Writing Together

Writing is a solitary occupation. But does it have to be?

There are several ways of making writing less solitary, in fact there's a whole spectrum. Here are three examples:

1. The Light Touch: Writing Accountability (and Inspiration) Groups
2. The Safe Challenge: Writing Contests
3. The Shared Creative: Writing Partners

Somewhere on that spectrum may be right for you. Let's take a look at each of them.

Before we start ...
do you want to write fiction faster,
while practicing your craft and your writing process to consistently get better? 

Check out this link to the FREE "Write Fiction Faster ... and better" guide and workbook,
which comes with a FREE companion course
with 23 bite-sized video lessons and 4 worksheets.

 
1. The Light Touch: Writing Accountability (and Inspiration) Groups

 A Writing Accountability Group means a band of writers who write together and check in on each other to encourage, motivate, and be accountable.

This is NOT a writing critique group or workshop where you share your writing. Instead, this is a group where everyone works on their own thing, and what you're sharing is not your creative work, but the process of writing.

If the word "accountability" seems scary, think about it instead as a safe and supportive space you go to for inspiration, motivation, encouragement, celebration, or perhaps a friendly shared gripe-session, which can make it sound like group therapy, a support group for writers, and perhaps, in a way it is.

Ideally, it should be done LIVE together in writing sessions, but the next best thing would be regular check-ins (no less frequent than weekly) where you share your accomplishments and maybe your challenges.

The hallmarks of a good Writing Accountability Group are flexibility, frequency, inspiration, and encouragement. The "accountability" part comes along for the ride if you have those four elements:

• Flexibility - everyone's life is different, so a rigid schedule with limited options for writing sessions (or weekly check-ins) will not work, and you will most likely not stick with it.
  
  
• Frequency - the writing sessions need to be regular, ideally daily, so you can get into the consistent habit of writing.
  
  
• Inspiration - there should be something inspiring and motivating built into the process, such as bite-sized learning and/or coaching and community sharing of lessons learned and helpful resources.
  
  
• Encouragement - there should be a way of sharing wins and celebrating milestones.

The best writing accountability group I have found is "Unchained Writer", which is an online group, so I will use this as an example. Here's how it works:

Every week there are 11 live sessions, hosted by one of the coaches (an AM and a PM session on most weekdays plus weekend sessions, so you can find times during the week to fit your schedule). The coach is on video, but the participants in the group-writing session are off-camera, text-chatting (using a private Slack account), so there's no-one who can see your just-rolled-out-of-bed disheveled self. After a brief educational/motivational lesson, the coach encourages the participants to commit to a specific goal for the writing session, then sets a timer, and we write! When the timer is up (after 60 minutes), we celebrate wins and share whatever we feel like sharing. If you miss a live session there are replays available.

In addition to the 11 live sessions, there are informal community-managed sessions (called "Rogue Sessions"), ranging between 2 - 4 sessions per day, a total of 20 "rogue" writing sessions during the week. Between the live and "rogue" sessions, you could go nuts and participate in 31 hour-long writing sessions each week. And, actually, there is almost always someone online, so an impromptu writing session can be kicked off at most any time.

Most of us choose one or two daily sessions that work well with our individual schedule. It's amazing how much writing can be done in even just one daily writing sessions of consistent focus, and it's inspirational to see the results over time, both your own and your writing accountability partners.

For example one group member attends two daily sessions, and through this relatively light commitment, last year she wrote the first draft of five (yes, 5!) novels (nearly 350,000 words in total).

