#ashleyhanks

So for the last seven years or so my friend and I have been working on a novel together. We still work on our own projects (she is much more consistent with it than I am, plus I consider my main project the novel we’re working on together). It’s been a blast, and considering NaNoWriMo is upon us I thought I’d make a short list of pros and cons for having a co-writer.

Pro: Depending on your writing process (every other sentence, paragraph, page, chapter, etc) you always have someone to pick up where you left off, which can be a godsend if writers block strikes. Two heads are better than one, right?

Con: Sometimes you both have writers block.

Pro: If you are writing in such a way that each of you has a different POV character it is easy for each of said characters to have a distinct voice, because each author has a distinct voice and writing style.

Con: Sometimes your co-writer might not be so good at capturing the voice of your character in dialogue from their character’s POV. Or sometimes they might write your character doing or saying something OOC. This can occur in vice versa, and perhaps you aren’t doing their character justice.

Pro: Sometimes the book you’re writing will surprise you. Occasionally your co-writer might write in a twist that has you freaking out and constantly experiencing your story from a fresh angle.

Con: Sometimes you have a very different idea for what direction you want the story to go in. Maybe you don’t like the direction they are taking it, or perhaps they don’t like yours.

Pro: It makes world building and character development so much more fun. My co-writer and I have really lengthy, interesting conversations about our characters, plot, and world. For example, I will present a what if question about our OCs, several minutes or even hours later our characters are a little bit more rounded. It’s fun, I promise.

Con: Again, sometimes you might not be on the same page with ideas. Maybe you have a sweet idea for your world but they think it is too much or that it doesn’t fit with the what they had in mind.

These last two don’t fit with each other, but I’m pairing them anyways:

Pro: You learn to compromise on disagreements. You grow together in a such way that you are often on the same page without realizing it. Often, the story is much better for it.

Con: While in high school it might be a little easier, but when you are adults it becomes hard to find time to write. We initially began writing via text message. Now we keep everything on a google doc we both have access to. (it’s beautiful, and there are a lot of great tools to keep things organized and help us communicate). Even so we often have obstacles such as different schedules, being in vastly different places, different time zones, etc. But we worked it out.

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