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Writing a story with another person is a risky undertaking; you may not fully understand the peril you’re putting yourself in by agreeing to such an endeavor. At first, everything may seem fine- your writing partner may seem eager and intelligent, teeming with good humor, great ideas and praise for your own inputs. This can be a trap, a false front. The moment may come when there is a difference of opinion about a plot point or a certain character and this is where you must be on your guard.
Understand that your writing partner is a creative force of nature, a vector that will not naturally be focused in the same direction as yourself. The first impulse of such a creature to any obstacle deviating from their vision of the story, no matter how small, can be a reason for wrath. Watch for tightness in their words and a lack of praise for all your efforts. Shortness in their comments and longer moments of silence can all be indicators of a sinister plot taking form. If these disagreements start to accumulate, beware! Your writing partner may try to kill you, gaining for themselves full creative control of your collaborative project.
The above, of course, is an embellishment, but it proves to drive home the importance of being able to resolve disagreements in a collaborative project. There will be disagreements, you can’t do anything about that. There will be moments that leave you wondering why your writing partner is dead set on destroying the beautiful thing you’ve created or why they’ve suddenly changed from an insightful, intelligent source of wisdom into a deranged lunatic whose ravings should be confined to an asylum!
*Ahem*
How you deal with moments of disagreement will make or break your story. The story can be stronger for them, or it can die, then and there, as an unfinished wreck while you contemplate the murder of the alleged cause of this disaster: your writing partner No one is immune. So, before you try to strangle anyone through a monitor, take a step back and think. Conflict while writing is like tempering steel, so long as it doesn’t end the project. No one wants this, obviously, but a story can falter and collapse if you don’t take steps to prevent project ending arguments. The one thing you don’t want to do is murder your story.
Choose wisely. Before you get started, ask the question: “Can I work with this person?” Remember high school group projects where two people did most of the work and the third person sort of came along for the ride? That won’t cut it. Decide what everyone will be doing up front and commit to things like deadlines and workloads. Be realistic. If you’re a single mother of three holding down two jobs but you think you can manage ten thousand words a week when previously you’ve been able to write five hundred at best, then perhaps you need a more realistic goal. By all means stretch yourself! But don’t over commit and under deliver; that’s a sure way to let a prospective partnership down. Really question if everyone in the collaboration is a close match for voice, style and quality. You won’t find a perfect pairing, but you should be close. Having collaborators that have similar writing styles will eliminate many arguments about point of view, style and voice before they start.
Plan together. Writing a step sheet is an important first step for any project but it’s critical for a collaboration. Make a summary, plan your chapters, and agree on how you want the big events of the story to unfold. I don’t know how many times I asked “Okay, what’s next?” only to have my writing partner respond with “Well, according to the step sheet we both agreed on…” Right. I once had a friend tell me that contracts save friendships. Real, written contracts, not the verbal kind. Consider a step sheet the contract that can save your writing project. You and your partner can’t argue about things you’ve already agreed on, plus it is way easier to agree on and fix issues in a chapter summary than it is to fix a partially completed novel.
Communicate. This might seem like a given, but it’s worth saying. A step sheet can only go so far in setting up events and story elements. Stories evolve as they’re written, characters develop in unforeseen ways and inspiration can strike when you least expect it. When you get an idea that diverts from the plan make sure you let your writing partner know ahead of time, don’t let them find out when you’re deep into editing. Writing is a lonely profession because, really, who can you talk to about the deep personal entanglements of your favorite character? Even other writers will stumble at the task since it’s not their story. Well, it is your partner’s story. In a collaboration, you have the unique opportunity to discuss your story with another human being and have them understand everything completely. With our collaboration we still wrote alone, but discussed at length any problems or snags we found. Having a sounding board who knows exactly what you’re talking about is the most gratifying part of team writing. Use it.
Know your weakness. The real power of the collaboration is to combine your strengths to counter your weaknesses. For this to work, you need to fess up. Acknowledge that you are not an all-knowing writer, perfect in every nuance of the craft. Point at your weakness, wave and say hello, then ask for help in that area. It’s not easy, human beings don’t like admitting they’re not good at an aspect of their craft, but it is necessary to get the most out of the partnership. Letting your partner write the scenes where you’re weak has a two-fold benefit: the story becomes stronger and you can learn from someone who is strong in that area. Don’t feel like you’re letting the collaboration down, chances are, if you’ve chosen wisely, your partner will be asking to write a few scenes and be learning from you. The story becomes stronger and you both grow as writers. What could be better than that?
