I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE INTERESTING TO INTERVIEW THE APOCALYPTIC FOUR, which includes Eileen Bell, Ryan McFadden, Billie Milholland, and Randy McCharles on how they have collaborated on the books they have. Randy is extremely busy at the moment, organizing When Words Collide, one of my favorite conventions which occurs this August in Calgary, but Eileen, Ryan, and Billie give us a good glimpse into the challenges of writing as a group. Their book,
The Puzzle Box, has been nominated for an Aurora award under
Best English Related Work as have
On Spec and
Suzenyms. These are the questions I put to them about working collaboratively:
1). How did/do you
come up with a central premise? Is this also collaborative, or does
someone come up with an idea and invite others to contribute?
Eileen: With The
Puzzle Box, we all pitched different ideas for the central premise to
each other, and then duked it out until we’d decided on one. Which was
harder than you'd think.
Ryan: The
problem with collaborative writing is obviously needing to develop a
consensus. With two people, it's fairly straightforward. But throw in a
third person, then a fourth, it can be tough. One of the strengths of
collaborative writing is obviously the differing viewpoints...which can
make developing a central premise extremely challenging. For Women of the
Apocalypse, I was late to the game so I was simply told the premise.
Easy. You want to write with us, these are the rules. There wasn't much
arguing on my behalf. For The Puzzle
Box we were trying to develop a concept that would allow us to explore
the genres and themes without too many restrictions. But each of us had
our different view of what would be exciting (ideas tossed around were
Carl Yung's Red Book or the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
album cover). In the end, we went with something very simple. We decided
that the concept should be easy to explain - in other words:
make the stories the sexy part.
Billie: Coming
up with a central premise that satisfies the perspective of each person
is impossible. Just because we've done it more than once doesn't make
it possible. LOL!! It's messy and undemocratic. We bash ideas around,
each of us rejecting what we can't imagine doing until one of us digs
our feet in and works to convince the others. Somehow, we settle. I'm
not convinced it's really consensus, but I guess that's the closest word
for what happens.
2). How do you manage to keep the vision of what you're trying to do clear?
Eileen: We try to keep the lines of communication open.
Ryan: For
the Edge SF&F releases, there was no boss. So we really needed a
simple concept to prevent some crazy results. While there can be some
bickering, crying, and wailing, in the end we don't really work in a
democratic process (otherwise, one person could always be outvoted), we
really tried to come to consensus on the major issues.
Billie: What Ryan said.
3). What are the difficulties in working in tandem?
Eileen: Once
the central premise was chosen, there were few real problems. The worst
was probably the fact that all of us were very busy people, so finding
the time to talk face to face about what we were doing was hard to do.
Thank goodness for email!
Ryan: Again,
with no project manager, if we had four writers that didn't work well
together, the project would've collapsed on itself. Already, we had four
wildly divergent writing styles and the results from each novella are
quite different.
Billie: Finding
time to give good feedback to three other writers was hard, but necessary.
You can't fluff off when working collaboratively. So many times I wished
the others lived next door, so we could do a coffee thing, often... dig
deep, mess around, and then get back to it.
4). How do you edit your work? Do you keep it amongst yourselves, or get outside feedback over and above the writers involved?
Eileen: We keep
it to ourselves. There were three rounds of editing, and each of us
edited a different story for each round. First edit was the big stuff -
story, character, etc. With each edit we focussed more, until the last
edit was basically a line edit for typos and other minor errors.
Ryan: We
kept it to ourselves. Not because we didn't trust anyone else (I don't
believe), but only because we have our own built-in writer's group.
Luckily, we're proficient at self editing. After that, the stories were passed downstream (I read Eileen's first, Billie read mine first, Randy
read Billie's first, and Eileen read Randy's first) so we each were the
first reader on one person's story. Broad strokes on the first edit
(characterizations, plot). The stories were handed back - corrections
made - then they were handed to the next person in line. The edits became
more line oriented now. Each pass honed in more on the writing and less on the story. Finally, the whole project was assembled - then we each went through and began the copy editing process.
Billie: What they said...plus, I use outside feedback near the end (my husband). He's the cliché police, the inconsistency finder.
5).
When you pitched the idea to Edge, did you pitch the idea first, or did
you submit a finished manuscript? In other collaborative works that
you've done (Women of the Apocalypse, Seven Deadly Sins) was it the same
approach?
Eileen: We
pitched the idea before writing a word. However, we did have history
with Brian Hades, through Women of the Apocalypse (WofA) and Seven Deadly Sins (7DS), so we felt a little more
comfortable with pitching a concept rather than a completed manuscript.
This wasn't a guaranteed sale, of course. Pitching this way kept us out
of the slush pile.
Ryan: I
wasn't involved with WotA or the 7DS pitch sessions so I can't comment
on those. But for The Puzzle Box, we spoke with Edge SF&F before
submitting the finished manuscript. It was written on spec - there was
no guarantee it would be purchased. However, Edge SF&F indicated it was a project, if executed properly, they would be interested in pursuing.
Billie: 7DS was a serendipitous accident. WoA was our attempt at adding a twist to another significantly familiar theme.
