Working with a partner can be
--to paraphrase Dickens--"the best of times and worse of times." I know, I've been through them all! There are actually three different types of
partners: good, bad and indifferent. And
I think I've probably worked with all three, each in a different way. Finding the perfect partner is like finding
the perfect mate to marry. You need
someone who could have been your soul mate (perhaps in another life or in
another sex). That someone is hard to
find and so you go through a process.
There are pros and cons of
working with partners and there are ways of dealing with partners to make sure
the worse doesn't happen. If I had but
known....Even so, I probably would have rushed foolhardy into the
"danger" because despite it's problems, working with partners can be
a refreshing change.
Why work with a partner? Well, for one thing, writing can be
lonely. Some people find that they are
more creative in the company of someone they like. It's nice--when you get along--to have the
repartee and to be able to bounce ideas off your co--worker. For another, you don't sound so crazy when
you are voicing your story outloud. And
in the best of times, it can be fun. You
also have a shoulder to cry on when the editor comes back with rewrites that
you disagree with or don't thing need doing--or even if she rejects the project
totally.
Of course, in the worst of
times, it can be double ulcer producing!
Believe me, I know this from experience!
Always have everything in
writing.
After almost every partnership,
I usually say "Quote the raven 'nevermore," but like the people
addict I am, I usually do it again.
Passing the bakery and smelling the danish, I almost always go in. Sometimes I buy, sometimes I don't, but it
always tempts me, especially if I like the idea. However, I have developed a check list of my
own to see if the "danish" is fresh or stale.
That's not to say I don't write
on my own. I do and usually have several
of my own projects going--almost always at the same time I'm working with a
partner. Mostly, it's preserve my own
sense of self that can sometimes get swallowed up in the partnership since with
the team work the voice is neither uniquely yours nor hers but a mellow
combination of the two.
Before my collaboration on The
Book of Poisons, I had attempted to work with partners before, but it never
quite went anywhere. Usually, it would
be a co-worker from my real life nursing job, or another friend who had an
intriguing idea. More often than not,
I've had people come up to me with "brilliant" ideas they wanted me
to write with or for them. Mostly these
ideas were mundane and stereotypical and not worth my time or energy. I would tell the seeker that it was a good
idea but best that he/she did it on their own.
Unfortunately, most of the
time, the people who wanted to partner with me were novices who knew very
little technique and even less of the work it took to produce a book or
script. One friend, who I met at work,
had a great idea. I said "Let's do it together." Only I found out
later, he had no idea about how to write a script, what work was involved, or
how long it would take. When I had
finished the second draft, he gave me some notes…and felt that he had
contributed 50% - even though I had done the majority of the story line myself
as well as the writing. (Though
according to a copyright attorney, if you have nothing in writing, the law says
that you do owe them 50%!)
One time, I attempted to work
with someone who had a novel idea based on some real life experiences that I
found intriguing.
However, once she saw what work
it was to actually produce a book--which she, and many like her, thought could
be thrown together in a long weekend, she backed out. Since she had helped to create the
"child" plot, I decided in this case--and others similar--that joint
custody was too much to fight for and let them keep the baby.
With Anne, I made my standard
offer. Her idea had intrigued me. We had been folding newsletters for Mystery Writers
of America. Because I'm a nurse, she
asked me medical questions for a novel she was working on. "There ought to be something about
poisons that everyone can understand," she said. I quickly agreed. She stated she had checked out the books and
there was nothing that was understandable for the lay person.
Because I don't believe in
stealing ideas, I feel I have two choices when I hear a good idea: to buy out
the idea giving the author created-by credit, or suggest they join me in
writing it. The latter is what I did
with Ann.
The Book of Poisons was the first book I finished
in collaboration and I learned quite a few things about working and not working
with a partner. I learned even more when
doing Red Sea, Dead Sea with another partner, then with Dragon's
Seeds, and later with my partner for Against Her Will..
In Book of Poisons, we
had divided up chapters - and I ended up rewriting much of her work; in Red
Sea, Dead Sea - The Fanny Zindel series, we worked side by side and bounced
off ideas, and in Dragon's Seed and Against Her Will, I did
outlines, and characters and then read and revised what my partner had done
before doing my own chapters.
