Dia duit, Gamers! Today we have quite the post lined up for you! A very LONG post that is.

For this post we are going to, drumroll please 🥁 🥁 🥁, help YOU with collaborative writing! We will be sharing our experiences with writing together, lay out the pros and cons of co-writing, AND give some tips on how to make it work!

So let’s get to it!

Our Experience With Collaborative Writing

Bea: 

When we first began writing together, we were doing it in one of THE most complicated ways available. For the early days of The Game, one of us would write something (usually called “a bit” or something like that), then the other person would read it and write some of their own. 

When L.B. sent something to me, I would put it into a google doc, and collect her bits with mine connecting them. Of course, many times this resulted in confusion…we’d make edits in our private docs, and sometimes they wouldn’t get shared properly, so sometimes we’d have completely different drafts (often because I wasn’t listening properly when L.B. told me she didn’t like something and stuck it in my doc anyway😅)

The reason for this calamity was because L.B. wasn’t allowed to use Google Docs at first; she was using Word, so we couldn’t coordinate properly. 

But, since we worked on this book for over a year, we had to streamline it eventually. And we did, when she finally got Google Docs.

Then we had a PROCESS. One of us would write a chunk, then we would burn out, and the other person would go through and make edits. Then the person who wrote the chunk would “approve” the edits. (We marked edits by underlining them, and the person approving undid the underlining. We still do this!)

And man, is it nice writing with another person there as a safety net. When you write with another person, it’s like you put your work through a rock tumbler, and it comes out all shiny because of all the editing and reworking that you get when you work with another writer.

After writing with L.B., writing alone is pretty weird. We get a lot more done when we work together, I think. Or, at least, I do.😂

L.B.:

I had actually forgotten about the extent of the hurdles we’d come up against… It feels like such a long time ago! And it kind of was.

When I suggested writing the book that became The Game, I had absolutely no idea what I was walking into, and you know what, what I walked into was better than I had thought it would be! There was stress at times, but my first experience of writing with another person was amazing!

My writing grew in a way that it wouldn’t have for years on my own! You don’t know just how much room your writing has to improve until you work with another person. You learn so much faster than on your own because you are actively learning from and with that person, not just learning about all the different ways to make WRITING better, rather how to make YOUR writing better. You find both your strengths and weaknesses, and you do get better.

Looking back, my writing SUCKED when we began, and I didn’t even realize it. But I learned from Bea, and I hope she learned from me too, and now I’m such a better writer than I had been!

And another thing I found out: it’s much harder to make the enthusiasm for your book dim if you work with someone else! There were times of course when I had writer’s block or just didn’t feel like writing, but there was never a point where I was actually BORED with the story, and I think that came from being able to share my excitement with someone else!

Now as I have started to delve into writing solo, along with continuing to write with Bea, I know I am so much better prepared than before! So in conclusion of MY experience, I just want to say how thankful and blessed I feel to have gotten to start out my writing career with Bea!

Pros & Cons of Collab

Bea: 

PROs:

1. It’s FUN

When you have a writer for a best friend, it is insanely fun. Especially for me and L.B., who often struggle to find things to talk about, and, if we’re not writing together, we’re just writing separately…so when we’re not writing a book together, we’ll just get online and exchange pleasantries, then just be like “what are you going to do?” and then do our separate things…and sometimes ask each other what we’re doing…yeah.😅 So it’s really nice to have stuff to talk about.

2. You will NEVER forget about your project

So, I have a billion indie projects that are just sitting in a doc somewhere, half-baked ideas (eek, or even fully baked…) which never really took off; but when you work on a book WITH someone, you’ve got someone to constantly remind you to WRITE, FOR GOODNESS SAKE. 

And when you happen to talk to that person daily, it is RARE that it doesn’t come up. Especially when, as I mentioned, you have NOTHING else to discuss. 

3. Improvement is Inevitable

(Ooo, alliteration🥰)

I suppose this is also true of having an editor; the more L.B. has edited my stuff, the more I’ve learned what sounds good to someone reading what I’m writing, because she tweaks all these little things that DO make it sound better. 

And I mean, you gain so many skills when you have to learn to match writing styles with someone else. 

L.B.:

4. You become closer

You aren’t only doing something fun with another person, you are also doing something that brings you CLOSER as friends. It’s a great way to learn more about each other, and just sharing a common interest creates a tighter bond.

5. You will write more, YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT—or at least it feels that way

You can say goodbye to weeks on end of procrastination! It won’t be gone entirely, but you will have more motivation to actually get work done. 

This may be because of the nagging that you will receive (and return), a sense of duty to fulfill expectations, and just because you will likely feel more inspired to. But I do think the main motivator is that you don’t want to let your friend down.

6. It’s faster

With various people working on a single project, encouraging each other and, most of the time, sharing the work fairly evenly, you can get more done in less time than on your own. You can work at the same time and thus get double the work done, or if you are stuck you can just send it over to your partner!

