What do you think of authors 'hitching a ride'?

[Patti (baconater)]

Don't know what else to call it. I expect there's a better term for it.

I'm referring to unknown authors collaborating with big name authors. The most recent I've noticed is Stephen King.

I'm leery of reading these books. I expect it's all marketing and the books won't be of the quality I want.

What do you think?

[Jim]

Well no-one has asked me to do it yet :-(

The few I've read, it really depends on how good the 'unknown' is.
In theory the big name ought to ensure that everything is properly edited and up to scratch because their reputation is on the line as well, but from comments I've seen elsewhere I wouldn't be sure the big name has even seen the book.

[Shaun]

I was supposed to do one with someone, but for one reason or another it never happened. I have no problem with it.

[Patti (baconater)]

If your name was on it, I'd read it Shaun.

But how does it work, if you know?

How do you 'write a book with someone'?

[Jim]

The writing the book together bit I don't think would be too difficult, look at the number of people who work together on comedy sketches and similar.
We have no problem with different people writing the words and the music, but we do know that over the years some of these creative teams break up or fade away.
When talking about writers I'd go so far as to suggest that really we should look at writers and ask "How on earth do they work on their own?"
Even then I'd go so far as to suggest that some editors ought to be credited as 'co-writers', especially in a writers earlier works.

Thinking about it, working with another writer might be good, it might impose discipline, accountability and deadlines and stop the writer frittering away the morning on forums when they ought to be out there doing something useful :-)

[Amanda]

I don't think it's bad at all but then I'm working on a collection with my brother so I'm doing that myself. I'm not a big name writer but I have a bit more experience than he does. I see it as giving him a debut really.

[Shaun]

Thanks, Patti. :)

I believe it works in different ways. Sometimes, the 'unknown' author writes the whole thing and the 'big name' goes through and makes changes etc. Other times, both authors thrash the story out and one writes so much then passes it onto the other author, who reads through, edits and then continues before passing it back. I guess there are lots of other ways too though.

[Patti (baconater)]

Thinking about it, it seems like it could be great fun.

Anyone wanna go halfsies on a book with me?

I've got lots of ideas but no words.

Would mean spending a shed load of time in pubs with me, though...

[Shaun]

I have collaborated on stuff before, including scripts, but I don't get a mention as I was ghost writing.

[Patti (baconater)]

Well that sucks.

[Shaun]

Yes, but it paid money :)

[Patti (baconater)]

There is that.

[Jim]

I co-wrote

Here we knew what the publisher wanted. I went away and wrote it.
The Dave got what I'd written, added new entries, changed bits on my entries and suchlike.
Then I got it back and inspired by what he'd written I added bits to my entries and to his.
Then he did the final edits and it went to print.

But a Fantasy Gazetteer is a pretty unique sort of book and ideal for working with someone else on :-)

[Patti (baconater)]

Doesn't sound like there was much sitting in pubs time there, Jim.

:(

[Jim]

I think we met up about three times during the course of it and that did involve a pub and a Chinese restaurant

Mind you I worked on one project where one participant was in Australia and the other in the US :-)

[Patti (baconater)]

Nope.

That wouldn't work for me.

[Jud]

It's a bit misleading if say I write a book and send it to Stephen King and he edits it and it is sold under his name with me. It makes his fans think he wrote it when he didn't so it isn't going to be completely his style.

I stopped reading James Patterson once he started writing with other people, at the time I thought it was maybe due to illness or something where he could get the main points down on paper but couldn't write everything to connect it up so got someone else to help (a bit like Terry Pratchett, I suppose) but I don't think that's true for JP.

It should be made more clear who was the larger contributor to the story and not just the most famous name put first.

[R.M.F.]

Jud (Disney Diva) wrote: "It's a bit misleading if say I write a book and send it to Stephen King and he edits it and it is sold under his name with me. It makes his fans think he wrote it when he didn't so it isn't going ..."

Exactly what I wanted to say.

[Laurel]

Co-writing to me makes sense with non-fiction but not fiction. Non fiction makes sense, particularly on anything especially technical; each author researches and writes the chapters according to expertise.

But how do you do that with a novel? I just don't get how that can work. No two authors or even readers experience any character exactly the same way nor do any two authors sound exactly the same. Isn't it difficult to get a consistent character perspective and development when more than one person is writing, especially in a novel?

