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Even Shakespeare had help

teamworkIt is a pop­u­lar cliché that writ­ing is a most iso­lat­ing process. Most young writ­ers I know seem to embrace this notion and indeed, almost enjoy the notion. The prob­lem is that this is not the way pro­fes­sion­al writ­ing works. A pub­lish­er friend once told me that before a book is ful­ly pub­lished, an esti­mat­ed forty peo­ple have had their hands (and brains) on the project.

When you see a film, there are impos­ing lists of peo­ple at the con­clu­sion, peo­ple who have worked on the movie, every­one from the exec­u­tive pro­duc­er to the set cater­er. You don’t see such lists at the back of book. When was the last time you even saw the editor’s name post­ed in a book?—almost never.

In fact—from per­son­al experience—I know there are many peo­ple involved in my books.  The edi­tor of course, but there are peo­ple (like my wife and friends), whom I might ask to read a work in progress. I fre­quent­ly go to schools and read a work in progress. In one form or anoth­er, I get feed­back. Then there are col­lab­o­rat­ing illus­tra­tors, art direc­tors, proof­read­ers, copy edi­tors, and on and on. The fact that my name—and only my name—appears on the book is deeply mis­lead­ing. More to the point, it tells a young author that he or she is whol­ly in charge of the book. In truth, the pub­lish­ing world likes to project this idea—even though they know it is wrong.

Thomas Middleton William ShakespeareJust know that that paragon of world lit­er­a­ture, William Shake­speare him­self, had oth­er hands in his work. It’s been a while now, but I recall that schol­ars have said that it was anoth­er con­tem­po­rary play­wright, Thomas Mid­dle­ton, who wrote the witch scenes for Mac­beth.

Accept the fact that a book is an intense­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive endeav­or. Know that your work will be bet­ter because of their (who­ev­er they are) work.

1 thought on “Even Shakespeare had help”

  1. Wow. this makes me more pre­pared to share my work, as was prob­a­bly your inten­tion. I am just won­der­ing how you get the guts to do it.

    Reply

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