Ask A Wench: Would You Co-Author a Book?

For our November Ask A Wench post, we've chosen a question from Wendy MacNeil:

"If you could co-author a book with anyone, alive or not, would you -- and if so, who would it be?"

The Wenches respond:

Mary Jo Putney

Let me see--I think my coauthor would have to be the devil, since it will be a cold day in hell when I would coauthor a book with anyone! People who write plays tend to love the collaborative process. Novelists are more likely to be cranky introverts who are possessive of their work as wolverines. Of course there are some very successful collaborations, but they are very much a minority. I'm happy to brainstorm with my 'storming buddies, I welcome the astute comments of my critique partner, and I listen to the editors who buy my books, and often have good insights into improving the work. But ultimately, that book is mine, Mine, MINE! Ahem. Not that I have strong opinions on the topic or anything. *G*

Cara Elliott/Andrea Pickens:

Co-author a book? For me, that sort of destroys the whole joy of the creative process. Now, maybe I'm being selfish but it's MY story, and I want to give it my voice and my vision. There's so much else in life we compromise on, or decide by consensus, so I jealously guard the crafting of a book as something uniquely my own. Sure, there are lots of other authors I adore and admire. But I want to read their stories, not let them mess around with mine. LOL. That said, if you twisted my arm to pick one collaborator, it would be Jane Austen . . . simply so I could enjoy her sarcastic wit and barbed comments about the experience. I can't imagine her enjoying it any more than I would!

 

Patricia Rice:

M ark Twain. Even if the book never got done, I'd have the time of my life working on it!   

Jo Beverley:

If you could co-author with anyone, alive or not, would you, and if so, who > would it be? Like Mary Jo, I find it difficult to imagine working with another writer, though I do enjoy brainstorming and critique groups. An equal team, however.... Yikes! I suppose it's because as authors, we're goddesses, controlling our worlds. Hard to give that up. However, I could maybe collaborate on a short story. In that case, it would have been fascinating to work with Dorothy Dunnett, and I'd love to partner with Neil Gaiman because his storytelling mind is so very interesting.

 

Nicola Cornick:

Probably not! That would be for the sake of their sanity as well as mine, I hasten to add. I like to write, re-write, revise, move things around, think about them, scrap them and start all over again, so I would probably drive a co-author completely mad in short order. I have collaborated with other authors on linked books and I have enjoyed the experience a lot, and learned from it, but anything closer than that would probably be a disaster. That said, if I were to co-author with anyone I would choose Horatio Nelson. Not only would that mean I could get to know personally one of the most charismatic men of his era, and I think that would be fascinating, but I could also work with him on a new edition of his bestseller: "A Patent Bridge for Boarding Enemy Vessels." I hear the first edition was a bit dry. Perhaps I could inject some romance into a new version.

Joanna Bourne:

I want to collaborate with H.P. Lovecraft. I'd let him do the first draft. He'd come up with something like: The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such parts of the inner walls as ought to have been revealed, and actually burst forth like smoke from its aeon-long imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous sky on flapping membraneous wings.

I'd receive his e-mail and edit that down a bit. I'd send him back: The cave opening was black, a darkness that took form and escaped, flapping, into the open sky.

About the second week of our association he'd track me down and sling me over an altar and sacrifice my still-beating heart to Cthulhu.

Anne Gracie:

Mary Jo has pretty much answered this for me. I think I'd find it very difficult to write with someone else — and more to the point they'd probably find it very difficult writing with me.

My process is pretty idiosyncratic and messy. It usually takes me ages into the book to decide what it's really about, so I go back and rewrite the start several times. I also find it very hard to make decisions about where the book should go, and often decide on one thing, write it and decide it's wrong, so out goes that idea. This, I'm sure, would drive someone else batty.

Working in partnership, you need to be able to have a very similar vision for the story, and of the characters and their journey — and you'd need to have the same passion for it — because a passion to tell the story is what gets you through the "stuck" times. You'd need to plan the book out together, or at least plan a chapter or two ahead — and that's not me at all. And once you've decided on something, you'd need to stick to it for your partner's sake.

That said, I've several times thought of writing a book with someone else, because the whole idea of it interests me. But I think if ever I did something like that, it'd probably be a movie script, rather than a novel. Movies, by their very nature, are collaborative works, so I think my inner control freak would handle writing a script collaboratively better than a novel.

Susan King:

Writing is such a solitary creative process that I can’t imagine sharing the space on the page with another author. But if I did have the chance to time-hop and page-share, I’d be happy to edit Sir Walter Scott. Great plots, imaginative characters, a deep love and understanding of Scottish history… yet there are anachronisms, convoluted phrases and just way too many words per sentence. I’d clean all that up for him -- and I wouldn’t mind seeing my name in the acknowledgments for Ivanhoe or Lady of the Lake! (and I could also spend gobs of time in his study and library...) 

 

Wendy MacNeil, thanks for a fun question! You've won an autographed book, which I'll be happy to send to you - please contact me or our Wench Whipster, Sherrie Holmes, with your address.

What author, living or not, would YOU love to work with? Or would you take the course most of the Wenches chose, and decline the privilege?

  ~Susan

Queen. Refugee. Saint.

QUEEN HEREAFTER - coming soon!  

Crown/December 7, 2010

Comments

[maryjoputney]

I'm thinking that collaboration for novelists is like that famous modern metaphor, herding cats--and you know my cats,Susan!

