collaboration Archives - Kerry Gans, Author

Top 5 Reasons to Cultivate a Writing Community

August 2, 2018 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

This week, while preparing the Author Chronicles’ Top Picks Thursday, I read an article from an antisocial writer who really didn’t want to participate in the writing community. Many writers are introverts, so being hesitant about reaching out to others is understandable. I am a raging introvert myself, but when I think about the writing community I am part of, I cannot imagine pursuing this career alone. Here are 5 reasons why:

Craft – Your community can help you hone your craft before you spend money on editors. From critique partners to beta readers, they will give you honest feedback and handy tips to bring your craft to the next level.

Companionship – If you are like me, it takes a lot to drag you out of your house. Offer me a Writers’ Coffeehouse, a Philadelphia Writers’ Conference, a workshop, or a critique group, and I’m there. Plus, writers are good at being alone together. It is not uncommon in my area to find a group of writers sitting together at a Wegman’s or Starbucks, completely silent except for the furious clicking of their keyboards.

Camaraderie – This is different than Companionship, in that it references the deeper emotional support we get from our writing community. Who but other writers understand the frustration of not finding the exactly right word, or the pain of being rejected for the 100th time, or the elation of placing your first story in even a little-known publication? The emotional lift we get from other writers revs us up and sends us back to our writer’s grottoes ready to face the next challenge.

Collaboration – Usually we think of this in the creative sense, where two or more writers work together on a project. A writing community certainly fosters this, because how else can you meet people to collaborate with? But there are other types of collaboration, such as helping you negotiate a publishing issue or brainstorm a marketing strategy. Two heads are very often better than one.

Connection – Our writing communities are an invaluable resource for networking. We can find editors, agents, publishers, experts, beta readers, critique partners, marketing opportunities and collaborators through our community. The community can help spread the word when we have a new book out. Our community keeps us abreast of the latest news in publishing, the latest scams to beware, and the latest accomplishments of our friends.

I am forever thankful for the people in my writing community: the Writers’ Coffeehouse, the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference, workshop-mates, and of course my critique partners. There are so many people who have cheered me on, cheered me up, and made this journey so much more enjoyable.

Walk this path alone? Inconceivable.

Writing During the Holiday Madness

December 29, 2011 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I don’t know about you, but from Thanksgiving on my life has been a runaway train going downhill. I haven’t stopped for over a month. I feel like I haven’t breathed in about as long. An exhausting combination of travel, family obligations, illnesses, classes, and the requirements of survival have drained me. My gas tank is well below “E.” And yet, I’m still going.

So did my writing fare in this whirlwind? Did I even manage to get a single word written? I am pleased to say that yes, I did.

I did more than just eke out words, too—I was quite productive. I attribute this productivity to the fact that I am in between books. I finished a draft of one middle grade book and got it out to beta readers before the insanity began (which I had planned). The rest of this month was taken up with back-and-forth between my co-authors and me on the major revision to The Egyptian Enigma.

Mostly this consisted of new suggested timelines/outlines. Jim Kempner and I started with two separate outlines and the subsequent discussions (via email) slowly merged them into one outline that we felt contained the best of both. It helped that we were not that far apart on most major issues.

I would say that coming to an agreement on a completely new outline for our revision (and all the writing of those outlines to get there) is pretty productive.

Today we met face-to-face to hash out the details of things we had not been able to resolve online. We ended the 3-hour meeting with a finalized new outline—one that will cut some 30,000 words from the book, streamline the plot, and sharpen the focus.

Now we just have to implement it. We’re thinking of trying something new in our process. We’ll see how that works out. Working with three of us is an ongoing experiment to find the most efficient way to get from start to finish.

How did your holiday writing go? Or did you simply decide to take the holidays off?

Collaboration: The Meeting of the Minds

December 15, 2011 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that my middle grade WIP, The Egyptian Enigma is the product of a collaboration with two totally awesome co-writers, James Kempner and Jeff Pero. You will also know that we just got incredibly detailed and spot-on notes from developmental editor Kathryn Craft on said WIP. So now we have massive revisions to do.

How do you do that with three people?

The revisions are fundamental in that we have to restructure the plot. That means adding scenes, re-envisioning existing scenes, and cut, cut, cutting what we already have. In essence, it means starting over.

I don’t mean totally, of course. There are many existing scenes we will be able to rework and salvage, and our characters will remain much as they are. But since the plot needs so much work, our process is starting over again.

We are having a meeting Dec 28 to discuss everything and get a new outline for the book. We have an agenda, because with 3 authors it is important to know what we will talk about so as not to waste time or run off on tangents. We know from experience that we can only work productively together for about 3 hours and then our focus collapses. So we have no time to lose. Thus the agenda.

To make our time even more efficient, we are all going to email each other our ideas for the new plot. We will do this a week before we meet, so we have time to read and react and absorb everyone’s ideas. Then we will discuss on the 28th and come to a final plot, a final outline. The hope is that the best of our ideas will come together and create some alchemical magic so we have a lean, strong, potent new outline.

