Writing with a Partner

I used to think I could never write with a partner. You see, I have this thing about control. So how did I end up as one half of Steven Graham? By accident.

Over the last four years, Steve Harris (aka my spouse) has become an increasingly larger part of my writing process. He’s a great plotting partner. At first I’d go to him when I needed a sounding board for working through a plot problem or writing believable Macho Strut (you know what I mean—those testosterone-loaded passages where two men face off and talk tough). It just kept evolving from there. Now we plot all of my books together. We’ve done some of our best plotting in the car, driving up to the lake for a weekend. He drives, I prop a notebook on my lap, and we have a great time bouncing ideas back and forth. Sometimes we have such a great time that we miss our turning and get lost.

The Sebastian St. Cyr series is still very much mine, although Steve contributes a lot. But as we worked on THE ARCHANGEL PROJECT, it rapidly reached the point that it was no longer just my book, it was ours. We didn’t simply plot the book together, we plotted most individual scenes. Some scenes—especially chases and fights—are so much Steve that my role was virtually that of a stenographer. But more importantly, Steve is the expert, he’s the one who says, This is how they’d do it. Or, just as importantly, No, it wouldn’t happen that way. After all, we’re writing a spy novel, and this guy spent over 20 years in the spy business, running agents and coordinating black ops and—well, you get the idea.

I am still the one doing the actually writing. I think that’s important, because it gives the book a consistent voice and flow that I find a lot of collaborations lack (although I’ve heard of successful collaborations that are structured in many different ways). If Steve were a different kind of person, it probably wouldn’t work—I do still have that thing about control. But since he is Steve, I’m having more fun writing now than I’ve ever had. It’s wonderful to have someone who lives and breathes my book with me. With a partner, writing is no longer such a lonely business.