by Dave Haslett
A long tradition
In the nineteenth century, when Alexandre Dumas pè and his son, Alexandre Dumas fils, wrote their Boulevard Comedies, they had twelve writers and two secretaries working for them. This “think-tank” was an early form of writing team. These teams are common now, especially on TV soap operas and US sitcoms, but they’re still rare for books.
Alexandre Dumas pè once made a bet that he could write a complete play in just three days. He won the bet with six hours to spare. Now, I’ve had some thoughts about that famous bet. You don’t accept a bet like that unless you’re pretty sure you can do it. And in light of what we’ve just seen, he only needed to write the outline and pass it over to his team of writers. At the very least, he must have had a good idea of what the story was going to be about, and he probably had the whole thing figured out in his head in advance. All he had to do to win his bet was to scribble down the outline he’d already planned out, hand it to his team of writers, and go back to bed. He might even have had the entire outline already written.
I’m sure he must have contributed at least a few pages of the actual play, or done some editing, if only to stave off the boredom.
He often left out the punctuation marks too, which enabled him to write faster. His secretaries put the punctuation in afterwards.
More recently, Barbara Cartland wrote well over seven hundred romantic novels by dictating them to her secretary. She was still producing more than twenty books a year when she was in her eighties.
We’ve already seen that dictating is much faster than typing – even if you’re a professional typist. She also stuck to a fairly rigid formula for her stories, used stereotypes for her characters, and was keen on historical research, which she incorporated into her work. In other words, she wrote about what she knew. These are all terrific time-savers.
And, of course, she was able to plan the next section of her book, research and prepare outlines for future books, and edit her stories while her secretary was typing up that day’s dictation.
Don’t use stereotypes if you’re planning to write high-quality novels. It’s better to take a day or two longer and come up with a set of original and memorable characters, or reuse the best ones from your previous stories.
Coming right up to date, James Patterson is one of the world’s bestselling novelists, but he’s also known as “the bestseller who doesn’t write his own books”.
He works with several writers. If you look at the covers of his novels, you’ll see his name – in large type because his name is the “brand” – followed by the name of the person who actually wrote the book.
He freely admits that he only ever writes a sixty to eighty page “treatment” for each book. This includes a detailed outline of the plot, plus character sketches and other notes.
He hands this over to one of his team of hired writers, and checks on them every two weeks to make sure they’re sticking to the script, writing in his style, getting the pacing right, and so on. He and his team produce an amazing number of books. As I write this, he’s already had three number one bestsellers this year, and it’s only the end of February.
A Daily Express review of his books said:
The tales are told in linear order in chapters of two or three pages that seem designed to make you feel you’re progressing through the story faster.
There are no sub-plots and the main story is uncluttered.
The terrorists are crude racial stereotypes.
There is little suspense over the outcome because you know there’s no way the catastrophe they are planning will actually happen.
But it does impel you to carry on reading, partly by making everything so easy.
Hiring other writers doesn’t mean he’s lazy, of course. In fact, he’s incredibly hard-working. He works seven days a week and writes constantly, creating new characters and outlines. He also checks on his team’s work, suggests changes, and so on. His office is stacked with the manuscripts of current works in progress.
Few us can afford to hire other writers – or at least not to begin with. You’d need a few bestsellers under your belt before that could happen. I don’t think I’d want other people to write my books for me anyway, even if I could afford it. But there’s no reason why you couldn’t employ a secretary, perhaps on a part-time basis, or use a secretarial service or virtual assistant, especially if a couple of your books do well.
They could type up your dictation, answer your mail, handle your routine admin tasks, do your accounts, and perhaps help market your books while you get on with your writing. You could (and should) hire a freelance editor from time to time.
Weekend writing team
There are ways of sharing your workload with other writers without having to pay them. For example, you could form a collaboration team. Your “team” might only be you and one other person, or it could be as large as you like. Your collaborators could be members of your local writing group, or you could make up a larger team from the members of several groups. They don’t have to live in your area, or even your own country; you can easily collaborate online.
Let’s say there are twenty of you in your writing team and your book is twenty chapters long. You agree that you’ll each write one chapter. If you outline your book properly, as we discussed in chapter 7, you should each be able to write your individual chapters in a single weekend, and your first draft will be finished. Between you, you could write fifty-two books per year, working only at the weekends.
