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Reader's Paradise

Novels with two authors

last month

As I mentioned in our January reading thread, I am currently reading The First Ladies. It has two authors: Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. I am always a bit wary of and usually avoid books that claim to be written by two authors. The concept seems a bit "fishy" to me.

We all know it doesn't take two people to write a noveI, In fact, I believe that would make the writing more difficult. So why do it? My guess is that there is always a reason for it, and it is not for the benefit of the reader. Perhaps a known novelist wants to help a relative or friend get into the field because the second writer has not been successful with their solo attempts. Am I being to harsh? From a reader's perspective, does a second author ever make a book better?

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colleenoz

last month

Years ago I read ”The Talisman” by Stephen King and Peter Straub, who were both well established authors by the time they co-authored this book. I’m not sure what the motivation was for co-writing, perhaps just a desire to see if they could do it. It worked pretty well (iirc they wrote different chapters and passed on the work they had done for the other person to continue the story), and I felt I could tell in certain places which author had written particular sections.

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Comments (6)

annpanagain
last month
I think that a second author may assist to develop a plot or help with background or a character. This is fine as long as they keep an eye on the writing!

A favourite author with a co-author changed the sex of a dog mid-story to my annoyance and the editor never noticed!
msmeow
last month
I read a lot of James Patterson novels, and many list a second author. For instance, the Women’s Murder Club series is JP and Maxine Paetro. In this case, I suspect Patterson has a hand in the story arc or character development, but the co-author is doing most of the writing.

I’ve read other novels that list two (or even three) authors, and I’ve wondered how they split the work.

Donna
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yoyobon_gw
last month
Kathy, I completely agree with you. I noticed that if I read a book by multiple authors I always know which one is writing that chapter. They never have the same writing style and many are poorer writers. I think it's a lazy way to get a book deal for them. The few I've tried to read were by three known authors. My question in that case : Why bother?
kathy_t thanked yoyobon_gw
donnamira
last month
My experience with double-authored novels has been generally positive. In some cases, the partnerships separate ideas/plotting/research vs writing (I think that was the situation with Frances & Richard Lockridge), and in some cases like the many co-authored Anne McCaffrey novels (mostly the Ship Who Sang sequels), they are mentoring situations where the new author was coached by McCaffrey and using her ideas/setting for the joint book. In particular, the McCaffrey/Moon collaboration Sassinak was clearly written by Moon but using McCaffrey's setting. I went to a book signing by Moon and she mentioned that McCaffrey taught her a lot, specifically how to introduce and use multiple POVs in her novels.

Another two-author book was This is How You Lose the Time War, by Mohtar & Gladstone, and I think it was actually improved by the dual authorship, being an epistolary novel of letters written by 2 antagonists, with each author writing all the letters for one of the characters. Very cleverly done.

I was a co-author on a scientific paper or 2, but that's a little different! My role was to contribute some data/data analysis and a paragraph or 2 (which mostly got edited out before publication), but the lead author kindly left my name on the author list anyway. :)
kathy_t thanked donnamira
kathy_t
Original Author
last month
Lots of interesting thoughts here. Thank you all for taking the time to share them.

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