Collaborative Writing

Today’s guest blogger is author and academic writing teacher Elisa Lorello, who has a new novel out called Ordinary World. Elisa is participating in a blog tour through WOW, Women on Writing, and one of the topics she offered to write about was working collaboratively on a novel. Yes! I thought. Tell us more! Here’s the twist: She didn’t collaborate on Ordinary World. But I’ll let her explain how one thing can lead to another.

Thanks so much for being here, Elisa. Take it away!
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How it began

My collaboration with my writing partner began back in 2005 when I had assigned her to read the manuscript of my debut, Faking It, as part of a Directed Study on Stylistics. Back then, she was still technically my student, but she had given me so much feedback that much of my revision was based on her insights into the characters and story, not to mention editorial suggestions here and there. In fact, one exchange of dialogue between Andi and Devin was the result of each of us writing line by line in response to the other (in character). It’s the scene in which Andi and Devin are at the Monet exhibit, and Andi has the audacity to “adore” the Impressionist painter. It’s our favorite scene in the entire novel.

She knew the novel so well that it made sense to ask her to help me adapt it into a screenplay. (Better still, she had taken a screenwriting course and knew the basics of it; I, on the other hand, knew nothing about screenwriting.) Thus, she moved in with me during the Winter Intersession of 2006 (aka “winter break” for college students) and we spent the next four weeks collaborating on the first draft of the screen adaptation for Faking It.

It was a match made in heaven. I think we both knew that we’d crossed the line from student-teacher to friends and peers (a rather uncommon occurrence), and that we’d collaborate again, although we didn’t know how or on what.

We went our separate ways, so to speak. She graduated and went into the medical field, while I relocated and wrote another novel called Ordinary World, a sequel to Faking It. Finally, approximately two years later, the moment to collaborate again presented itself. By this time we were regular readers of each other’s blogs, stylistically stealing and gleaning ideas from one another constantly. When one day I’d blogged about a novel idea I had (and at the time I was joking about the premise), she emphatically insisted that she had to write this novel with me. And thus, Why I Love Singlehood was conceived.

The Difference

Writing solo is just like being single. I love the freedom of it. I like having sole control of my characters (that’s a lie—actually my characters have all the control) and the ideas, and I like the process of writing in my own space, be it a coffeeshop or on my couch. I am free to play in my own sandbox anyway I want. Ordinary World was truly a solo project—I showed very little, if any, of this novel to anyone until it was finished. It’s also a bit darker and more complex than my other novels.

And yet, sometimes the writing process is lonely, and it’s nice to be able to talk out a scene with someone, or trust them with a draft—warts and all.

How our collaboration works.

I’ve never collaborated on a writing project of this size before, so I don’t know how other writing partnerships work, but because we live in different states (she in the north, I in the south), we’ve done the bulk of our communication via email and/or Google Chat, with a phone call here and there when we’re feeling particularly enthusiastic. We spend a lot of time talking about the characters as if they are real people, and many of our own real-life conversations wound up as dialogue between the two main characters.

In terms of writing, we’ve written a lot out of sequence (something I don’t typically do when writing solo). My partner-in-crime (as we affectionately refer to each other) was also a chiropractic student, and our novel became a creative outlet for her in the midst of endless studying, laborious labs, and sleepless nights. Thus, her scenes came in bursts of inspiration, whereas I took advantage of the months following the end of the spring semester and cranked out chapter after chapter. Revision happened by way of peer review. One of us would email the other a set of pages, and the other would combine content feedback with adding or subtracting or editing of text. We’d do this four or five times with the same set of pages (sometimes more), and when it got pretty tight, we then moved on to the next set of pages. Most of our peer reviews were conversations with each other on the page, and this was all part of the fun, part of the process.

And yet, we still had a long way to go. It became clear that we’d reached the point that we needed to be in the same room together, and thus we met the week before Christmas 2009 (my mom’s house, to be exact—a good midpoint), where we spent nearly forty hours going over notes, wordsmithing, plot-outlining (we even made floor plans!), delegating new scenes, and deleting—lots of deleting—one page at a time. And we laughed a lot. Laughing is essential to collaboration. So is compromise. Like any partnership, we were not without our differences, and we sometimes had to argue our case, but we always respected the other, and we respected the work.

The best part.

Our style is fluent. Sometimes we found ourselves asking, “Which one of us wrote that?” We love the process, and we love our book. We love our characters and our story. Better still, I think we’re each other’s biggest fans. She’s one of my favorite writers, and I’m one of hers. Regardless of what I write, she’s always one of two readers I have in mind, one of two whose input I seek, and whom I want to impress (my twin brother is the other).

I don’t know if we’ll ever collaborate on another novel again (Lord knows I have enough ideas of my own to keep me busy), and I do like writing alone. I also doubt that I’ll ever collaborate with anyone else.

Tips for successful collaborations

* Know each other’s style. I think the more you do, the more you’ll be able to collaboratively create one that is fluent. Having similar styles to begin with is a plus.

* Know and like each other. Whether you’re working across from each other in the same room or across the country, you have to be able to laugh with your collaborator and share hopes and dreams, successes and failures. You have to give each other the credit when the writing works and take the blame when it doesn’t. You also have to be able to make fun of yourselves, especially when the writing well is temporarily dry or the draft is reaching new levels of suckage. Don’t assume that all your friends would make good writing partners, however. One of my dearest friends and I know we’d kill each other if we were ever roommates, for example.

* Compromise, and find a system of writing and communication that works for you. This is a partnership, after all. A team effort. Balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

* Have fun. As Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream) said: “If it’s not fun, why do it?”

Thanks so much, Elisa!

Readers, you can learn more about Elisa’s current release, Ordinary World, on her blog, and read a preview on Lulu.