Writing in Tandem

So I've been collaborating with Jack Bantry for some years now. It all started with a story I submitted to him for SplatterpunkZine. He liked the story but thought it needed something, asked if he could tinker with it and if I liked the outcome we could publish it as a collaboration. Now, I didn't know Bantry outside of a fellow writer who was putting out a cool DIY zine. Had that particular story been one of my recent ones I might have declined, but the story in question, it was called "In the House of Wicking" at the time, had been with me for a very long time, in many different forms. It started as a screenplay when I was in high school, then turned into a short story, and then was completely rewritten two or three times.

I liked the story idea, obviously, but I had to admit that something was indeed wrong. All my efforts with the damn thing were getting me nowhere. I told him to go for it, and what he sent back pretty much blew me away. Bantry had gone through and rearranged some things, added stuff here and there, and gave an emotional depth to a villainous character that was desperately needed. We were off to the races.

Since then we've sold a few short stories in such notable places as Dark Moon Digest and Year's Best Hardcore Horror Vol. 1. Most recently we've published our novella Ain't Worth a Shit with Sinister Grin Press, and Insatiable with Grand Mal Press. There's more to come, including a project with Death's Head Press.

Writing with another author is not something that comes easy for me in the sense that writing is such a solitary act. When Bantry and I started collaborating I was a staunch pantser. I don't think I could have written a book with an outliner, so it was a good pairing since Bantry too is an pantser. These days I write a bullet point outline to streamline my work and utilize my time better. We did this sort of thing toward the end of Insatiable because we found ourselves lagging a bit. I would be interested in collaborating with another author, but I've never reached out to anyone. Part of me fears that the experience might not be as enjoyable as working with Jack. We mesh well together. It takes some time to get a longer story finished, but I appreciate that we don't clash and have a mutual understanding of our process.

 The hard part about collaborating is that I become immersed in other projects when the collaborative story comes back to me, and I sometimes struggle to get back into it. That can be a challenge, especially when we get well into the story. It's not like I'm going to go back and reread the entire thing each time I'm up and need to get a chapter down. The good thing is that I can usually go back a couple of chapters and become reignited. It's a very different process from writing my own story, but ultimately rewarding, particularly when the book comes out. So, now that we have two novellas out and the reviews have been good, I hope you, whoever you are, give our work a chance. And if you do, please consider leaving a review.