Fur would fly. *g*

[Kate]

I tried it once with a friend for a bit of nonfiction. It was not a pleasant experience.

[Jane O]

I think the only time co-authoring works is when you both have different strengths and you know it — one of you can write the action scenes and one can write the love scenes, for example. I can think of any number of authors who could benefit from a partner who could fill in the plot holes. Raymond Chandler springs to mind.

[Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose]

Interesting idea, Jane O. The problem is, the characters might turn out a bit . . . odd, to put it mildly. Or, rather, candidates for Bedlam. LOL.

[Susan]

Interesting comments! There are plenty of authors who manage to collaborate seamlessly and whose coordination of plot, character, writing, etc. works beautifully in tandem. The Wenches apparently are among those writers of a more solitary bent - I know I am.

Though I do turn to my brainstorming buddies when I'm in a bind or stuck for ideas, the writing remains mine and has to be mine...the wordsmithing is something I like to do all by my ownself. :)

Susan

[Patricia Rice]

I love having my fellow 'stormers throw fresh ideas at me, but chances are really good that all they'll do is jar me out of my rut so I run off after a fresh new idea of my own. Brains are peculiar things. Although if I could simply throw my ideas at someone and have them write them for me... I might manage that, as long as they don't mind me tearing it up and re-doing it.

[Susanna Fraser]

I couldn't work with a co-author, either. I'm too possessive of my characters and stories. I even got huffy once in a writing class exercise where the teacher divided us into groups, had one of us present an idea, and the rest of the group brainstorm around it. They took this princess-in-exile fantasy plot I had and put her underground! With trolls! All while I was thinking, "No! Wrong! I don't write trolls! Her exile is in a mountainous desert--think Afghanistan--and there are magicians and pretty horses, but no trolls!"

And I've had to stop asking my husband for brainstorming help, because unlike my critique partners, he gets his feelings hurt if I say something like, "That's interesting, but I want to keep the focus on the main characters I already have," or "But that doesn't fit the heroine's background."

[Maggie Robinson/Margaret Rowe]

I remain in awe that Anthea Lawson, a husband-wife team, write together. I'd probably kill my husband soon after the prologue.

[LouisaCornell]

What a great question and a great post! For many reasons, but for the most part because I am SO glad to discover that some of my very favorite authors are as possessive of their work as I am! I listen to comments from contest judges, my agent, my critique group,etc. but ultimately I have to write the story as it comes to me. I just don't think I could write with anyone else. Goddess of my Own Little World sounds rather lovely come to think of it.

The only authors I might try it with would be Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft. With Poe I would try to talk him into giving The Fall of the House of Usher a bit happier ending. With Lovecraft I would just love to enjoy the terror and mayhem!

[theo]

I enjoyed all of the answers but Joanna, I laughed out loud at yours!

I couldn't write with anyone else. I'm convinced they'd work with me on two paragraphs or so, tell me how much everything I'm doing sucks, toss it all and take over.

I think I'll stay in my own little solitary world, thanks.

[Lyn S]

What a neat post. Whether you collaborate or write on your own, please keep writing.

As for Susan K's reply, I am so glad that it is OK to want to edit Ivanhoe. It is a beautiful story. However, in the paperback version I have, one sentence is an entire page. I went back and read it several times to get the meaning and then went back even more to find a period. And I do envy his library as well.

[Susan]

Lyn, one sentence in Ivanhoe was an entire page in the paperback?! OMG. Sir Walter wrote like a fiend, maybe never stopped to edit himself as he barreled along. He once produced a 600+ page manuscript in six weeks (by hand!! with quills and inkpots!!).
But I love his work, the essence of it anyway, and I would consider it a privilege (and possibly a service to society) to edit him...

Susan

[anne gracie]

Anne here -- my emails to Susan and the Wenches have been bouncing, so I'm posting my answer here:

Mary Jo has pretty much answered this for me. I think I'd find it very difficult to write with someone else — and more to the point they'd probably find it very difficult writing with me.

My process is pretty idiosyncratic and messy. It usually takes me ages into the book to decide what it's really about, so I go back and rewrite the start several times. I also find it very hard to make decisions about where the book should go, and often decide on one thing, write it and decide it's wrong, so out goes that idea. This, I'm sure, would drive someone else batty.

Working in partnership, you need to be able to have a very similar vision for the story, and of the characters and their journey — and you'd need to have the same passion for it — because a passion to tell the story is what gets you through the "stuck" times. You'd need to plan the book out together, or at least plan a chapter or two ahead — and that's not me at all. And once you've decided on something, you'd need to stick to it for your partner's sake.

That said, I've several times thought of writing a book with someone else, because the whole idea of it interests me.But I think if ever I did something like that, it'd probably be a movie script, rather than a novel. Movies, by their very nature, are collaborative works, so I think my inner control freak would handle writing a script collaboratively better than a novel.

[Lyn S]

Joanna,
I sent to my daughter your Lovecraft comment and she sent this back to me:

Ahahahahaha, they win at life. :]

You have a new fan.

[Joanna Bourne]

Hi Lyn --

Y'know, Lovecraft is very good at what he does.

Sometime back I went skimming into Lovecraft to find examples of Extreme Figurative Language.

He's fascinating. I now understand the impact his mythos had on SF and F.