[Patti (baconater)]

Peter Straub and Stephen King did a good collaboration with The Talisman. Not read the second on yet.

Not sure how it was done though. I think I recall reading something about them alternating chapters or something?

[Kath]

You can do it with Drabbles! I'm hitching a ride with Jonathan Hill next month!

[Andrew]

Laurel, I'd recommend Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman as a great example of a co-authored novel. It can work, but of course it brings its own challenges. I know one writing partnership who write alternating chapters and then edit each other's stuff to result in a consistent voice.

In terms of 'hitching a ride', I don't see a problem. Look at anthologies - I'm a debut pro author in a couple of forthcoming books in which there are significantly more experienced writers contributing. But that's a two-edged sword. Yes, I get exposure from it, but I could also suffer from the contrast if my work isn't up to snuff.

Even in the anthologies produced by this fine forum, there's a huge range of experience. I might not have the sales, profile, or experience of, say, Rosen Trevithick, but I don't think I'm getting a free lunch by being in the same book.

Plus, a decade ago I was in a charity collection with contributions from people including Diane Duane and Paul Cornell - and I can't help noticing I'm still not internationally famous in spite of this...

And yay Patti - writing in pubs is sort of my thing...

[Patti (baconater)]

Yeah, but I notice no one has said they want to drink, I mean write, with me. :(

[Andrew]

I'd love to drink and/or write with you, but aren't you in some exotic far-flung location?

[Patti (baconater)]

Excuses, excuses.

[Tim]

I don't see it so much as the unknown hitching a ride, more as the big name getting loads of extra publicity/titles/cash for doing bugger all or minimal work.

[Patti (baconater)]

Tim wrote: "I don't see it so much as the unknown hitching a ride, more as the big name getting loads of extra publicity/titles/cash for doing bugger all or minimal work."

Yeah. My thinking too, to be honest.

Like they need more money.

Wonder when we'll see JK doing it.

[✿Claire✿]

I like some of the ones Clive Cussler has done with people, but others aren't my cup of tea. I think some of the best are the ones he's written with his son.

[Patti (baconater)]

Don't think I've ever read a Clive Cussler. Have certainly heard of him though.

What's his stuff about?

[Will]

Andrew mentioned Good Omens:

My paperback edition has a great piece by the authors on how they managed the collaboration.

I seem to remember drinking went on...

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Good Omens is a great book...I've read it about three times and I don't, very often, read a book more than once. But then they are both great authors.

[✿Claire✿]

He's got several series but most of them surround the sea and the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA). His main series follows Dirk Pitt and friends when they investigate various things (planes trapped in ice, strange marine deaths etc) and usually end up caught up in a bigger conspiracy. The first lot (not sure how many!) are just written by Clive Cussler but the last few years he's been writing them with his son Dirk Cussler.
The NUMA Files follow a special operations type team from NUMA.
The Oregon Files (which are my favourites but are all cowrote) are about an awesome ship crewed by mercenaries with consciences who usually end up caught up in something bigger!

To be fair to Clive Cussler, he's in his early 80s, still produces books (although I think they're mostly cowrote now) and appears to be fairly active!

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

I've never read any Clive Cussler books. They sound really interesting, I'll have to give them a look.

[Tim]

I've got a bunch of Clive Cusslers I picked up from The Works on a 3 for £5 deal. Haven't read them yet though...

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

I only buy e-books now, apart from books that have illustrations in or some reference books. I just haven't got the space to keep real books and I prefer to read on my Kindle now.

Just thinking, it was my Kindle's 3rd birthday last August and it's still going strong!

[✿Claire✿]

He's definitely my favourite author. I'm planning on reading his books in series order, and starting the other series as they fit in. One thing though, I didn't find his first couple of books the best, he hit his stride 4 or 5 books in (I can't remember which ones off the top of my head) and just kept getting better.

[Tim]

Well, I'm cheap. What can I say? Given the choice of 5+ quid each on the Kindle store, or 3 for a fiver in paperback, I'll take the 3 for a fiver. Then when I'm done, they'll go down the charity, and Jim can buy them...

[Jim]

They'd wait a long time, I don't buy that much fiction any more, normally just writers I follow and I mainly read a lot of non-fiction

[R.M.F.]

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Don't think I've ever read a Clive Cussler. Have certainly heard of him though.

What's his stuff about?"

A watered down Indiana Jones.

[R.M.F.]

