How I Became a Ghostwriter

(And how it's nothing like I imagined)

When my agent first proposed I write a story on behalf of a famous person, I was sceptical at best. What is a ghostwritten novel except an exercise in vanity and greed?

I have a friend who wrote two books for a TV celebrity. In preparation, they sat down together so the client could outline his story ideas…and that was it! The celebrity’s sole contribution to the creative process! In exchange his name was plastered all over the novels and he presumably received a fat check from a publisher.

Why would I want anything to do with a system like this? Where’s the artistic integrity? The basic honesty? The equity between labour, skill, and reward?

My agent, however, persuaded me it might be a fruitful avenue to explore. And in the end the experience of ghostwriting, in this case at least, has been far more positive than I would ever have imagined.

Firstly and crucially, the famous person I’m now writing for (whose identity, for legal reasons, I must keep to myself) has a genuine story to tell. As opposed to scribbling their first half-baked idea on the back of a beer mat, they’ve spent a decade at least dreaming up settings and characters for their imaginary world.

Secondly, and just as importantly, when I agreed to meet this person, I found them likable and inspiring. They have a childlike enthusiasm and an unbridled imagination. They’re spilling over, in fact, with storytelling ideas. What they lack is the patience and knowhow to sit down and sculpt those ideas into a coherent form.

So I auditioned for the job. Alongside other writers in the UK and US, I wrote a sample chapter to the client’s specifications. I won the commission and signed a contract.

The next thing that happened was a hefty dossier landed on my desk. This contained all the world-building the client and their creative staff had been engaged in over the years. It was very detailed, including what characters did and did not like to eat, what accents and verbal ticks they might have, and a thousand and one particulars about the imaginary land. There were also suggested plots, outlines, and character arcs.

My first task was to sift through all this, extracting what was valuable from what was not. From the useful materials I built the backbone of a narrative that could work.

The client’s commercial advisors, for reasons of their own, set a tight deadline. So I established a daily output of not less than 2,500 words. As the chapters were completed, I sent them to the client and their creative team.

Once a week we met on Zoom to talk through what we had so far. I was given notes on what they liked and where I had strayed too far from the original vision.

This system was not without its frustrations. At times, I felt I was being asked to be a mind-reader, when what I’d written failed to match exactly what was in the client’s imagination.

But on the whole the feedback was constructive, and made the story better. And in fact I would rather face any sort of criticism than collaborate with someone who didn’t engage at all. The client’s close reading of the chapters proved that for them this was more than a vanity project. They genuinely cared about making this a good book (or at least as good as it could be in the time allowed).

What surprised me most about this whole endeavour, however, is how much I enjoyed it. Some of this is due to the simple fact that I like to write. In an odd way, when I get close enough to the sentences, it doesn’t seem to matter too much what I’m writing. I like the process of landing on the right word, of letting one phrase lead into another, of teasing out sound and rhythm.

The other reason I enjoyed it, I think, is because of the immediacy. Most storytelling involves weeks and months of working alone, without any real idea of how your words might impact the reader. With this project I had a people waiting, chapter by chapter, to read what happens next.

Serial fiction writer

Simon K Jones

argues that publishing his stories as a weekly newsletter is what powers his writing engine. The idea of disappointing his loyal readers, or leaving them waiting, forces him to get good words on the page.

I felt a similar dynamic working on this project. I produced upwards of 2,500 words every day, to a consistent quality, because at the end of the week those words were going to be read and critiqued. It took me back to my journalism days, when an article was often researched, written and off to an editor in the space of a few hours.

Even after overcoming writer’s block, my own latest novel, Wildwood Rising, was a marathon of rewriting and editing. Compared to that, this sprint-to-the-finish ghostwriting was a welcome change of pace.

I wouldn’t want this sort of work to take up all of my creative energies. But it could form a healthy complement to my own stories. It could further sharpen my writing discipline. While at the same time, of course, adding some much needed financial stability…and few writers would say no to that!

Don’t forget that Dark Fire, the second volume of The Blind Bowman trilogy, is released on October 10^th. Pre-order your copy here or here.

Thanks for being here, and happy reading!

Tim