Jeff Mariotte

Okay, well, better late than never. Maybe.

Since Jeff Mariotte was apparently looking over my shoulder and swiped the subject of collaborating right out from under my keyboard, I am hereby scrapping that essay (fortunately, I wasn’t far into it) and offering something altogether different. Don’t do it again, Jeff!

As most readers here probably know, I edited DEATHREALM magazine for ten years (1987-1997) and have edited (or co-edited) three anthologies — SONG OF CTHULHU, EVERMORE, and DEATHREALMS (though the latter doesn’t really count, I suppose, since all the stories came from the magazine). I’ve also written a fair amount of fiction over the last couple of decades. Many writers have an editor’s hat as well, and I imagine most of them are better writers for it. I like to think the experiences with both have worked wonders for me.

I consider every story, every novel, every piece of prose I write an exercise with a lesson to be learned somewhere in the process. Ditto for every issue of the magazine, every anthology I’ve ever edited. I look for the best lessons by reading other writers. Good ones. Great ones. Those whose work has already been through the editorial process. From these, I can get subtle pointers (and sometimes not-so-subtle) on style, on structure, on characterization, on everything associated with a work of fiction. I can learn what’s been done to death and what needs revitalizing. Little other than reading something that is on a level beyond my own better encourages me to practice and develop my own authorial voice. That, as much as plain old enjoyment of reading, keeps me looking forward to the next book in the TBR stack. Some disappointment is inevitable, of course, but in that stack, there are also plenty of lessons about what not to do.

Yes, and that last bit is taken to a whole ’nuther extreme when your TBR stack is a slush pile.

Frequently, the DEATHREALM slush pile actually consisted of two to three piles, each a foot or more high; it wasn’t just a matter of odds, it was an outright certainty that the vast majority of them would be unacceptable, if not utterly dreadful (and after several years of this, that fact becomes rather depressing). But there was plenty to be learned all the same. Needless to say, I could scarcely read beyond a few paragraphs, sometimes a few sentences, to determine whether the story might be a keeper; the ones that did lure me to the end were few and far between. Negative reinforcement came aplenty, and I certainly learned many things that were valuable to my own writing, one in particular being the aspect of characterization. Way back when, during my early development as a writer, I often wanted to humanize my characters by giving them foibles; as much as good writing was teaching me how, the slush pile taught me definitively how not.

During my tenure as DEATHREALM’s editor, I came up with a character I call Bilge. He’s the fellow who starred in countless stories from countless aspiring writers whose work reeked distinctly of bilgewater. Bilge was so prevalent that I finally added a checkbox to my rejection slip that read, “This is a Bilge story,” the detailed description of which could be found in my submission guidelines.

If the Bilge box on a writer’s rejection sheet was checked, that writer would have a pretty good idea that Mr. Deathrealm was not pleased.

Bilge’s character had a few variations, but by and large, he was a beer-swilling, misogynistic lout who almost always opened his stories by yelling “Fuck!” (sometimes followed by an objective pronoun), and who took great pleasure in the torture and mutilation of his victims — generally a woman, though occasionally a gay male. (“You F’ing whore!” was probably his most oft-blurted exclamation.) Bilge had no human traits other than the most wicked; in fact, two-dimensional is way too generous a term for him. Though once in a great while the victim in question had actually wronged him, more often than not, Bilge indulged in his maladjusted pastimes just because he was an f’ing bastard. As you might guess, at the end of the tale, the tables were always turned, and Bilge found himself in a world of hurt, inevitably at the hands of his victims, newly emerged from the grave. (As a twist, sometimes they even vampires!) In about 90 percent of his tales, poor Bilge was castrated without anesthesia. (Though I remember one where his entrails got yanked out through his mouth. I gave that one a half-point for style.)

I always wanted to feel bad for Bilge, but none of the writers ever allowed me to. Bummer, isn’t it?

Tyros (including me, back in the day) find vengeance a most compelling subject matter, and it can be, given a unique treatment that includes things such as depth, motivation, and perhaps an ounce of internal struggle. But the single-mindedness with which many approach the subject, thus birthing Bilge, is an issue that, to my mind, ought to be worked out prior to springing the story on a bunch of all-too-suspecting editors.

I haven’t read slush in several years, but based on Bilge’s continued appearance in the occasional small-press publication, I’d be willing to bet he’s still a pervasive character. (I might add that, largely because of Bilge, I learned one valuable editorial trick that I have since performed religiously: Invite-only.)

If Bilge lurks among your stable of characters, fire him. Fire him now.

And editors — if you’d like to use the “This is a Bilge story” checkbox on your rejection slip, please feel free. I’m happy to share.

–Mark Rainey

By Jeff Mariotte

My first (published) novel, Gen13: Netherwar, was a collaboration with Christopher Golden. Since then I’ve also collaborated on novels with Nancy Holder, Scott Ciencin, and Steve Niles (and on nonfiction with Nancy Holder and Maryelizabeth Hart, with whom I have also collaborated on children and marriage). In addition to these books, I have written dozens upon dozens of comic books, each of which—since I don’t do the pencils, inks, coloring or lettering—is an artistic collaboration of a different sort.

But then, every collaboration is of a different sort than the one before it, because no two writers work together the same way. For that matter, the same two writers can work different ways on different books. I’ve had many people ask me what it’s like to collaborate, how the process works, and since I usually give the somewhat facile answer that it’s always different, I thought I’d go into it in a bit more detail here.

