Doubling Up

Continuing the streak of bad advice you shouldn't listen to, I present the following:

Collaborating is hard. In my experience, the odds are stacked against the very concept. After all, when you have to worry about the sensibilities of anyone besides yourself, you're in danger of losing sight of what made the project interesting to you in the first place. If your version of Ragmar the Unholy is a potty mouthed zombie priest and your partner's just wants to be loved, this is a very serious problem.

It should almost go without saying that, to avoid this, you should try like hell to only work with people that have interests in line with your own. Unfortunately, this isn't always possible. If you're lucky enough to command such vast influence as to have your choice of working with whoever you want, that's great, but it's not a practical assumption. More often than not, you'll have to get used to absorbing the ideas of your co-writer or artist (or both) and interpreting them in a way that makes sense to you. In fact, for broke writers, which must be just about all of us, the offer of collaboration and partnership is one of the few things we can use as bait for unsuspecting artists¹.

And now to be completely hypocritical, I'm going to say that while collaborating is hard, it is completely something you should do. Hey, you might as well get used to it now, and if you can survive the burnout associated with working with someone that is truly terrible at what they do, you'll only come out a stronger writer on the other side². You should also teach yourself to look at artists as more than pencil wielding slaves, there is every chance they'll know something you don't, and you can learn from that.

This is all figuring that the story you're collaborating on is, of course, your story. What do you do when the story isn't your own? This is a different situation entirely, and one I can also shed some light on.

It's important to keep in mind that there are generally two types of people you'll find yourself working with--those that truly want to work together and make a better story, and those that can't handle the story on their own, but want to use you as a means to an end. Of course, there are also assholes who don't actually care what you think and expect you to do as told, but if you find yourself in the company of an artist or writer like that, well, you know. Fuck that guy.

You're obviously better off working with option one, but I can't speak to how often that'll happen. There's probably a list a of people you imagine you'd be able to work with, but you'd be surprised how wrong you might be. Wording that a different way, it might be shocking to discover just how shallow the talent pool is.

Option two brings more headaches. These situations tend to not work out, and you'll usually find that your ideas come second to those of the conceptualist. Maybe it's your technical ability they're after, or maybe it's the way your ass looks in those jeans, but odds are you're going to get fucked.

That's not to say working under even the best of circumstances can't be challenging. Can you imagine how boring it would be if your partner took everything you said as gospel? Part of the appeal in collaborating, at least for me, is the constructive criticism. If you can do no wrong, you won't be getting a whole lot of that³.

Also, when you're writing someone else's characters, there's always (or at least usually) going to be an expectation that you don't screw it up. There exist certain universes where Batman is instead 'The Goddamn Batman' and Robin ceases to be 'The Boy Wonder' and is instead a 'retard', but for the average person, this isn't going to cut it. The strong willed, quiet hero can't suddenly morph into Indiana Jones, even if that is your writing style. This is another one of those rules that should be common sense, but there are occasions when it's actually pretty hard, especially if you've been writing a certain way for a long time. The good news? Learning to adapt and subscribe to new schools of thought will only make you better at what you do.

It's for all of these reasons, and probably a thousand or so more, that I can't stress enough how important communication is. Communication before the project, during the project, and every other conceivable stage. When at all possible, learning as much about your collaborator and their interests/quirks can be a lifesaver⁴. Seeking out those who will actually know what the hell you're talking about is as important as just finding the talent.

Remember, it's easy to get excited about an idea. It's somewhat harder to make sure your excitement doesn't blind you to a potential disaster. Losing time while slowly losing faith in what you do just isn't fun. These things are all avoidable, and it gets easier with experience⁵.

1 That, and a strong jaw.
2 Or, in perhaps rarer circumstances, you might quit writing for a year.
3 In fact, this is disasterous, and has to be responsible for the glut of writers and artists who believe they're the shit when they aren't. Friends and family will never be a good judge of talent, unless they do the very same thing you're asking them to critique.
4 I swear I'd have never even started if I knew he was a terrorist.
5 Of which I have none.