So you want to cowrite something . . .

Some tips for getting started

Whether I’m at an event alone or with my cowriters, one of the most frequent questions I get is: how do you write a book with three people?

This is a pretty large topic, but I’ll give you some broad tips for writing . . . and for moving forward with publication.

Choose your cowriter/s carefully

This is a group project. That means you’re going to want a cowriter (or two) who has the same vision for the project as you do. You want someone who will do their share of the work. And someone you can get along with through stress and disagreements.

It’s also a great idea to have someone whose skills complement yours, whose strengths shore up your weaknesses and visa versa. Ideally, you’ll get the best of everyone’s work!

There’s another important thing to consider: why are you writing this together? Maybe it’s because you want to spend more time with your friend, or because you have an idea that would benefit from their involvement. These were both considerations when Cynthia asked Brodi and me to write MY LADY JANE.

But there are some things you don’t want as a reason: fame, glory, money, awards, bestseller lists . . . basically all the things outside of your control. I mean, I hope you get those things! But you can’t control whether or not a publisher buys your book for a lot of money, or how it sells after. You can only control the book you write together — so let that be the reason you write it.

Set up some guidelines

Everyone writes books in a different way. Even people who have very similar processes still have different processes. So you may find if helpful to come up with a few guidelines for yourselves upfront. Here are a few things the Janies decided ahead of time:

• Move forward, not backward.

  • If something needs to change but Writer A doesn’t like what Writer B has, and Write B doesn’t like Writer A’s proposed change, both writers must move forward to figure out something together — something that addresses all concerns and fits in the story.

• Each writer has “ownership” over the character they’re writing.

  • This means they have the final say on how their character behaves, even in other writers’ chapters. Discussion is still encouraged, of course! But this is meant to help characters remain consistent across the whole book, so that Writer A doesn’t write Writer B’s character totally different than Writer B does.

Every group is going to have their own guidelines, depending on what they need and how they write. But it helps to decide these things upfront, or as soon as an issue comes up so that you know how to deal with them in the future.

How to write the story

The sheer logistics of two or more people writing one book can be a lot! Most of us understand how to write a book by ourselves¹, but how do you divvy up who writes what when there are multiple people?

Sometimes, writing duos will go back and forth with the manuscript, with Writer A writing one chapter, and Writer B writing the next. Others might have Writer A in charge of the drafting, and Writer B in charge of the revisions. And still others might involve cowriters actively writing a scene at the same time.

In the Lady Janies’ case, because of the way we block off time to work together, and the speed we want to write, we develop an outline together, then each pick a character to write. Since the viewpoints in our books are always Round One [ch1 character A, ch2 character B, ch3 character C,] Round Two [ch4 character A, ch5 character B, ch6 character C] . . . , we can each write our chapter in a round while the others are writing theirs. Then, at the end of the writing day, we each read our chapters aloud to one another.

Decide as a team what your preferred method is. Maybe it’s one I haven’t mentioned here. And if one method isn’t working, try another.

How to revise the story

There are, once again, a lot of ways to do this.

If you’re writing back and forth with someone, Person B might revise the chapter Person A just sent, and Person A might revise the chapter person B just sent. Or they may each be responsible for doing revision on their own chapters.

The way I’ve done with the Janies is for each of us to revise our own chapters shortly after we write them. We read aloud to the group, at which point it’s easy to spot inconsistencies and other issues. Those typically get cleaned up before the draft is even done.

Then, we read through the whole thing, discuss what needs to be fixed on a larger scale, make those changes in our own chapters first, then do the whole process again, working through the entire book together.

It is a lot of work! But the goal is to keep our characters’ voices distinct without constantly reminding the reader how many writers worked on the book. It should read seamlessly.

Get a collaboration agreement

This is, basically, a contract. It will detail how you and your cowriter/s will work together in a business sort of way.

While you may be thinking that you don’t need a contract because so-and-so is your friend and that will always be the case . . . I hope it is! I hope you always work well together!

But a collaboration agreement is kind of an “in case of emergency, break glass” document. Ideally, you’ll never need it. But it’s smart to have.

Plus, you should be talking about how to proceed on the business end ahead of time, that way there are no surprises later. Why not put that in writing?

If you have an agent already, they can help you put it together; they may already have one they’ve used before. But even if you don’t have an agent, you can write it up yourselves. It doesn’t have to be fancy.

So what should go in it?

• How will the work be divided?

• How will credit be given? (A co-author pen name? Everyone’s name?)

• How will you split up payments?

• How will you settle disagreements?

• What happens if someone doesn’t — or can’t — pull their weight?

• How will you split up promotional efforts?

Depending how you’re publishing, you may need to decide who will collect payments and how those will go out to the other writer/s, who will be responsible for design, layout, distribution — book production, essentially — and how you will pay for things that you need to purchase (editing, design, advertising).

I know it’s a lot to consider, but having all this in place now will ensure you can move forward later without having to stop and figure it out when the stakes are higher.

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Cowriting can be truly magical! I can’t tell you how many times someone got stuck and was just able to ask the others for help, rather than the usual sitting and staring out the window until an answer appeared. Or someone did some light revision (in track changes) on someone else’s chapter, like little editing elves. Or or or . . .

And celebrating a book release together? Nothing like it.

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So what do you think? Would you cowrite with someone?

1. I mean, we know that we’re responsible for the whole thing, even if we’re constantly learning how to write a book. Sigh.