Sister Scribes
With no rules, no set plans, and minimum discussion
on the storyline; my sister and I set out on the task to
write a novel together. Anyone that knows me knows
that while I feel I’m a good storyteller I’m not necessarily
a good writer. My sister is the real writer in the family.
When people find out that we’re both authors, their
first question is, have you written anything together?
Several people who have read both our works thought
we had similar writing styles. I didn’t agree, but found
it fascinating, which was one of the reasons I brought
the idea of collaborating to my sister, Jenetta.
The project was an interesting and challenging
experience overall. The minimal discussion of the
storyline kept things exciting, but it also created
challenges. Eighty percentage of the time when I write,
the entire story is in my head before the pen hits the
14 | NKLC Magazine
paper. Since we hadn’t mapped out the story, all I
could do was cross my fingers and hope she saw
where I was headed. Sometimes she wrote just
enough to screw me up as far as getting to my next
plot point. This forced me to revamp and reflow
the story in my head. One time she killed off a
character that I’d plotted some major points for and
it forced me to manipulate the details back toward
my desired ending. I must confess, I had a little fun
at my sister’s expense ending my portion at her least
favorite type of scene to write, just to see how she’d
wriggled out of writing it. After we finished the
novel, we laughed about the curve balls we threw
each other throughout the process.
The biggest challenge we faced was not having
full control of the story. Once I wrote my portion