On Co-Writing

[earlgreytea68]

 

When I first started writing fic, it was entirely co-written.

I should back up. I’ve written stories since I can remember, but my stories were entirely original stories. I didn’t know fic existed until I was in my 20s (let me tell you, I wish I’d come of age in a time when I knew fic existed), and then I wasn’t actually actively engaged in fandom activities until later in my 20s (THANK YOU, TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY, FOR CHANGING MY LIFE), and then I met these people who wanted to co-write some fic. And at first I was like, “No, no, I don’t do fic, I think I’m too attached to my own characters.” These were clearly FAMOUS LAST WORDS. (Although I have often felt that the fic I write is so heavily full of original characters, and at the moment I’ve landed solemnly on a pair of characters so tenuously based in canon they might as well be original, that I’m not entirely convinced I was wrong with my original assessment of myself as a writer.)

Anyway, I started co-writing with this group of people and I had an unexpected blast. I had never co-written before, and it was interesting to write in that environment, and I had fun.

But then what happened was I got more comfortable writing fic and suddenly I wanted things that were mine? Which sounds selfish, but I think writers are all selfish to some extent. I started writing a babyfic on my own because one of my co-writers hated the genre, and then I got attached to my babyfic. My characters (most of whom were original, by the end of that series the stories were ENTIRELY about my original characters with tiny little side cameos by fic characters) became mine, and I’ve never been one of those writers who doesn’t want other people to play, like, people wrote fic about my original characters and I thought that was delightful, but I didn’t have any desire to share the creating of them with others. Like, I wanted what happened to them in my head to be entirely mine. And, also, I was having so much fun writing that I didn’t want to relinquish that to anyone else. I was so delighted by what I was writing that I didn’t want to give up writing any word of it. There were times when the words were hard but I still felt protective over that process, over that time I had with all of them, in my head.

But the great thing about fic is that you can, over time, write so much of it, in so many different ways, that your writing process is allowed to keep changing again and again and again. You write fics for people, you write fics in reaction to people, you write long fics, you write short fics, you try new genres, you try new characters, you try new verb tenses, you try new POVs. You write the same moment over and over again, you write the same story over and over again, seeing what you like about it and don’t like about it. And every time you do it you can do it slightly differently. So sometimes I write in furtive secret and no one knows I’m doing it until it’s done and revealed, ta-da. And sometimes I write much more collaboratively. Like, Next Big Thing was an incredible shift in writing process where I felt like I was co-writing with dozens of people, and it taught me a lot and it made the fic much better.

All the same, I never really felt this burning desire to co-write properly again. Wait, I should clarify that. I’ve never felt a burning desire to do it fic-ly. I have periodically thought it would be nice to do it for original stuff, because then I could have someone to do plot and I could just write banter like I do for fic. Like, wouldn’t that be nice?? SOMEONE ELSE could do all the hard parts!! You could wake up in the morning and your story would ALREADY BE WRITTEN.

So. I am happy to say that I have found SOMEONE ELSE to do all the hard parts, and it is fascinating.

The first time I co-wrote, I was a very young writer, and I had never put anything out into the public, and I’d never really gotten feedback, and I’d never really thought about writing. Now I have spent so much time thinking about writing. I worked myself through my relationship with writing while depressed at the law firm, and then I rediscovered my relationship with writing, and then I wrote original stuff, and then I wrote more fic, and then I found a balance between original stuff and fic, and the whole time I was doing this I was thinking so hard about all of this, because then in addition I made my job thinking about the process of creativity, and so this is all to say that co-writing at this stage in My Life (™ old person having midlife crisis or something???? I mean, not really, but who says “this stage in my life,” I am ridiculous) has been so interesting.

It started earlier this month, and I don’t even really remember how it was that @bookshop happened to DM me a question. But the question spiraled and spiraled and spiraled and spiraled, into this complicated plot that I characterized as “Hipster My Fair Lady” and then she turned into “Hipster Emma” because she is obsessed with Emma (if you didn’t know this, YOU WILL once I am done fully documenting this process, I have no doubt), and by 3:04PM on Sunday we were writing scenes together and by 6:36PM we’d established our ship and literally by 6:40PM I was like, “Wait, I feel like I might need to start writing this RIGHT NOW.” So then there was a document (it’s called “Look What I’ve Done,” which is not a title except for how now that I reflect upon it it’s kind of a fitting title and let’s not even get into titles, lolololol) and then there were scenes and then another scene and then, I don’t know, 20,000 words later or something not only is there also a three-thousand-word outline (AND I HAVE NEVER OUTLINED A WRITING PROJECT EVER, THANKS, AJA) but Aja is busy trying to figure out the plot of *future novels* around these characters.

