Collaborative Writing (Part Three)

You’ve found a writing partner and you’re ready to start a collaborative project. Congratulations! This could be a delightful blending of creative talents. If you’re lucky, all the pieces will fall into place and the next few weeks, months, or years will bring ongoing delight. We want that for you, we really do. But human relationships are complicated, so if you’re not willing to leave your narrative creations to chance, here are some ways to ensure the collaborative process will run smoothly. 

Mechanics

Determine how you’re going to do the actual writing. A shared Google document. Trading files back and forth through email. Maybe you’ll meet on Zoom several times a week and talk through every chapter. Perhaps you’ll rent a couple of rooms at an all-inclusive resort and spend six weeks together busting out the first draft between mojitos. 

Are you going to write in the morning, evening? Every day? How many words or chapters do you want to aim for every week? 

Boundaries and Shared Load

When writing with another person, one of the most important parameters is sharing work. Who is going to write which parts? How can you both ensure that each person not only carries an equal load of the work, but also has an equal share of their own voice in the final product? What happens when you have a disagreement? 

When you’re writing with someone, you have to be able to communicate effectively, just as in any other relationship.

Publication

Before you start planning or writing, I highly recommend discussing your plans for publication. Do you both want to query agents, submit to small publishers, self-publish? What are your plans if option one doesn’t work out? Do you have a fallback plan? Agree in advance about how you want to handle publication and on such things as time frames and marketing. 

Putting It All Together

For my own first collaboration, when I wrote A Murder Most Queer (based on Hamlet) with Andrew Buckley, we alternated chapters and shared our first drafts with each other. We then went over the other person’s work and left notes. We met weekly by zoom to discuss the upcoming plot points, whether anything had changed in our outline based on what we’d written the previous week. 

We aimed to write a chapter a week, but towards the end, we were each writing two chapters a week. We edited each other’s chapters and then either approved the other’s edits or set them aside to talk about during our weekly meetings. 

Because we live in relative proximity to each other, we’re able to attend conferences together and give collaborative workshops based on our partnership.  Once the book is published, it won’t be difficult to make appearances or attend readings together. Though geographic closeness isn’t a deal-breaker, it is another thing to consider. 

A writing partnership can enrich the solitary writing experience, giving both people new excitement and joy in their writing. If you’re ready to get started, consider reaching out to a writer you admire and see what happens. It could be the best (writing) relationship of your life.