Four Hands Writing

Many years ago, I sat down with a friend (I don’t recall where we were, probably a restaurant, wine must have been involved) and one of us said: We should write a book. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the details. Who came up with the idea?

What I remember is that we were in total agreement about what we would write: Science Fiction. We were both avid readers of the genre, addicted to Richard Matheson, Philip K. Dick, and Iain M. Banks, among others. We had similar tastes, quoting Twin Peaks every chance we got and debating the merits of X-Files episodes (ah! Home, ahem, if you know you know …).

We didn’t have the slightest idea what the story would be. In our youthful enthusiasm, we never considered trying to write a short story first, to see how good we were at the two-step. No, it would be a book. None of us had ever tried writing anything like that. Two magazines had taken my stories. My friend wrote corporate communication stuff. Hey, nothing ventured, and all that.

The principle would be similar to the “pass the story” game where one player comes up with a sentence, the next one adds to it, and so on, around the camp fire, or the dinner table. Cheap fun, no cards or dice needed.

My friend suggested I write the starting chapter to prime the pump. I didn’t mind, something would come to me—Time has passed but I still write that way. I discover the story as I go. Fifty pages into a book, I’ll do a semi-outline, a quick summary of how I imagine the story progressing, mostly to avoid getting stuck or getting lost.

So I set to work.

I’ve kept the first lines, here they are:

Aldair Livingston stared at the thing in his waste basket with a mixture of bafflement and panic. He peeked cautiously over the metal partition that separated his cubicle from that of his colleagues. None of them was looking at him and he slid back in his chair. He felt cold sweat soaking the collar of his uniform jacket. Was it a prank? Somebody’s idea of a joke?

I delivered my first chapter, excited to see what my buddy would come up with next.

Nothing came.

I bet you guessed it would end that way.

My friend was encouraging: This is good, keep going.

Maybe that was all I needed. Four books emerged from that initial pat on the back. The Savage Crown series is out there, if you’re interested (my favorite is Book 2 – Solitaire Plaza). You won’t find the first lines above in any of the books. They didn’t lead anywhere and I cut them out. The idea of a strange discovery in a garbage can stuck with me, however. It’s at the center of Green Thumb, a story published by Ripples in Space (free to read). Yes, writers recycle!

The possibility of a writing collaboration has come up many times over the years. We should do something together sometime. It usually remains in the wishful thinking cloud. Writers have projects ongoing. They do their own thing. Their hands are full. My hands are full! Reading other people’s work, commenting, reviewing, sharing. Story ideas bubbling. A manuscript or two in progress. This newsletter.

Then, at the end of January, a writer friend suggested: What if we brought our characters together in a story? A crossover event, as they say on TV. It sounded intriguing. I dip my keyboard in 1950s noir from time to time and his crime stories take place around the same period.

We chatted via email and direct messaging, came up with an idea for a double point-of-view narrative, where we each would write scenes for our respective characters, ping-pong style. We got going, with fragments that we knit together. It was a bit confusing. Now, we work on a single manuscript that we pass back and forth, and brainstorm by email, almost daily, on what comes next. Plot twists bubble up. Threads connect. Inspiration crackles.

We’re a month in the project and we’re about three quarters done on the first draft. The word count hovers around 25,000 which puts us in novella territory, something neither of us has tried before. To say that I’m excited about the whole concept and the story is putting it mildly. I’m having a ton of fun in the sandbox, and ideas keep coming …

We have a few possible titles in the hamper … I’ll keep you posted.