Here are my own results from 12 months of regular sessions:

• 90 blog entries (250,000+ words, nearly 200 illustrations), of which:
  • 44 articles on the writing craft, ranging from 1,500 - 6,000 words (plus illustrations) -  approximately 150,000 words (plus nearly 150 illustrations since the typical article has 3 illustrations and some have 4 )
  • 37 stories (flash fiction, short stories, parts of novellas) - approximately 100,000 words (plus 37 illustrations, 1 for each story)
  • 9 "writing process" articles where I go "behind the scenes" on how a story was written
• 34 newsletters
• 1 (free) course lead magnet "Write Fiction Faster ... and Better" which consists of a guide, workbook, 23 video lessons, and 4 worksheet (MS Excel, Apple Numbers, Google Sheets compatible). As part of that I also learned Canva, Camtasia, Audiate, and Kajabi's course & landing pages features
• 1 checklist lead magnet "The Ultimate DIALOGUE Checklist"
• 1 completed novel (86,000 words), collaborating with my wife (more on that below in the Writing Partners section)

If you want to learn more about Unchained Writer, here's a link to check it out. We write in every fiction genre, as well as non-fiction, memoirs, and other content writing (blogs, courses, newsletters, etc.) It is a very supportive, generous, and motivating safe space where you need never write alone again (unless you want to).

The Writing Accountability Group is "light touch": no judgments, nobody critiquing your work, just inspiration, motivation, and a celebration of the fact that you are following the process and doing the work.

If you want to step up to the next level of writing together, where you share your work, try the safe challenge of writing contests.

2. The Safe Challenge: Writing Contests

You can share your work in workshops and critique groups, but how about taking a frequent (weekly) challenge where you share your work by entering a writing contest?

The one I recommend — because I participate in it regularly — is the Reedsy Weekly Writing Contest. It's a fun way of challenging yourself to consistently produce a complete story or non-fiction article on a regular basis. You will also get friendly, supportive feedback from the Reedsy community. And the winning entry for the week receives a $250 prize, plus Winner and Shortlisted entries get featured placement on their website (which gets millions of visits every month). Here's how it works:

Each week, the editors at Reedsy select a theme along with five writing prompts related to that theme.

You pick one of the prompts and write a 1,000 - 3,000 word story or creative non-fiction article inspired by the prompt.

If you want to enter the contest, there is a $5 fee. The contest is formally judged by a panel of experienced judges.

Reedsy community members can read, like, and comment on your story, and they do! It's all very friendly, supportive, and helpful, no trolling.

For example, my winning story, "Untold", received 200 likes and 128 comments (as of writing this article). I also posted a (slightly longer than the Reedsy 3,000 word limit) version of the story on my own blog, which is fine with Reedsy as long as you include a link back to the originally published story on the Reedsy website, so you can freely publish what you originally wrote for Reedsy in any other place you choose. You still own the full rights to the story.

If you're already committed to writing a longer work, a novel or even a series of novels, you may think that writing short fiction (or non-fiction articles) is a distraction, taking away from your focus. But what I find is that the weekly challenge is like a "warmup", like playing scales, an aperitif to the full meal of your long-form writing project. I get more focused and more motivated to work on my novel-length project by also writing a short story on a regular basis.

What this weekly challenge really does for me, is to energize me with a deadline (the story is due Friday each week) and the competitive instinct, while also plugging me into a supportive community of fellow writers.

Reedsy also encourages you to read, like, and comment on other people's stories, through a system of "karma points".

You can follow favorite writers in the community, which creates a curated reading list of writers whose stories you enjoy.

I find that reading these bite-sized stories provides inspiration, and is a good break from my usual commitment to longer forms of reading (last year I challenged myself to read "War and Peace", the "Wolf Hall" trilogy, the "Dune" books, and several volumes in the "Spellmonger" fantasy series, each of which clocked in at between 500 - 1,000+ pages, so a short story that can be easily read in one sitting is a nice palate cleanser.)

3. The Shared Creative: Writing Partners

The next level, is where you go "all in", collaborating with a writing partner.

My experience here is very personal. I have been collaborating with my wife on a novel in the crime fiction (mystery, suspense, thriller) genre. This year we finished the manuscript, and we are currently querying literary agents.

Here's what we have learned from the process:

RESPECT

It's very important to be respectful of the other person's vision and their writing process. Yes, we have had "spirited discussions" throughout, but it has always been with respectful deference to each other.

