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6 reasons why you should NOT write collaboratively
An extract from Heide and Iain’s forthcoming book, “How To Write A Collaborative Novel” Good reasons why I wouldn’t like to collaborate: I can’t commit the time Give this some careful thought, dear reader. Being a writer involves a commitment of time. How much time you commit to writing depends upon what kind of writer…
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6 good reasons and 3 bad reasons to write collaboratively
(an extract from the forthcoming book, “How To Write A Collaborative Novel” by Heide Goody and Iain Grant) There are lots of reasons to collaborate. Indeed, to remangle a frequently mangled Shakespearean quote, some people are born to collaborate, some achieve collaboration and others have collaboration thrust upon them. Of the reasons that people give…
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Book sales. Our experience of what makes them happen.
So, when you sell a book, you want to make sales, right? How do you approach that? Do you start with the people you can reach out to immediately and ask them to help you spread the word? Do you try and create a buzz in the local area? Do you try to establish yourselves…
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Testing the water – how do you know you’ve found the right collaborator?
What do you do if you and a potential collaborator have found each other, but you’re not sure if you are ready to commit to working together? You write some test pieces. This might sound like a lot of hassle if you want to dive in and create the finished article, but if you imagine…
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Four and a half things a good self-editor needs to do
So, one day, after lots of ideas have been passed around and plans drawn up and several chapters written and hacked about, the collaborative writers wake up to the realisation that they’ve written a novel. Or at least something that looks like a novel. But just as a pile of organs and limbs does not…
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Five habits of successful writing partners
Iain and I have been writing collaboratively for nearly a year now. We’ve written fiction and non fiction. We’ve planned, plotted and edited a LOT of words during that time. Clovenhoof, our novel is now very close to publication. We’ve learned a thing or two about how to play nicely together. Here are some top…
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Novel writing processes
You and your collaborator(s) may have devised a setting, some characters and the plot of your story but this represents only the beginning of the creative process for collaborative writers. At some point, you are going to need to tackle the meat of your writing project, that is, the actual writing of chapters, scenes or…
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Plotting your novel collaboratively
Before being written down, all stories are plotted out. Some writers plot in enormous detail, generating more words in plans and background text than in the finished work of fiction. PG Wodehouse wrote pages and pages of preparatory notes, sometimes greater in length than the novel he was to later write. Others plan lightly, perhaps…
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Finding a collaborative partner. Part 1 – using the internet
Can you find a collaborator on the internet? There is no reason at all why long-distance collaboration should pose a problem with the many tools that we now have at our disposal. Many of the same rules for finding a collaborator still apply. You should not leap into action and commit to a large piece…
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Know Your Characters – Mr & Mrs
Canada has given many great gifts to the world, lacrosse, instant mashed potato, the pacemaker, the electric wheelchair… and Mr & Mrs. Created in 1963, Mr & Mrs was a TV show in which married couples were tested on their knowledge of each other through a series of questions. The questions were put to both…