Another thousand words on ENTANGLED today–that’s the joint novel with doctodd, of course. So I’m up to just over 36,000 words total, and solidly in the middle of the outline.
It’s the outline, here, I want to talk about for a moment. Which will lead into some thoughts about co-writing in general. But specifically, for this book, the way we worked was this: we brainstormed the general ideas for the plot–the setting, characters, basic premise. Then he wrote a plot synopsis. I read it, added questions, changed a few things, sent it back to him; we batted it back and forth like this for a while, till I had something I felt like I could work with.
I started writing. The first third of the book went very smoothly (despite being interrupted by Other Projects). I sat down to write each day and knew, if not exactly what was going to happen, then at least in fairly clear detail what needed to be done by the end of a particular scene. Piece of cake.
At a certain point, I read a really smart post by stacia_kane where she talked about the acts of a book, and I realized that this outline was already organized into acts, even though it wasn’t laid out that way. So, looking at the arc of the plot, and the word count that I’d done thus far, I noted which outline points fell where in the acts.
There’s 26 points on this outline (the last one being merely “The end”). The first 13 and part of #14 are Act I. Points 18 through 25 (well, okay, 26) are Act III.
So…here I am in the all-important middle of the book, with points 15 through 17, and part of 14. And this is supposed to convey all the setup action, all the further complications, and take 100 pages of text (or so).
Seriously. That’s it. And it’s full of questions, to boot.
I was complaining to Jay Lake the other day that point 15 says the basic equivalent of, “They go investigate things and figure stuff out.” Ha. No, that means *I* have to figure stuff out.
Even so, it’s moving along. I guess I should be complaining to doctodd about this, but he’s busy, what with the kid and all. And, well, I muddle along, through the muddle in the middle.
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But there’s other ways to do co-writing. Of the last four short stories I’ve sold, three were co-written. Stories are totally different than novels. The way Jay and I have worked it, one of us starts the story–writes 100 words or some other little scrap–then sends it to the other, who adds a bit and sends it back. Sometimes, we have some idea of where the story is going, but usually not. Sometimes, we strive for a coherent voice in the final product–in “Bone Island,” I can’t tell any more who wrote which words–and in others, like “Rolling Steel,” there are two distinct voices, interwoven.
For me, the important, and fun, thing about co-writing is when it plays to the strengths of both writers. Todd is strong on plot (except in the muddle in the middle!); I can crank out word count day after day. Jay–well, he doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses, that I can tell. It’s just fun to be along for the ride on that one. In fact, we’ve got 100% sell-through on our joint stories–3 for 3. Time to start another one!
Just as soon as I finish moving in here. đŸ™‚ The President of Glyptotronics was by last night, helping me hang pictures, then cooking me a fine meal. Good stuff.