Team Human is a new novel, a collaboration by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan. At this link you can read a live chat, moderated by Justine's husband Scott Westerfeld, about the book and what it was like to collaborate by e-mail from time zones several hours apart.
Among the highlights:
Justine believes outlines are EEEvil; Sarah makes outlines of her outlines. The two were able to find a middle ground as they worked together. It may have helped that there was no disagreement between them on how the book would end; therefore most of the major plot points must have been agreed on as well.
Both writers were able to keep the book a secret from their public and from their agents. No mean feat, considering the lack of privacy in the era of Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere.
Being in time zones so far apart -- Justine in Australia, Sarah in Ireland -- actually worked well in some ways. When one was asleep, the other was working. Thanks to technology, they could be sort of a tag team. Sarah got to write the first make-out scene. If that sort if thing is important to you, make sure you pace the writing with your partner so it's your turn when that chapter comes up.
Sarah gave the following advice to writers who want to co-write a book: Be considerate of each other, be determined to compromise and (I'm sure she was tongue-in-cheek wen she wrote this) draw up an agreement. Justine's contribution was, of course, be willing to compromise and remember it's not YOUR book, it's a SHARED book. My suggestion: have an idea where you want to take your story, make sure you agree on the big stuff, and just be a grownup about the rest.
After some discussion, the "floor" was opened to fans with questions. One was about handling criticism. Justine's advice was handle it OFFLINE and IN PRIVATE. This makes her a class act. See this post and this post if you want my opinion on that.
It's a fun read. Go and check it out. And maybe buy the book.
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