Most people, on discovering that we are partners in crime (writing), are astonished that a married couple could stay married after writing four novels together as Ellery Lloyd. ‘If we tried, it would end in divorce!’ is what we hear most often. We certainly haven’t perfected a process, but there are a few things we’ve learned along the way that make writing together a little easier.
Write little, and often
I had always thought you had to write books in a frenzy, producing a finished novel after a couple of months of feverish typing. But when you’re trying to fit writing into real life, it simply doesn’t work like that – especially not when there are two of you, a child and another full-time job. We don’t get to head off to a writing shed for the day; we snatch an hour or two when we can, and I honestly think we’re more productive for it.
Plot together
The couple that plots together… has a first draft that broadly makes sense.
Often, we get excited about a new idea and race off at a hundred miles an hour. Those first 20,000 words give us an insight into who the characters are and how they think (all of our novels are in multiple voices, and we each write one or two of those). In the case of Time to Burn, our latest novel – a time travel murder mystery – it also gave us an explosive opening scene, where a supposedly safe trip back to witness one of the worst nights of the Blitz goes horribly wrong.
Usually after those 20,000 or so words, we put the book down and spend a while ironing out a really solid chapter plan. We know where each chapter starts and ends, and what within it moves the plot along. Of course, things change in successive edits, but without a really solid road map we would get very lost indeed.
Writers are generally split into two camps – plotters and pantsers. Pantsers sit down and just start writing, confident the story will unfurl before their eyes as they type. If we did that, as a pair, it would end up as a game of consequences, with neither of us knowing whodunnit. Our chapter plan can run into twenty pages or more. It always changes, but they’re generally just minor detours from our road map.
Don’t write in the same room
I am incredibly distractable and both of us are extremely loud typers, and if Paul writes something funny he laughs at his own jokes. It’s just better for the harmony of the household if we don’t write in the same room.
We work in a shared Google Doc, so we can see what the other one is up to even if we’re on different floors of the house. Sometimes we make the trip up or down the stairs to complain about a favourite paragraph getting a haircut. Sometimes you can hear one of us shout, ‘Oi! I can see you! Stop deleting! I liked that bit…’
We start off writing separate characters or timelines – in Time to Burn, Paul initially wrote the Blitz timeline, where one of the time tourists becomes lost in the past after failing to return from the trip to the Blitz, and I wrote Phoebe, a documentary-maker who is working on a film about the inventor of the commercial time travel operation which runs the trips, a tech genius called Inigo Frank – but by the time it comes to the second draft we both write and rewrite all of it.
We genuinely can’t tell once a book is in bookstores who did what. There are parts Paul is especially proud of that I’m pretty sure I wrote and vice versa.
Don’t be precious about edits
They say kill your darlings. Well, we merrily kill each other’s.
We both have a background in giving constructive feedback on other people’s work. Paul is Professor of Creative Writing at Greenwich University, and I spent over a decade commissioning journalists for magazines and newspapers. We know how the process works and aren’t precious because the ultimate aim is to make the book as good as it can be.
Write about what fascinates you
All of our novels have been very different – the world of Instagram influencer mums, celebrity private members’ clubs, the art world, tech and property – but the thread linking them is that we want to draw the curtain back on a world that perhaps appears glamorous, but has a dark side. We pick those worlds based on what really interests us.
If we find ourselves stuck on a tricky plot point or frustrated the words aren’t flowing, we change the scenery. For an hour, an afternoon or a few days if we’re lucky, we’ll go somewhere that’s in some way linked to the book we are working on and talk it out. For The Club we booked ourselves a weekend on a private island. For The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby, we spent a week in Devon looking around National Trust houses. For Time to Burn, we did walking tours of historic London, as well as a guided trip down to one of London’s disused ‘ghost’ tube stations, which was basically unchanged since it had been used as government offices during WWII.
Be Each Other’s Cheerleaders: Enjoy the Good Stuff
Books take a long time to write and edit and so much of being a writer is sitting in front of a laptop. When the good stuff happens – whether that’s finishing a draft or getting a lovely review or being chosen as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick as we have been with Time to Burn – you are allowed to do a happy dance and pop a champagne cork.
(c) Collette Lyons
Ellery Lloyd photograph (c) Alicia Clarke
About Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd:
From the author of The Club, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick, Time to Burn is Ellery Lloyd’s compelling time travel thriller.
If the past catches up with you, time travel can be murder . . .
London, the present day: commercial time travel is a reality.
Tempus Tours – owned by controversial tech entrepreneur Inigo Frank – offers the wealthy a chance to witness pivotal moments in history.
To immortalise his achievement, Frank enlists award-winning filmmaker Phoebe Hunt to create a fly-on-the-wall documentary. On her first day shadowing Inigo, she is set to witness the return of a billionaire property developer and his family from their trip to the past. But instead of their awe-filled return, she captures the group arriving bloodied and traumatized, with one of their number missing.
Not only that, but Phoebe recognizes the missing woman. She knows not only that she’s not who she claims to be, but that the woman has every reason to harbor a grudge against her. And as events begin to unravel in the present day, it seems increasingly clear that the woman had sinister motives for returning to the past – and that people close to Phoebe are in danger.
Can Phoebe stop the ripple effect before she loses everything – and everyone – she holds dear?
Order your copy online here.
And read more Resource articles on Writing.ie here.
