How to Not Kill Your Co-Writer

This week we’re going to be talking to anybody out there wanting to collaborate on a project with another writer.

Working with another person on a story is great. It’s a collaborative effort between two people, you have an automatic springboard to bounce ideas off of, and just speaking from experience, it tends to be a lot less lonely than writing on your own. Having a co-writer means that there’s someone out there who’s just as excited about your story and your characters as you are, which is considerably more fun. This might just be my opinion, but looking at the books I really love that have multiple authors, I feel like the stories are always bigger, if that makes sense. Like maybe having two brains working on something allows you room to think bigger, be bolder, and maybe find options story-wise that you never would have found on your own. Sounds great, right?

The only problem, as you probably know if you’ve tried to work on a story with someone, is that co-writing is really, really hard.

That’s one reason Kristin suggested I talk about our co-writing experience this week- I’m sure there are a thousand or more ways to co-write with someone, but maybe sharing what we do will be helpful to some other writers out there in the ether of the internet who are trying to collaborate on their own story.

We might have touched on this some in our introductory blog (click here if you want to go back in time to Post #1), but it’s always been the running joke that Kristin and I share an imagination. We’re cousins, who truthfully are more like sisters, and we’ve always kind of been on the same wavelength about things ever since we were little. By the time we were old enough to really be serious about writing, it seemed pretty natural to try to work on a story together after we jabbered out a cool idea one day.

If you’ve read blog #1, then you know where this is going. It took a solid five years or so to actually figure out how to write together due to a whole host of reasons, despite our best efforts and desire to write. A lot of that pertained to time, distance, and figuring out how to write together in a way that worked successfully, but for the sake of this blog, we’re just going to focus on what worked for us to become good co-writers.

So, here are some things we had to consider on our journey:

1. Get on the Same Wavelength

As you may or may not already know, Kristin and I dreamed up the idea for our manuscript The Visionary together. We sat down one day, threw out a bunch of ideas we thought were cool, and had several settings, characters, and an inciting incident figured out by the end of the conversation.

Because we did all the initial brainstorming together, we ended up being on the same page about a lot of what needed to come afterward. By discussing the setting and inciting incident (a real plot came much, much later), we had a general idea of the vibe of the story, informing genre and style. Coming up with the characters together meant we figured out a lot of their personalities, appearance, and behavior at the beginning of the story, which cut down on confusion later. Figuring out who the characters were and maybe most specifically their ages, helped inform category- for example, writing about fourteen-year-olds might be a completely different story than one where the characters are, say, eighteen. Saying a character has powers sets you up completely differently than one where the characters are normal.

Because we were on the first page from…well, before there was a first page…we could work in tandem based on the core information we had figured out, even if we were working individually. We knew in general what we were working toward and the vibe the writing needed to fall under. We knew who the characters were and what types of actions were plausible for them to take. We knew the genre and category, which informs what sort of things you’re allowed to get away with plot or character-wise.

2. Method

As I mentioned above, though we were really on the same page regarding story and characters, it took Kristin and I a very long time to figure out a format, medium, and technique for working together. That being said, even though it took us a long time to figure out how to work together, there were things we had to take into account to work together.

Strong Suits/Style:

One thing to keep in mind is the writing ability of your partner. What are their strong suits? What sort of style do they favor, technique-wise?

For us, I tend to be very wordy in the description department and write smaller sections of dialogue. Kristin, in contrast, tends to write more in dialogue and smaller descriptions. Because we were opposites in this aspect, for example, writing together actually seemed to work well because our strengths and weaknesses balanced each other out. If Kristin wrote a scene that was primarily dialogue, I could pop in and round out the description. If I wrote a scene that needed some work conversationally, Kristin would go through and point out opportunities to add more relevant dialogue.

Honesty/ Safe Creative Space:

Another thing we found crucial to co-writing together was honesty. Though we were on the same page about a lot of things, there were times where completely unfiltered discussion was needed to figure things out. You and your co-writer need to be able to discuss any idea freely without fear of criticism. Listen to each other. Don’t shoot down ideas without fully talking it out.

If we had been afraid to suggest ideas, The Visionary would have hit a whole lot of problems real fast. If a scene isn’t quite working, you’ve got to be able to talk it out and find a solution. Kristin noted too that if one of us was having trouble with a scene, we usually had a gut feeling that something was off, and the next step was going to the other person and saying, “Hey, I don’t think something’s working here. What do you think?” A co-writer gives you a second pair of eyes on everything. Utilize their knowledge and gut instincts as well.

