All About Co-Authoring

Everything you should know and consider before writing a novel with another author

This month’s post is all about co-authoring—something I never thought I’d do!

One of the things I love best about writing is it’s just me and my words. Me and my world. Me and my characters. It’s all in my head and I don’t share it with anyone. I like to write the way I like to write. How on earth would I ever share this intimate process with someone??

Well, turns out I actually love writing with a co-author. The trick is to find the right person to co-author with.

About a year ago (maybe 2+ years ago actually, what is time?) my longtime friend and fellow author Jodi Meadows texted me an article about plans to build a linear city called The Line in Suadi Arabia.¹ Like her, I was fascinated. And horrified.

We started talking about all the ways this sustainable, self-sufficient, seemingly utopian society could backfire and go off the rails. (Catastrophizing is a skill most authors have.)

Long story short, a book idea emerged, and I did the thing I never thought I’d do: co-author a book.²

It went… shockingly well. But I think that comes down to some very important decisions that Jodi and I made as we set out to write together.

Jodi will be joining me for today’s post as we break down everything you should know BEFORE you start to write a book with someone.

So, welcome, Jodi! Thanks for joining me!!

Jodi: Hi!! Delighted to be here, of course!

Should you co-author a book with someone?

We can’t answer this question for you because it comes down to your personality and preferences and the personality/preferences of the potential co-author.

Not everyone is going to be a good fit as your writing partner. You don’t need to have the exact same writing style, working process, or habits, but it helps to have SOME overlap. You can bring different skills to the table, but if one of you must outline and the other must write by the seat of their pants, well, that’s going to present some problems. Probably insurmountable ones.

For Jodi and me… well, we’ve been long-time critique partners and often help each other brainstorm our solo books. We each know how the other approaches story, and we have a thorough understanding of what it’s like to troubleshoot book stuff together. We are also very comfortable giving (and taking) constructive criticism from each other. This set us up pretty well to try co-authoring.

Jodi: I agree with all that! Another thing we did that I think was valuable: we didn’t just accept the idea we had; we challenged each other to come up with other creative layers to the foundation of the story, dug into the details of our world, and talked out our characters and how we saw them — enough that we were both excited about writing both characters. (We each picked one, though.) We did a ton of the fun, creative, brainstorming work upfront to make sure that we both had the same vision for the book, that way we never found ourselves with two competing stories.

Yes, such a good point! Even though we were (are!) already such great friends and thought we could write together, we didn’t drive straight in without poking at the story idea thoroughly first.

Fun brainstorming aside, here’s some less fun stuff you should consider:

Crucial conversations you should have before you co-write a single word

I know it seems like a bummer to have business-y conversations when you’re eager to get to the co-authoring, but answering certain questions will protect you both—and set the project up for success.

• What are your goals for the book? Publishing? Fun? Posting online?

• Who owns the copyright?

• What happens if one of the authors drops out?

• How will you handle creative disagreements?

• Who’s responsible for writing what? Do you write everything together? Alternate chapters? Each handle a POV? What about edits? etc

• When will you write/what’s the schedule? Will you write in parallel, then merge?Or will one author write while the other waits to see the scene/chapter/etc before starting their own pages? Is there a deadline?

• If the book sells… Whose name goes first on the cover? How is payment split—50/50 or something else?

Hammering this stuff out first is really important.

Jodi: Super important. Like you said, it can be a bummer to have some of the harder conversations ahead of time (what happens if I’m portaled away to an alternate universe — well obviously you have to come rescue me so we can finish our book), but there is a lot of peace in having a plan for if something goes wrong. When you’re cowriting with someone with the aim to publish the book, it’s a business decision as well as a creative one.

Absolutely. (And thank goodness you haven’t been portaled off to an alternate universe. I’m not sure I’m capable of pulling off an inter-dimensional rescue mission.)

Once you’ve hammered out these questions with your potential co-author, make sure to let your agents know you plan to write together, as they’ll likely want to put your decisions into a co-authoring agreement for you both to sign. They may even have questions you overlooked. (Like what happens if you fail to rescue your co-author from the portal of doom?? What happens to the book now?!)

The actual writing (advice on where to do it and tools to help you stay sane)

Modern technology and cloud computing makes co-authoring so simple. (I can’t imagine trying to co-author with someone before computers/email; you would have needed to be in the same room to maintain any sort of momentum.)

For the actual drafting/revising, anything that uses the cloud is great for collaboration. Google Docs, Pages, Word, etc. Jodi and I are both on Macs, so we use Pages.³

Jodi: Yes to Pages! I cannot tell you how happy I was when collaboration became an option for Pages. (Scrivener, I’m still waiting for you to make my dreams come true!)⁴

I know a lot of folks love Google Docs, and for a long time, that’s what I used with the Lady Janies⁵, but the poor thing really struggled with full-length novels and multiple people in there working; we had to break books up into a few sections so it wouldn’t poop out on us. That said, Google Docs has a bit more of an instant refresh than Pages, which sometimes takes a few seconds to update with your cowriter’s text.

