Two sisters, Kris Webb and Kathy Wilson, make up the writing team of Kathy Webb. In a recent interview with Good Reading Magazine, Kathy explains how they work together:
We each take a scene and work on it for as long as feels right. Once we’ve gone as far as we can go, we swap the documents via email and either finish off the scene or edit it. Some scenes go back and forth between us many times. It means that rather than slaving over the same scene without getting anywhere, you get to work on a new scene, which is so much easier. It really is the perfect cure for writer’s block because when the inspiration stops, you can just hit the send button and someone else worries about it for a while.
Clearly, the benefits of working with another person are multiple: you have someone to bounce ideas off, you can bring different strengths into play and have someone to shore up your weaknesses, you can split the work load based on your current other-life commitments, you have someone to help with research, plotting, and the difficult editing stage, and so on.
There are also challenges, of course. There’s some purely practical considerations: to work together, particularly in the long-distance, email way described above, you absolutely must have good version control. It doesn’t matter how you arrange or organise it, but you have to have a way of maintaining a master file which is the current working version. Otherwise, you risk having one person’s latest edits in one version and the other person’s in another version and no master version which reflects all current changes. One way of doing this is to store every chapter/scene separately, so they can be worked on independently, and/or to use Track Changes or other versioning functionality in your word processing program. Server or online share programs can also help with this.
But it’s no good just shrugging and thinking you’ll be able to keep track of things: outline and stick to a system – even if this is just a list of who currently ‘has’ the latest version (‘has’ because you will both have versions of the electronic file) – if you think of something you want to add or change while the other person works on the latest version, note it down separately and add it only when you regain control of the file.
A second practical consideration is how you will be paid for your work (equitable split based on the amount of work done, flat fee etc). The best way to handle this is to have a contract which clearly lists the scope of work of each party, the due dates, the agreed payment or royalty split, and the payment date(s). This is vital in a working/business arrangement, but also important even when writing with friends or family: it will help maintain relationships if misunderstandings arise over who was supposed to have done what, and by when.
The big issue when working with another party is what to do when disagreements arise. Kathy, mentioned above, says, ‘one of us feels more strongly about it than the other so they tend to get their way’. What might work for two close sisters might not work for other people: there might be issues of ownership or control, where one person came up with the story and doesn’t like the way their partner wants to take it, or what they’re doing to the characters, or there might be genuine differences over the best way to resolve a plot point satisfactorily.
There are a number of ways to combat this: firstly, as with the Kathy Webb writing team, you need to choose your writing partner carefully: their writing likes and dislikes should be similar to yours (in genre and style), their writing skill should be at about the same level (though not necessarily in the same area; they might be very good at description and plotting, while you do dialogue well), and their attitude towards deadlines, targets and productivity should be similar (if you sit down and write 1000 words a day no matter what, you might find yourself quickly irritated with a partner who sits around waiting for the muse to show up).
Secondly, if you are going to work with a partner, you definitely do need character outlines and a plot summary; perhaps not chapter by chapter, but certainly you need a decent idea of how to get started and where you’re headed to; the rest can be worked out along the line, but having an outline and theme for the whole book may help head off disagreements.
Thirdly, when differences do arise, be prepared to discuss them with your partner; don’t just shut them down because ‘that character was my idea, therefore I get to decide how she dies’ or whatever: try to keep the story in focus and develop, together, the best thing to keep it on track. Keep any unused ideas for your own work or the next joint work. If all else fails, agree on an independent third party, a trusted reader or panel (perhaps your editor or publisher) who can adjudicate on which direction is best.
One of my favourite joint works is Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The wiki entry for the work discusses a bit of how they wrote together. Note: they chose to work together (it wasn’t forced on them by their publishers); they plotted and brainstormed at length together; one of them was the Keeper of the Official Master Copy (see – version control = important); and…they wouldn’t do it again.