While it seems like it might be
less work to write with a partner, it is actually sometimes more--especially if
that partner doesn't do his/her share of the work. Other times, it feels as if the partner is
doing more work, at least initally. But
even so, depending on how you work, it can be more time consuming since you have
to match schedules. Not an easy thing to
do with two busy people.
You must be prepared to not
only work hard, but to sublimate your ego.
The story is ALWAYS the bottom line.
If what you are suggesting works the best for who that character is, than
fine. In Red Sea, Dead Sea, I
wanted Fanny to be more religious, but Rayanne had a good point about making
her more like the majority of the Jewish population so that a greater
readership could relate to her.
It's also important that you
are both passionate about the story you are doing, that you both like the
character or the concept and both are convinced it will sell well.
Often we start out with one
concept but even working alone, the baby grows and decides on a different
career than what we had planned for him--even more so with a team effort. When two parents raise a "plot
child", the baby often comes out totally different than either
expected.
When there were plot and other
problems arising out of the partnership that we couldn't seem to resolve on our
own, Rayanne and I (the Fanny Zindel series) decided to go to a marriage
counselor. Yes, you read right. A marriage counselor. In the height of our working together, we
were seeing more of each other than we were of our respective live-in mates. We
would discuss not what we wanted, but what was best for the character and what
she wanted. The fact is, when you spend
a lot of time with someone issues are bound to arise and it helps to have a
third party to listen and sort things out.
It worked to keep us both sane.
How do you meet the perfect
partner? As I said, I've run into people
that I've partnered in different ways.
Sometimes I've sought them out, sometimes they sought me out, sometimes
it was just plain luck, and other times, I was paired up by my wonderful
agent.
With Rayanne, I was doing a
private duty case and my patient, a quadriplegic, had to get her car
fixed. Rayanne, also crippled from a
work accident many years ago, was getting a hand control on her car. When I entered the waiting room with my
patient, she was reading a Harlequin romance.
"Oh, I write those types of books," I said. "So do I," she responded.
I sat down next to her, we
began talking. I was editing my mushroom
chapter for The Book of Poisons and handed it to her. "Here, help me with proofreading
this." She agreed and during the
course of the morning, we found we were both animal lovers and into
metaphysics.
Because of her accident and
constant pain, Ray had essentially stopped writing. We became friends and I dragged her screaming
and kicking into a screenwriting class with me and then we did a screenplay
together, Mujrder Me Twice, which has been optioned several times but so
far not produced.
When I came up with the idea
for Fanny Zindel and Red Sea, Dead Sea, I ran it by her. She came up with some wonderful plot twists
that I hadn't thought about and she was able to ground and make logical some of
the events that I had just hanging. So
we decided to try writing the book together.
That brings me to this
part. Now that the nitty gritty of
choosing a partner is done, how do you actually work together?
There are a variety of ways and
each couple have their own way of doing things.
I know one couple living in
L.A. and N.Y. who are a successful team.
Jo Schaffer who worked with me on Against Her Will lives in Utah.
Another partner now lives in South
Carolina.
As I said with Jo, I had the
basic outline for Against Her Will, having started the story many years before
based on my experiences as a psychiatric nurse on a teen ward, and allowed her
to take off on her own version from there.
I then read what she did, made corrections, added my own sections, and
we went forward from there. It was a longer process than I anticipated, but it
turned out well.
With Anne (The Book of
Poisons), we did much the same only we didn't live quite so far--LA verus
Orange County. She did up her assigned
chapters and I did up mine. However,
when it came time to merge the two very distinct voices into one, I had to do
the rewriting as Anne declined believing in her very naive way that a good
writer never rewrites.
With Rayanne (the Fanny Zindel
series) who lived onlt twenty minutes from me, it worked quite different We both had identical computers and word
processing systems so we would switch back and forth from her place to mine,
sitting side by side at the computer and composing as we went. Sometimes she would talk and I would type,
other times visa versa. We would laugh
at our typos and be outrageous with our character, we would also be close
enough to scream and tear each other's hair out--practially. But the good thing was--as I said above--we
were friends first and foremost and almost always calmed down enough to see
reason and what was best for the story.