COMPATIBILITY

You need to find a writing partner that is compatible with you. This has many dimensions. Here are three:

• Genre - you both need to enjoy writing the same genre. Yes, you can write a mashup, such as romance and suspense coming together in a a "romantic suspense" genre or science fiction and mystery coming together in a "sci-fi mystery", where one of you may pull (and contribute) more in their primary area of interest. But you both have to be committed to and enjoy the genre or genre-combo.
  
  
• Voice - since the reader will need to feel that the story is coherent, you need to be able to meld your writing voices together. Yes, you can write a story that has multiple narrators, and one of you can focus on only those narrators and characters in the story that most resonates with your writing style. But in the end, the whole has to feel like the sum of its part, not wildly disconnected with jarring transitions from one writing style to another.
  
  
• Complementary - the Merriam-Webster definitions for "complementary" include "fill out or complete" and "mutually supply each other's lack". Your ideal writing partner should provide writing strengths that complement your weaknesses, and vice versa.

ENCOURAGEMENT

Provide support and motivation to your writing partner, and expect the same in return.

This can be in the form of validation of their (and your) writing, understanding of the challenges in the writing, pep-talks when dealing with tough spots in the writing, and inspiration to keep working.

HONESTY

Provide honest feedback where it is needed, and be open to receive honest feedback on your own writing. This always needs to be done with kindness and a positive mentality.

When done right, a writing partnership comes with a built-in critique group, beta reader, and editor.

If you’re interested in exploring examples of writing partnerships, you may want to check out MasterClass where you’ll find examples, including:

• The Duffer Brothers (of “Stranger Things” fame) - in their class, they are exemplars of a close-knit writing partnership. You can see it in the way they naturally play off each other, and especially in the exercises where they create scripts live in the lesson.
  
  
• James Patterson is known for collaborating with writing partners. These days, with the exception of his Alex Cross series which he writes on his own, most if not all his books are collaborations with a wide range of co-authors. In his class, he includes a lesson where we get to meet one of his writing partners and get to hear from her side how it is to work with him.
  
  
• Shonda Rhimes (the showrunner behind “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” and producer of “Bridgerton” and “How To Get Away With Murder”) includes lessons on how to work in a writer’s room, including live exercises with a group of writers working together.

If you’re interested in these and other great lessons from the masters of the craft, check out MasterClass.

So, do you have to write alone? Only when you want to (which still is great, especially for us introverts). But when you need anything from simply company and accountability, to motivation, inspiration, a challenge, all the way to a creatively compatible writing partner, there are many ways of connecting with your kind of writing community.

Try it, you’ll find the way that is right for you.

Resources

MY FAVORITE ALL-PURPOSE RESOURCE

The Writer's Treasure Chest - everything in one place, curated, organized, this is a great reference for all things writing craft, with tons of prompts, plot/character generators and other tools to inspire you to write a great stories whether you write them alone or with other writers.

RELATED ARTICLES

As you write your stories, here are some articles that will be helpful as you work on all the aspects of the writing craft and your writing process: 

• Write Fiction Faster! — How to Speed Up Your Story Writing 
  
  
• Need a Great Idea for Your Next Story? Try the Story IDEA Formula
  
  
• From Idea to Story: 3 Methods to Develop Your Story Idea 
  
  
• How to Write Characters Who Stick in the Reader's Mind 
  
  
• What Makes a Good Story? — Great Scenes! Here's How to Write Them
  
  
• Flash Fiction: How To Use It To Supercharge Your Writing 
  
  
• Blast Through Writer's Block: How to Get Unstuck 
  
  
• Find Your Stagecoach — How to Master the Art of Writing Fiction

FREE COURSE, GUIDE AND WORKBOOK

Do you want to write fiction faster, while practicing your craft and your writing process to consistently get better? Check out this link to the "Write Fiction Faster ... and better" guide and workbook, which comes with a companion course with 23 bite-sized video lessons and 4 worksheets.