Marie here.
Today I want to talk about writing a story with a friend or colleague. Writing is a lonely hobby. You spend hours talking to the people in your head: having imaginary conversations and playing out scenes. It is great having fellow author buddies who you can share your work with and bounce ideas off of. The writing community is one of the friendliest around, right up there with cosplayers. But sometimes, you may want to try writing a story together with someone else.
There are pros and cons to this, of course. I have written with another author before, years ago. It started off fun, but we soon realized that our writing styles were very different. Not only that, but we could never get on the same page about where the story should go and how characters should act and react in certain situations. In the end, we just sort of gave up.
Fast forward to a few months ago. Gideon and I started talking about a show we watched. I complained that it was poorly done. Gideon honestly thought the show was a comedy, a farce, when it actually took itself very seriously. In the end we decided we could do better. Before we knew it, we were writing a fanfiction. Fanfiction writing itself we will leave to another post, but here is what I noticed about writing with a close friend.
We both have the same tastes when it comes to the genre we were exploring. We both wanted the same general plot ideas. We both wanted the same balance of comedy and drama. Basically, we worked really well together because we were of the same mind on this particular subject.
That isn’t to say we would be able to write any genre together. I love my dark fantasy and Gideon can’t do fantasy without some comedic elements in there. I love blood and guts as much as romance and HEAs. Our writing styles aren’t exactly the same. But with this particular story, we came together perfectly. I would write a few sentences, they would write a few, we meshed so perfectly it was crazy. We wrote over 100k in two weeks. I can barely do that much by myself in two months. It was magic.
So, to conclude, co-writing with a friend or colleague can work out well. Or it may not. You merely have to see if you can both mesh well on that particular story idea. If you don’t, who knows, you may work together better on another genre, age category, etc. It is worth giving a try.
Hollow Hills 