So, for a while now I’ve been working on what I’ll call the Project with a friend. This is the second time I’ve written with a partner, not counting writing prologue’s and epilogues with Kathleen and Dee for our Hell With The Ladies and Hell On Heels anthologies, or with Kathleen for this month’s Just Fooling Around Blaze Encounters (wasn’t THAT a clever way to work in my current release?!).
The first time I wrote with a partner was in L.A. We were both lawyers, and since we were in L.A., we wanted to be screenwriters (it’s in the water out there), and we’d go sit outside the Shubert theater every night after work and write longhand (this would have been the early 90s, and I don’t think I’d yet bought my big clunky notebook computer). We’d talk about what the next scene or sequence would be, then divvy up the work, and then the next day, he’d review mine and I’d review his. It worked surprisingly well, and produced two scripts. One, an uninspired cop-buddy flick. The second a solid coming of age story that got bandied about a bit but never sold (16 year old girl, baseball, smart-mouth grandfather. any takers?). I learned a lot from the process–how to communicate my ideas for a scene, how to critique someone else’s work. How not to get bent out of shape when someone else critiqued mine. (There are benefits to being a lawyer, by the way. I’ve never seen as much red pencil on a manuscript as I have on a draft of a brief getting filed with the United States Supreme Court!). And also how to blend and meld strengths and weaknesses. With my LA partner, he was particularly strong on one particular aspect of the story–baseball. And those of you who know me are laughing, because I’m the girl who might actually ask how many touchdowns the team got! But we worked together well, with him putting baseball stuff in context, both as per the game, and as per theme, and me working with plot around that tentpole, and focusing especially on our girl heroine.
Now, I’ve been working on the Project, and it’s been a really great experience. I’ve always said I’d never write an historical, but writing with a partner has made it absolutely delightful. I can IM him and ask stupid questions, and because he’s a research geek, he jumps all over it (“No, Partner, I don’t need the entire history of money in Italy. Just the answer to the one question!). And the writing process has been surprisingly smooth, aided by Track Changes and comments. One of us does a draft, the other one whacks it up, and rather than have it been all “but these are my beloved words!” I’ve found that we actually get to the heart of the scene — and to a final draft — much faster.
Overall, the whole process has been fascinating and fun and something I’d definitely repeat. So in my experience, partner writing has been a big thumbs-up. How about y’all? Anyone out there write with a partner? Want to? Why or why not? And what pitfalls have befallen you in the process?
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Writing with the right partner is a dream (as Julie has pointed out). It’s so much fun, it hardly feels like work. And two heads, in cases like these, are definitely better than one. Given a choice between writing by myself (which for me is a very lonely business) and writing with the right partner, I’ll take the partner every single time. And the work will be all the stronger for it.
Writing with the wrong partner is an absolute nightmare. Avoid that at all costs.
He speaks!!!!! Yay Aaron! Research geek and writing partner extraordinaire. Honestly, we’re having to much fun!
How cool that it is working out for you both!
You sound like you have written with the wrong partner, Aaron. Give us the juicy gossip
Oh God, where to start?
I should have known we were doomed when even the slightest story suggestions I would make would turn into a yelling match (yes, a yelling match). It was torture, sheer torture , to get anything done. Everything was challenged (and not in a good way), there was a great resistance to changing anything my partner had written, and it seemed like I spent 90% of my time trying to phrase something diplomatically and delicately rather than on actually improving the work itself.
Now in my partner’s defense, I was probably equally as obnoxious and stuck in my ways. We both drew a lot of lines in the sand. We were way younger and very inexperienced with the craft of writing, not to mention way too full of testosterone. I will never do anything like that again.
By contrast, Julie has been an angel. Our strengths complement each other beautifully. I admire her “voice,” her ideas, her enthusiasm, her amazing work ethic, and her constant professionalism. Plus, I just love her and her family to death. Crafting the story and the novel with her has been incredibly satisfying and leaves me smiling like an idiot.
I can see Julie and I writing many projects together. I hope she realizes that. She’ll have to hire an incredibly large and unsympathetic man named “Big Eddie” if she ever wants to get rid of me.
Wow, that’s a great testament to Julie. I know I could write something with Julie if we ever thought about writing the same kind of stuff. Alas, we are on opposite ends of the fiction spectrum.
Awww! There I was in how to train a dragon. With my ears burning!!! Thanks. And no need for Big Eddie
)
Seriously ears on fire. But I am so not surprised to find how much you love working with Julie Aaron! And I think the project is way cool too! I’m kind of a loner on the working front but my daughter and I were just talking today about how invigorating (and probably infuriating) it would be to write in a writers room for TV. I’d love to write for All My Children some day. Too much fun!
Dee, I used to dream about writing for AMC! LOL!
I was surprised when I found out that one of my favorite writers (of the romances I used to sneak off my mom’s bookshelf) was a husband and wife team. Now Tony and Lori “Tori Carrington” come to mind. Can you imagine writing with your spouse? Now that would never work for me and Mr. Right. Oh no no no.
In a word, NO
Ditto!
I have never worked with a partner and I am not going to start now. Me, myself and I have our hands full as it is.
I was writing a book with Kathleen Givens. We’d planned a whole series. We were having so much fun with it, though we were not sure what to expect going in. I think we were both afraid that our styles wouldn’t mesh and that the process might prove too problematic. But no. We worked really well together and I’m determined to get back to finish one of the things we started.
Oh, you most definitely should finish it!
That would be so totally great! You definitely should do it. If anything ever happens to me — Julie already knows she’s tagged it — along with my daughter.