You’ll still need to create the outlines, of course, but if you follow the process we looked at earlier, that should only take a few days for each book. You will of course need to decide who creates the outlines:
Will it be just one person?
Will a sub-group of the writing team create them together and share them with the rest of the team when they’re ready?
Will you all work on the outlines together?
Perhaps you could hold a brainstorming, plotting and outlining conference every few months, where you agree the outlines of your next batch of books. At the same time, you could catch up on the progress of the books currently in production, report on the sales figures for books already published, and discuss new marketing ideas.
Perhaps each member of the team will be expected to come up with two or three outlines per year that the others will work on as a group project.
You’ll also need to decide whose name goes on the cover. Will it be a James Patterson-like figure who represents your brand and does all the publicity work, interviews and signings? Will he claim to write the books himself and not mention the rest of the team?
Alternatively, you might decide to use a pen name that represents all of you. But who will do the publicity work in that case? Will one of you take on the role, or will you hire someone else to do it? Perhaps you can come up with a different solution between you.
It’s great fun to work this way, and much more creative than working by yourself.
You can hold meetings online using a conferencing service, and collaborate on projects using online collaboration tools. You don’t have to leave your writing desk, so it doesn’t matter where in the world you live. Search for “online conferencing service”, “online meetings”, or “collaboration tools”.
If you and your team are planning to write an entire book in a single weekend – or even a book in a week – it’s worth letting the local and national media and writing magazines know about it in advance. It will seem like an epic challenge to them, and they’ll be keen to follow your progress. If you succeed, the news will spread, and plenty of publishers and potential readers should get to hear about it. You’ll probably also receive requests for interviews from other media outlets.
If the other members of your team are based in other parts of the country or in other parts of the world, they should notify the media where they live too. This will multiply the amount of news coverage your project receives.
Collaborating – the nitty gritty
The problem is you probably won’t notice any increase in speed until you’ve completed at least one book together. When you start working on your first book, you’ll have to spend a significant amount of time sorting out your working methods, deciding how you’ll collaborate, setting up the tools, debating what should and shouldn’t be included in the book, and settling on a joint writing style. This will slow you down to the point that it would almost certainly have been faster to write the book yourself. But from your second book onwards, once you’ve settled into a comfortable routine, you’ll be much more productive.
Naturally, you’ll need to choose your writing partner carefully. You might be best friends now, but will you still be friends by the end of the book? Will you even reach the end of the book? What if one of you drops out before it’s finished? How will you resolve your differences?
You’ll need to agree on all sorts of details before you start writing. If you’re collaborating on a novel, for example:
Who owns the characters?
Who owns the locations, or the world the story is set in?
Will either of you be allowed to use the same characters or locations in your own books?
What if you want to change something that your collaborator wants left alone?
What if you want to kill off one of the characters but your collaborator doesn’t?
What if you want to drop a bomb on one of the cities your collaborator created?
How will you actually write the book? Will you each write alternate chapters? Will one of you write more than the other?
Who will do the editing? Who will pay for it?
Who will choose the cover designer, and who will pay him?
Whose name will appear on the cover? If both your names are listed – or all of your names if there’s more than two of you – whose name will appear first?
Will you use a pen name?
Who will do the marketing, media interviews and book signings?
How will you divide the earnings?
In a traditional writing partnership, you’ll often find yourself waiting for your collaborator to finish his section so you can get on with your next part. This is where a detailed outline comes in useful once again. You don’t need to wait for your collaborator to finish his chapter so you can see how it ends. You already know how it ends because you agreed it in advance and it’s in the outline. So you can get on with writing all the parts that have been assigned to you, with no waiting. That should speed things up considerably.
Being someone else
How about inventing a new writing persona? It’s just like making up a character, except that you’ll become that character while you write.
Your new persona will of course be an extraordinarily talented and prolific writer, able to conjure up wonderful material from any source.
He never has any trouble getting started or finding time to write.
He doesn’t get embarrassed about reading his work aloud in front of other people. In fact, it’s hard to stop him.
He loves criticism and treats it as a fantastic learning opportunity.
He laughs at rejection letters and sends his work out to the next publisher on his list with a confident, knowing smile.
He writes quickly and with great authority, and his work is greatly admired.
He has led a much richer life than you, and he’s far more knowledgeable.
He has an unusually positive outlook and manner, and good fortune seems to seek him out.
He has legions of avid fans.