See, for instance:

Aja: jane's book would be hysterical

Me: That's if you were a responsible writer.

Aja: her voice would be amazing

Me: Because I'm me, every one of these books would just be Matt being like, "Now we set these two people up!" And in the end they would all be about Matt. Because that's how I roll.

Aja: that's not true, you'd fall equally in love being in everyone else's head as you went along

Me: Ha, you are like the Jane Voice of Wisdom. Like, "Snap out of it, you'd be fine, you're so over-dramatic."

And meanwhile I’m like, “It’ll all just happen, just let me live in Matt’s head for a little while, la la la.”

And because I write that way, which I would call maybe instinctive or intuitive if I didn’t think that sounded obnoxious (I said later that my writing has had a trajectory toward “thoughtless sprawl of fluff”), I often don’t realize the point of what I’m writing until later. Which cracks Aja up, who spots the point of it almost immediately. So we have conversations like this:

Me: It just occurred to me how obvious Matt's need for affection is personified by how compulsively he is constantly cuddling Patrick's cat.

Aja: did you just now notice that

This process had been about watching how much our writing styles are similar enough to mesh but different enough to complement. Like, very early on I wrote a scene where the main group of characters are all at a bar together. My focus in this scene was on this very particular plot point that I felt had to happen here to drive the story forward. There were too many characters for me to deal with it, so I shoved a few of them off into a conversation by themselves and stuck with my POV character and a couple of others who I felt were relevant.

And then Aja came and carefully and cheerfully integrated everybody back into the conversation. As we discussed later:

Me: Ha, like literally I wrote a big group scene and ignored half the characters. And Aja was like, "BUT THEY ALL HAVE AN EMOTIONAL JOURNEY AT THIS PARTY," and went back and added it in, lol And I was like, "I would have just cut all of these characters."

Aja: And my first question was WHO'S SITTING NEXT TO WHO

So then, when the next group scene came up, the very first thing I did was make a seating chart in my head, and make sure that I was worried about the emotional journey of every single character, and not just my OTP. I have never done that before, just like I’ve never done an outline before.

But Aja is a planner. Aja is constantly processing things first. Aja will say, “This needs to happen,” and I say, “What? No. Why?” and then Aja has this really cogent, well-thought-out thing about it, and I’m like, “Oh, okay, wait, you’re right.” *I,* however, literally cannot do this. I cannot plan this way. I keep writing and writing and writing scenes of this story because it’s the only way I can make it make sense. I’ll say kind of vaguely, “I know what has to happen, I know I can make it work, just let me write it.” And then I write it. And then Aja very nicely comes in and is like, “But the structure and the pacing,” and makes the plot make sense again.

It’s just been interesting to watch how I operate as a writer and have it thrown into stark relief because of how I see her doing it differently and so I thought I would try to document this process as it moves forward because half of the fun of the project has been watching the surprising-to-me ways in which it has taken shape. So there will probably be periodic co-writing updates and everyone should prepare themselves for that. For now, here is some of what we have discussed:

Me: Okay, so this is so funny. Because I am currently co-writing something with @bookshop And she is like, "What's the structure? What's the pacing? We should have an outline." And I'm like, "NO WAY, I WILL JUST RAMBLE ON FOR SEVERAL THOUSAND WORDS AND YOU CAN FIGURE THE PLOT OUT LATER." Writing is so cool, everyone does it such a different way! I said something last night that was like, "The worst thing in the entire universe is having to re-write something." And she was like, "All I do is re-write.” And I was like, AHAHAHAHAHA

Aja: it's a lot of fun because we both have totally opposite approaches to the characters, too, because all I want to do is make them all flawed and giving them CONFLICT and sending them on personal growth journeys and explore who hates who and why, lol, and EGT is focused on making sure they are happy and reassuring them that they are loved and it is kind of beautiful

Me: OMG this is SUCH TRUTH.

