So, as you all found out in my last blog post, Amber and I recently finished writing our manuscript.
Glory be and hallelujah.
Anyway, she wrote a blog post about the experience (she beat me to it), which I found hilarious and absolutely true, which, I might add, is not something quite so good when class is about to start.
Here's the link, I hope you'll all read it:
http://www.thescribblerscove.blogspot.com/2012/11/co-writing.html
And, like Amber, I did learn a lot of things about writing and myself during this process.
Co-Writing:
-Communication is absolutely necessary. No duh. But seriously, those chapters where we didn't communicate, one of us would do something terrible. One of the reasons partnerships of all sorts fall apart is because of a lack of honest communication. Luckily for us, communication comes easily, due to some sort of mental connection and living close by and the all-encompassing Internet.
-Also completely necessary is compromise. I had to learn how to rein in my goofy fluff, and Amber couldn't get a flying train. (And no, I couldn't write fluff if she got a flying train.)
-If you're stuck, you have someone to bug for help, because it's their story as well. On the flip side, if they need help, you have to be a wall or create something logical to help them. Llamas don't solve everything.
-I have a good reason to get out of the house. Ice cream for brainstorming sessions is totally legit.
-Brutal honesty. I learned several times the art of rewriting a chapter, and the fantastic things it does.
-You need a lot of patience. Especially when your partner does not write well on demand. (And trust me... she does NOT write well on demand.) Waiting for the next chapter is one of the more painstaking things to do.
-There is no sympathy for getting stuck or having to write a difficult scene. Most difficult was one of our last scenes. We both had no idea how to write it. Amber wrote her chapter up to the hard part, and dropped it in my lap for the next chapter. Grinning maniacally. Probably laughing as well. It was indeed revenge for all the times I did that to her. One of our most common lines, "I don't know. You get to write that chapter."
-You will fight and want to kill your partner. Usually that feeling is temporary, but it's still there.
Other things that don't quite pertain to co-writing:
-There appears to be no force on this earth that can stop me from temporarily killing my main character. In all the manuscripts. (I'm working on it, Amber, I swear!)
-Amber is creepily good at writing torture scenes. And brainwashing scenes. It scares me sometimes.
-Never give your POV character an odd habit. Like biting her lip. Guess who's going to bite her lip for the next several years now. (meeeee!)
-Revenge is indeed best served cold. Especially when it's petty. So very petty. And so very worth it.
-I write on demand fantastically. In fact, it's almost necessary for me to write well, knowing that I have people who need to read it and keep going.
-Amber does not write on demand well. Cue the patience.
-The worst feeling ever is killing a character then discovering that he had a wife and daughter and an unborn son. We sobbed for a couple hours over that.
-I dream weird dreams about the story that I should never ever write. Make your partner write those, after you draw a doodle telling her about it.
-Our parents are oddly cool with us practicing torture on bread dough.
-Also, ice cream fixes everything. Unless it's mint chocolate chip ice cream. Then it's a lot worse.
-You should do research into cultural traditions BEFORE you start writing.
-Making depressed people happy is weird.
-Never ever tell a writer that you saw that coming. Cue the petty revenge.
-Amber loses all sense of punctuation when writing tense scenes.
-There is no such thing as emotional stability.
Despite the blood and tears and effort, we finally finished, and it's actually not that bad. I had a lot of fun, and would gladly do it again. Working with Amber was a lot of fun.
But later. After I get some emotional recovery. Much much later.
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