Joint Authors

[chrissa1]

When there are two authors of a book of fiction, how does it work? I can understand a factual book being co-written but does anyone know how two authors write a fictional story?

[mxyzptlk]

Perhaps one will write the short story form and the second flesh it out.

[bednobs]

i read a book that was written by 2 people once - alternate chapters 1 from a mans point of view, 1 from a womans

[chrissa1]

Interesting bednobs but not what I meant. I like James Patterson and he seems to co-write some of his books. I just wondered how the work was shared out between the two authors.

[saxy_jag]

Andy McNab (Bravo Two Zero) has co-written stuff with Robert Rigby, McNab supplying the covert operations background and Rigby, the teen storytelling expertise.

On a very much smaller scale, I've co-written with my cousin. One of us will write a story and then submit it to the other, who can supply information and ideas that the other can't. For instance, if I have written a story about drug-takers in England, he would perhaps re-write the drug-taking passages because he knows more about that, and he might even suggest a different plot direction as a result of it. Similarly, I might re-write some of his 'England' sections (he's American) for accuracy. The story could go back and forth several times before we're both happy with it.

You have to be good friends, I think, and you have to have the same outlook on what you're doing in order for it to work.

[chrissa1]

Thank you for that saxy-jag. That all makes sense to me now. Any chance of getting published? Good luck if you do. Cheers.

[swedeheart]

Here's an example from Sweden where the authors wrote alternate chapters. I would have said "don't try this at home" but the fact remains they were successful together. I suspect it helped a lot that they were both used to writing novels separately.

http://en.wikipedia.o..._and_Wahl%C3%B6%C3%B6

[Meadowgrover]

James Patterson only writes the books where he is the sole author. Where he is the co-author the other person has written the book and submitted it to Patterson. If he likes it he will agree to be co-author and ensure massive sales because of his name (he may have a small bit of input). It's rather like when Col. Tom Parker used to get songwriters to agree to Elvis being credited as co-writer before he would record a song, as the writer(s) receive a larger royalty than the singer.