left each other a lot of
notes. Without writing the first book, I’m not sure we could have known these
characters (or each other) well enough to make this work.
The end of The BFF Files was hard to write! It took months
of writing and rewriting, schedule coordination and waiting while we sorted
through ideas that weren’t quite bringing all our plot threads together. At the
same time, our schedules blew up. Laura was juggling the promotion of two (!)
different indie-published novels. We both disappeared for days at a time into
the black hole of school vacations. Writing time evaporated because life
intervened.
Still, eventually, we finished. We each managed to complete
a final editing pass and get The BFF Files shipped off to our first round of
agents for consideration. Initial response has been good! We’ve learned a lot
from our individual forays into publishing, and our collective knowledge is clearly
paying off. Will it lead to publication…? Who really knows. Either way, the
process has been fun, and it’s been even more fun to share with a friend (who knows a little too much about poisonous plants--I'm just saying).
Next time, I’ll talk about the benefits and drawbacks of
co-writing. Until then, go find Laura here:
Or read this interview:
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