I once heard Stephen King and Peter Straub talk about their collaboration on The Talisman. Steve was doing most of the talking, and he said, “I played with my big Wang at my house, and Peter stayed home playing with his big Wang, and before we knew it we had a book.” That was obviously a while ago, when there were Wang computers and people would admit to using them, but as a description of the process it’s not all that different than some of my collaborations.

That first one, Gen13: Netherwar, for instance, was written bi-coastally. Chris lives in Massachusetts, and I lived in California at the time. It was before we had fast e-mail—I still don’t—and we worked by sending diskettes back and forth. I was on a Mac, and Chris wasn’t, so we also had to worry about document format.

That’s the technical side of things, though, which is the easiest to work out in most cases. The creative side is where things get tricky. Chris had collaborated before, so had at least some background to draw on. The book was to be a novel about comic book characters that Chris and I had both written comics about. A packager hired Chris to write the book, and he generously invited me to join him. The first step was agreeing on a basic plot. Once we had that, we divided it into chapters. It turned out that Chris had way more on his plate than we did, so we agreed that the division of labor (and advance money) would be 75/25, with me doing 75% of the work and taking that proportion of the cash.

Then it was time to sit down with the little Mac and the diskettes. I wrote three chapters and sent the disk to Chris. He added a chapter and sent it back. We went on like this—days the Post Office would be thrilled to have back again.

Finally, we reached the end of the book. At this stage, I went over all the chapters one last time, then sent him that file, and he went over it again. The idea here was to smooth out the rough edges, the awkward transitions, and to disguise the fact that two different writers had their hands all over the thing. This is crucial—a successful collaboration can’t read like it was written by two writers. It should appear to be the work of a single writer who is not Writer A or Writer B, but a third individual with a different set of skills and life experiences than either of them.

My collaboration with Scott Ciencin was pretty similar, except that it was performed via e-mail and was a 50/50 split. Once again, it was on a Gen13 novel, and once again (although I was the one approached by the packager) Scott had far more experience than I, and provided the voice of sanity and reason.

I worked more often with Nancy Holder than with anyone else. We did the two nonfiction books, Angel: The Casefiles Vol. 1 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide Vol. 2 with Maryelizabeth (Nancy had written the first Watcher’s Guide with Chris), and Nancy and I collaborated on a Buffy/Angel crossover trilogy and an epic-length Angel novel that was to be the first Angel hardcover, called Endangered Species.

The process was different in that Nancy and I lived in the same city. We didn’t have to rack up the long distance bills to hash out story points, and although we usually worked at our own houses, trading chapters by e-mail, when we needed to we could work in the same room if necessary. The basic process was similar as with the other books—come up with a detailed outline first, break it down into chapters, then divvy up the chapters in some mutually beneficial fashion. On Endangered Species, for instance, Nancy took all the chapters set in Hawaii, where she has lived, and I took the chapters set in the California desert because I was a long-time desert rat and had spent a lot of time there. Sharing the expertise of years is a good reason to consider collaboration–if, for instance, you have a brilliant idea for a medical thriller but no medical background, you might team up with a doctor who doesn’t have time to write a novel herself.

Nancy and I didn’t always keep up with one another, pace-wise, which made for some more complicated gymnastics later on. If Writer B is doing chapter 17 and Writer A hasn’t yet done 15 or 16, then, no matter how detailed the outline is, Writer B is going to have to make some guesses about what happens in those chapters, and those guesses aren’t always going to be correct.

At least in a tie-in book, both authors know who the characters are because they exist outside of the novel. Collaborating on an original, which both Chris and Nancy have done but I have not, strikes me as more difficult, and even more crucial that he work be done in order instead of piecemeal, because the characters and their world are being created from whole cloth as the story is told.

With Steve Niles, I wrote my most recent release, horror/vampire novel 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead. This one broke most of the rules I’ve already laid out here. It’s a tie-in, based on a comic book series created and written by Steve. He did a fairly comprehensive outline (although I had to tweak it in spots), and then I wrote the bulk of the novel from that outline. Interspersed in the narrative are excerpts from a fictional book called 30 Days of Night that plays a major role in the comic book series (also called 30 Days of Night), and I left spaces for those excerpts, which Steve wrote after I was done with my draft of the main narrative. Steve took the narrative, did his own pass over it, and added in the “excerpts.” Since he is the originator of the characters and concepts, his is the final word on those, which is unusual in tie-in writing (one rarely has the chance to write an Angel novel with Joss Whedon or David Greenwalt, for instance).

Collaboration can be a frustrating experience because there’s another pair of hands and an independent brain working on what can be an intensely personal project. But it can also be a creative eye-opener, allowing you a rare peek into another writer’s mind, creative processes, tricks and techniques. For a beginning writer, it can be invaluable, because you can learn things there’s no other way to discover, and you can wind up with a published work, providing both income and a level of confidence that you can do it again, solo. There will be arguments and compromises, and I recommend laying out the ground rules—how do you work, how do you divide the labor, and how do you divide the money—before you start. Ideally on pap
er, as a written contract, however informal. I’ve heard about collaborations that have ruined friendships, but have experienced collaborations that have cemented them.

If you’re thinking about a collaboration, I recommend the experience. Be wary of the traps and look for the blessings. The result of all the work you do will be a book with your name on it that you could not have written by yourself, but also could not have been written without you. That’s a pretty cool thing.