Yeah, there’s definitely a tiny lag with Pages, but nothing that created problems for us.

So what did our actual writing process look like? Well, we did all our basic outlining/planning in a dedicated “brainstorming” document. And once it was time to draft, we started an official shared “manuscript” document and collaborated there.

Aside from Pages, the other tool we rely on heavily is video chat. FaceTime, to be exact, but there’s also GoogleMeet or Zoom as options if you’re not an Apple user.

More often than not, Jodi and I are on a video call while simultaneously working in our shared Pages document(s). This lets us talk things out in real-time and update our outline on the fly. Similarly, we can draft together almost as if we were in the same room. We start a call, both start typing, and then check in with each other after a set amount of time.

Jodi: Yes! This part is so fun. Honestly, I don’t usually like to do video “sprints,” but it’s different when cowriting. We’re working on the same book. We’re both focused on the same thing. It also helps keep us on task. One of us (okay, it’s me) sometimes procrastinates by knitting or firing up YouTube (or both), but if someone is on the other side of FaceTime and can see me check out like that? Ugh, no. I don’t want to disappoint my friend.

It’s true. Nothing like the fear of wasting your friend’s time to keep you honest!

The pros (and the cons)

Lastly, it’s important for anyone considering co-authoring to carefully weigh the pros and cons.

Among the biggest pros (in my opinion) is that half the book writes itself. It is an absolute joy to return to your ms to see that your co-author has completed an entire scene while you were off sleeping or writing yours. Magic!

There’s also the fact that you have another brain to help you troubleshoot anything. And not just a friend willing to listen, but someone who knows the story inside and out—just as well as you do. I thought cowriting would hinder my speed and efficiency because I’d need to work with another author on everything, but it’s actually the opposite. Everything (in my experience) goes faster because you have another writer working on the project who is just as invested as you are.

As for the cons… Most of the things that can be cons will only pop if you don’t have the boring business-y conversations before the project starts.

Unless I’m missing something obvious… Jodi?

Jodi: This is mostly a con only if you let it be, so it’s one of those things you should discuss upfront, but . . . schedules. Those can be tricky to coordinate. Other deadlines, family obligations, and so on: everyone has a life and that needs to be respected! So it’s important to communicate what kind of schedule you’re hoping for, what you can both reasonably do, and how you’ll handle emergencies or other priorities popping up, depending on the stage of the project. (For example, it’s easier to say “no problem, take a week!” while drafting without a contract, but harder to do that when deadlines are real.)

I think we did pretty well on this, though; we’re both up first thing in the morning and like to write then, and we established how long we would work every day before we headed off to do whatever.

Great point. Balancing individual schedules can indeed be tricky.

Oh, and a pretty obvious con that just occurred to me and I’m embarrassed I forgot until right now: Lack of complete creative control. When you’re writing with a partner, that partner will have an equal share in creative decisions. If you’re someone who wants full or near full control of the story, co-authoring is likely not going to be a viable option for you. That said, if you’re willing to give up some control and accept that creative decisions will be made as a team, this con actually turns into a pro. (Again, more brain-power dedicated to the project, you’re not working solo, etc)

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And… that’s it for today’s crash course in co-authoring.

I want to mention that Jodi wrote about this topic in her own newsletter a few years ago. There’s a lot of overlap with my post today, but since many of my subscribers likely don’t also follow, Jodi, I wanted to tackle the subject myself. (And if you do follow both of us: a) apologies for the repeat topic and b) you have excellent taste.)

Jodi, thank you again for joining me.

And subscribers—If you have outstanding questions about writing a novel with someone, please drop them in the comments. I will do my best to answer, and Jodi may chime in as well, though I can’t make any promises. I’m writing this a week ahead of it posting, and by the time it goes live, she may be busy with deadlines or—gasp!—have been sucked into a portal. (Guess I should text her and make sure I don’t need to embark on a rescue mission.)

Until next time,

Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.

1. You can read a bit about the project (now on pause) here.

2. In complete transparency, this half-written project is currently on hold. Jodi and I both got busy with other deadlines and life obligations, plus we still have to figure out how to address some feedback from our agents. But we plan to return to it in time.

3. Fun fact: We even drafted this newsletter post in a shared Pages doc.

4. I (Erin) would like to second this feature request. Scrivener Team, please make our co-writing dreams come true!

5. “Lady Janies” is short for Jodi Meadows, Cynthia Hand, and Brodi Ashton, the co-authoring trio behind the My Lady Jane series. (If you haven’t read these yet, or watched the fantastic My Lady Jane adaptation on Prime, what are you waiting for?!)