Creating Together

This morning, as the last leaves rain from the trees, I’m viewing a fall combination of swirling, smoke-grey clouds across a deep blue sky, pierced by shafts of brilliant sunlight. The effect is a lovely collaboration of shifting, shimmering, dramatic low lights, highlights and shadows.

Especially right now, in a world that can feel very divided, I like pondering the creative benefits of collaboration. As well, I’m finishing one novel and looking toward the next, which is half finished, and is a collaborative effort with another author.

There are many good reasons to collaborate on a project. Beyond the exciting creative possibilities, as well as the possible doubling of our audience, partnering with other writers has the potential to expand our perspectives, improve our writing (the “iron sharpens iron” effect), and provide immediate feedback and accountability.

I talked with a number of established authors at last month’s ICW Fall Gathering on the topic of writing collaboratively. I was interested in their thoughts about a productive and smooth collaboration…

Five rules for a smooth collaborative experience (and a bonus!):

• Find the right partner: Partners who complement each other’s drive and writing style are ideal. Every writer has their own process, genre, and voice, which isn’t a matter of right or wrong. In fact, how about a collaboration between, say, a fantasy writer and a true crime author, or a thelogian and a classics scholar, a poet and a science writer, a romance writer and a science fiction author (there’s romantasy, why not romantascie?). But an author who takes six months to write a chapter, paired with an author whose goal is to write a complete novel every six months, will make for a frustrating partnership. (Tip: Critique groups are great places to vet a writing partner!)

• Make a Plan: Plotters and Pantsers can collaborate, and collaborate well, as each benefits from the strengths of the other. But, when it comes to planning, pantsers may want to allow their plotter collaborators to take the lead. Regardless, it is crucial partners establish open communication and clear expectations from the outset. Remember, “In teamwork, silence isn’t golden. It’s deadly.”

• Face-to-face meetings: This may be an intuitive idea to many, but it’s intriguing how often I’ve been told or read about the importance of occasional, regular synchronous meetings. As tempting as it is to try to handle all the business of collaborating in emails or comments, there is no substitute for regularly meeting face-to-face, even if that’s just a face on a Zoom screen. Regular meet-ups should be baked into the planning process.

• Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines: The lack of a deadline agreement is probably the most common reason a collaborative writing project never makes it to publication (or any writing project, for that matter!). Agree on deadlines. Stick to them.

• Respect your writing partner: There is what is known as “The Four Es,” in connection with collaboration: Equality, Equity, Empathy, and Educate. One of the benefits of collaboration is learning from each other’s strengths in the immediate feedback you give and receive, however, this feedback must be given with humility and wisdom, and received with grace and curiosity. Collaboration isn’t one author overwhelming or even matching the other’s voice. This is a chance to blend, learn, and together, create something fresh, exciting and new.

Bonus—Use a good collaborative writing tool. Writers accustomed to programs that have collaboration and commenting tools built in, like MS Word or Google docs, might stick with what they know. Those using a tool like Scrivener—which is ideal for novel organization, but has only the most basic collaboration tools—may want to consider falling back on Google docs for their collaborative project. Planning to do a lot of collaborating in the future? A program with some added project management features, like ClickUp, might be a great option. Again, partners should agree on their collaborative writing tool during the planning process.

Have you participated in a collaborative writing endeavor? Leave a note about your experiences, tools and any other advice in the comments!

Not all views expressed are those of every member of ICW.