Aja: (But we both want to do this through banter and UST lol)

Me: Every single thing I wrote last night was like, "Matt's going to have a super-great night and everyone's going to love him because he's going to have a tough time ahead of him when Aja gets back to him"

And I also think it’s interesting how we’ve revealed how our views of ourselves are slightly skewed. Like, I watch Aja characterize herself as being very worried about pacing, and being the one who is willing to let her characters suffer, while I just want everyone to be happy and nice all the time. And it’s true, I do want everyone to be happy and nice all the time, but I find her to be incredibly kind. Like, much kinder than I am, frankly. Much more worried about every single character. I tend to do this thing where I fall so much in love with my main characters that others can get short-changed. This came out in this conversation:

Aja: ugh i want jonah to end up with someone nice and hunky though let's face it, it will probably be someone named Royce or Gentry

Me: lololololol You are so nice to everybody. You are actually a way nicer writer than me, lol Everything we know about each other is a lie.

Aja: ahahaha see i just want to advance our sympathy for everyone through conflict akdfsja;s you just want everyone to be nice all the time

Me: Ahahahaha That sounds so boring when you say it that way!

Aja: no but i don't mean it to be ahaha and if they cannot be nice then you want to like make it clear why they are fundamentally opposed to Our Heroes

Me: Yes. And Not As Wonderful as Our Heroes. Who are mainly Wonderful In All Ways.

Her: whereas I am like, no! Our Heroes are Fundamentally Flawed which prevents them from seeing how their Nemesis are Also Struggling and How They Are More Alike Than They Realize, and If They Could All Just Communicate Honestly Like Adults they could all MOVE FORWARD AND BE FRIENDS, OR AT LEAST TOLERATE ONE ANOTHER PEACEFULLY

Me: WE ARE JUST STARTING OUR STORIES AT DIFFERENT POINTS. Like, I just had this moment of realizing that. Because you wrote all that and I was like, "Right. Exactly. And then after that everyone is nice." And that's where I would start.

Aja: this is a nice thought but also it is wrong because I genuinely read all 84,205,934,520,342,943 words of NBT expecting that you would eventually give Alec a tragic backstory that explained all of his actions and allowed him to eventually reconcile and find common ground with A/E hahaha

Me: But no, that's why I never did that. YOU would have done that. I was just like, "He's hopeless." I actually was going to make him MORE of a villain and pulled back. Because I decided I just wanted him pathetic, lol You would have TOTALLY been worried about Alec in every single scene. This is hilarious to me.

Aja: I was prepared for him to be hopeless but i was also thinking he would be, like, a pathetic hopeless villain who we were eventually going to empathize with unwillingly to some degree and i was i was very worried about alec haha

Me: You were legit the only person worried about Alec.

She is worried about EVERYONE. She wants EVERYONE to be happy. It’s very sweet. I write a scene that I find important solely because it allows the OTP to share what I considered a sweet inside-joke-y moment, and she was like, “Right, but Jonah? In the background? I’m expanding that because x,” and I was like, “Ohhhh, I didn’t even realize that about Jonah.”

(Also, I would like to lodge the complaint that I have been running around worried I’d let people be happy too soon, and Aja has the OTP kissing on literally the first page.)

Aja, btw, also doesn’t really care for babyfic. She has already gently prepared me for the fact that our OTP probably shouldn’t have a baby. She’s not wrong. BUT STILL. I am doomed to seek out co-writers who are my opposite. And, as she pointed out, that’s not actually a bad thing.

The best part of the whole thing is when things accidentally work out perfectly. When I write a very long exchange of dialogue entirely because I like the joke (this is a thing I do pretty much constantly, I sense it will drive her crazy by the end, this morning she rightly vetoed a plot point and I was like, “I already had a line about it!”) and then she adds a secondary character’s line that I ignored because I have OTP tunnel vision and then suddenly my funny dialogue literally becomes CHARACTER MOTIVATION, like, it’s amazing. And then she says, “We are the best writers ever,” and I say, “Yeah, we kind of are, huh?”

And in that way, we are perfectly complementary.

(I’ll get back to you when we talk about titles again. This was the conversation we’ve had so far about titles:

Me: Let's not think title because you're going to want a long one and I'm going to want a short one and we'll have to have an epic falling out over this, lololol

Aja: scream)

P.S. I said, Aja, are you okay with my posting this? And she responded:

you should make it clear that YOU HAVE DONE MOST OF THE WRITING

while i am just angsting about the writing hahaha

And I feel like maybe that is our understanding of our writing styles in a nutshell