#discreetmemories

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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Your name’s the best ;) 

All of the Stars - Ed Sheeran

Somebody to Love - Queen

Hopeless Opus - Imagine Dragons

Like Real People Do - Hozier

Escape (The Piña Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes

Yes, there is a trend esp. in YA and NA, and a lot of adult genre fiction, to get right to the point. I’m the first one to say you should start your story as close to the beginning of the action as possible. But that also doesn’t mean that shortly thereafter you can’t stop to take a breath and let your readers get a sense of the world they are entering. 

Here’s what you need to focus on: They enjoyed it. If your classmates were able to articulate why, work with that first and foremost. 

I’m currently re-reading the novel Grass by the completely under-appreciated science fiction-fantasy (and a few other genres) master Sheri S. Tepper. The first two entire pages (gee, modern publishing, do you really think people can’t get past two pages of words without an explosion?) are nothing but descriptions of grass. And they are fucking glorious. Then shit gets weird, and stuff happens, because “Grass” is the name of the planet and it’s a creepy, creepy place. There are chunks within the first 50 pages that are nothing but infodump about this unique world. Pure, gloriously crafted infodump. This is the novel that made me want to write fiction in the first place and everything about it, infodump included, hooks you right in. Giving readers a peek at the world you’ve created makes them feel like co-conspirators. It gives them a stake. Even if you’re writing about the hear and now. Because it’s your world, and not theirs. Even in a character-driven story because your characters live in that world. 

Scroll down through this article to Kim Stanley Robinson’s thoughts about infodump hate. Then decide if what you’ve written as “imagery” is really, as he says, something that “comes out of a workshop aesthetic that tries to reduce fiction to mechanical parts.” You might need to make changes, sure. I wish you well if this experience takes away the joy of sailing through a first draft without critical eyeballs staring at you. Hopefully, you’ll get some good tips out of it, then as soon as the semester ends, forget all the crap. [Hopefully, those links give a balanced view of having your work critiqued/criticized in a workshop setting. I don’t mean to crap ALL over the concept! But I think it’s harder to find a good writers’ group than it is to find a soulmate, lol!]

Writing is art, above all else. Sometimes, the master creates a stroke on purpose because that is what she learned and it is the right thing to do, and sometimes, the brush says “Nope, we’re going this way.” And it is all glorious.