The Many Lives of a Writer – 4

Most people are like cats – they live not just one life, but many. Writers are no exception. Here’s what happened when my fourth writing life got underway.

Life 4 – Phantom Fiction

Sometime in the middle of 2007, my agent Dot Lumley asked me if I fancied writing a crime novel for a book packager. I had no idea what a book packager was, but I said why the hell not?

The book packager turned out to be a London-based company called Working Partners. Their in-house team of writers and editors creates storylines for book series, and hires authors to write the actual manuscripts. It’s a form of ghostwriting. I’d never been a ghost before so, always ready to try something new, I plunged in.

My first challenge was to enter a competitive pitch for the project Dot had put me up for: a 65,000-word novel about a fictional branch of the Metropolitan Police, specialising in diplomatic affairs. My first job was to read the 10,000 word outline and dramatis personae written by Working Partners, then prepare a chapter breakdown, plus a writing sample comprising the first three chapters. To my surprise and delight, I won the pitch, which meant I was now faced with the not insignificant task of completing the first draft manuscript in just 12 weeks.

It was a steep learning curve. For a start, it took me quite some time to work out just where I fitted into the project. Was I a hired gun churning out copy to order? How much opportunity was there for me to get creative with the material? Pretty soon, I realised I didn’t have time to ponder such ineffables – I had a novel to write.

As I got deeper into the work, I discovered a great freedom in the task bringing someone else’s story to life. All that tedious plotting has already been worked out – it’s your job to put the flesh on the bones. Sometimes it gets tricky, especially when the plot-driven mechanics of the narrative force the characters to do something that seems unlikely, or even wholly against their nature. On these rare occasions, it was my job to either generate the right kind of motivation needed to make the scene convincing, or to tweak the action to suit.

Whenever the plot clunked (rarely), or even didn’t work at all (almost never), I took it on myself to add new scenes or restructure existing ones. If I felt an action sequence needed ramping up, I ramped it up. If I needed to add a secondary character to provide some missing exposition, I created one. My editor at Working Partners, Michael Ford, was very supportive of this kind of input, just as long as it served the story.

The timescale was punishing. However, it was good to get disciplined again after a few years spent drifting. And it was a real education to see how Working Partners structured their stories. Would I have written those stories the same way myself? No. But, by immersing myself so deeply into somebody else’s process, while at the same time merging it with my own ways of working, I opened my mind to a whole new raft of stylistic techniques and practical choices.

That first ghostwritten novel was called Runaway Minister, published under the pseuonym Nick Curtis. To date, I’ve written four more novels with Michael and his team. including a fantasy trilogy that I’m not able to talk about for contractual reasons. That’s a little frustrating, but it’s the nature of the beast.

I’ve learned a lot in my life as a ghost. First and foremost, I’ve learned that ghostwriting is a profession just like any other. Every hired gun must pride himself on keeping his weapon clean and shooting straight enough to hit the target every time.

For me, the biggest benefit of all has been that I became a ghost at a pivotal moment in my writing adventure. The transformation restored my confidence, which had been flagging significantly. It enabled me to acquit myself responsibly as a writing professional and delived a little under 400,000 words of fiction on time and on brief, with the prospect of more ghostwriting assignments to come.

It was, therefore, with a bold stride that I marched out of my fourth writing life and into my fifth, with absolutely no idea where on Earth I was going next.

Next time I’ll tell you about my fifth writing life, in which I embrace diversity.