Writing with a partner.

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I love writing with a partner.

I have had two writing partners over the years. Both remain close friends, and one is essentially family.

Each partnership has been professionally, creatively, and personally fulfilling.

It’s clear to me who you choose as a partner is everything.

I have been fortunate. I’ve worked with two extraordinary people that made the experience wonderful, even when I didn’t.

That has not been everyone’s experience.

Of course, sometimes it’s two good people whose goals, taste, or dynamic aren’t a good fit or change over time.

That happens, and it’s no one’s fault.

Far too often, someone reveals themself to be a bad faith participant, and it’s just awful.

That said, when it works, it’s pretty amazing, and (outside of having to split the paycheck!) I find it far more rewarding than writing alone.

Why do it.

There is one primary reason to write with a partner:

It generates better work.

That’s it. If it doesn’t do this, the other benefits cannot make up for it.

You must feel the other person is offering up ideas as good or better than yours, executing something you can’t, or has some skill you don’t possess.

As one of my old acting teachers, Carolyn Boone, used to say, they have to “bring something to the party.”

If you can’t pinpoint why a project is better because of their participation, it just doesn’t make much sense.

This also means that they should be asking the same question about you! You need to know what you’re bringing to the party as well.

Everything after generating better work is a benefit, but not a necessity.

The degrees of these benefits are worth various tradeoffs depending on just how much the quality of the final project relies on the partnership.

Other benefits include:

It’s more fun.

You make each other laugh, and you get each other excited with your ideas. There is a contagious energy when things are clicking.

More gets done.

This is not as mathematical as we think. It does not take half the time just because there are two people. There is more negotiation and compromise required, but as a whole, more work can be performed in less time.

Expands the network.

With two of you representing the team, you are each meeting different people, and if one of you cannot make an event, the other one can. The team’s footprint can be doubled, either deliberately or by accident.

It’s not all fun and games.

If you’re new to writing, you could easily perceive writing with a partner as a half-step into the endeavor. More dipping your toes than diving in.

But being a partner is a business commitment to someone.

You will be stuck with the person for the life of the screenplay.

And they will be stuck with you.

If you care about the outcome, you must be picky about who you partner with.

Make sure you know precisely what you want out of the partnership and what you hope to gain.

Are they more experienced than you? Will you learn? Do they have relationships that you do not? Are they funnier than you? Do they bring a different perspective?

If things go south, are you prepared to see all that work go south, too?

The outcome should be better. This does not mean it will be easier.

For everything that you think will be easier, different challenges will pop up.

Yes, they will write pages, but you’ll have to rewrite them and rewrite their rewrites. They’ll be doing the same to you.

This requires a lot of trust to get through.

Brainstorming is more fun and more productive, but it’s LONGER because now you’re in a conversation.

And yes, there should be better ideas between the two of you, but there are more tangents and dead ends as well.

Perhaps the biggest mistake people make is that they don’t compromise.

They try to bulldoze their partner to get their way.

This means they are in a bad partnership. They are either the source of the bad partnership, or they are in a misaligned partnership where nothing is compatible.

There is simply no getting around that another person in the process creates more friction.

This isn’t necessarily BAD. That friction can often CREATE. But if you’re not prepared for it, or someone adds to it unnecessarily, it can go bad quick.

And if things DO go well, it’s important to know:

The town does not see you as individuals.

This goes for reps, producers, and buyers.

Reps do not want to necessarily get behind a one-off partnership. No one knows if the two of you can create the same quality of work separately!

This also means that if you have some success together and decide to go your separate ways, you will have to prove yourself all over again.

When you’ve worked so hard to do it the first time, this can be scary and demoralizing.

The necessities.

While a good third of my screenplays have had a co-writer, I don’t consider myself an expert on the topic due to the good fortune of the people I’ve worked with.

In 95% of the issues, I was the source of the friction.

Don’t get me wrong, I brought plenty to the party, but if I knew what I know now, things would have been easier.

Know the deal ahead of time.

Work out the agreement of how things are going to work. Don’t have any confusion. 95% of partnerships will be a 50/50 split.

Someone needs to lead.

Someone has to be the most decisive, be more verbal when something isn’t working, feel more confident when something is working, and set the agenda about next steps.

It’s fine if this fluctuates, but someone needs to step up and do it.

Matt Stone has remarked that Trey Parker is the lead in their partnership. Does that mean Matt Stone isn’t 100% necessary? Nope.

It just means Parker drives things a little more.

I wrote MOST WANTED by myself.

During the rewrites, I asked my long-time partner Kristy Dobkin for help. I was stuck. I needed a couple of set-pieces, and nothing was emerging.