6). What do you feel each of you brought to the completed work? Do
you have differing styles, and if so, how do you tie the whole thing
together so there is consistency to the story?
Ryan: Tying it together was a challenge. Our writing styles vary
drastically as did the plot lines. It was a fun exercise for Eileen and I
to sit down and try to somehow tie four stories together.
Eileen: What Ryan said.
Billie: Our
styles are very different. We don't even read the same things. We had a
brief intro scenario for WoA, but then we heard from people that they
wanted to know what happened to the character they got to know in that
first scene. That's what we tried to do with The Puzzle Box. Eileen and Ryan had the vision and the stamina to sew the four divergent stories
together. They deserve a medal.
7). What advice would you give to anyone else who might be thinking of collaborating on a book?
Eileen: I never
in a million years thought I’d ever collaborate on a book - and here I
am with number three! I guess the first thing would be: can you talk
honestly to everyone in the group about their writing? If you can’t,
don’t do it. Secondly, make certain everyone’s in it for the same reason -
to build the best book you can. If there is anyone in the mix who is
only in it for themselves, forget it. And third: remember, producing a
collaboration takes as long - or longer - than work you write yourself.
If you can’t imagine dealing with your collaborators for the next two
or three years, take a pass. (Ooh, look at me, listing all the ways to
say, “No!”) In other words, look long and hard at what you’re about to do
before you write word one. If you still think it’s a good idea, then go
for it. But remember: consensus is the name of the game.
Ryan: That's
a tough one. I doubt it's for everyone. I didn't think it would be for
me. But Eileen and I have actually co-written together on several
projects now. The framing story for The Puzzle Box we wrote together. We
hash out story lines, then one of us goes and writes parts of a first
draft, then the other comes in and mangles it into a second draft, and
so on. At its core, collaboration requires respect - and the ideal of reaching a common goal.
Billie: My advice...don't do it. Unless, of course, you are an
undying optimist, have the patience of Job, and truly understand the old
saw - don't sweat the small stuff. Except for the true guts of your
story, it's all small stuff. Ryan is right, collaboration requires
respect and trust. There's no room for petty bickering.
8). Would you, personally, collaborate again?
Eileen: Right now, no. But that’s because my first novel is
coming out at the end of the year, so I’m pretty caught up in my own
stuff. However, if the project sounds interesting...I could be
convinced!
Ryan: I would. Depending on the project. It can be challenging,
but it can also really make something wonderful. For instance, Eileen
often helps me work through some of the broad strokes with ideas. We
seem to be in sync with a lot of concepts so it's great working through
plots and characters. Billie and I, however, usually come at a story
from different directions. When a story is broken, or I have doubts,
Billie will usually have the solution for me. Randy writes for more of a
dark (twisted?) sense of humour so he brings yet another perspective.
Billie: I
would, if the project was intriguing enough. The styles of the other
writers don't have to be similar to mine, but one thing I've learned is
important to me is that we share a similar world view.
Eileen's Bio: Eileen Bell (also known as E.C.
Bell) has had her short fiction published in magazines and several anthologies,
including the double Aurora Award winning Women
of the Apocalypse
(Absolute XPress) and the Aurora winning Bourbon
and Eggnog. The Puzzle Box (EDGE Books Publishing) a collaborative novel
she wrote with Billie Milholland, Randy McCharles, and Ryan McFadden, came out
in August, 2013. Her first ‘I wrote this myself’ novel, Seeing the Light, will be available in November, 2014, through Tyche Books. When she’s
not writing, she’s living a fine life in her round house (that's in a perpetual
state of renovation) with her husband, her two dogs, and her ever hungry
goldfish. Find Eileen online at: http://www.eileenbell.com/,
Billie's Bio: Promoting community events and artistic
projects on a shoe string is where Billie first learned to use innovation and
surprise in order to be noticed above the sensory overload of this tech-dense
era. She has had success with marketing both fiction and non-fiction over the
last 20 years. Most recently, she is promoting The Puzzle Box (Aug 2013), a collaborative novel that contains her
novella Autumn Unbound – an unravelling of what happens to Pandora after she
was blamed for opening Zeus’s forbidden box, and The Urban Green Man (Aug 2013), a short story anthology containing
her story, Green Man, She Restless – a near-future revelation of what happens
to a scientist after she's imprisoned by a megalithic GMO conglomerate.
Ryan's Bio: Ryan
McFadden is an award-winning author in London, Ontario. A full e-reader
convert, he now uses his powers to help code books for publishers and
authors. When he's not writing or coding, he's busy breaking and fixing
homes with his renovation company, Revival Renovations. His
novella, Ghost in the Machine, has been nominated for an Aurora award
in the Short Fiction category. In 2010, he was part of the
Aurora-winning Women of the Apocalypse. His recent publications include
stories in Evolve 2, When the Villain Comes Home, Blood and Water, the
10th Circle Project, and Expiration Date. He is busy working on his next
project in the always popular Neo-Noir Supernatural Crime Thriller
category. Follow him at http://ryanmcfadden.com