Once we have that, I get to work. I will write the new first draft. Then it goes to Jim, who gives it to Jeff, who gives it back to me for a final voice revision.

Before all of that, though, there will be the meeting of the minds—and the synergy that comes with it.

The Art of the Collaborative Writing Process

July 14, 2011 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I talked last week about collaboration agreements and creative control, but people often ask me about the process of working with a collaborator. How does it actually work? After all, writing is usually a solitary pursuit.

Truthfully, every collaboration partnership will find the process that works best for them. In non-fiction, the most common partnership is where one person provides the knowledge or expertise while the other does the actual writing. It can work this way in fiction, too, where one partner who loves research provides the details the other writer needs to make the book’s world pop.

In fiction, probably the most important consideration is voice—the novel must have a consistent voice and feel to the writing all the way through. The exception, of course, is when the writers purposely want two distinct voices or points of view in the structure of the story, such as alternating chapters from different characters’ POV. In the vast majority of cases, however, the book should feel “whole,” with no indication that multiple writers had their fingers on the keyboard.

The best way to achieve this is to have one writer be the primary writer. The primary should be the writer whose natural voice best fits the purpose and tone of the story. This will mean less revision later for reasons of voice, which is one of the harder things to edit and revise for if it is not strong from the start.

The primary writes the first draft; then the secondary takes it and makes edits, additions, suggestions, etc.; then it returns to the primary to be “polished” into the proper voice. Some may choose to have the secondary write the first draft and then the primary work it into the right voice in a rewrite, but I believe that is an inefficient process. The primary would almost certainly have to do a complete rewrite of every chapter to get the voice the collaborators want.

In my collaborative fiction project, I am working with two other writers. We each bring different strengths to the table. I am the primary writer, because my voice is the one we liked best for the project. I tend to focus on character and emotion. One of my collaborators, Jim Kempner, is excellent with plot and research. My other collaborator, Jeff Pero, is a line editor with a great nose for writing action. So our process goes something like this:

We all hash out the outline of the book. This was an enormously fun part of the project, full of synergy and enthusiasm. I then wrote the first draft. Then Jim took it and added detail and description and poked holes in the plot and logic, which he then mended. Jeff took it from there, checking for grammar but also policing the pacing and action. We all, of course, also kept an eye on character and dialogue and all the other things we writers need to juggle!

After Jeff, it came back to me, and I polished it, massaging all of Jim and Jeff’s inserts into the voice of the book. Then we all sat down together, read it out loud, and made line-by-line edits.

And that is how the three of us wrote our book, The Egyptian Enigma.

Have you ever worked with a collaborator? What was your process like?

The Collaboration Agreement: A Literary Pre-nup

July 7, 2011 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

Collaborative writing has always been prevalent in non-fiction, but it seems to be becoming more frequent in fiction as well. To that end, I want to talk a little bit about collaboration agreements and what they cover—and don’t.

I am not a lawyer, but I have been involved in two collaborative projects—one non-fiction, one fiction. In both cases, we made sure to sign a collaboration agreement. In the non-fiction project, we were all strangers so it made a lot of sense to protect ourselves in this way. In the fiction project, we are friends, so it was even MORE important to sign an agreement.

Why, you ask? If you’re friends, doesn’t the legal stuff strain the relationship?

Absolutely not. In fact, it is essential that friends sign an agreement in order to KEEP their friendship intact. Face it, people get nuts when money is involved. Knowing up front how money and rights will be divided takes all that pressure off and lets you just do the project and be friends.

I’m not going to cover in detail what is in a collaboration agreement. You can read a sample one from the Writers Guild of America. The National Writers Union is also a good resource for all things freelance.

Basically, a collaboration agreement lays out what the work is that you are collaborating on, how rights and money will be divided, and what happens in different eventualities, such as one partner dying or deciding to quit the project.

What I think is also important, but is not covered in this legal agreement, is creative control. By that I mean, who has the final say? If the two of you (or in my case, three) don’t quite see the vision the same way, whose wins out? In my case, we have talked it out until we reached consensus, but that can 1) be slow and 2) lead to something that no one is completely happy with. It can also lead to fantastic synergistic ideas that never would have come about on your own!

Another aspect of creative control is final editorial control. When you’re working on plot and scenes and the language and those end-stage revisions, and you disagree whether a scene should be in or out, or whether using “gorgeous” is better than “breath-taking”, who wins? In a case where one partner is a writer and the other is not, the writer should have final say. In a case of multiple writers? Well, once again my experience has been with the haggle system, which works fine but is deadly slow when you reach the line-by-line stage of revision.

My suggestion for who gets final say over the creative control is this: 1) The Writer always wins if the other partner is not one. 2) In the case of multiple writers, the one who brought the original idea should be the overseer.

While modifying the collaboration agreement to include a Creative Control person might not be legal (you’d have to ask a lawyer), it is a good idea to discuss and decide on one with your partner(s).

