Question: What about working with a co-writer?
A question from Tom:
Co-writers…
I am just beginning to work with a foreign-born writer I met who asked me about working with him on a screenplay that takes place in his native (third world) country. He approached me for a variety of reasons, but bottom line, we like each other, have similar views and we both bring a lot to the project.
In that you started with one, what are your recommendations for working with a co-writer?
I figure I’m pretty well qualified to speak on this as I have worked professionally with two writing partners.
Tom, you have already identified three areas that are critical to the success of a writing partnership:
(1) You like each other. A lot of times when you’re writing a project you do not like the script you’re working on. It’s part of the ebb and flow of writing a story — sometimes it just sucks to have to face that blinking cursor on your computer monitor. At times like that, it helps if the person you’re slaving away with over the project is someone you actually enjoy talking to, writing with, etc.
(2) You have kindred world views. A writing team has to spend a certain amount of time during each writing session involved in the fine art of bull-shitting. Sports, politics, movies, relationships, the weather — you will talk about anything that is not related to the script you’re writing. This may not seem like writing, but it is important time for the duo. And clearly, if you’re a Mets fan and he’s a Yankees fan, you’re a Democrat and he’s a Republican, you’re a freak for Luis Bunuel films and his favorite movie moment is the baked-beans-farting-campfire-scene in Blazing Saddles, that could make for some seriously not fun bull-shitting sessions — and a not successful writing experience.
(3) You respect what the other person brings to the writing partnership. This is where, I suspect, most writing duos end up on the outs: One or both writers feeling the other is not holding up their end of the team’s creative responsibilities. Of all three areas, this would be the one I’d encourage you to push a bit more before committing to the project. Because if the other writer doesn’t have game in certain writing areas, you’d better be sure that (A) you do have the skills to cover those areas and (B) you won’t get pissed off if you feel like you’re the one carrying well over 50% of what the team produces on the written page.
In fact, it would be helpful if you can sort out as you go through this process which areas you’re good at and which areas he’s good at. Perhaps your strengths are plotting and constructing scenes, and his are character and dialogue. If you can figure that out, then have a conversation acknowledging that. And you may even agree that when you’re writing pages, if you have a disagreement about plot or dialogue or whatever, whoever is recognized as having superior skills in the area in question may have final say over how you handle the resolution of the question.
And a final word of advice — learn this mantra: “There’s always another way.” The way my writing partnerships operated, as we sat down to write a scene, we’d talk it through — what was the point of the scene, which characters were involved, what their respective goals were, and so on — then each of us would hand write our own version of the scene. We’d read each scene aloud. Sometimes my partner would nail the scene. Other times I would. Most times, we’d end up taking bits and pieces of each others scene and combine them into the final scene. But if we were at loggerheads — I liked my scene best and he liked his best — we would agree to scrap our scenes and go at it in a completely different way. We agreed to agree that there was always another way. And there always was.
Working with a writing partner can be a wonderful thing. It can also be a pain. The more you know about your potential writing partner and the more you lay out ground rules along the way, the better off you’ll be.
What say ye, GITS readers? What are your thoughts on working with a writing partner?
[Originally posted October 19, 2009]
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