Check your ego at the door. If you’re a serious writer, you won’t need it. Ever. I recently read the ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield and one quote resonated with me: “The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.” Any criticism received from your writing partner is not a personal attack, it’s an honest attempt to make the story better. They are not insulting your skill as a writer, they are pointing out something that you might have missed or giving a different perspective on the same scene or character. Isn’t that why we collaborate in the first place? Once you remove your ego from the equation, all that’s left is the work set out before you. It is work, and it is not an easy task. Anything you can do to get to the serious act of writing is what you should do. Letting pettiness get in the way is a project destroyer.
I’ll never say that writing is easy. It’s not. It’s a job and you need to treat it as such. Usually it’s lonely work as well, toiling away at a keyboard or paper at any hour that works. With a collaboration, you have the unique opportunity to share this work with another person who is as passionate about the project as you are. You will never, ever get the same response to a new idea, or a great line as you will from your collaborative partner. There is potential for disaster, there is potential for a murderous rage to grip you as you get the latest tracked changes back from your partner, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The potential for a fantastic story is far greater as long as the collaborative effort finds a way to harmonize their skills and learns to resolve problems reasonably. As the saying goes, one stick alone can be broken, but a bundle is much stronger. If you get the chance to collaborate, I sincerely hope you take the chance; if you can get it to work it is spectacular.
John Gunningham
John Gunningham lives in the flatlands of Saskatchewan with his wife, two kids and two pure bred shelties. He writes spec fiction and the odd poem when he’s not forced into life’s necessities of family, day jobs and sleep. He’s currently working on several short and novel length projects with an eye towards self-publishing. The collaborative effort “The Captain of The Monte Cristo” with fellow Canadian Sarah K. L. Wilson is available on Amazon now.
Where to find John
Website: johngunningham.com
Buy his book: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B073SQ8165
Subscribe to his newsletter: www.subscribepage.com/j1m9p5
Collaborative Writing Support Group: How not to Murder your Writing Partner
Writing a story with another person is a risky undertaking; you may not fully understand the peril you’re putting yourself in by agreeing to such an endeavor. At first, everything may seem fine- your writing partner may seem eager and intelligent, teeming with good humor, great ideas and praise for your own inputs. This can be a trap, a false front. The moment may come when there is a difference of opinion about a plot point or a certain character and this is where you must be on your guard.
Understand that your writing partner is a creative force of nature, a vector that will not naturally be focused in the same direction as yourself. The first impulse of such a creature to any obstacle deviating from their vision of the story, no matter how small, can be a reason for wrath. Watch for tightness in their words and a lack of praise for all your efforts. Shortness in their comments and longer moments of silence can all be indicators of a sinister plot taking form. If these disagreements start to accumulate, beware! Your writing partner may try to kill you, gaining for themselves full creative control of your collaborative project.
The above, of course, is an embellishment, but it proves to drive home the importance of being able to resolve disagreements in a collaborative project. There will be disagreements, you can’t do anything about that. There will be moments that leave you wondering why your writing partner is dead set on destroying the beautiful thing you’ve created or why they’ve suddenly changed from an insightful, intelligent source of wisdom into a deranged lunatic whose ravings should be confined to an asylum!
*Ahem*
How you deal with moments of disagreement will make or break your story. The story can be stronger for them, or it can die, then and there, as an unfinished wreck while you contemplate the murder of the alleged cause of this disaster: your writing partner No one is immune. So, before you try to strangle anyone through a monitor, take a step back and think. Conflict while writing is like tempering steel, so long as it doesn’t end the project. No one wants this, obviously, but a story can falter and collapse if you don’t take steps to prevent project ending arguments. The one thing you don’t want to do is murder your story.
Choose wisely. Before you get started, ask the question: “Can I work with this person?” Remember high school group projects where two people did most of the work and the third person sort of came along for the ride? That won’t cut it. Decide what everyone will be doing up front and commit to things like deadlines and workloads. Be realistic. If you’re a single mother of three holding down two jobs but you think you can manage ten thousand words a week when previously you’ve been able to write five hundred at best, then perhaps you need a more realistic goal. By all means stretch yourself! But don’t over commit and under deliver; that’s a sure way to let a prospective partnership down. Really question if everyone in the collaboration is a close match for voice, style and quality. You won’t find a perfect pairing, but you should be close. Having collaborators that have similar writing styles will eliminate many arguments about point of view, style and voice before they start.
