writing with another person

[jsgoddess]

Anyone have experience or anecdotes about writing in tandem with another writer? I'm currently involved in a project that involves writing with someone else. It's working fine because we have established roles, but it made me wonder about cowriting in general.

Julie

[owling]

Interesting question. I've co-authored something like 13 or 14 RPG books, so I have some experience with this one.

And the answer is, it ENTIRELY depends on the particular team of authors and how they're working together.

It used to be that more RPG projects were given to a couple of authors, with a general outline, and those authors were told to work out who would do what between themselves. Lately I've seen more and more projects where everything is spelled out. The developer or line editor decides which writers do which parts of the book. Sometimes the writers don't talk to each other at all--sometimes they're encouraged to talk amongst themselves so as to keep the book more consistent.

I gained a good friend from one co-authorship. We worked so well together--trading material back and forth, sharing ideas, critiquing each others' work--that we just kept in touch afterward. Once he got a job as a line developer he started giving me contracts and I was happy to work for him.

On the other hand, I've had some terrible experiences.

Example #1: My co-author was absolutely incensed that I would even suggest that she spend her valuable time looking at my work while she was working on hers, and refused to show me her work. Umm, working out the kinks would have saved us a lot of rewrite time.

Example #2: The other author couldn't stick to an outline to save his life. This wouldn't have been so bad except that certain things really needed to be covered in the book. So I'd find out halfway through, when he sent me a chapter, that he'd "felt like" doing something totally different that day, and I was left to find a way to work 10 new topics into my own part of the book, and find a way to replace a thousand words because he'd written something out from under me. He was also completely unwilling to hear any suggestions, however pleasant, regarding his work.

I got to the point where I loved projects where I didn't have to work directly with anyone except the developer, because the obnoxious prima donna authors far outweighed the professional ones.

Sigh...

[rich2003dm]

I've done a little bit of cow-writing.

It was a moosical. I must admit that the results were udderly ridiculous, but I milked it for all I could.

Rich

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Well there's co-writing and there's parallel writing. Like small kids - kids will parallel-play (do the same thing with same/similar toys, but not interact) and then there's cooperative play, where they're actually working together. Most of the co-writing stuff I've done has been parallel writing - "you do this section, I'll do that section; you do the reference pages, I'll put the whole document together and format it."

[rmthunter]

Never done any co-writing. Don't know if I could stand it (althuogh I'm a very co-operative sort of guy).

Hard enough to work with editors. Or maybe it's that they find it hard to work with me.

I have done co-operative projects, but everything was filtered through the editor and the writers never communicated.

Bob

[Redlass]

I've actually done a fair amount of co-writing. Probably the vast majority of what I do outside of Epinions is co-writing.

Sometimes, it is great. We do a lot of "writing" where the authors come and talk to us and tell us everything they want in a chapter and then we actually write up what they say. Some people argue that the person doing the talking isn't writing, but it is their ideas and concepts that are being put onto paper and they're having to review what is done and make appropriate changes.

I also do a lot of projects where we divide up chapters and then the different writers exchange them and make changes so the final product will read as if there were only one author.

Then there are job breakdowns where one of us will put the initial ideas and steps onto paper and pass them to another writer who will flesh things out and then a third writer who will change things to make them consistent with other pieces.

In general, I enjoy writing as part of a team. We can all determine our strengths and share the more onerous duties.

[quasar]

I've only done this in a structured employment situation with technical manuals. In my experience it only works if one person is in charge and has the right to divvy up the work in a reasonable manner, edit the results for content and style, and tell the co-writers bluntly when their efforts aren't acceptable. I may just be saying that because in almost all cases, I was responsible for the overall outcome whether or not I had that level of control and I don't like being responsible for things I don't really have much control over.

Needless to say, I've not found the co-writing experience to be a success when I've been asked to use writers who aren't technically savvy on programming books or when the other writers don't want to give up any control over what they write or when there have been other mismatches. There was one writer I was able to successfully work with fairly independently, but even though we worked separately and I gave him a lot of leeway (and listened to his ideas on my sections of the book), he understood that I was ultimately responsible for our joint efforts and didn't have a hissy fit when I pointed out problems with his sections.

Janice

[owling]

Oddly, I think my best co-authoring experiences have been when I've worked with inexperienced people just breaking into the roleplaying market. They've been, by and large, eager to learn and willing to work, because they're still in the "cool! I get to write for an RPG company!" stage of things.

The people who've really screwed me over as co-authors have been the ones who had several books under their belt, at least, and in one case many more than that. They seem to have developed an attitude of "I'm so good, I don't have to listen to anyone else."

This is, I think, one of the many reasons why I burned out and stopped freelancing for the RPG market.

[quasar]

Yep, that falls under the "other people who don't want to give up any control" scenario in my mind.