{"id":5386,"date":"2016-04-28T12:50:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T19:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=5386"},"modified":"2016-04-28T12:57:24","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T19:57:24","slug":"is-there-a-ghost-in-your-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/is-there-a-ghost-in-your-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there a ghost in your future?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Blogger Holly Robinson writers about ghost writing:<\/p>\n

Recently, I appeared on a radio show to promote a literary event. We were talking about my latest novel, but inevitably the host asked, \u201cSo you\u2019re a ghostwriter, too? Who have you written for?\u201d<\/p>\n

I laughed and gave my standard answer: \u201cSorry. If I told you, I\u2019d have to kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut don\u2019t you even care if your name\u2019s not on the cover?\u201d he asked, sounding offended on my behalf.<\/p>\n

The truth? No. I write novels, essays, and articles under my own name, but when I\u2019m ghostwriting, my job is to stand behind the curtain and channel a voice.<\/p>\n

By now, I have ghosted over twenty books. I fell into the profession accidentally when my agent, who knew I\u2019d studied biology in college, asked if I\u2019d be interested in helping an editor fix a messy health book written by a doctor. In other words, I was the book doctor to the doctor. It was fun, and it paid enough that I started fantasizing about taking out smaller college loans for my kids.<\/p>\n

Fixing that one book quickly led to another. The jobs seemed to fall into my lap. Ghostwriters may be invisible to the public, but editors know who\u2019s behind the curtain. Gradually I expanded my projects from just health and science books to include memoirs by business executives, cookbook authors, and celebrities. I was being introduced to whole new worlds both on the page and off.<\/p>\n

These projects also led me to develop more creative ways of working, since one reason celebrities make all of that money is because they never sit still. I interview my clients in person occasionally, but more often by phone, as the client rushes to the next TV shoot or salon appointment. One actress was so busy on a stage production that she had to answer my questions via Dropbox; I fed the questions to her talent agent, who then sent me audio files of her responses. Another actor could call me only late at night, after hosting his TV show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bet you hate not being able to write fiction full-time,\u201d a friend said recently, when I mentioned a new ghostwriting project. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s not like a book is really yours if you\u2019re ghostwriting it, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s a little surreal to walk into a bookstore during an author event, as I did recently, while someone else is reading a chapter I wrote\u2014especially in a sonorous male voice very unlike my own. It\u2019s often difficult for me to sit quietly in the audience without shouting, \u201cHey! Read from chapter four! That\u2019s the really exciting part!\u201d<\/p>\n

But, once you finish ghosting a book, it\u2019s not yours anymore. The book now belongs to your client, as well it should. And writing these books is a gold mine for a fiction writer like me who is interested in studying character development, new settings, and how to build narrative tension. \u201cGhostwriting\u201d can mean anything from developing a messy partial manuscript to riding shotgun through another person\u2019s life in real time. Sometimes I\u2019m acting as a journalist, researching background material. More often, I\u2019m in a therapist\u2019s role, asking, \u201cHow did you feel when that happened? What impact did that have on your life?\u201d<\/p>\n

My goal is to ferret out the truth of a story. I love hearing a client say, \u201cWow, I can\u2019t believe I just told you that,\u201d because then I know we\u2019ve got something raw and real that we can polish and share.<\/p>\n

\"Journals<\/a>Once I\u2019ve gathered the material I need, I become a quilter. I remember my grandmother laying out her swatches of fabric on the living room floor until she found patterns that pleased her. That\u2019s what I do, too: I take these fascinating scraps of material from people\u2019s lives and piece them into unique patterns. Yes, I might add my own touches with the hand stitching, but that is strictly ornamental. The tone and cadence should belong distinctly to my client, so that anyone who reads the book can recognize the voice.<\/p>\n

The longer I do this work, the more honored I am. I have learned to banish my own experiences and expectations of what a story \u201cshould\u201d look like. Instead, I let the pieces emerge and fall around me in an infinite variety of patterns, so that I can piece together powerful stories that deserve to be told.<\/p>\n

Originally posted on Holly’s Blog, February 24, 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n