7. Two (or more) heads are better than one

Everyone has their own ideas, and working with one or more other people you get a plentiful pool of ideas from which to draw from. Though the well may run dry at times, most of the time you will have more options than on your own.

This also provides area to build on. You may both have ideas, but none of them are clicking. By coming together, the other person may have an idea to add onto yours which you did not think of yourself or they would not have thought of without your initial idea, and vice versa.

8. Interaction with room for personalization

You are still interacting with someone, but you are also WRITING A BOOK! In this age of the internet, it is a way to use it to connect with someone but also not just be texting each other about…whatever. You are doing something productive AND fun! 

And it’s a great thing for in-person too. You can get amped up about it together, act out scenes, whatever you like!

If you are an introvert (like me) and you want space to do your own thing but also like to spend some time with a friend, especially doing something you are passionate about, this is a great outlet for all of those things. You get time to yourself, because you aren’t going to be conversing WHILE you are writing. You are doing something with a friend. And you are doing something you enjoy! It’s a win on all fronts!

And likewise for extroverts, you can get the socialization you’d like, even if you have an introverted co-writer, because as long as they are excited about the story THEY WILL TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT.

Bea:

CONs

1. A small loss of creative control

This will differ between projects, but when you work with someone else, it’s a given that you will not be able to make ANYTHING go, like you can with an indie project. 

I remember one time I wanted to hint that two characters in The Game had actually…time traveled…to the 1800s, and I would try to sneak in little hints in their speech and stuff…

Now, if I wrote this alone (for one thing it wouldn’t exist, lol), I would totally have made a whole PLOT POINT out of them being time travelers, and the town would probably be a simulation, and it would be like, about Fae being some sort of lonely alien or cosmic being who accidentally created an illusion for herself to live in…

But uh, yeah, L.B. has her hand in the pot so I can’t do that.😗

2. Life does have a way of HAPPENING

This is a lesser problem for me, as I am homeschooled and have little to no social life, and I don’t think this happens often with L.B…but if you’re considering collaborative writing as like, a JOB, you should remember that stuff happens.

We really only get interrupted by holidays or *shudders* SUNDAYS, because we usually can’t talk on either of those occasions.

3. I Can’t Think Of A Three

 L.B.: Haha, I’ll take over with the cons then. Not that I have many either though… 

*looks at notes* 

Actually, I don’t have anymore to add, Bea covered all of mine. And even in the right order! Down to mentioning having a blank third con!😂

Yeah, we can say without a doubt that the pros FAR outweigh the…almost non existent cons.

So let’s move on to some tips!

Tips for Collabing

Tip 1. Similar, not identical

You should collaborate with someone who shares most of the same interests and views as you, at least pertaining to the story you are writing together. 

You should certainly have differences, but you don’t want to pick someone who isn’t interested in writing the types of stories you are, nor who has views that would conflict with a view you would like to have in your story.

Tip 2. Use your resources

It will make your lives so much easier to use a writing app which allows you to share it with others. It is not necessary to use the same writing tool, but as Bea shared, when we did not use one it made for a bumpy road. 

So if you do have access to something like Google Docs, even if you do your actual writing with something else (as I do), you should use a shared master document in which you can directly add what you’ve written and which both of you can edit.

There are also tons of other apps and stuff to help the writing process go smoother, so if you can get a hold of those, utilize them! Utilize every tool you’ve got! 

Sidenote: I suggest reading the articles on Kindlepreneur, they have been incredibly helpful since I discovered it, covering every area from fleshing out the initial concept to marketing your published book. 

Tip 3. Be in constant communication

As in more than once a week. If you are writing your book(s) so that you can sell it/them and not JUST for fun, then this one is pretty much a must. 

Of course, as one of the cons states, life happens. We can’t control everything, and we all have different schedules, but for collaborative writing to work, you need to converse constantly, because without sharing ideas and progress you don’t go anywhere. Or you go at a snail’s pace. And probably eventually drop it because it is becoming depressing how little work you get done.

So yeah. Talk.

---

Bea:

With that, we’ve come to the end of the collaborative writing section of the post…and we’re on to the section that incidentally DOES have something to do with collaborative writing. 

You probably guessed it, and there’s no real reason for hype; we have essentially FINISHED The Heart of The Game!!! Yes, you heard it here first; I and L.B. have completed the sequel to The Game. The second book in the series! 

And, upcoming in our writing progress, we’re in the midst of what we call MASS EDITS. We have compiled every edited chapter together in one big ol (often glitchy) document, where we go through and make edits all the way through the book. 

Once we’re done with that, it’s off to the Beta readersss~ Time’s ticking down! We’ll probably be done in the next week, if some crazy life doesn’t happen!

Hehe, okay, now that I’ve done the fun part, I will hand you back to L.B..

L.B.:

I don’t really have anything to add, we just thought since I opened the post I should conclude it, so here I am.😅 

We hope this post has been helpful and some of you can implement the knowledge we have shared! Thank you for reading! Slan!

~Sincerely, 
L.B. and Bea