The Creative Control manager needs to beware of becoming a dictator. Remember why you teamed up with your collaborator in the first place—because this person(s) has valuable contributions to bring to the project. Keep an open mind, because synergy can strike when you least expect it. In my own fiction case, I know that my partners’ ideas and plotting and research and writing skills have made the book a thousand times better than what I could have done alone.

So sign that collaboration agreement and get on with the fun stuff—writing!

Triple Vision

May 22, 2010 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

Now that we knew we needed to re-storyboard, how do you proceed with three authors?

Since it was my idea to re-storyboard, I got the assignment of writing the new storyboard for The Egyptian Enigma, our middle grade adventure novel. After I sent it over to my two co-authors, they looked it over and made notes. Then, we had a meeting to discuss everything. While email is a godsend, and imperative when working with others these days, we have found that we are much more efficient and creative when we are all in the same room.

My co-authors and I hammered out the details of the new storyboard, until we were all happy with it. Having three authors can be difficult at times, because speed is nearly impossible. When you are a solo author, decisions are quick – you make it and run with it. With three, everything needs discussion. And although that does not lend itself to speed, it has its advantages. Three people see three different angles. Together they see things a single author could not see. This gives the work a variety, depth, and nuance that might otherwise not exist. So having all of us discuss the storyboard was vital. They raised questions I never thought of, and working through them made the resulting storyboard stronger.

When you have three authors, the question of how to divide the work never ends. In our group, the pattern usually is that we decide on a course of action together, then I develop the first drafts of whatever we need, and then we polish them together. I don’t know why that is – perhaps because this was my story idea to start with, so I am the de facto primary. Whatever the reason, once we had a storyboard we all liked, I got to work revising.

It took a while, what with a 6-month-old in the house, a trip to Arizona, and shuttling between our house in Jersey and our temporary home in Virginia every couple of weeks. But I finished the revision, and was very happy with the results. We cut 10,000 words from the story, all from the first half of the book, and got to the rockin’ second half much faster. We also had agreed to shorten the chapters, and that resulted in a shift from 52 chapters to 96. It reads much faster and smoother.

We’re still not done, of course. The other authors need to read what I have done and add their expertise to it. And we have many other revisions to work through – character is up next. Stay tuned for further Tri-vision adventures!

My Writing Process, Part 2

July 19, 2009 By Kerry Gans 4 Comments

After Donna died, I went through a painful process of rebuilding. Aside from the emotional devastation of losing a best friend at age 32, I had to learn a new skill—writing alone. For a while, I wasn’t aware of how daunting a task that would be.

I was in grad school at the time, so all of my writing was vetted by teachers or other students. Even though it wasn’t the same process as with Donna, it wasn’t much different. Even my final Master’s thesis, a story about Donna’s death, was intensively overseen by my thesis advisor. It wasn’t until I graduated grad school that I became aware of the gaping hole in my creative life.

Suddenly, the aching aloneness of my post-Donna life smacked me in the face. Whenever I contemplated writing, I froze. I couldn’t even think of how to get started. Every writing project seemed a dark, craggy canyon, full of shadows and perils. Who would catch me if I fell off a sudden precipice? Who could guide me through the darkest gullies? Who would help me climb over the rockslides in my way?

Me. Only me. Except that I didn’t know how.

All I could do was do it. So I wrote and revised and struggled and wondered if what I was writing was any good at all. I can’t tell you how many times I almost picked up the phone, or opened my email to ask Donna’s advice. Every time the impulse to talk to her grabbed me, it was a fresh thud in the gut over her death. But I pressed on, because writing is like my heartbeat—I can’t stop it. So I finally finished my first truly solo endeavor and then thought, “Now what?”

I needed feedback. Every author does, at some point, and I didn’t have it anymore. My grad school advisor pointed me to a writing group in Doylestown, PA. The location shook me a little—Donna had lived in Doylestown. Perhaps she guided me there, because it was like coming home. Sharing my passion with other enthusiastic writers broke my isolation and revved my creativity. I have been part of the writing community in Doylestown ever since, and I look forward to many more years of feedback, encouragement and camaraderie.

Even now, six years on from losing Donna, my new writing process is evolving. I still like a lot of feedback, and I still am very comfortable in collaborative projects. The middle grade novel I am currently shopping, The Egyptian Enigma, is a collaboration with two other authors. I also know I ask people to read and give me feedback on very early drafts of my other works, probably much earlier than most writers do. I am, however, becoming more confident in my own decisions, my own instincts, and my own writing.

I have never found another writing buddy who fills Donna’s role. For a long time, that frustrated me. I searched for someone to fit into that gaping wound, and it is a futile search. I can no more find a perfect match for my writing partner than I can for the best friend I lost. But I’m okay with that now. I have grown past needing that symbiotic relationship.

I have evolved, my writing process has evolved, and my writing is miles beyond what Donna and I ever accomplished together. But sometimes, in moments of need, I find myself asking the golden question: What would Donna do?

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