The collaborative book

4 comments on “The collaborative book”

1. Nick Earls says:
   September 18th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

   I’m with you George. A collaborative novel sounds, on the surface, like a one-way ticket to madness to me. The last thing I’d want would be someone else getting their hands all over my clever aphorism because they somehow co-owned it. Some people seem fine with that though – and good for them for being such sharers.

   Rebecca Sparrow and I managed it by writing in tandem (her idea, and one used by several others previously). I had my chapters (from the main male character’s POV), she had her chapters (from the main female character’s POV) and we alternated. The deal was you took whatever came in and you worked with it – no changing the other author’s work. We kept that up right through to the editing. Our editor worked with me on my half, and with Bec on her half.

   So, we each had our own novel within the novel, in a way. It was still a new adventure though, sitting waiting for the Tuesday chapter to arrive before you could write Wednesday, then sending Wednesday off as soon as you’d hit the last ‘.’.

   I think it’s essential to have the right partner, the right story and the right ground rules. Plenty of other people seem to have been happy to take it on with less clarity than that though.

2. George says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 5:43 am

   Hi Nick,

   Thanks for the inside perpsective. That does sound easier. Was the editor’s job to smooth the structure out for continuity, etc, or was it to make the writing “match” to create the feel of a single author?

   G

3. Sara says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 7:07 am

   I’m in the thick of writing a collaborative novel with my thirteen-year-old son and have to say that half the fun is in actually working together – discussing the story, brainstorming for ideas, re-writing each other, and having him correct my awful typos.

4. Nick Earls says:
   September 20th, 2007 at 6:33 pm

   We wanted the two voices to remain distinct but compatible, so our editor looked at potential continuity glitches and focused on each of us getting the most out of our story, making sure each chapter paid its way. We had to pay particular attention when circumstances brought our characters’ relatively separate lives properly into collision about half way through – suddenly I had to be able to write about Bec’s character Cat’s father and she had to be able to write about my character Joel’s mother. At one level we each wanted to handle the other’s supporting characters with some caution, at another it was great to be able to bring a fresh pair of eyes to bear on these people. On thing we did do and that I don’t normally do was we sat down together and cut pictures out of magazines to represent our characters, so that we both had the same ideas about how they looked.

   The only time our editor got us to take a look at each other’s work was at the page-proof stage when she sent us each the other person’s chapters and asked us to check any dialogue that the other writer had put into our characters’ mouths. But Bec and I had worked hard to pay attention to that, so I don’t think we changed more than a word or two.

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