One weird thing that happened with us writing together was that I think we started to anticipate how the other would write and where they might be going with an idea. There were even a couple of times where we flip-flopped. There was one time I was dead certain Kristin was going to make a character a dentist as a joke because she put them in an animal tooth necklace, and she never thought of that when writing the scene. Because I was thinking the way I thought Kristin would write, a goofy joke that might have gotten overlooked made it into the book and all was well with the world.

Give Yourself Time/Communication:

Obviously, communicating with your co-writer is extremely important, but one thing we found out is that you have to be willing to give yourself time. Before writing a scene, we always made a point to actively talk it out together- that way, we both had at least a vague idea of where the other person was going before they started the scene and then we could also give an okay on the idea or talk out what would maybe work or not work.

Sometimes though, it would take multiple discussions for a scene to be fully fleshed out. It’s really easy to get frustrated with yourself or your writing partner if a scene is getting stalled, but the scene will be better if you don’t rush it and give yourself time to do it right and get things figured out. There were times when I had to talk out a scene if I was having trouble wrapping my mind around the things that needed to happen or a particular setting. There were times when Kristin, I, or both of us would get held up based on whatever was going on in our lives at a particular moment.

What we learned is to be patient (with ourselves and each other), talk stuff out freely, and communicate openly. If we were working on a scene and it became clear it wasn’t going to get done by the time we originally thought it would, then we told each other honestly and straight to the point. If there was a piece of a scene one of us needed help on, then we went to the other person and said, “Hey, I might need to talk this out some more.”

To tie all this together, I’ll give an example of how Kristin and I learned to work together.

For The Visionary, we started together from the very first second figuring out all the basic need-to-know information: general story idea, characters, setting, plot, inciting incident, etc. Then once we finally figured out a method and medium where we could work together or independently, what we did was talk out each scene together, and a lot of times I ended up typing out a scene while we were still talking. Usually by the end of the conversation, one of us would say, “I know where this is going. I’ll go ahead and finish out this scene.”, while the other would typically go, “Okay. I think I have an idea for the next chapter.”

In this way, we ended up tag-teaming the writing, and if one of us got stalled, we’d either come back and discuss some more or the other would be able to pick up on the part where we got stuck. It worked great. Plus, where we were both fully on the same page of who the characters were and where they needed to go, it was very easy for both of us to write our main character, Jade. All we had to do was ensure that it wasn’t easy to tell that two different people were writing her, and we didn’t seem to have too much trouble with maintaining a consistent voice, I think because we were very clear on who she was.

Now, that’s all well and good if we’re talking about The Visionary. If we’re talking about co-writing the sequel to Visionary, where there are two narrators instead of one, it’s a completely different story. Our hope was to try to do the tag-team method that worked so well in the first story, but we quickly found out that wasn’t going to work. The one thing we didn’t want to do to write both characters was to have one of us write one narrator while the other wrote the other.

Can you guess what ended up happening?

Out of necessity, I ended up continuing to write Jade as the first narrator, while Kristin took the story’s second narrator, who will currently remain nameless to avoid spoilers. Even though this was the one thing we said we didn’t want to do, this particular story’s setup required two very distinct voices, and because we were writing separately, we ensured both narrators sounded different from each other. The one thing that was really helpful though was that where we had both written Jade and, subsequently, the second narrator before they began narrating, we could still write in that tag-team style if need be. I still contributed description to some of Kristin’s scenes, despite the new voice talking, and she could still add dialogue or pick up on a scene if I was having trouble with it. We had to adjust our technique, but we still found a way to work together productively.

Writing with another person is hard. It can be difficult to figure out in method and blending of techniques. It requires awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as someone else’s, and can be a long lesson in honest and productive communication. Still, if you and your partner are able to find a way to work together effectively, the result can be wonderful…and, to be honest, just a lot more fun.

Those were just some of the things that ended up working for us, but if you know of any cool ways to co-write in a more productive way, let us know. Or if you’re more of a reader, let us know some of your favorite co-written books in the comments. Maybe we share some favorite collaborations or Kristin and I will always take a new book recommendation.

Thanks for reading. Write on.

Kamryn