As two bicoastal writing partners, we are using this isolation time to create new works and finish up ambitious projects. This includes submitting a first draft of a book, writing a second act of a full-length play, revising a musical (with a third collaborative partner in Hawaii), and writing ten-minute plays on events from the news our own strange experiences. While the list of projects keeps growing and we encounter new challenges each day, we continue to write to fortify our mental health.
We began writing together to combat depression and suicidal ideation post-Ph.D. and intentionally used writing to cultivate positive mental health. While we did not know what the outcome would be, we trusted that working together would be beneficial. We started by creating plays inspired by a tarot reading which warned one us that we would experience deep regret if we did focus on our writing. Six months later, we had four full-length comedic plays. Fast forward two and a half years, we have over forty (forty-one, including this article) works to date. We write automatically, spontaneously, and simultaneously about everything from racism and the student debt crisis in the U.S., drinking during Tang Dynasty China, to theatre for lifelong learning. (Please contact us if you are interested in producing one of our plays.)
If we added up all the hours that we have spent writing together it would not seem impressive. Our estimate is two hundred sixty hours spent collaborating. Our works take varying amounts of time. For example, a ten-minute play can be completed within fifteen minutes to an hour. An academic article we published required less than twenty-four hours to complete. By writing standards, this is a very fast turn around and we didn’t change our schedules to accommodate it. Instead, we met every weekend for one to three hours on Google docs and our repertoire grew quickly and steadily.
While we had not intended to create anything worth publishing or producing at any playhouse, submitting work has been an added benefit of writing collaboratively. Before our partnership, we did not communicate regularly nor did we consider each other best friends of any sort. In fact, we had not spoken to each other in five years. (We were merely classmates that had not shared any toxic interactions, which is atypical in graduate school.) However, from our weekly meetings, we have learned to manage our mental health while honing our writing skills, and actually becoming friends. A big part of the success of our collaboration is that the writing is low-pressure, continuous, and provides stability in chaos.
Benefits
A key benefit of the continuing online experiment and phased reopening is that artists and writers are coming together to share ideas virtually. It is also a time to remake cultural institutions for the better. Our somewhat unorthodox writing practices are now part of the new not-normal.
Collaborative writing is accessible for anyone with an internet connection. (Though we’ve written through power outages caused by wildfires, and a catastrophic hard drive failure with one of us dictating and the other taking notes.) Collaborative writing brings a sense of connection to the often isolating and arduous task of writing. It assists with forward momentum and diversity of viewpoints and helps collaborators see their own ideas from the perspectives of others. Ideas do not exist in a vacuum and writing collaboratively can break you out of your own echo chamber.
Collaborators are intentionally creating something together. Whether it be a play, a story, a video, a visual art, or other project, the focus of the collaboration is on working together and making something new. Writing collaboratively sparks creativity, innovation, self-reflection, and more. We frequently do not know where a scene is headed in a play or how our disparate perspectives will interpret evidence in an article to support an idea. Although the unknown can be scary, venturing into it with a partner makes writing an adventure (sometimes with one or both of us kicking and screaming).
Tips on Collaborative Writing
As daunting as it may appear, collaborative writing is not difficult to do. All you need are willing participants, a wireless connection, and a document sharing platform that allows multiple parties to contribute simultaneously.
If you imagine that writers (yourself included) are people who like to spend hours upon hours wordsmithing and painstakingly obsessing over whether you should use a period or semicolon, try writing collaboratively. It’s not as annoying as it sounds. You don’t have to know the other writers very well or even consider yourself a “good” writer. The only thing you need to do is to let go of your ego and be okay with unexpected twists and turns that develop as you collaborate. If you have trouble letting go, this is an even better reason to write collaboratively. The adaptability you practice will serve you well as we adjust and adapt to a deluge of unforeseen social and academic disruptions.
To write collaboratively, we recommend the following:
- Find a writing partner or more.
- Determine a time to meet.
- Create a shared document with your writers.
- Pick two topics and/or forms. For example: a story about learning to ride a bike and story about struggling to become a better person.
- When you’re beginning, take turns. Each person writes a set number of lines or paragraphs on different documents. Then switch back and forth as many times as you wish.
- As you build your collaborative writing skills, try working on the same story together at the same time, without any rules regarding who gets to go, and when. Let the magic (or frustration) happen! Just keep writing!
- The aim is to not just have ideas, but to manifest them on the page.
Do your part to maintain a sense of connection and improve your mental health by writing collaboratively. You might make a new friend or two and create a future Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that will change the world. What have you got to lose?