7 Thoughts About Collaborating Successfully on a Novel

By Dan Brotzel, @brotzel_fiction

I met my two collaborators, Martin and Alex, at my local writing group. By coincidence, it turned out that we all lived in the same road.

As we got to know each other, I decided to share an idea. It had struck me that a writer’s group is itself quite a promising set-up for a story: all those fragile egos, all those different personalities hungry for publication, all the different sorts of writers and writing — from epic verse to steampunk, in our case.

Originally I’d thought the idea might make an interesting short story, but over time — and as my friendship with Alex and Martin grew — I started to think how much more fun it would be if we wrote something longer, together.

So I put the idea to them, and they ran with it. After a few meetings in our local pub, we had thrashed out a set of characters —  we would each run 2 or 3 — and a broad structure. We knew it was to be a novel in emails, building to some sort of explosive climax, and that was enough to get us started. And so, Kitten on a Fatberg — now to be published by Unbound — was launched.

Part of the fun of the project was the element of blind collaboration. We set up a dedicated email account for the book, and each of us began firing off messages, in character. So every few days you’d go into the inbox to read an email from one of your co-author’s characters, which talked about some terrible thing that your own character had just done at the last group meeting.

You would then fire something back from your character attempting to explain or justify their behaviour — and taking great pleasure in dropping someone else’s character in it, and so on. There are 8 main characters in the book, which means lots of scope for feuds, alliances and even romances in various combinations.

Over time, the direction of the story became clearer, and we starting meeting to shape the narrative to its conclusion in a more conscious way.

The whole thing took about two years. The experience was hard work, complicated at times, but always great fun.

Here are a few things I learned along the way about how to collaborate successfully on a long-haul writing project such as a novel…

Don’t rush in

Spend time kicking the idea round, working out the structure, stress-testing the plot. Make sure that all of you are equally bought into the idea, otherwise enthusiasm may fade over time. Novels are marathons, not sprints — you need to be sure you’re excited enough to commit for duration.

Look hard at your partners (and at yourself)

In the past I’ve tried to collaborate on projects many times, always unsuccessfully. I can see now that I was looking for someone to nag me into completing a book, to provide the sort of  follow-through and self-discipline I obviously couldn’t find in myself. But it was only when I reached a point where I was able to complete projects on my own that I was able to successfully collaborate with someone else. So long hard at your potential partners — and at yourself. Are they completer-finishers or are they flakes? And what about you??

Find a MO that works for all
Almost as important as the big idea is coming up with a way of working that accommodates the schedules and demands that every collaborator has to juggle. It’s common for collaborators to write alternate chapters, or to run different PoVs. If the novel is plotted out at the start, you could get on with chapters ahead of each other. It’s also common for writers to edit each other’s chapters.

Factor in flexibility
In our case, the email structure meant that characters didn’t have to post in a particular order or by a particular time, so we were never sitting round waiting for someone else to finish a section before we could carry on. If you had some free time to write, you could always pick a different character and write another email. This fluidity massively facilitated things for a writing threesome. Our next shared novel — about a harmless UFO cult with only a handful of members left — will make use of a web forum structure (posts + threads), which offers similar flexibility.

Stage regular check-ins
Crucial to our process were the regular pub meetings we held, where we would chat away about our characters like they were absent friends, sense-check the direction of the narrative and try to work out what kind of book we were actually writing. Initially we had thought we were writing a sort of dark murder-mystery, but as the characters continued to let themselves down in all sorts of ridiculous ways, we realised that we were heading inevitably towards something much more like farce. These regular check-ins are also vital to make sure that everyone is happy with the process, and to keep morale and motivation topped up.

Leave the ego at the door

Writing can feel like a furiously solitary activity. But when you collaborate, you become a we and not an I. As in a marriage, no one wins unless you all do. So you have to let go of thinking about who wrote what, or who’s doing the most work, or whether you agree with someone else’s edits of your work. Your co-authors are your first best readers, and what they think of your words are more important

Have fun
If you discover along the way that collaboration isn’t for you, it’s obviously better to let your partners know sooner rather than later, so they can find a different way or not waste unnecessary time on a project that’s likely to fail. On the other hand, most of the other points above happen quite organically if you enjoy the process, you admire your fellow collaborators, and there’s a shared will to make the thing work. Why do it otherwise?

• As a reader of this blog, you can pre-order Kitten on a Fatberg for a 10% discount — simply enter promo code KITTEN10

Dan Brotzel’s first collection of short stories, Hotel du Jack, is due out in early 2020. He won the Riptide short story competition 2018, and was Asda Christmas Cracker gag champion, 2004.

Martin Jenkins is a freelance writer, researcher and editor. His publications include an experimental novel A New Science of Navigation.

Alex Woolf has written over 100 books for young people and old, both fiction and non-fiction, published by the likes of OUP, Ladybird, Heinemann and Watts.

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