The 7 Things We Learned About Writing Together
Astro and Danielle Teller, co-authors of Sacred Cows: The Truth About Marriage and Divorce, talk about what it’s like to write as a team. Astro Teller currently oversees Google[x], Google’s moonshot factory, and Danielle Teller is a physician specializing in the fields of intensive care and lung medicine. Together, they bring a fresh and startling perspective on marriage and divorce in Sacred Cows.
Surprisingly, it did not occur to us that it might be a terrible idea for us to write a book together. First, we are both opinionated and have a tendency to fall rather too deeply in love with our ideas. Second, neither of us is good at abandoning fruitless debates. Third, we sleep in the same bed every night. Fortunately for us, the fun of working together far outweighed the disadvantages of writing by committee, and we learned some things about being good co-authors along the way. In honor of our seven Sacred Cows (i.e. widely held cultural assumptions and misinformation that nobody thinks to question), here are the seven lessons we learned as co-authors:
1. Two minds are better than one when it comes to refining ideas.
Louisa May Alcott said, “It takes two flints to make a fire.” Two minds can create a crucible for ideas in a way that a solitary thinker cannot. When one co-author takes the position of devil’s advocate, flaws in logic or exposition are revealed, allowing ideas to be strengthened and refined, or occasionally tossed out altogether. Much of our work together consisted of discussions, sometimes heated, about the validity of our ideas.
2. Never deny.
In theatre improv, actors are taught never to outright deny the ideas of fellow thespians. If one actor says, “Hello, Millie, why are you standing on this train platform in the rain?” the other actor never says, “My name isn’t Millie and I am walking in the Sahara desert.” The scene would never get anywhere that way. Similarly, it is always better to amplify than to censor your co-author’s ideas. Instead of saying, “No, that’s a bad idea,” we try to say, “Yes, that is interesting, and it might additionally be useful to think about it this way.” Besides moving the project forward faster, this technique prevents fights at the dinner table.
3. Get the ideas down on paper.
For a long time, Sacred Cows looked a lot more like a list of wacky thoughts than a book. Every time we talked over an idea and decided that it might have value, one of us would quickly write it down, paying little attention to coherence or style. Each idea was a brick for our eventual construction, and we wound up with a huge, jumbled pile of bricks. Had we held ourselves to a higher standard along the way, we likely would have run out of steam for the project. As it was, we created all of the building material quickly, and then the rest of the process was simply a matter of sorting and organizing.
4. Google Docs rock.
We admit to being terribly biased since one of us works at Google, but having a document that let us work simultaneously, saved changes and feedback instantly, was available from any device and obviated the need for e-mailing various versions of the manuscript back and forth was pretty awesome.
5. Two minds are not better than one when it comes to wordsmithing.
While discussion between co-authors is critical for the production of good content, it is not helpful for improving clarity or style. Arguing about sentence construction is a colossal waste of time and mental energy. We decided that only one co-author should be in charge of organizing and polishing the book. If we hadn’t, we would doubtless still be working on the introduction.
6. Let your co-author kill your darlings.
It is hard to eviscerate your own precious ideas, but it is surprisingly easy to let someone else quietly remove your words from the page when you are not looking. Having a co-author is like having the most committed and invested editor possible, so it is a good idea to let him or her decide which darlings are really too precious to survive, and then look the other way. The result is nearly always cleaner and more cogent writing.
7. Have fun.
We looked forward to working on the book together, and it was even a highlight of some of our vacations. When we were in Mexico over Christmas, we reserved the period of time after lunch but before afternoon stroll to review our manuscript and make notes about which parts needed to be changed. While it didn’t generate quite as much happiness as margaritas and fish tacos, writing our book together was a pretty close second in terms of fun.
More about Sacred Cows:
Drs. Astro and Danielle Teller know better than most that finding the right partner in life doesn’t always happen the first time around. Through their own divorces they learned how widely held cultural assumptions and misinformation that nobody thinks to question—what they refer to as “sacred cows”—create unnecessary heartache for people who are already suffering through a terrible time.
Do you think, for example, that the divorce rate in the United States is rising? Or that children are harmed by divorce? Most people do, but it turns out that neither of these notions is supported by the data. Combining the rigor that has established them as leaders in their respective fields along with a dose of good-natured humor, the Tellers ask readers to take a fresh look at seven common sacred cows: the Holy Cow, the Expert Cow, the Selfish Cow, the Defective Cow, the Innocent Victim Cow, the One True Cow, and the Other Cow. This is not a book that is “for” marriage or “for” divorce, but “for” the freedom to decide how to live most honestly and happily either as part of a couple or a single person.
In the same way that Esther Perel’s bestselling MATING IN CAPTIVITY gave couples a fresh perspective on their married life, so SACRED COWS invites reader to question assumptions and conventional wisdom. It offers a smart, insightful, and sympathetic view for those in a marital crisis, marriage counsellors, or anyone looking to gain a fresh perspective on one of our most cherished and misunderstood institutions.
