Collaboration 101: How We Do It, First Riff
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniSteve and I have been collaborating for a long time -- seventeen novels, mumblemumble short stories; 25 years. Yeah, any of those qualifies as "a long time."
Our first collaborative story was "The Naming of Kinzel" -- which later became "The Naming of Kinzel: The Innocent" -- and it was an accident.
How, you wonder, can a collaboration be an accident?
Well, it went like this...
Steve and I were both in what we call the Opportunity Pool -- that happy place where, unencumbered by the strictures of a day-job, all opportunities are equally open to one. Which is to say, we were both "out of work," as the saying goes.
I was working on a story about a wizard's apprentice named Kinzel, who had just been Summoned by his Master to the tower workroom, in terms that left no doubt that said Master was none-too-pleased with his 'prentice. Kinzel was on his way up the stairs, puffing, because he was rather a portly lad, the Summons at his heels, when --
The phone rang.
It was the temp agency I was registered with, calling with the joyous tidings of a secretarial job at a law firm.
Next morning, quivering with joy, I rose at an Unghodly Hour(tm), dressed in my day-job clothes, and caught the bus into Baltimore City, leaving Steve home alone with three-quarters of a page of story still stuck in my typewriter and Kinzel frozen in mid-leap between one stair and the next.
The lawyers I was assigned to work for were brats (I learned during the course of the day that the firm had stopped hiring real legal secretaries for the pair of them, because they chewed the poor women up and spat them out in regular two week cycles); I came home exhausted and quivering not so much with the joy, but still on for the next day. I drank a glass of wine, had supper with Steve, had maybe another glass of wine and fell into my bed without once looking at poor Kinzel, still stranded on his stairway.
The next day was a repeat of the first. Against all odds, I was employed for the next day, and Kinzel was still stuck on his stair.
The third day. On the third day, Steve snapped.
He had reading and re-reading this same story-bit for three days; he'd been thinking about the character and the character's dilemma and what I had said about the character and his further travails, and, well --
He called me at work. He said, "You know that story you're working on? The one about the wizard's apprentice?"
"Yeeesss," I said warily.
"I think I know where it goes," he said, equally wary. "Could I...finish it?"
I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard. I knew he was interested in the story; he'd been asking me questions about it and where I saw it going and about Kinzel's background and the world he lived in, and, well, dern it, I wanted the story to move on, too -- and you know Kinzel was beyond sick to death of that damn stairway.
So, I said, "OK." Deep breath.
"But.
"If I don't like what you've done when I read it, I reserve the right to change it or to throw it out."
He agreed to the terms.
And when I came home, there was the first draft of story sitting at my place at the kitchen table.
Steve poured me a glass of wine, and I read it. I had some niggles. We talked about them and clarified some of the rougher bits of world building. The next day was Saturday. I rose from my bed, fetched myself some coffee and repaired to the typewriter, where I addressed my niggles and layered in some of those world building insights we'd had the night before.
By the end of the afternoon, we had a clean final story. All we had to do was figure out which of (at that point, many) magazines to send it to.
Here ends the First Riff.
Our first collaborative story was "The Naming of Kinzel" -- which later became "The Naming of Kinzel: The Innocent" -- and it was an accident.
How, you wonder, can a collaboration be an accident?
Well, it went like this...
Steve and I were both in what we call the Opportunity Pool -- that happy place where, unencumbered by the strictures of a day-job, all opportunities are equally open to one. Which is to say, we were both "out of work," as the saying goes.
I was working on a story about a wizard's apprentice named Kinzel, who had just been Summoned by his Master to the tower workroom, in terms that left no doubt that said Master was none-too-pleased with his 'prentice. Kinzel was on his way up the stairs, puffing, because he was rather a portly lad, the Summons at his heels, when --
The phone rang.
It was the temp agency I was registered with, calling with the joyous tidings of a secretarial job at a law firm.
Next morning, quivering with joy, I rose at an Unghodly Hour(tm), dressed in my day-job clothes, and caught the bus into Baltimore City, leaving Steve home alone with three-quarters of a page of story still stuck in my typewriter and Kinzel frozen in mid-leap between one stair and the next.
