Rebecca Serle interviewed Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, authors of "The Nanny Diaries." They discussed their process of collaboration:
"We start here, really. A place where we can chat and where we will be well fed. Then we fill each other in on whatever we've seen, read or heard about lately. We divide and conquer. Emma reads Vanity Fair, I read The New Yorker. We watch television, We try to put our finger on the zeitgeist and exactly what's happening now."
Once they've figured out what they're going to write about, here's what's next:
"Emma: As far as the work goes, we write a really detailed outline. The outline for Nanny Diaries was 26 pages. Then we divide it up.
Nicola: Sometimes there are things either one of us will call dibs on. Something we really connect with that we want to write. There are also hot potato items -- not it!
Emma: And characters that come naturally to each of us."
Of course every collaboration is different. The key principles of effective collaboration seem to be:
(1) Work with somebody who doesn't have exactly the same skill set you do;
(2) Work with somebody you'd be happy to marry (if the gender thing was right for your preference and leaving aside lust)
(3) Agree on a trial period to test the partnership, with an easy out if it doesn't, without hard feelings. It's best to test it with a project you come up with jointly. Ninety days is good.
(4) Make everything 50-50.
(5) Decide on a procedure to follow when you don't agree about any element of your creative project. In many collaborations, the rule is unless both like it, it doesn't go in.
(6) Have an exit plan in advance. That is, decide beforehand how to proceed if one of the partners drops out somewhere along the line. Who owns what? What will happen to any projects that are in mid-development?
(7) No matter how close you are, put everything in writing.
(Another good idea is to make sure you've both read "Your Writing Coach." You can get it from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)
