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Collaborating
Unknown • Sep 05, 2019
Collaborating
September 5, 2019
Everyone asks, “How do you do it?”
The answer is basic—you collaborate on a book the same way you’d deactivate a bomb.
Carefully!
Collaborating is a beautiful thing when it works.
We’re watching Hurricane Dorian during this peak in the hurricane season, so think of people forming a human chain to fill and transfer sandbags to create a barrier against flooding.
In the same way collaborating on a book can enrich and expand or deepen the story.
Good Intentions
People come to the idea of collaborating with good intentions and, initially, they’re on their best behavior—like on a first date.
Maintaining that is the challenge.
Gail and I have known each other for over two decades, which helps enormously.
We know each other’s tastes, the way the other thinks, topics we’re sensitive about, etc.
We can communicate in shorthand when pressed for time, and can anticipate the other’s feelings about a situation.
Also, I’ve learned a great deal from previous attempts at collaborating, which failed.
For the most part they failed because people didn’t want to put in the time and do the hard work.
Writing a book is difficult.
Writing with someone else is harder yet.
You have to leave your ego at the door and, as in a marriage, you need to stay in continual like/love and respect with your writing partner.
Disagreements are a given.
Something is wrong if you find yourselves agreeing on everything.
How you negotiate the moments of conflict will show you how long your partnership is likely to last.
This is the other part of “show don’t tell” in the craft.
In any
relationship, don’t tell the other person(s) you trust and believe in their opinion and value.
Show
them!
Plot First
Sure, sometimes when we get an idea and the characters are eager to speak, or a story opening is vivid in our minds, we’ll jot down some dialogue or write a rough draft of the scene.
Don’t trust creativity to hang around 24/7, and for goodness sake don’t trust that you’ll remember it later.
You won’t.
Next, sit down together and plot the story in synopsis form.
Beginning, middle, end.
We know many writers who write and never know the end and that’s Russian Roulette as far as we’re concerned.
We’ve had other writers snicker at us for having complete synopses of every scene, acting as though it kills the creativity.
It doesn’t, and in the meantime you’re establishing the flow of your story, giving the reader a sense of rhythm and the themes you’re establishing.
Watch that great music producing show SONGLAND and see how those established producers talk about strong openings and memorable choruses with a rough draft of a song by an aspiring writer.
Or consider a skyscraper and think about what the architect devised through weeks and months to hold that huge, complicated thing together—the end results being a work of majesty.
Remember you can always deviate from your synopsis as ideas and issues present themselves—and they will.
But that means going back repeatedly and making necessary adjustments to make change mesh and blend smoothly.
I read a suspense some time ago where the author changed her mind about who the killer was at the end, and you could hear the discord in the character’s dialogue from male to female about two-thirds through.
Doing the Work
“Who does the writing?” our readers ask.
“Do you each take a chapter and then blend them together or what?”
WHAT?!
Heck, no.
There are enough challenges in making a book’s “voice” sound even and consistent what with the character voices, and the narrative voice without adding another persona to the mix.
Once we have our synopsis, and bible complete with character studies, photos, maps of the town/location, rough layouts of houses or shops or workplaces, and a calendar, so we can keep track of the time progression of our story, we start meeting to actually compose scenes, and chapters.
It’s worked out that Gail types off her laptop and we jointly start dictating as ideas come to us.
On a highly productive day, we can produce up to twenty pages.
A challenging transition day can be deemed successful if we get five.
During the week, while Gail deals with her life as Office Manager at Franklin County Historical Society, I tweak, polish, and look for continuity issues.
Deadlines
It’s deceptive to think that because you have the luxury of publishing independently, you have no deadline.
You’re running a business, and your customers—the readers—want product when promised, or on a schedule that pleases their appetite.
A well-crafted novel or mystery/suspense takes at least a year to write.
Category genre fiction takes three to four months.
The fiction that rises to literary standards has paid its dues.
Gone with the Wind took ten years.
Six years for War and Peace.
One for Pride and Prejudice, although until it was published seven years later, it went through a number of edits.
Our first two novels took a year each, our latest took two years.
Procrastination can never be allowed to be an issue.
One person must be the motivator for the other.
The desire for a paycheck helps.
Of course, a good deal depends on the depth and breadth of the work, as well.
If you suddenly realize you have a meaty project on your hands, take a deep breath and hunker down for the long haul.
Understand that a book is never really finished.
You either have a deadline that allows no extension, or you know you can’t improve it anymore without the danger of injuring it somehow, or you psychologically know the relationship between you and the story has run its course.
Learn to sense when it’s time to let it go.
