Write with your friends.

It does not strike us as odd that a book would be published with only one author named on the cover. Yet the reality of writing has always been that the single author likely, hopefully, received help; whether from a friend, editor, husband, writing group, teacher, or a heckler at a poetry slam. The writer may also be consciously reworking a classic text, or retelling a story they heard at a party: echoes of other works abound, whether homage or plagiarism. There may be some authentic solitary poets in garrets, but most of us, luckily, do not work in a vacuum: we have a writing community, a personal life, and muses of all kinds.

In a well-executed collaborative work, the strengths of multiple authors can work together to create a text better than any of the writers could have written on their own. The disparity of different voices can be used to a work's advantage. Even conventional print fiction usually involves a variety of different voices, typically manufactured by a single writer. What if these different voices were actually written by different people? Or suppose the different characters were developed by different writers? I have frequently heard fiction writers talk in terms of "putting characters in the same room together to see what would happen." If you are working with another writer, you might well be surprised at how your characters behave.

The same conventions that dictate that a book should have a single credited author also stipulate that a team of people with clearly defined roles should be involved with book production: publishers, editors, proofreaders, fact-checkers, designers, printers, artists, and publicists. As the publishing industry is slowly transformed by new technology, these roles, including that of writer, may change, overlap, or disappear; and new roles may emerge as well.

For example, in the world of new media, hypertext, cybertext, and electronic literature, collaboration is natural and necessary. For a work prepared for the web or CD-ROM, technical skills are needed that poets and fiction writers can't be expected to have. Without the limitations and expense of print publishing, it becomes possible and even desirable for a work of writing to involve color, images, or even a soundtrack. Programmers, library scientists, designers, composers, filmmakers, and writers can form creative partnerships around works of writing.

While computer technology can allow writers to collaborate closely with artists in other media, it will also help writers work with other writers. The word-processor or text editor already offers a highly refined tool for collaboration, when compared to the inconvenience of reworking someone else's typewritten text. Email will make it easier for writers to work together, irrespective of where they live. Sophisticated website management tools are already designed to allow many people to work on a website or hypertext simultaneously without overwriting each other's work. Do a web search on "collaborative writing" and you will be amazed at how many tools you find. The computer keyboard is still designed for a single person, but this may change too. The tools for collaboration between writers are already in place, and new tools are being designed all the time. [2004-05-01] There is now a tool called SubEthaEdit that allows for multiple authors to work simultaneously in the same text file.

Writing for the web. Choosing a link is different from turning a page. A link tends to alienate the two things it connects from one another: it can lead you to a continuation as easily as to a refutation or non sequitur. Hypertext is a writing environment in which having different, even conflicting, voices feels natural. It is a wonderful medium in which to co-author a work.

Collaborate. Think about you might work together with another writer to make a text better than either of you could have written alone, and how the experience might be more pleasant than working alone. After all, writing is difficult and financially unrewarding, why make it lonely as well? Understand that the collaboration itself, not its final product, can be the work of art. Even if you would never consider writing a serious work with someone else, collaborative writing games can be a great way to exercise your abilities in an environment where you have to respond to unexpected prompts, and a way to exercise your ability to negotiate as well as write. Treat your writing process as a way to strengthen relationships with people, not a way to alienate yourself. Stop dividing your time between your loved ones and your writing, write something together.

Here are some ideas:

1. Write a pantoum with another poet, alternating stanzas. This will mean that you have to write stanzas incorporating one another's lines. It may take some time, but you can pass the poem back and forth like a game of chess played through the mail.

2. Write a story with multiple points of view, in which each character's perspective is written by a different author.

3. Take turns writing the lines of a poem, starting with the last line and working toward the title.

4. Write a story or poem and let a friend substantially revise it.

5. Agree beforehand on the plot of a story, then divide up the scenes.

6. Just open up a word processor and take turns writing. Use more than one computer and play musical chairs.