Caren Johnson Literary Agency

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Caren’s been busy this month assigning her authors blog topics. She gave me collaboration. Now, collaboration—which is the art of joining forces with another author to write a book for fun and profit—is a natural fit for me since I recently finished a how-to book with the amazingly talented (yeah, she pays me to say stuff like that) Christie Craig. Our book, THE EVERYTHING GUIDE TO WRITING A ROMANCE NOVEL, will be released in September 2008 through Adams Media. Because we had so much fun the first time, Christie and I have been working on other non-fiction projects.

Who knew that we could work together so well?

Without killing each other, I mean.

Anyway, when Caren asked me to write this blog, I began to think about the way Christie and I collaborate. For us, we’ve found that the best approach is to brainstorm the content, then divide the chapters, write the chapters and critique each other’s work afterward. The person who writes the chapter gets the final word on whether to accept or decline the suggested critique. Overall, we operate under the following five rules:

1. Respect each other. You have to respect your writing partner, which means you’ll need to park your ego at the office door. It also means you may need to remind yourself that you’re involved in a partnership here, rather than a solo enterprise. (Meaning, you are not in charge and neither is your partner; you both must learn the art of compromising.)

2. Agree up front on who does what. In the beginning, you may need to experiment to find the best way to divide the workload. For the EVERYTHING GUIDE TO WRITING A ROMANCE NOVEL, we agreed that we would each write the same number of chapters. Some writing partners collaborate on chapters by taking turns writing scenes. (Think about the partnership between Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, where they divvy up the writing by the He Said/She Said approach.) There is no right way for everyone, so you need to find the method that works best for you.

3. Divide the work evenly. This one goes along with Number Two. When you decide who will do what, make sure the split is even. If you keep the mix 50/50, each person will be doing his/her fair share of the workload.

4. Decide how to resolve conflicts before you have them. Trust me, this isn’t something you want to hammer out during the heat of a conflict. (Or else you both might be using real hammers.) What works for Christie and me depends on the type of conflict we’re having. If the scene/chapter has been written, the author has the final word, as I stated above. But if we’re discussing the idea/concept and we disagree on how to proceed, then the person who has the strongest opinion (whether pro or con) has to write it.

5. Respect each other. This one is so important that I need to list it twice. To have a successful collaboration, and still remain on speaking terms afterward, you must respect the opinion, talent and skill of your writing partner.

Now, I won’t kid you. Collaborating can be a lot harder than writing a book solo—but, if you follow those five golden rules above, it can also make a daunting project easier to finish because you’re combining the very best of two talented, creative people.

So, what do you think? Could work together with someone on a writing project? Have you tried it? If so, how did it work out? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Faye

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www.FayeHughes.net