A Chance to Live Another Role
This is a rather intriguing idea, all in all. To place yourself into another world in a different capacity, yet remain yourself. People come to me as a ghostwriter with this kind of request fairly often, and I almost always take on such work with great pleasure, because, as I’ve said, it really is interesting.
In essence, a book like this is a chance to play another role in another world. And as close to reality as possible at that. A kind of dream that’s just about to become something more than a mere thought. One person plays a vampire in love, another becomes the leader of a vast army, another a romantic hero, and yet another sets off into the world of Harry Potter and takes their own living place there.
A Way to Know Yourself
For all the fairy-tale, fantastical nature of the process, this kind of literature is a rather interesting way to know yourself. Different conditions, different actions, different consequences. We’re still writing something you can believe in. Even if it’s made up.
With a professional writer or on your own — either way, everyone who writes about themselves or about someone else still wants it all to be logical and coherent. And this is where the truly interesting moments arise, because a book like this is perhaps the first attempt to grasp the consequences of your actions as deeply and responsibly as possible. It happens this way because building a plot is an analysis of what has already occurred, followed by an attempt to construct further development on the basis of what’s already been done.
Very often, while writing a book, I hear something like, “Let’s not have me do this in the plot, because further on I want the following to happen.” In life, though, we rarely look that far ahead, and we very seldom try to understand the global consequences of what we do and its impact on others.
This Isn’t a Memoir
Of course, nobody comes in with the idea of writing a fiction book about themselves that accurately reflects the path they actually walked and nothing more. For that there’s a different direction called “memoir” or “biography.” A fiction book about yourself or someone else will always lean on real events, but won’t necessarily repeat them. And besides, once again — when there’s a desire to become the head of a powerful interplanetary corporation in the book, what does reality and biography have to do with it at all?
How Such a Book Is Written, and What to Watch For
My first piece of advice would be to keep the real names. You can fly off to another time, another planet, or even another dimension. That’s exactly what these books are written for: to allow yourself what’s out of reach right here and now.
I advise this to my clients, and it pays off. The reaction from people they know is always explosive: “Oh. So this is you!” That moment immediately sparks their curiosity, because they too don’t mind seeing the person who occupies a certain part of their life in a new role.
The second piece of advice is to decide what exactly you want to carry over into the book. The more of it, the better. However, what you carry over has to be chosen in keeping with the story’s style. There’s no way to sew a dislike of flying into a book about the Stone Age. Of course, you can always play with it, but every such justification will take up part of the book and part of the reader’s attention.
Still, leave in whatever is logical and organic. These can be phrases, moments from relationships, food. There’s no need at all to saturate the story with some grand events. This is precisely what identifies you, or someone else, in the book.
The third piece of advice. Don’t set a high bar for fidelity to reality. That won’t exist in a work of fiction. There will be plenty of invention, and — importantly — things you never planned for the book at all.
The fourth, and it concerns working with a professional writer. The ghostwriter will gather everything you’ve brought them and start charting a path toward the point you set at the finale. Exactly which routes that will take, no one knows in advance. But be prepared for it not to turn out the way you felt it would. Not the way you knew or planned, but precisely the way you felt. Because if there’s a ready-made plan, it needs to be given to the ghostwriter; and if there isn’t one, be prepared for things to come out somehow not quite right or not quite it. It’s a perfectly normal situation when your final vision of the whole plot hasn’t taken shape yet, but the book is already being written.
A mismatch with your inner sense is an absolutely normal part of the process. But it in no way prevents a good book from being written for you. You have to look at the process. Do the characters seem logical, are the source materials handed to the ghostwriter at the start being “sewn in,” are you moving in the book toward that final point you defined before the collaboration began.
If it all matches up, then you’re writing your book. If not, then someone else’s. There’s no other way to determine this.
The fifth. Be prepared for your hero to look, at a certain stage, somewhat — let’s put it this way — unpresentable. This is a perfectly normal story of the central figure’s growth over the course of the plot. But remember this. The main character absolutely must be worse than you are now. I won’t explain why. Just accept it as a given.
The sixth. The plot. If you’re writing on your own, for everything that goes into the book you have to answer yourself one question: what for? There should be no events for the sake of events. Everything laid down in letters must create a mood and/or set off some processes and provoke reactions.
If you’re writing with a ghostwriter, then they should be able to tell you what this piece is doing in the book and what its function is. Nothing superfluous or unclear. That said, you have to allow for the moment of creative search and inspiration. Sometimes you just write because that’s how it feels, and only later do you understand why exactly it was written. But the explanation still has to be there. Just later — and not a year later.
The seventh and final one. Don’t take all of this seriously, and don’t make yourself dependent on the book. Play, create, and don’t sink into it as if it were your life’s work. It’s a book. It’s about you. But it’s also entertainment, plain and simple. Allow yourself to be someone else, so as to realize that you’re great as you are. Allow yourself to take a trial step into a place you might just enjoy.
And one more thing.
If you’re not going to show this book to anyone, you can get by without a specialist. But bring in a professional if your manuscript might be subjected to criticism. In that case it has to be solid and primed to achieve your goal and to defend against those who don’t have a book like this.
