Customer Reviews

Marriage of Minds: Collaborative Fiction Writing

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Marriage of Minds covers the fine art of collaboration, describing how collaborations work and providing a blend of literary how-to and relationship analysis to show what skills are needed in a collaborative effort and how to achieve success. The focus on collaborative fiction provides a fine foundation for understanding the dynamics involved; both personal and literary.

I recently had very mixed experiences collaborating both as a writer and an artist. Now I understand why. If I had read the book before we began the relationships I would have done things differently. I am sure I would have enjoyed the process and the results more.

I interviewed Nikoo and Jim McGoldrick for a TV show recently and was impressed by the the way they interact. I picked up the book after watching the two in action and was glad I did. Their sense of humor and good natured play comes through in the book. They have managed to maintain a strong writing relationship (I thought the other books I read preparing for the interview were well written) and a strong marriage while rewriting each others work every day. The book uses their experiences and as well as those of other collaborative writing teams. I thought the presentation was well balanced and helpful.
I would definitely recommend the book to anyone considering a collaborative creative project.

This slim volume (less than 150 pgs)is an interesting read. I've no desire to become a collaborative writer, but read it out of curiousity, to learn how writing a book, something I've always thought of as a singular activity, could be done by two people.
The authors don't just relay their own experiences as a husband and wife team, but have included many other team's experiences, teams that consist of sisters, other couples, friends, even a mother & daughter team.
They discuss finding the right partner and everything that comes after, division of work, settling disputes, contracts, etc.
There is a tremendous amount of information that is useful to any aspiring writer, a sort of quiz of required talents and a realistic, hard look at the difficulties involved in getting published and achieving success. This is something that is glossed over in most books on writing. It is unique to find this aspect of the writing life spelled out as it is here.