Jim wrote: "They'd wait a long time, I don't buy that much fiction any more, normally just writers I follow and I mainly read a lot of non-fiction"

Likewise for me. History books are my preference - the truth is usually better than any fiction.

[Jim]

I'm reading Garrison Life at Vindolanda: A Band of Brotherswhich is a fascinating background, and of course there's all sorts of stuff that can turn up later in my own books :-)

[R.M.F.]

Jim wrote: "I'm reading Garrison Life at Vindolanda: A Band of Brotherswhich is a fascinating background, and of course there's all sorts of stuff that can turn up later in my own books :-)"

And because you're drawing from history, no need to worry about the other side pointing a lawyer in your direction. Plot ideas + legal safety = cashback! :)

[Marc]

is it not similar to bands getting in a guest vocalist or producer?

I'm all for collaboration, but I suppose there will inevitably a disparity between the two writers whichever way it shakes out - either the lesser known one is overwhelmed by the greater known one, or the greater known one really is only there as a gloss not in any meaningful contributory way.

[Marc]

R.M.F wrote: "Jim wrote: "They'd wait a long time, I don't buy that much fiction any more, normally just writers I follow and I mainly read a lot of non-fiction"

Likewise for me. History books are my preference..."

The devil in me might suggest that history has facts but not truth. 'Truth' is how those facts are interpreted...

[Jim]

Of course Marc, that's why I'm happy to borrow their facts and drop them into my truth :-)

[Marc]

Jim wrote: "Of course Marc, that's why I'm happy to borrow their facts and drop them into my truth :-)"

I seriously doubt the veracity of the facts too, but I stopped short of dropping that one in...

History graduate see and far from relishing agreeing with anything Henry Ford said, 'History is bunk' bunk written by academic historians making work for themselves

[David]

In sci-fi, Larry Niven, author of Ringworld, has done quite a few collaborations with Jerry Pournelle and Edward M. Lerner. The collaborations with Pournelle were entertaining, but I found some of the characters annoyingly pedantic, which I ascribe to Pournelle. The series of books with Lerner (Fleet of Worlds) are very good, in my opinion. I think some authors, as they get older, still want to produce but aren't up to cranking out volume like they could at a younger age. If you're at all into sci-fi, I definitely recommend the Ringworld series and the Fleet of World series.

A note about Ringworld: Niven gave a talk to a packed house at M.I.T. once. Before he could begin, the students greeted him with the chant, "The Ringworld is unstable!" He addressed their criticism by adding ramjet stabilizers in the second book.

[Jim]

Marc wrote: "I seriously doubt the veracity of the facts too, but I stopped short of dropping that one in...

History graduate see and far from relishing agreeing with anything Henry Ford said, 'History is bunk' bunk written by academic historians making work for themselves ..."

Interesting that what he said is ;-
"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916).

The one thing I want people to do when they read my books is not to live in the present. If all they want to do is to live in the present they don't me or pretty well any other writer. We lift them out of THEIR present and give them a brief alternative

[Marc]

Jim wrote: "Marc wrote: "I seriously doubt the veracity of the facts too, but I stopped short of dropping that one in...

History graduate see and far from relishing agreeing with anything Henry Ford said, 'Hi..."

there's is absolutely room in the book market for books that do that and books that only seek to engage with the present. You can probably guess which camp I fall into. I would only ask what is it about our contemporary world that demands for a reader to escape from it into a brief alternative? ;-)

[Jim]

But no book offers a person their own time, because unless you actually write the book about that person and see the universe through their eyes, the book mirroring to them their lives as they read it, you're taking them somewhere else.
Even if the book is set in the here and now, it's not their here and now, it's a here and now they can only reach through the pages of your book.
But basically most people need escape. I know that when I've gone through periods of serious stress my reading habits changed. Indeed during the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic I ended up re-reading all my Astrix books. We offer them an escape into a world that they want. If they don't like what I offer, then it's a version of here and now that they don't need to enter. If they get so far into it and don't like it, they can walk away.
We give them the romance, or the tension, or the relaxation; or the stress that they seek. We give them a chance to stretch their imagination, to explore worlds that they don't know, be it the Land of the Three Seas or Liverpool in 2013. (Remember that for many people Liverpool is just a name, it's like New York or Samarkand, it's not necessarily a real place.
(As an aside I did blog about the unreality of the real a while back, http://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/20... )