Aimee and David Thurlo Mystery, intrigue, and family values ™

TEAM WRITING THURLO STYLE

A lot of you are interested in how a wife and husband can work together and live together too.

The dynamics of it can be complicated.

David sees things as they are. I see things as I wish them to be. Let me give you an example. Recently we both saw a wonderful cover that had a very sexy man wearing a cowboy hat sitting on a motorcycle. It was evocative and said it all -- cowboy, macho. David looked at it and said, "he can't wear that hat on a motorcycle. It'll fall off unless he goes five miles an hour."

This is why I do the love scenes and he does the action scenes. He's really, really good when it comes to figuring out the logistics and moves in a shootout or fight, what they're doing and why. I stink at that. Some of you may have heard the story about the time I wrote the rough draft of an action scene but got IUDs mixed up with IEDs.

Sticking to what we do best has advantages. The obvious one is for the reader. They get a better character driven story with plenty of action and emotion. Here at home - well, it means we still talk to each other at the end of the day.

It's not always easy. Writing together can put a lot of stress on both of us. The good part? It can also make us both laugh, as you can see in the examples above. That's really the key. If you can laugh at each other and with each other, you'll never have a lasting problem.

Note the word lasting. Problems will appear. Writing isn't something that happens in a direct line, like when you're reading the published work. When creating the story, you may go from point A to point B at first, then decide that point C makes a better point B. You follow me? Often, during the process, it becomes like arranging quilt squares to get the best pattern - in this case, story.

Or you may end up really disagreeing on something - anything from what constitutes sexy to how do we word our hero's dialogue to make him real and believable to our readers. Would a guy say that? Or more likely, how would a guy say that?

It's a lot more fun to write with a partner. I think it was Bette Midler who said that the hardest thing is to find someone who can be happy for you. Partners know how hard it is to create a book. When good things happen, like a great review, or a quote from a colleague, you always have someone there to celebrate with. That sounds like a small thing, but unless you share the good times, they don't seem quite so special.

Writing as partners has many facets, but it's great rereading a scene you wrote together months or years ago and being able to see your words, his words, and that great sentence that you don't remember who wrote - only that it says it all.