Sunday Salutations and Editing (Part Two of Three)

The Commandments of Collaborative Editing

While Tod will tell you he is a writer because I made him be one. I, on the other hand, have always been a writer, storyteller, or what have you.

As Tod and I developed as a writing team, we have had to find a pattern, a method, a balance. Many of our edits follow the most basic form of collaborative editing in passing the document back and forth between the two of us a few times. However, there are a few more items to the process than what I outlined in my previous blog post describing the 5 editing steps. Remember, next week is about how you know when to send something out.

During the first pass from each side, we add our own marks on the piece. Then we move through the other steps. I would say most of our stories go back and forth at least twice. Although Tod tends to do the last copy edit since my dyslexia makes that a little hard for me.

Now what does this have to do with collaborative editing? A lot!

Interesting, I also do a lot of group writing at work. So, I have been able to pull some of the items that I have learned from work (yay!) and apply them to my passion. Currently I have the three commandments when writing and editing with a partner. But I may add more someday.

There shalt one primary author.

This one might seem odd when I say we are a writing team and then to turn around and say that one of us is in charge.

I do mean that for each universe, one person has final creative authority. However, who is the primary can (and for us does) change based on which universe we are writing.

When we have enough items in print, I wonder if we should make a game of seeing if people can guess which is which?

Thou shalt communicate clearly.

Each writing team needs to make sure they are on the same page and that starts with clear communication. Talking to each other is nice but is best to have recorded the vision. This means an outline, notes, or some written document. Otherwise, our writer’s vision tends to not always align…

One conversation occurred due to a lack of clear communication on my part.

The conversion started, “Tod, why are there naked women in our family friendly novel? I don’t recall having a stripper scene.”

Silence. Then, “Well, you said she was as ‘bare as a babe’ so she was naked…”

Note that in my mind this novel is not quite a young adult novel, but it is somewhere around a PG rating in language and nudity. Meaning I don’t want much if any of either.

What should have been edited out was instead expanded on because of lack of a clear shared vision. I think I had meant to write “almost as bare as a baby” but even that was too strong. I was just trying to communicate that the person in question was scantily clad enough to make the sheltered rural protagonist uncomfortable.

Thou shalt not take offense.

There have been whole scenes, even in some cases half of a short story, which one or the other of us has crossed out and rewritten. We tend to use track changes and sometimes the number of changes can be daunting. But if it gets a better product or story, it is for the best. It if annoys you, let it sit and see if you grow used to it. Or find a way to blend the two ideas.

A few months later, you aren’t always going to like each other’s additions or even your own writing. Don’t take it personally when a chapter or a character gets the slash of doom. Save it and see if you can use it elsewhere. (We have several files of “use me later” snippets”.)

And your partner might be just as right as you. If it comes to be too much go back to Rule 1. The primary has last say.

Similarly, I added a third to our novel between the first scene and another big action scene. Tod didn’t think it was needed and would slow things down. However, I was primary for that universe. In the end, I think the extra scenes grew on him. And we added events and information in those scenes that became important later in the book.

Partners

Like any partnership or functional business, we have an agreement very much like a contract, although we have not written and signed on a dotted line. But we talk things through.

And as writers, isn’t communication what we’re all about?

~Anna and Tod