Storytellersunplugged

by Janet Berliner

Which stands for “Most Frequently asked question.”

In 1993, while working on the infamously unpublished Crichton-on-Crichton, I wrote a chapter called FAQ–Frequently Asked Questions. At the time, I thought I’d made up the acronym, but I guess I was reinventing the wheel. Today, twelve years later, with the book as yet unseen and before Dr. C’s 64th birthday, I’m adding the M for ‘Most.’

In my case, that inevitably means questions about collaboration: 1) Why do you do it?
2) How do you do it?
3) What sparked the project?

I could easily write three blogs about each project answering those questions, but I’ll try instead to be succinct.

1) Why? There’s a different answer attached to each collaboration, yet each one has a single thing in common–the belief that the whole will be better than its parts.

2) How? No two projects have had the same M.O.

3) Spark? Each one is a tale unto itself.

Hrrmph, you say. That’s a fat lot of help.

All right, I answer. Let me try a different route, one that tackles some of my actual collaborations.

As every marriage in unique, so is every collaboration. I’ll do this somewhat chronologically (a bit complex, as I had six books come out in 1995 and 1996).

The Execution Exchange:

An Oregon mountain man came to me with a wonderful concept for a thriller. He’d written the book. I tried to teach him how to make it saleable. When I gave up, he said “You rewrite it” and I did. It sold extremely well, considering the publisher put out the uncorrected proof that had been typeset by an alcoholic.

Madagascar Manifesto:

You’re going to get the shortened version. George wrote a wonderful story about Africans on the moon. It was up for a Nebula. He had read RITE OF THE DRAGON, my African novel, and liked it. A lot, he said. I was writing a novel based on my mother’s escape from Berlin in 1935 and her return there on the day before the Wall went up. George sent me a paragraph about cannibal dogs and asked if it sparked anything.

It sparked a correspondence, then a novella, which we sold. The novella sparked a novel (Child of the Light) for which I cannibalized the book I had been writing. Then came Child of the Journey, followed by Children of the Dusk. The novella that started it all would appear in longer form at the end of the fourth book, should there be one. There’s also a fifth book and one George wants to write about Madagascar.

Maybe George should write the Madagascar book, I should write the Deborah book, and readers will get a twofer.

We started Child more than twenty years ago. George was then, as he is now, a teacher. He had written many short stories and a YA-For-Hire. He was an expert researcher, something he loved to do, while I was much more involved with writing from experience, from family and other verbal histories and from observation. He is a high-speed typist. He wrote draughts faster than you could drink them. I was slow and, for the most part, a stylist. He is Catholic; I am Jewish. Our philosophies are oftentimes poles apart. My family came from Berlin. Few of them survived.

There was no such thing as e-mail when we began. We used the telephone a lot and got together during Summers to plot and fight things out.

It’s for good reason that we were known as the fire and ice team. I’m a gypsy, he’s an Eskimo, at least at heart. We went back and forth with the storyline, called each other about epiphanies, and worked together daily for at least a month of the summer. I write a lot more tightly than George who tends to fall in love with his research and would like it all to show. I’m a merciless cutter and I specialize in structure.

One thing that helped keep us (relatively) sane was that we designated certain areas where each of us had absolute power. George, for example, had the final word about the dogs, the Hempel story arc and the military. I speak fluent German. I travelled back and forth to Berlin. Read Mein Kampf in its original.

Are we still friends? Absolutely.

Crichton-on-Crichton:

It hadn’t been done. I sensed that he was growing weary of having to repeatedly answer the same questions.
I was told no interviewer could make it past twenty minutes; I needed a week of interviews. I can’t resist that kind of challenge. After he said yes, I had visions of sugarplums dressed in dollar bills.

David Copperfield anthologies:

When I came back to Las Vegas after finishing work with Michael Crichton, I thought it would be fun to put together an anthology about magic, and this being the land of illusion, I got in touch with the biggest illusionist of all. David loved the idea and we set to work, putting together two fabulous anthologies of original fiction. David and I went back and forth on every story, especially his two contributions. Plus, it was great to be able to take friends and idols to see David perform. My favorite times were in smaller meetings, however, when his boyish side would come out and he’d play tricks on me.

Immortal Unicorn:

I’ll keep this one short. I’d known Peter Beagle for twenty years. When I was putting together the Copperfield anthologies, I invited him to contribute a story. As usual, he needed money–more than the story for the Copperfield book would pay–but refused to write about unicorns. So I came up with the concept of collecting stories about immortality–not about unicorns–but each one had to use a unicorn as a catalyst or a symbol. I took care of everything except the final story selection. When I liked one enough to want to buy it, I sent it to Peter first for his input. Also, he contributed an original story, as did I, and we both wrote introductions to each one. They are beautiful books with no problems attached.

The Unicorn Sonata:

Marty Greenberg was working with me on the various anthologies. He said to me one day that Turner Books had published DINOTOPIA and, “Why don’t we get Peter to do a similar book about unicorns?” I instantly called Turner. When the first idea did not appeal to them, I turned to my own unfinished Libretto (I dream of writing a Broadway Show) and sold it, with unicorns added, to Turner Books, with the provision that Mr. Unicorn himself would write it. I would whop him into writing fast, talk to him about the book along the way, play trouble-shooter and editor. I did. It’s a beautiful book, designed for readers from 8 to 80. Thus, I created it, he wrote it. I could not have written it the way he did. The experience was extremely positive until just before publication. Then things changed, but that’s another (much longer) story.

Snapshots: (coedited with Joyce Carol Oates)

I am an ardent fan of Joyce’s work.
I needed to feel good about myself.
I rejected the first story she sent me for the Copperfield anthologies on the grounds that it didn’t fit the theme, and added that if I ever did a Mothers and Daughters anthology, her story would be the cornerstone. Later, I asked if she would consider such an anthology and away we went. We treated each other with enormous respect and made every decision as a team. The book is wonderful. It has sold in several languages, is used in more than one college course, and is my pride and joy.

Secrets:

I met Melanie Tem in ‘77. I was agenting and fell in love with her voice. She and I recently completed Secrets, which we wrote purely because we thought we could write a good book and have a pleasant experience. We wrote alternate chapters, found a singular voice, and had a delightfully positive experience. The book is, for lack of a better word, mainstream. I like to say it’s our Annie book: Annie Dillard meets Anne Tyler.

Artifact:

I wrote in a previous blog about this adventure-thriller starring Kevin J. Anderson, Matt Costello, F. Paul Wilson, and yours truly. We wrote it for two reasons. The first was to have fun, the second was to prove that what New York declared impossible was not impossible in the right hands.

I hope you enjoyed that. Feel free to ask me about some of the other collaborations, like my work with Jack Kirby’s unpublished novel.