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This week’s release party for
Diamond in the Rough is a bit different from any
other we’ve hosted here on Inwkell. We’ve never had a double-Inky book before.
One book. Two Inkwell authors working in tandem. Writing partnerships remind me
of two people playing the same piano together. How do they keep from bumping
into each other and messing up the other person’s rhythm?
Writing can be a lonely business when the writer is
one-on-one with a computer for hours on end, so sharing the workload—especially
with a friend—sounds fun and interesting. However, authors are often control
freaks. One of the advantages of creating our own “worlds” is that we have
absolute power. We can make our characters do anything. (Just try getting that kind of obedience from your
children!) Sharing the work means having to share control.
We thought it would be interesting if
Jennifer AlLee
and
Lisa Karon Richardson would tell us a bit about their co-writing partnership. Welcome to the hot seat, er,
interview, Jen and Lisa!
Let’s start with a little background. Can you
share how long you’ve been writing and how many books you’d published before
Diamond in the Rough? Was this the first
book you co-wrote as part of a team? (Unpublished manuscripts hidden under the bed
still count since you’d have had to learn how to work with another person.) How
did this partnership come about?
Jen: I’ve
co-written plays before, but never a novel. Lisa and I have been crit partners
since we met at our first ACFW conference in 2007. Usually, I write
contemporary, but I had an idea for a historical novel. Naturally, I turned to
Lisa for help, because she’s a historical fount of wisdom. I was asking so many
questions, I finally thought, “Hey, we need to write this together.” So I asked
her if she was interested, and thank heaven, she was. The rest is literary
history.
Lisa: Where to start? I had a novella and a novel published before
Diamond in the Rough came out. (Several other manuscripts are waiting for their
turn in the sun!) Diamond in the Rough is our first effort at partnership. And
that all came about because Jen is a genius.
She had a brilliant idea for what would have
been her first historical, but the idea of the research she’d have to do to
pull it off was… daunting. Meanwhile, I was thinking, “Man that is such a good
premise. Wish, I’d thought of it!” When she finally got the telepathic signals
I was sending her, she e-mailed me to see whether I’d be interested in
co-writing it. I jumped at the opportunity (If she’d been anywhere near, she
would have practically been tackled!)
Oh, dear. Perhaps it's not totally a bad thing (for Jen's health) this was primarily a long-distance relationship. But that must have added to the challenge. So tell us a bit about how two authors created a story together. How
did you come up with the ideas for the plot and characters? How did you
synthesize each person’s ideas into a coherent whole that left both of you
satisfied with the story? Did you have any good ideas that had to be left “on
the cutting room floor”?
 |
| 1870 Currier and Ives of California miners |
Jen: It started off with the setting. Eureka, California was a
boom town and lent itself to all kinds of interesting possibilities. In the
very first rough synopsis of the story, Grant was pretty much the same. But
Lily was a shopkeeper’s daughter and Carter didn’t even exist. Lisa & I
batted around lots of different ideas about how to develop the story and what
would work the best considering the history of the period. This resulted in lots of cool characters who
really wouldn’t fit this particular story. Chinese immigrants, miners, soiled
doves… they really all deserve books of their own.
Lisa: Jen
selected the setting initially because it had a cool name—Eureka, California.
With that starting point and the seed idea of a man trying to flee his past by
assuming the identity of a dead preacher, we had a good starting point. Next
thing to consider was what elements would make the seed idea work and that gave
us the time frame. Then we did a lot of research on the area in that time
period and from that brainstormed our plot. There was a lot of back and forth,
e-mails: what about this? Nah, but we could…
In
the end I think we were both happy. We had put together a 3 page summary for
the proposal to Whitaker House. And that left lots of wiggle room for
maneuvering the story in new directions and we (by that I mean Jen) came up
with twists that surprised the other.
And
we definitely have a lot of good stuff that could be used for another story of
adventure and passion—for example, about 30 years after our story is set Eureka
had the largest Chinatown in California aside from San Francisco. There were
some incidents and essentially a pogrom was undertaken against the Chinese. But
a few righteous individuals stood up to the attackers and saved many lives.
There has got to be a good story in there.
Yes, it definitely sounds like Eureka has a lot more characters that need books of their own! Speaking of books, can you tell us a bit about the actual
writing of this one? How did you divide the work?
Jen: We
start out by batting around ideas. Then we write a moderately detailed synopsis
so we know where we’re headed. Then we dive into the book. Lisa starts us off
with the first chapter, firmly establishing the time period and setting. When
she’s done, it comes to me. I read her chapter, edit if necessary, then write
mine. I send it to her. She reads my notes on her chapter, reads my chapter,
edits if necessary, then writes her next chapter. And so on and so forth.
Sometimes, one of us will be on a roll and will write two chapters in a row. I
think this method of ongoing writing and editing results in a well-blended,
cohesive manuscript. There are times when I can’t even tell now which one of us
wrote what.
Lisa: Since
we were starting from whole cloth and had no idea how precisely to approach the
project we thought of several different ways of approaching the work. One of
the first was that we could each write the scenes from a specific character’s
perspective. But we ended up discarding that idea pretty quickly, because it
just was wasn’t very practical. In the end, we took turns. I wrote chapter one,
sent it to Jen for critique, comment, and tweaking. Which she did, then wrote chapter
2 and sent it back to me to repeat the process.
