There must be as many types of writers’ collaboration as there are writers.
The Boileau-Narcejac duo (authors of The Living and the Dead, the book behind Hitchcock’s
Vertigo) had an approach that worked beautifully for them. Pierre Boileau and Thomas
Narcejac produced more than 40 novels (in as many years), 100 short stories, and a few
movie scripts together. They lived six miles apart but rarely met and always worked by mail
(snail mail, it’s the 1950s), sending stuff over, letting each other “…ruminate objections for a
few days… Pierre comes up with the plot, and Thomas writes. Pierre types the manuscript
and improves things as he goes.” (From a joint interview they did in 1987).
Peter Straub describes his collaboration with Stephen King this way (from a 2018 essay for
USM): “…One day he asked me if I wanted to collaborate on a book, and I said, “Of course;
let’s do it.” We wrote the first 50 pages in Westport, Connecticut, where Susie and I had
moved in 1979, in an intensely collaborative style. I’d sit down at my machine and write a
few pages, and then he’d sit down and start banging away on his pages. There was no
transition when he worked; he would get a distant look in his eyes and start clacking away.
He just dove right in, whereas I generally need a little time to warm up.” When King went
back to Maine, they kept at it, sending pages back and forth via modem. To write the end of
The Talisman, Straub went to Maine for a week.
Russell Thayer and I were never in the same room when we wrote Bop City Swing, we relied
on email and online chats. We had our first Zoom call after the book was completed. Russ
played the Stephen King role, he started the process with: “we should write a story together.”
After the fact, it seems like a no-brainer. Russ has written a bunch of short stories that take
place between the late 30s and the 50s, many starring Vivian Davis, aka Gunselle, a killer for
hire. I have about ten shorts with Tom Keegan, a San Francisco homicide detective around
1950. Same time, same place. Like Peter Straub, I said “let’s do it.” The planned short story
grew into a book.
So, how did we do it? For starters, we had two well-established characters, Vivian especially.
Russ knows her biography inside out and has written extensively about her busy and chaotic
career. My approach to Tom Keegan is more hopscotch, with each story, each criminal case,
adding layers to the character and building his personality. Even if readers are not familiar
with all the existing material, we had to be consistent in voice and vibe. Our stars carried
significant baggage and they brought it to the set of Bop City Swing.
This determined the division of labor, and the structure of the story. We would each write our
respective character’s scenes, from their point of view, third person close. The method had
obvious advantages. The differences in our styles helped contrast Vivian’s and Tom’s voices.
Russ’s writing is short, punchy, gritty, and dialogue heavy. It matches Vivian’s approach to
life. She takes no prisoners, and no shit from anyone. I lean toward mood and atmosphere,
with a slow burn. Tom, as a result, is calm and deliberate, hard to ruffle, until he loses his
patience.
We didn’t outline until we were halfway through the story, letting the alternating
scenes—Vivian/Tom/Vivian/Tom—push us forward. We had the beginning: a political
assassination. Tom’s part was clear, he’s the investigator. Vivian’s involvement was less
evident. Russ and I agreed right away that she did not carry out the hit. The decisive click
came when we figured out that she had been hired to take out the mayoral candidate but
somebody beat her to it. Understandably, she has questions. Both the protagonists are
motivated to find out who and why. And we had our opening scene: Vivian at the scene
watching her paycheck evaporate.
Russ wrote the first chapter, including a flashback explaining why Vivian was at the hotel
when the shots rang. I wrote the cops’ arrival on the scene and the start of the murder
investigation. That beginning was constantly finetuned, as the complex plot developed. We
each wrote a couple of loose scenes, then put them together in a master document that we
emailed back and forth with changes, editing constantly. Russ might keep the master for a
few days adding a Vivian chapter, then I would reread the document and add a Tom piece
before sending it to my partner again.
In between, we chatted and brainstormed ideas about ‘what if’ and ‘where do we go from
here’. I haven’t kept track of the options we discarded or the multiple chat threads where we
typed over each other, one sentence contradicting the one before because a better idea popped
up. It was a dynamic process and the fact we weren’t face-to-face didn’t matter. There were
more than a few late evenings spent typing frantically, and going ‘wait-wait let’s do this
instead’.
Two thirds down the narrative, Tom and Vivian hadn’t yet shared the stage. There had to be a
confrontation, and we were inching toward it. Whose point of view would carry it? I made
the first attempt, writing ‘the bedroom scene’ from Tom’s POV, and sent it to Russ. He took
it and rewrote it from Vivian’s perspective. It was more exciting with her in control, she
initiated the encounter, she was the active protagonist. We went back to it multiple times,
tweaking and polishing, till we found the right tone and the right level of sexual tension.
After that, the story gathered speed toward a climax and resolution that we had not foreseen.
Sometimes I think the surprise is what writing is all about!
The only thing left for debate was how to conclude. What would be the final line? We ended
with a wink and a smile.
Cross fingers, it won’t be the final line … As I type this, Russ and I are deep into another
Tom and Vivian episode. We just had too much fun the first time, and when you find a good
partner to rhapsodize with, why stop, right?