We talked and brainstormed, and I ended up with two whole new set-pieces that are two of my favorite in the movie. They were both from Kristy.

I was leading. I was writing solo, after all. But both of those scenes are hers. They would not have happened without her.

Attitude matters.

This matters when you are writing and building your career by yourself, but it is especially important when writing with a partner or in a writer’s room.

Screenwriting is problem-solving.

This is at the heart of what we do.

You must maintain a solution-focused attitude.

Anyone can point out what isn’t working.

Objections are easy. But what makes the train go is finding solutions.

“I don’t like it,” or “That doesn’t work,” grinds things to a halt.

“Here is something that might work…” keeps the conversation going.

Remind yourself: a solution-focused attitude.

It can change your life, let alone your writing.

My own process.

There is no one way for partners to work. Whatever works for you, do it. Always feel free to adjust your workflow as needed.

Here is the process that works for me. It may or may not work for you.

We break the story together.

Before video conferencing, Kristy and I would get in the same room to do this. This is the traditional index cards on the board process.

Now we do it on Zoom.

We figure out the characters, the scenes, set-pieces, and the structure. This is an ongoing conversation, back-and-forth.

We use the same process I teach in Idea To Outline.

A lot of problem-solving here, and it needs two good attitudes to be successful.

We then write the treatment.

I didn’t always take the time to do this. This is something I added over the last 15 years because I learned the value of it. Either one of us can do this, or we will break it up in pieces.

There is usually not a lot of tension here because we are just documenting what we already broke together.

We write the scenes.

This is when it starts to get complicated.

I am going to go into the weeds here, so feel free to skip to the end if this is too much.

We assign the scenes, or more precisely, story beats. Usually in order.

One of us will write one scene, the other will write the next.

We keep them as totally separate Final Draft files. The file will look like this:

“BACK UP SCENE 011 - THE SHOOT OUT - 01 TV”

“BACK UP” = The name of the project.

SCENE 011 = This is the scene number. It has nothing to do with scene numbers on scene headings or production or anything else. This number is just for us and our tracking.

“THE SHOOT OUT” = a bare minimum description of what the story beat contains.

“01 TV” = Version 1 of the scene, initials of whoever did this pass. “TV” for me or “KD” for Kristy Dobkin.

We then rewrite each other.

Kristy then takes my scenes, and she rewrites it to what she thinks works. She changes dialogue, action lines, adds things in, takes things out.

This requires a lot of trust, and it’s not a lot of fun for those that get hurtsy feelings. Unfortunately, this describes most of us.

But you do get used to it.

She then saves it as a new file with the only thing changing being the version number and the initials of the writer.

While she is doing this, I am rewriting her scenes. We go back and forth rewriting each other until we’re both happy.

When we are, we add that scene to the “BACK UP - MASTER DOCUMENT” which is the full screenplay.

A key principle: do not go backwards.

If your partner changes something you wrote, on your next pass, you should very rarely just switch it back to what you wrote the first time!

They didn’t think it worked then, so if you don’t love what they did, try something new.

Nor do you have to rewrite everything. It’s okay to say, “I don’t love this, but it works well enough for now.”

You will have time to get back to it later.

If you really do love what you wrote the first time, I mean really love it, then switch it back. Give your partner the opportunity to decide how much they can’t live with it.

If they change it AGAIN, then you can talk about it.

A great way to handle disputes.

Stephanie Ancell taught me this when we wrote a couple of projects together. When you honestly can’t agree on something, it then becomes a discussion of who cares about it more.

Each decide just how much you care about the thing in question by a number of 1 to 10. One being the lowest.

Whoever has the higher number gets it.

This has always worked for me, and I have never had a tie. But again, I have always worked with good people. I suspect if someone keeps coming in with 10, they may NOT be made for a partnership.

This process of going back and forth continues.

Eventually, you have a full screenplay, and each will take their pass at that.

It works the same, only it’s now 130 pages, and someone has the job of trimming it down to 120, and the other then has the job of trimming it down to 116.

You keep going back and forth until you both decide that you are done.

You have then created something that could only exist with the two of you working together and is better than what you both would have created on your own.

A partnership is not for everyone.

It is a personal relationship, even when it’s just business. It is two human beings interacting with each other and all the foibles that personalities bring.

For me, I can do either, and I have found success with both. But I find writing with a partner more rewarding, and the work is better.

But like an agent or a manager, you are better off without a partner rather than being stuck with the wrong one.

Tread lightly, choose carefully, and if you get the right one, stick with them and count yourself lucky.

The Story and Plot Weekly Email is published every Tuesday morning. Don't miss another one.

​ Tom Vaughan
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