The lawyers I was assigned to work for were brats (I learned during the course of the day that the firm had stopped hiring real legal secretaries for the pair of them, because they chewed the poor women up and spat them out in regular two week cycles); I came home exhausted and quivering not so much with the joy, but still on for the next day. I drank a glass of wine, had supper with Steve, had maybe another glass of wine and fell into my bed without once looking at poor Kinzel, still stranded on his stairway.
The next day was a repeat of the first. Against all odds, I was employed for the next day, and Kinzel was still stuck on his stair.
The third day. On the third day, Steve snapped.
He had reading and re-reading this same story-bit for three days; he'd been thinking about the character and the character's dilemma and what I had said about the character and his further travails, and, well --
He called me at work. He said, "You know that story you're working on? The one about the wizard's apprentice?"
"Yeeesss," I said warily.
"I think I know where it goes," he said, equally wary. "Could I...finish it?"
I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard. I knew he was interested in the story; he'd been asking me questions about it and where I saw it going and about Kinzel's background and the world he lived in, and, well, dern it, I wanted the story to move on, too -- and you know Kinzel was beyond sick to death of that damn stairway.
So, I said, "OK." Deep breath.
"But.
"If I don't like what you've done when I read it, I reserve the right to change it or to throw it out."
He agreed to the terms.
And when I came home, there was the first draft of story sitting at my place at the kitchen table.
Steve poured me a glass of wine, and I read it. I had some niggles. We talked about them and clarified some of the rougher bits of world building. The next day was Saturday. I rose from my bed, fetched myself some coffee and repaired to the typewriter, where I addressed my niggles and layered in some of those world building insights we'd had the night before.
By the end of the afternoon, we had a clean final story. All we had to do was figure out which of (at that point, many) magazines to send it to.
Here ends the First Riff.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 11:38 pm (UTC)It's a nice story, thanks :)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 11:24 pm (UTC)Wow!
Date: 2009-08-27 11:54 pm (UTC)Of course, now I really really really want to hear how collaboration became your usual (or at least frequent) mode.
And did you have to negotiate whose name went first? Was it simply alphabetical order, or something more complicated?
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for (starting to) satisfy my curiosity! :-)
Re: Wow!
Date: 2009-08-29 04:31 pm (UTC)At this remove, I think we just went with, "Well, it was your idea, so your name should go first," for the Kinzel story. The heartbreaker came when we did our first novel. We had submitted it as by Lee Miller (hoping to avoid, "It took TWO of you to write this?"), but it was purchased by Del Rey, which Did Not Do Pseudonyms at that time. So, we said, "Fine, make it by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller because it's Sharon's universe," and thought no more about it until our authors' copies arrived.
There on the cover was a man, a woman, a turtle -- and a by-line of "Steve Miller and Sharon Lee", because the editor knew that SF by girls didn't sell.
Seriously?
Date: 2009-08-31 04:09 am (UTC)And phooey on Del Rey for not allowing the pseudonym that would have solved the problem.
And thanks. I love that you answer my questions. :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 12:31 am (UTC)There are other good authors, obviously: but these and also you are the special authors who have that extra magic. I can't tell you what it is: I only know that I recognise it when I see it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 12:43 am (UTC)~ Rosanne
no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 01:15 am (UTC)Cool story, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 08:00 am (UTC)Fascinating way to start a collaboration, I'll be interested to see how it continues.
(Yay, new (to me) books! DV, Low Port, Barnburner and Gunshy, and with any luck I'l have Rosemary and Rue waiting for me at home as well. I'm getting spoilt...)
Cool!
Date: 2009-08-28 08:34 pm (UTC)Lauretta@ConstellationBooks
PS Don't Lawyers == Brats? Hmn, trying to think of one that doesn't.
Re: Cool!
Date: 2009-08-29 01:25 am (UTC)Re: Cool!
Date: 2009-08-29 07:50 am (UTC)(So I can't quite agree with Shakespere's "hang all the lawyers" fully. Only mostly...)
Re: Cool!
Date: 2009-09-03 09:03 pm (UTC);)
Re: Cool!
Date: 2009-09-04 07:04 pm (UTC)Re: Cool!
Date: 2009-09-04 07:52 pm (UTC)