Writing Foundations: Collaboration

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Previously, I outlined what I believe are 3 key factors to make one a better writer: motivation, collaboration, and execution. This post, Part 3, covers collaboration. The introduction can be found here and Part 1 here.

“Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.” — Alexander Graham Bell

In the previous post, I make the very simple assertion that you should stare into the void of existence, accept annihilation, then get to the work of writing.

It’s that simple.

It’s no wonder no one tries to write a book on writerly motivation. It’s a painful, nearly endless process, which may lead you to abandon writing and pursue something else. If you read my last post and are no closer to connecting to your true writing motivation, don’t worry! The fact that you made it through one of my posts deserves a kudos, but I hope it did serve as a point of reflection and a gateway to understanding the infinite game. You may not yet be a full player, but I hope you now have an interest in putting your piece on the board.

Because it is with an infinite mindset that collaboration becomes more powerful. Your core values are the foundation on which you will create your work; they also serve as the lens through which you will view the influence of those who can take your work to the next level.

Nobody Cares

My relationship to collaboration (and its sisters feedback, support, and vulnerability), goes back to my aforementioned experiences as a child sharing my writing. As previously mentioned, at first it was cool. People wanted to read what I wrote. People liked what I wrote. People wanted to talk to me about what I wrote.

During adolescence, however, that began to change. If I may wax introspective, I believe the difficulty of vulnerability stems from the awareness of our unique identities during puberty. This growing differentiation from a group frightens us as social creatures and makes us want to slink into the unanimous fold of other teenagers. But as we slink into this fold, we inevitably uniquely experience this slinking and need an outlet for how it makes us feel. This outlet can be sports, art, cars, make up, any number of things.

But when it’s art, it often expresses itself as a horrific mess of emotion. It’s angsty poetry and stream of consciousness prose and sex and confusion and weirdness. While I was a child, my writing was an outward expression of my imagination, as a teenager, it was a confounding decree of my emotional turmoil.

So it was much more difficult to share.

Over time it hasn’t gotten much easier, but I am slowly realizing the absolute vital importance of giving others my writing. Getting to this point in my artistic journey was difficult, though. It has only been in the past two or three years when I have actively shared what I was working on. I found people I trusted and let them read drafts. It required sending my work to a few dozen people and finding the three or four who would give honest, direct feedback, but this culling was wonderful for a number of reasons:

• These people ask how my work is going. They hold me accountable in that way.
• They act as cheerleaders, citing the droplets of good in the seas of bad prose that I send to their inboxes.
• They are honest with their feedback (mostly). They’ll let me know when a character isn’t working, when a scene falls flat, or when something comes across as problematic.
• The very best of the best also collaborate. They dig into the story and ask “What if?” I don’t know if there is anything more powerful for a writer than to have someone see a world you created and want to play in it.

In my previous post, I wrote of the painful work of self-exploration that forms the basis of good writing. Once it’s done, these people, the collaborators, the voices, and the thinkers who join you, give you the energy, guidance, and resolve to push forward.

But these people can’t be just anyone. They must be aligned to the values that you work so hard to discover in the introspective work you do as you write — the values that form your rulebook in the infinite game.

My own journey to discover the necessity of others in the artistic process was… a lot of wasted effort. If I had only taken time to lift my eyes from my own selfishness and ambition, I would have recognized the power of collaboration in the people I admire.

The Precedent

There is not a successful person that isn’t surrounded by collaborators who lift them up and support them through the process of their work, whether it is writing, painting, or science. As a kid, I grew up with the image of the lone genius (one I think our society loves to promote). Especially in the realm of novelists, you would always see a single figure hovered over a piece of paper or a typewriter. It is a romantic image, but one that is complete and utter bullshit. (I don’t like to curse in these posts, but this calls for it.)

As I did the research for this topic, I wanted to single out a few great individuals who were surrounded by a network of people who lifted them up, but it turns out that is literally everyone. In lieu of a few highlights, then, I’m opting for a quick and dirty list.

• Hitchcock’s wife, Alma, was an immense part of his work. She served as a collaborator, cheerleader, and insightful critic of his films throughout his career.
• Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s creative partner, Vicky Jones, directed the play version of Fleabag and assisted with the development of Killing Eve.
• Harper Lee’s time to write To Kill a Mockingbird was funded by her friends, Michael and Joy Brown, who believed in her so much that they gave her a year’s worth of salary. She also had a tremendous editor, Toy Hohoff, who transformed the decent draft Lee constructed as Go Set a Watchmen, to America’s most-loved novel, Mockingbird.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald and the brilliant editor, Max Perkins, worked on the refinement and transformation of The Great Gatsby together. (Perkins also was instrumental in honing the work of Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.)
• Véra Nabokov was “[Vladimir Nabokov’s] first reader, his agent, his typist, his archivist, his translator, his dresser, his money manager, his mouthpiece, his muse, his teaching assistant, his driver, his bodyguard (she carried a pistol in her handbag), the mother of his child, and, after he died, the implacable guardian of his legacy.”

