Good Omens/Collaboration

*This week’s Monday post is brought to you early by Really-Busy-Tomorrow Cereal!

In a post the other day, Jenny asked me what I thought of our new collaborative adventures. To Jenny, I say, Good Omens. Oh my, how I love when things sync up like that. The book in question is a delightful collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. In a copy I read, or maybe an interview, Gaiman reflected on the process of collaborating. It’s been a while since I read it, but the jist of what he said was that as they went along writing, their main goal was to write something that would make the other laugh. So, it was kind of like a game/conversation. I thought that was pretty cool

Now, to talk about me and Jenny. So far, we’re still early days, so a lot of the collaboration is focused on questions like, “How do we want this process to work?” Piece by piece, we’re working that out. For those of you who are interested, here’s how we’re tackling it:

In the book, we’ve got two timelines that relate to each other. I really liked the stuff and characters in the earlier timeline and Jenny had cool ideas about the later timeline. So, we decided to divide and conquer. We had an outlining/note making session to get on the same page about who the characters were and what our major plot points in both timelines would be. Now, we’re working on the drafting stage.

For our respective timelines, each of us is responsible for writing the rough draft. Then, as we get a chapter or two finished, we e-mail the draft to each other. The other person reads the draft and tweaks it, adding what they think should be added, re-wording, etc. Then, it goes back to the drafter to review and see what they’d change about the other person’s tweaks. I think the process should work well, and it’ll help with things like consistency of voice & character and all the other logistical things that get tricky when you have two people driving the boat.

The blog follows a similar process. We’ve got an outline of mentors and we’ve divvied up the posting schedule and features, i.e. Tuesday Accountability posts are Jenny’s domain, the Saturday Pages are my pet project. I think we’re getting our rhythm, and it’s fun to have someone to have a conversation with as I write. It’s all about that idea of the Ideal Reader, and Jenny fits the bill nicely.