Plan together. Writing a step sheet is an important first step for any project but it’s critical for a collaboration. Make a summary, plan your chapters, and agree on how you want the big events of the story to unfold. I don’t know how many times I asked “Okay, what’s next?” only to have my writing partner respond with “Well, according to the step sheet we both agreed on…” Right. I once had a friend tell me that contracts save friendships. Real, written contracts, not the verbal kind. Consider a step sheet the contract that can save your writing project. You and your partner can’t argue about things you’ve already agreed on, plus it is way easier to agree on and fix issues in a chapter summary than it is to fix a partially completed novel.
Communicate. This might seem like a given, but it’s worth saying. A step sheet can only go so far in setting up events and story elements. Stories evolve as they’re written, characters develop in unforeseen ways and inspiration can strike when you least expect it. When you get an idea that diverts from the plan make sure you let your writing partner know ahead of time, don’t let them find out when you’re deep into editing. Writing is a lonely profession because, really, who can you talk to about the deep personal entanglements of your favorite character? Even other writers will stumble at the task since it’s not their story. Well, it is your partner’s story. In a collaboration, you have the unique opportunity to discuss your story with another human being and have them understand everything completely. With our collaboration we still wrote alone, but discussed at length any problems or snags we found. Having a sounding board who knows exactly what you’re talking about is the most gratifying part of team writing. Use it.
Know your weakness. The real power of the collaboration is to combine your strengths to counter your weaknesses. For this to work, you need to fess up. Acknowledge that you are not an all-knowing writer, perfect in every nuance of the craft. Point at your weakness, wave and say hello, then ask for help in that area. It’s not easy, human beings don’t like admitting they’re not good at an aspect of their craft, but it is necessary to get the most out of the partnership. Letting your partner write the scenes where you’re weak has a two-fold benefit: the story becomes stronger and you can learn from someone who is strong in that area. Don’t feel like you’re letting the collaboration down, chances are, if you’ve chosen wisely, your partner will be asking to write a few scenes and be learning from you. The story becomes stronger and you both grow as writers. What could be better than that?
Check your ego at the door. If you’re a serious writer, you won’t need it. Ever. I recently read the ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield and one quote resonated with me: “The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.” Any criticism received from your writing partner is not a personal attack, it’s an honest attempt to make the story better. They are not insulting your skill as a writer, they are pointing out something that you might have missed or giving a different perspective on the same scene or character. Isn’t that why we collaborate in the first place? Once you remove your ego from the equation, all that’s left is the work set out before you. It is work, and it is not an easy task. Anything you can do to get to the serious act of writing is what you should do. Letting pettiness get in the way is a project destroyer.
I’ll never say that writing is easy. It’s not. It’s a job and you need to treat it as such. Usually it’s lonely work as well, toiling away at a keyboard or paper at any hour that works. With a collaboration, you have the unique opportunity to share this work with another person who is as passionate about the project as you are. You will never, ever get the same response to a new idea, or a great line as you will from your collaborative partner. There is potential for disaster, there is potential for a murderous rage to grip you as you get the latest tracked changes back from your partner, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The potential for a fantastic story is far greater as long as the collaborative effort finds a way to harmonize their skills and learns to resolve problems reasonably. As the saying goes, one stick alone can be broken, but a bundle is much stronger. If you get the chance to collaborate, I sincerely hope you take the chance; if you can get it to work it is spectacular.
John GunninghamJohn Gunningham lives in the flatlands of Saskatchewan with his wife, two kids and two pure bred shelties. He writes spec fiction and the odd poem when he’s not forced into life’s necessities of family, day jobs and sleep. He’s currently working on several short and novel length projects with an eye towards self-publishing. The collaborative effort “The Captain of The Monte Cristo” with fellow Canadian Sarah K. L. Wilson is available on Amazon now.
Where to find John
Website: johngunningham.com
Buy his book: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B073SQ8165
Subscribe to his newsletter: www.subscribepage.com/j1m9p5
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