From We to Me: Navigating the Balance Between Co-Authoring and Writing Alone
Author Colleen Coble discusses how to navigate the balance between co-authoring and authoring a book alone.
Co-writing . . . wait! Danger ahead. What if you lose your voice? What if you destroy your brand? Will the collaboration take over until you’re drowning in a morass with no way out? Will it ruin what you spent years building?
Not if you go into it with your eyes open.
I’d dabbled with the idea over the years. I wrote a couple of Middle Grade novels with a friend, but I let her mostly take the lead and that didn’t mess with my “brand” since they were children’s books. Writing romantic suspense with another author, though, is a different proposition altogether since they’re targeting my faithful readers as well.
If you’re considering co-authorship on top of your solo writing career, there are a few things to consider:
- If the prospective co-writer is a friend, and it doesn’t work out, your friendship could be in jeopardy. That’s a very real possibility—I’ve seen co-writers break up and it’s ugly, very ugly. Don’t brush over this concern. It’s very real and needs careful consideration.
- Are your voices similar? If the finished product skews wildly from what your readers are used to, it is unlikely to be a successful partnership unless you want to start all over with a completely different brand. And while that’s doable if it’s your goal, you don’t want to trash your existing brand if things are going well.
- What’s your “why?” There needs to be a good reason to start down this path. My career was going well, and I didn’t need to make a change. My “why?” was because I wanted to write a legal suspense and knew I couldn’t do that alone.
- Pick your co-writer carefully. My good friend, Rick Acker, was a fellow writer whose work I admired. I loved Rick’s solo books and thought our voices would gel well together He’s not just a lawyer, though—he leads a team in the fraud section in the California Attorney General’s office. Would he even want to write a novel together? I pitched the idea to him, and he said yes.
- Consider your own temperament and ego. Can you take constructive criticism from a fellow writer. Do you work well in a team? Are you willing to let another writer see “behind your curtain” and know your process? Can you share the spotlight? Can you hold on to your book loosely—because it will change?
- Consider your potential partners temperament and ego. Rick and I both just want the best book, and we don’t care who had what idea or plot twist. I’ve often told Rick I love how a certain idea came together on a project we’re working on, and he’ll tell me it was my idea! I’m sure he’s wrong, though, because neither of us can remember where the thought came from in the first place.
When doing a project with Rick, we start with what readers expect from a Colleen Coble novel: small town setting (often on water), a protagonist who has overcome hard circumstances, an interesting profession, animals or children are often part of the story, a twisty plot, and a romantic interest.
But it’s important to remember this is a joint project, and Rick brings a lot to the table. He’s a polymath—the things he knows about every topic imaginable boggle my mind. His ideas are always fresh, and we find ways to add in the layers I need to have in a book until the story becomes “ours.”
And while I’m writing books with Rick, I’m also continuing to write solo books. My “alone” books are written while I’m writing a novel with him so that can be a little tricky. Rick is still working a separate full-time job outside of being an author, so we do 3-4 scenes per week, which is a slow pace for me. To be productive, I do at least that many scenes a week on my solo book.
And how do I keep my solo books from bleeding into the collaborative books and vice versa? It takes planning:
- I keep both books open—my solo piece and my co-authored piece, so I need to stay on top of everything, and Scrivener helps keep me organized while I write.
- Rick, however, likes to work in Microsoft Word, so there’s a lot of copying and pasting between the two of us.
For example: If Rick is writing a scene, we’ll edit it to our liking in his Word doc and then I will paste it into my Scrivener doc to continue with my scene. We repeat the process on my end, editing the scene until we’re both happy, and then Rick will take my scene and paste it into his Word doc. This back and forth continues until the novel is complete.
Ahem, I will admit there have been a few times I’ve pasted a chapter into the wrong book! But we’ve managed to figure that out pretty quickly.
- At the end of the book, I do the edits (I love edits and Rick graciously lets me take first pass.) I send my master to him, and he runs a comparison to make sure he gets the changes into his document, then makes a pass for changes on his end and sends it to me.
- We make sure our protagonists are very different from each other. Looks, personality, quirks, etc.
- Another big help is a program called Knockout Novel over on Hiveword. I start every novel, even the co-written ones, with that program. It helps me develop my characters’ backstories and make sure they differ greatly. The program keeps all the past novels I’ve planned there, and I can go back and compare to make sure they are different.
Rick is a strong plotter, but my process is more organic. I’ve been known to change villains as the end of the novel is approaching, and Rick would have a heart attack if we did this in a joint project! So, I let my creative side have free rein when writing my solo books. Though I have been known to occasionally ask Rick for help in figuring out a hole I’ve dug my protagonist into!
It's a beautiful testament to the success of our co-authorship that I can come to him for help—even with my solo projects—and it works out in fun, unexpected ways.
I’ve found that working with Rick has helped me enjoy leaning a little more into, *gasp*, plotting. And Rick has picked up some things from me as well—he came up with an off-road idea for the book we just turned in, and he didn’t self-combust either!
In every way possible our collaboration has worked to each of our benefits. We enjoy working together, and we’ve both grown as writers in the process. If you clearly articulate expectations and have a good WHY in place, balancing a solo career and a joint-authorship career can work for you too!
Check out Colleen Coble's Prowl here:
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Colleen Coble is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than 75 books and is best known for her coastal romantic suspense novels. Connect with Colleen online at colleencoble.com, Instagram @colleencoble, Facebook @colleencoblebooks, and X @colleencoble.