And I have to make a special mention of James Joyce. I don’t think there is any better example of a man who went to the very core of himself to find his personal motivation (he wanted “to forge in the smithy of [his] soul the uncreated conscience of [his] race”) then somehow never gave up despite being rejected with uncanny frequency. BUT he had around him support, including his sister, who fished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man out of the fire when Joyce threw it in out of sheer frustration, and Ezra Pound who fought for Joyce’s work (and many other aspiring writers).

The list could go on and on, but the point remains clear, a writer, despite working in isolation, must depend on those around them. This network, as tied to your values as a creator, are the people who dig our prose out of the fire, offer us support when we fail to believe in ourselves, and laugh with us when we are in a fit of creative ecstasy.

No matter how impressive and colossal a genius you are, without a community of support, it is impossible to find the strength, courage, and opportunity to share your voice.

Practical Steps

But how do you practically build a support network? Where do you find the collaborators that will give you a year’s worth of salary or hone your manuscript from a Watchmen to a Mockingbird?

Well… it ain’t easy.

This blog series from Writers Helping Writers is tremendous in providing advice for building a network. Jessica Conoley discusses the practical steps for building, what she calls, your Support Triangle. I agreed with everything she says, but I thought I’d condense the list down a bit and share what I think are valuable places to start. I also thought it worthwhile to connect each level of collaborator with a motivation/value to build off of Part 1 of this series.

• Giants. Always look at good creative work. Seeing how Fitzgerald uses sound and light to add ambiance to a scene, or Toni Morrison paints a tragic character in a few lines of prose, will always make your work better. It’s not just the greats though — the goods, bads, and terrible are also worth taking in to find out what makes a story successful. The Giants aren’t true “collaborators” in actually touching and feeling your work, but their influence is powerful and can inspire your creative efforts. Value: This category is one that I would say throw your values to the wind. Read everything: science fiction, drama, comedy, chick lit, historical fiction, screenplays, plays, philosophy, religion. It all shapes your work, so intake as much as you can.
• Guides. Mentorship is an extremely powerful collaboration to help bring your work to the next level. Like Ezra Pound for James Joyce, mentors can open doors, help you edit, assist you in finding your motivation, and so much more. I have never had a true mentor in the writing space, but I have failed a number of times (one woman just gave me a flat “No” when I asked if I could email her for advice), so my practical experience in this space is to treat mentorship like dating. Find the people that inspire you and reach out to see if they would be willing to read your work or help you get information on publishing, writing, or craft. You will get a lot of “no”s, but you could find a really powerful ally. Values: In a mentor, I would suggest finding the people who not only write what you write but express the values you hold. This allows for a connection across craft and personality. …I say that with the caveat that if you have the opportunity to take on multiple mentors DIVERSIFY. While a core mentor should align with your values, other sub-mentors would be more valuable challenging your values and your work.
• Groups. Seek out writing groups or workshops to connect with other writers. In my entire MFA program, I found 2 people (of dozens) that became invaluable to me as a writer. They offered support, guidance, and feedback that made my work better and stronger. It may take several workshops or classes, but you will find people you connect with. Use that relationship to enhance your craft. Values: Just as with multiple mentors, a good group of collaborators should be diverse. While you should all be dedicated to the craft of writing, you want people with different genres, experiences, and perspectives to bring deeper critique of your work.
• Gentry. This means your “upper-class” friends — the tried and true, ride or die group. This is the closest circle who you can go to for everything from a first draft review to a drink at the bar when you hit a dead end. These people you trust to give honest feedback, be there for you in the lower points, and celebrate in the highs. It was through finding my gentry in my most recent project, that I got the courage to start blogging, marketing my books, and sharing more of my thoughts. While at the bottom of the collaboration pyramid, they are really its heart and soul. Values: These are the people you truly connect with. They probably aren’t writers, but they support you, which is one of the most valuable things on the planet. Whether writing or not, find these people.

Next

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” — Hellen Keller

As you continue to write, continue to reach out. It seems to be contradictory in a craft that is so isolating, but the relationships you build are the ones that fortify you to keep going. These relationships should be rooted in your own motivation, connected to the values that drive your work and your playing of the infinite game.

And don’t forget that all levels of these relationships are crucial, whether it’s your time spent studying the craft of a great writer, an online email exchange with a mentor in your field, a heated discussion with a writing partner, or a night out with your friends when you can tell a confidant the plot of your book. The lone writer who wallows in his genius is a myth — go out, live, connect, share, and fortify yourself against the crushing isolation that writing requires.

It is with your values and motivation discovered, and a network of peers that fit with these values that will drive your success. While your internal compass will guide your work, your collaborators will steer you to stronger prose and open up new opportunities you could never have imagined.

With this as your backbone, you will be ready to move on to the final part of this series: execution. It is only with a firm foundation and support system that you will find the strength to revise, the patience to review your word choices, and the drive to Google dangling modifiers and care about what that means. Next month we will explore the nature of execution and finding the best ways to express your most valuable ideas.

Appendix

And if you’re still not tired of reading about writing by the end of this, then there are a few articles I found this month that were fantastic:

• This article from Writers Helping Writers crosses over with a lot of what I said in my previous post about motivation, especially items #2 and #7.
• This post from the same source discusses different levels of collaboration that can help you be successful in a writing career.

Tedd Hawks is a writer, trainer, and teacher from Chicago. You can follow his Instagram and humor blog.