His books sell by the truckload – and his bank balance reflects this.
Give your new persona a name. It will of course be the perfect name for such a talented and successful writer.
Become this person each time you begin a writing session. Does he wear a hat, scarf, cravat, smoking jacket, or tuxedo? Then you should too. Sit at your writing desk and feel yourself becoming him. Your thoughts should become more positive, your attitude more definite, your posture more upright. You should feel stronger, happier, more successful and more confident. Now write as he does: quickly, confidently and very very well.
Professional coaching
Most writers work alone. They also study the art and craft of writing on their own. But this isn’t the way other professions train their star performers. As soon as someone’s talent is recognised – in football or athletics, for example – the able youngster is signed up for a team and given professional coaching. He’ll also be expected to put in many long hours of practice.
Top students in mathematics and science are often fast-tracked through school, college and university too. Their fees are paid by leading companies who offer them jobs as soon as they’ve qualified. They’re trained and mentored by the most eminent people in their field.
Acting, music, art, and other creative fields have experts who take the most promising new students under their wings and push them to do better than they would on their own.
Why should writers be any different? You could get there on your own in the end, but unless you’re exceptionally lucky it’ll take you many years. But if you can find an amazing tutor, mentor, editor or agent; enrol on a renowned creative writing course; or go to the best writing conferences, you’ll get there many times faster.
There’s nothing to stop you from doing all of those things.
Who wants to be a writer anyway?
There’s a well-known TV quiz show where you can phone a friend for help if you get stuck on a question. That could work for writers too. If you have the right sort of friends, call them when you need help with your writing problems.
It doesn’t matter if they don’t know anything about the subject you’re writing about. They don’t need to know anything about writing either. Sometimes you just need to get away from writing for a while, clear your head, and talk to someone – about anything.
Discussing the topic you’re writing about in a social context can be a useful way of finding solutions and generating new ideas. You don’t have to say you’re a writer, or that you’re having problems with the topic. Just join in the conversation and gradually steer it around to the subject you want to discuss.
If you visit a fair, festival, conference or convention that has anything to do with your subject, you’ll meet plenty of like-minded people. They’ll be happy to tell you everything they know – especially if you buy them a drink or two in the bar.
Chit-chat
Most people love a good chat. And while they might not have many hard facts to share about the subject you’re working on, they’ll let you bounce ideas off them, and perhaps chip in with some interesting thoughts of their own. They might even know someone who has the exact piece information you need. It’s surprising how often that happens.
Chat to people at weddings and birthday parties and other social occasions, in pubs and bars and cafés, coffee mornings, parent and toddler groups, the cafeteria at work, or at your writing group’s next meeting. It’s also worth joining a few online discussion forums and Facebook groups.
Some of them could be related to the things you write about, but some might have nothing to do with it – perhaps you just happen to like that sort of thing. For example, you might write books about cycling and camping holidays, but also hang out in a few art and science forums for pleasure. You might get some interesting new perspectives on cycling and camping if you mention those subjects in the other forums.
Be my buddy
Think of young schoolchildren holding hands with a partner as they cross the road.
If you go diving, you should always take a partner with you – a diving buddy – in case you get into difficulties.
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sp; Presidential candidates have running mates who’ll become Vice President if their partner is elected.
Creative teams work together: Lennon and McCartney, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Simon and Garfunkel.
The same thing applies in everything from commerce (Marks and Spencer, Barnes and Noble, Mills and Boon), to aviation (the Wright Brothers, Alcock and Brown), mountaineering (Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay), science (Pierre and Marie Curie; James Watson and Francis Crick), and even crime (Bonnie and Clyde, Burke and Hare, the Kray twins). There are thousands of other famous examples.
Partnering with a buddy reduces the amount of work, effort, risk, fear, and so on. It can also boost your creativity: two heads are better than one, according to the popular saying. The ideas you come up with together might be many times better than any you’d come up with individually. Even if they aren’t better, they will, at the very least, be different.
So you need someone to bounce ideas around with. You need a “writing buddy”.
Weirder than you
Here’s something fun you can try if you run out of things to talk about when you’re out with friends: have a weird ideas contest. The winner is the person who can outdo everyone else and come up with the weirdest, most outrageous, most incredible story or “fact”. Not real facts of course; these so-called facts should be made up on the spur of the moment:
grass is purple but the human eye can’t see it as it really is