Even though she only had two
books published prior to our writing together, she was nearly at my place in
development since she had certain strengths that I lacked and I had others
where she fell.
When it comes time to publish,
you have to make a decision--did you use separate names, or did you merge our
names into one. With most of the books,
I prefer to use my own name and my partner use hers. This is because I have a following already
and want people to know I have written it.
Most publishers prefer one name
rather than two because it's harder to shelve and to catalog, but they will
accept it, if that's what you want.
Usually the first name listed, when it's a duo, is how the book is found
in book shelves and in libraries. So
whose name goes first?
Usually the one who has done
most of the work or the senior partner goes first. In Red Sea, Dead Sea, Fanny Zindel was
my original character and so my name went first. In The Book of Poisons, it was my medical
knowledge and I did a greater percent of the work so that we put Anne as a with
rather than a by.
What happens after publication?
Look at how you both operate
and ask, if the worst happens with the book, will we still be talking to each
other. If the answer is yes, it will
probably work out. The trouble is,
sometimes we don't know if the answer is yes or no because we don't know the
other person well enough to know how they will operate under strain of
deadlines and rewrites.
Basically what it comes down to
is that you need to trust and respect your partner. Long term collaborators are special
people. You have to share not only the
money, but the limelight. However, you can
also share the expenses and the fun. It
can be a fun and satisfying experience and one that you don't mind repeating
occasionally.
Here are some things to
consider:
things to know before you work
with a partner
1. It's important that you both be professional
and both know what is involved in writing a book--that may mean one rewrite, it
may mean several. Whatever the editor
wants goes, even if it means putting your own projects on hold to redo what you
thought was already done.
2. Communication lines need to
be kept open at all times and it's better if you and your partner to be are
friends before hand and have common interests to keep the friendship going
because it's going to help solve some of the disputes along the way. Also friends care more about each other's
feelings and are more likely to compromise than are two acquaintances.
3. Comparable skill and
competence is crucial. Sometimes there
can be exceptions to the rule, but in cases where I've worked with amateurs,
I've often been reduced to screaming, hair-pulling matches where as with other
professional writers we knew that the "Play's the thing" or in this
case the story or the plot was foremost.
As with Rayanne, when we were doing the Fanny Zindel series, Red Sea,
Dead Sea, Bagels For Tea, and our newest, A Jewish Byte, if
we could show how our point helped the character or story better than our partner's,
that person would win the argument.
If you are both are the same
level of development, chances are you will complement each other in the
story. From experience I can tell you
that where the skills are unbalanced feelings of resentment, impatience and
unequal contributions make for hard feelings.
4. Have something of your own
that you are dabbling with while doing the partnership so that you don't feel
swallowed up.
5. Always have a detailed contract talking not only about shared work,
but shared costs--usaully it's 50-50 for both--but what happens if you are
offered a sequel and one doesn't want to work on it, what happens if one dies,
what happens with public relations, who pays for what, what happens if one
doesn't want to finish the book, do you cut your partner in on the profits if
you decide to write a sequel and he doesn't, whose agent to use, and how final
decisions are to be made if neither can agree.
The contract doesn't have to be in legalese. It just has to make the points in plain
English.
The easiest thing to do about
sequels, I found, is to say that anything arising out to the book will be
negotiated separately and that this contract is no guarantee that we will be
working together again in the future.
Be as detailed as you can. I got stuck paying for all the promotion for The
Book of Poisons since Anne stated that she hadn't previously agreed
to that. She had, according to our
contract, and I could have taken her to small claims court but in the end,
decided not to waste my time.
6. Choose a third party that
you both respect to help you settle differences--be it your agent, a marriage
counselor, or another writer.
7. If you both have agents,
consult with both so that neither feels left out. Perhaps they can share the work on the
project. If you have a contract with
them, they might expect their 10-15% anyway.
8. Be professional. Stay calm.
Nothing is forever--even the good ones.
