As we all know from our life experiences, Fate has a quirky sense of humor. As a young girl I dreamed of a marriage of co-authorship. Instead, at long-last I found a writing partner in—my granddaughter!
I know my major weakness in writing and it’s definitely not having enough push through GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict), which then slows down my pacing. I know how to leave a great hook at the end of each chapter, but not yet at the end of each page, certainly not enough to be a page-turner. In taking on the challenge of writing YA for the first time, I also realized I have no idea how it feels to prepare for prom night. High school was eons ago, and I’d missed out on the prom anyway. Reading Meg Cabot and watching “Pretty Little Liars” just isn’t first-hand enough for me to “be there” and coax the reader “there.” So, in my dilemma I turned to my granddaughter, Viktoria, who had just moved beyond high school and the potential wounds were still fresh, the pathos still glorious.
I had recognized in her a fellow writer a long time ago; after all, when she was but a toddler her dollies had triple and quadruple names! When I submitted some of our joint effort to the Write Stuff contest, a judge’s comments on her particular contribution earned the accolades of “exceptional, moment by moment, compelling,” and my admiration grew into in-depth respect.
She was thrilled. Enough to email me: What else can I write? What more do you need?
By that time only one more chapter was needed which, however, grew into three more chapters that somehow greatly enriched the story. Initial confusion ensued, followed by frantic re-organizing, hopefully ultimately leading to an easier, more natural flow, deepening the “river bank.” It’s nerve-wracking and thrilling at the same time; if one of us gets lost, the other casts over the rope to grab and find her way out of the quagmire.
I read somewhere that creativity is plunging into the Universal Consciousness. If so, when Viktoria plunges you have no idea what she’ll come up with when she re-emerges. All you can do is brace yourself and be there, with a pencil and pad to take notes of gems of wisdom and insight from the lips of a 19-year-old, who at age 4 was already more like 40.
Viktoria has been an international figure skater for a number of years and, more recently, an aspiring actress with dozens of auditions under her belt, so GMC is in her blood.
She is a very busy young lady, to say the least. By the time she supplied me with a few pages addressing the topic I had already moved beyond it, albeit not in any meaningful way. What she gave me, belatedly, I realized was good enough, fresh enough, first person POV (point of view) enough, to revise the sequence of my already “carved-in-stone” chapters and begin the novel with it. Here is an excerpt from “Let the Blood Bath Begin”:
“As prom is in the month of May, does it make sense to start planning and talking about it in October? Well, of course. You need the perfect dress … You need to pick the perfect date, otherwise you will end up with someone like your cousin and well, starving children could not suffer a more unfortunate fate. You need to ask that date in a cute way, because you’re obviously going to marry them and you need a cute story for your grandchildren.”
Comments, observations, filled with the protagonist’s (and Viktoria’s) edgy sense of humor. Until the boy she likes extends an unexpected invitation, leading to a distinct attitude shift:
“I had never in my life felt so light, so soft, and so––liquid! I am going to Senior Prom with Daniel Hopkins Fontaine IV! I spin around in a circle with my arms out in the vacant school hall, sort of like Maria on the top of the Alps before she became Baroness von Trapp …”
Viktoria’s contribution was filled with first-person, first-hand experience: pain, disappointment, a teen’s exaggerated reactions that seem perfectly reasonable, throughout it all an intense yearning for the perfect night, then the wisdom that follows, sometimes, hard-earned through self-reflection. The character of high school girl Samantha Jonquil MacRae is still being shaped and deepened through Viktoria’s own experiences and ability to share them. She is still close enough to the mercurial fluctuations of giddiness, euphoria, and the cusp of drama and trauma, leading to emotional resilience at some point in life.
A few months ago I asked her to beta-read something for me, looking simply for a reader’s reaction. Instead, she got her pen out and proceeded to delete unnecessary commas, explaining the efficacy of her actions. They made sense.
I’m learning as we go on, in spurts, since she is a busy girl. This summer she will do an acting internship at the Ivoryton Playhouse, and in the fall she begins a 9-month tour with Disney on Ice as an ice princess. Sadly, she won’t be here to pitch with me at Fiction Fest, so I’ll be on my own, missing out on her passionate soliloquy describing “our book.” But, I’m learning to take what I can get and be flexible as I agree to take sudden turns in the story line (literary whiplash!), and ride the dizzying roller coaster called co-authorship with a granddaughter. She “updates” me. I discover it’s no longer cool to use the word “cool,” in fact, as she says: “Adults use it to feel cool.” I don’t take offense, she is right. Her observations cut to the core, which is where we want to take our readers, right? We’re comfortable with each other, instinctively knowing it’s the story that matters and not ego-based personality differences. It’s an all-around growth experience.
She is my built-in copy editor, pointing out discrepancies; I’m her proofreader, drawing from my experiences as a freelance proofreader for Manhattan publishing companies.
“In a successful collaboration of ideas each partner contributes their particular skills and experiences to the project as a whole. It’s always about the story!” – P.J. Parrish
P.J. Parrish is the pseudonym for a sister duo of mystery writers with varied life experiences. Their tenth book in the award-winning series of Detective Louis Kincaid was just published. These co-spinners of tales live 1,600 miles apart—Kelly Nichols in Michigan, and Kristy Montee in Florida—and screen-share their ideas on Skyping, as they decide “who has the better feel for the action or character at that moment in the plot.” For years they “wrote” through phone calls and email.
“There is a style that emerges,” they attest. “What one fails to catch, the other does—double dose of energy and imagination. Double insight of character and plot.”
When it works, it works fabulously. When it doesn’t, don’t strain yourself.
As we weave the storyline, we’re also weaving delightful memories. We had watched a version of Pride and Prejudice together—I’m learning to just watch and not sporadically comment—and next, we’re having a picnic on the Guilford Green to discuss the possibility of creating yet another new chapter in which Samantha, a reserved young girl, is jolted out of her confines by playing the leading role in the high school musical. Again, part of Viktoria’s diverse actual experiences!
It’s not always smooth sailing, of course, we have not yet honed our writing relationship. Last night at 10 Viktoria called me, euphoric, telling me she just wrote another chapter for “after the prom.” She was wide awake with excitement and a day of dancing and skating, I was already dozing. She woke me right up! However, since she had been on a hiatus from our work because of other commitments, I was already finished with that part. How to tell her without clouding her joy, her enthusiasm? So, now it’s my turn to teach her, yes, we can incorporate some of it, but other parts of her fabulous chapter will go into a file titled “Little Darlings.” For future use.
I’m a pantser, she is a plotter, complementing each other, learning to adapt and adopt. I await my characters to lead me, she needs to know beforehand where she is going. Double axels don’t get perfected by dreaming about them. While I “stop to smell the roses” in my writing, she is already gathering bouquets. She is learning patience, and letting herself be drawn, trusting the process, meanwhile I am learning to “get to it.”
While we work, the generation gap ceases to exist.
Have you ever had, or contemplated having, a co-author, or other collaborative ventures? What was it like for you? Did you love it or hate it? Was it a struggle or a smooth ride joining hands, laughing all the way to The End? What did you learn from the experience?
- Mariette Mikó and Viktoria Mikó
