How to Co-Write a Book and Stay Friends: A Guest Post from the Creators of The Rehearsal Club

I jump around a lot saying which titles are the most difficult to write for kids. Some days I’ll say poetry. Other days, board books. Still, I think a lot of credit has to be given to those authors that attempt to write cozy mysteries. Kid readers LOVE mysteries and get very few of them on an annual basis. Why? Because they’re so hard to write! It would be better if everyone wrote them with a buddy. But how do you do that and not, y’know, sabotage your friendship along the way?

Today, we are graced with a guest post from friends (even now!) Laurie Petrou and Kate Fodor. Their novel The Rehearsal Club nabbed a starred Kirkus review which called it, “Inventive, humorous, and delightful.”

Enjoy!

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How to Co-Write a Book and Stay Friends

By Laurie Petrou and Kate Fodor

Writing is by nature a solitary pursuit. It requires imagination, confidence, concentration and focus to carve out a path through the snowy blankness of the empty page. Therefore, writers are often singular, introverted creatures (as anyone who has ever been to a party full of awkward writers has probably discovered). So what happens when two writers try their hands at collaboration? How do two people of the singular and introverted ilk combine their skills, work ethics, egos and voices? Even more importantly, if these people are friends who wish to stay that way, how can a writerly collaboration be managed in a way that is, at best, full of joy, and at worst, not full of turmoil?

Of course, the answers depend on who you are, and often change over the course of a project. But here are some insights from our time working and writing together, wrestled onto the page for you through the magic of collaboration!

We were friends first!

Maybe this made things a little more complex at times, but it was at the heart of the way we worked together. We didn’t find each other through a calculated search for a “value-added” partner. We met and found ourselves in what our grandmas would have called a “mutual admiration society” because we shared a sensibility about books and, not to put too fine a point on it, the world.

The possibility of a co-written project was always dancing around like a delightful, mischievous imp, even at our first coffee date at the New York Public Library in Manhattan, a building full of books and guarded by those sentries of literature, the stone lions named Patience and Fortitude — characteristics needed by all writers. But, mostly, as our friendship grew, we talked about life stuff — families, dreams, frustrations, art, laundry.

We finally decided to write The Rehearsal Club, our cozy middle grade mystery, about (a year?) after we met. It was during the Covid lockdowns, and there was such an air of fear and frustration permeating everything that comfort felt nearly vital to survival. We learned through our many, many Zoom calls that when we were children ourselves, and then as parents of young children, we’d both loved books that offered adventure and laughter in a comforting voice. Books like From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Charlotte’s Web, The Penderwicks and Ballet Shoes. We’d explored other possible collaborations, including a dark comedy for adults, but in those scary times, we loved that this project felt like knitting a big blanket for young readers to snuggle into. We both found comfort in the world we were creating together, in our sense of purpose, and in the increased human contact that working together brought us.

This is all to say: there was real kinship. And kinship, whatever else may be required in a successful writerly collaboration, is paramount.

We made the most of our differences.

As Kate is a playwright and screenwriter, and Laurie is a novelist, we had differences in experience that were really useful. For Kate, who is used to fifty-page TV scripts, the sheer organizational project of writing a novel, both in terms of the sprawling story itself and of keeping track of drafts and changes over a span of months and months, felt dizzying. But Laurie was fairly calm about all this and kept things together. Meanwhile, Kate brought techniques from TV writers’ rooms for meticulously outlining the story so that we were always on the same page — literally and figuratively.

We didn’t try to read each other’s minds!

E. B. White wasn’t kidding when he wrote, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” We each must be both to the other for co-writing to work. We can’t afford to be precious, and we have an established barometer of trust that allows us to be frank with one another.

Because we were two brains writing one book, everything was outlined and talked through until we both had the same understanding of what we were up to. Writing a particular chapter or passage meant giving full shape and color to ideas that had been arrived at jointly. Of course, sometimes the person tapping away at her keyboard might suddenly have a big idea (or notice a big problem), but that meant it was time for a Zoom, not time to go zooming off on a solo journey.

Similarly — and this is harder — we had to voice what we were feeling about the partnership and ask for what we needed. Writing can and often is a frustrating enterprise. We discovered the importance of telling each other exactly when we’d reached our limit: “I think I’m done for today,” or, “I need time to think.” We have learned that we often require about forty-five minutes of chit-chat before we launch into working, and sometimes even schedule it in. The time we “waste” chatting is what feeds the comfort we need to be open with each other.

While we share so many things in common, we are entirely different in the way we tackle projects. Laurie wants to get things done immediately, and this form of attacking a task can make Kate feel, well, attacked, because she needs time to mull things over, and maybe clean the fridge. We joke that Laurie is a golden retriever and Kate is a cat, but we get along harmoniously. Kate has learned to say, when necessary, “I need to extend this deadline we made for ourselves because I’m busy looking out the window,” and Laurie has learned to say, when necessary, “Hey, remember you were going to get that chapter to me … Hello? Hello? Hello?” It works.

We had a system (kind of).

We find folks are often most curious about our nuts-and-bolts process. “Do you take turns writing chapters?” We’ve been asked this enough times that it makes us wonder if that’s the way co-authoring usually gets done. But we never even discussed a simple divide, opting instead to endlessly toss the manuscript back and forth like an old tennis ball (or catnip mouse, depending on who you are).

Our early process relied heavily on outlining. When you are writing alone, you have the luxury of freestyle drafting, or “pantsing” as some are wont to call it. But it was clear that to collaborate the way we wanted to, we would need to outline, in great detail, each chapter before one of us took on writing a draft of it. We became efficient in detailing what happened in a chapter … and how and where and what everybody was wearing and whether there was cake, and if there was cake, what flavor it was. It didn’t matter if the outline looked or sounded pretty; it only mattered that it was chock-full of stuff we’d come up with together.

As soon as each outline was done, one of us (often the golden retriever) would race off to take a stab at drafting it in prose. From there, the chapter would be sent back and forth, with us each subtracting and adding and playing around via Track Changes in Word until it was something that made us both happy (sometimes completely unrecognizable from the first draft). For the process to work, we both needed to be open to changes — but sometimes this took the form of saying, “I see that what I had wasn’t working, but I’m not sure your changes work either. Can we find a third way?” 

We commiserated and celebrated.

One of the wonderful things about co-writing is that there is someone there to act as a constant reality check and/or safety net as you oscillate between high and low confidences. The imposter syndrome that threatens to plague us as individuals abates when we work together, and this alleviation of doubt is priceless. (When the rejection comes from the outside world, we share the burden and crack each other up with things we won’t repeat here.) And, as we’re learning, when good things happen for your book, it’s awfully nice to have a co-author to hoot and holler with. (Kate: “Do we care about ending with a preposition?” Laurie: “I think it’s fine.” Kate: “Great, then we’re done!”)

Filed under: Guest Posts