Based on Diamond
in the Rough’s setting, I’m guessing this book involved historical
research. How did you divide that task? Did one person take the lead? Did each
person just research the parts she needed? One of the difficulties with
research is that sources can be contradictory. Did you run into issues where
one person’s research contradicted the other’s? If so, how did you resolve them?
Jen: I
defer to Lisa on all points historical (which sounds a bit like Gilbert &
Sullivan). And I confess, sometimes I’m lazy and instead of looking it up
myself, I ask Lisa, “Could this have happened?”
I
don’t recall any instances when our sources contradicted. But personally, there
were times when I wanted something to happen, and then I found out it couldn’t
have at that time. Because my usual approach
to writing is so organic (i.e. I plot out as little as possible ahead of time)
historical fiction stretches me in a whole new direction!
Lisa: For
Diamond in the Rough, I did more of the initial research, but as you know with
historicals there are tons of niggling little questions that pop up during the
writing and we mostly handled those on our own. I don’t think we ran into any
contradictory research in this one, so we lucked out. If we had, I’m sure the
response would have been pistols at dawn.
Other than the potential for violence (or is that historical research?) how would you compare writing solo vs. a writing
partnership? What things do you find easier/faster for each? What did you find
more difficult than you expected? Any tips you could share for writers considering
a partnership?
Jen: In
general, the writing life is solitary. You write and write, and sometimes you
wonder if what you’re writing makes sense to anyone but you. When you
collaborate with a partner, you have almost instant feedback. If your words don’t
make sense, your partner will let you know. Also, being accountable to someone
else means you can’t put off writing until the last minute. That’s particularly
good for me, because I can procrastinate like you wouldn’t believe.
Honestly,
I wouldn’t call any part of the process difficult. But it does get challenging
when we have different ideas where the plot should go, and one of us springs it
on the other. That doesn’t happen often (and I’ll admit, when it does, it’s
usually me doing it) but it makes for a lot of emails flying back and forth.
LOL
If
anybody out there is thinking about writing with a partner, I would recommend
talking about the process first. Are your goals the same? Can you give and
receive criticism objectively? How will you divvy up the work? The more
questions you deal with ahead of time, the smoother the writing road will be.
Lisa: It’s
kind of difficult to compare the one to the other. One of the great benefits of
the partnership and the way we traded off the work was that there was constant
accountability for getting the writing done. We couldn’t procrastinate (well
not much) and that was a good thing. And there’s definitely something
comforting about knowing that Jen’s working on it , while I take time to focus
on another project.
One
of the challenges was letting go of the story when the chapter was done and I
felt like I was in a good groove. Probably the biggest challenge was getting
back a chapter that contained a twist and having to readjust the brain to the
“new” story, then wondering what to do next. But that was fun and when we do
that to the other we started tacking on a little note about how we thought it
worked.
Truly
the biggest thing if you’re considering a partnership is that you really have
to trust the other person’s sense of storytelling and their work ethic.
Trusting another person sure can be difficult! Let’s get a little personal with this next
question. Can you share one area (or more, if you wish) of the creative/writing
process where your partner’s strength complemented a weakness of yours? How did
this make the book better as a whole?
Jen: Besides
her skill in keeping us historically accurate, Lisa is great at upping the
adventure quotient of our stories and keeping the pace moving. She knows how to
make life difficult for our characters!
Lisa: Well
I can think of a lot of them, but I will restrain myself to one. Jen is way
better at developing the romance/relationship between the hero and heroine. The
poor thing was forever adding small gestures, or longing thoughts to my more
goal oriented prose. I’d be like, and then there’s an explosion, and she’s like, but the hero hugs her and tells her it’s
ok at the end right?
Overall, I think the combination made the book
more well-rounded. There is plenty of adventure but also a more satisfying arc
to the relationships.
Many Inkwell readers aren’t writers. Are there
any lessons you learned from the experience of working with another person that
you can use outside the realm of writing—for instance, in your relationships
with family members?
Jen: Communication!
The older I get, the more I realize how important clear, honest communication
is. If Lisa or I didn’t like the direction the story was going, we’d talk about
it. It’s no different in any other relationship. So many times, we allow
ourselves to be hurt over someone’s words or actions, but instead of going to
them and discussing it, we hold it in. That just makes it worse. Imagine what
the world would be like if we always took the time to talk through our
problems. (I’ll be breaking out in song, soon.)
Lisa: Partnership of any sort requires give and take. And of
course, there is a need to consider the other person’s perspective. Remember
that you have a common goal. And then trust that the other person has good
intentions, they want to achieve that goal too! Then if the partnership is
strong you can rely on their strengths when you’re weak.
Thank you, ladies, for sharing with us. Let's run that blurb one more time, shall we?
Grant Diamond is a professional gambler on the run from his past. When he comes across a wagon wreck, the chance to escape his pursuers is too good a gamble to pass up, and he assumes the identity of the dead wagon driver. His plan takes an unexpected turn when local heiress Lily Rose mistakes him for the missionary she had asked to come work with the Wiyot Indians. Seeing Eureka as a promising place to lay low, Grant plays along. Before he knows it, he's bluffing his way through sermons and building an Indian school. But with a Pinkerton on his trail and a rancher rousing fresh hatred against the Indians, Grant fears the new life he's built may soon crumple like a house of cards.
Have you tried a partnership for an activity that you normally do alone? How did it go? What lessons did you learn? Do you have any questions for our intrepid co-writers?
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