An Even Split
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a rather remarkable novel as it tells the story of two young men with the exact same name. These two young men are quite different, but at the same time oddly similar. The two men are differentiated by the fact that the one never has his name in capitals in the book.
This book was a labour or remarkable divides. Divides in the sense that David Leviathan and John Green evenly split up the chapters and wrote the first three chapters before reconvening to see if it would work. The only thing that they agreed upon was that the two characters would eventually meet in the novel. Meeting up after writing the first three chapters it became quite clear that they had something significant and eloquent and they decided to keep working on it, separately, but together.
My first introduction to this kind of colloborative work was with the band "some girls", the three ladies in the band all lived in different parts of America and so they would work on songs and music and then email them, or play chords over the phone until they had a list of workable titles and then they would meet together in the studio to record. I find this approach to creative endeavours fascinating and I marvel at the fact that modern technology allows us to do this.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson debuted at the number one spot on the New York times children's best seller list and it stayed there for three weeks. The novel itself is really about identity and two young men with the same name trying to find out who they really are. This book may not be for everyone, but those who do engage with it will most likely walk away with something new in their minds.
I even encourage you young writers to try this writing approach with some of your friends. Start writing a chapter and then pass it on to the next person and let them complete a chapter and then they pass it on and etc. Then at the end you have a great collaborative novel that you can read through and see where other people took your original ideas and characters. Maybe you will love it, maybe you will hate it, but the experience could be worth it.
17 thoughts on “An Even Split”
Sounds interesting, though not usually the type of book I would read. Thanks for the recommendation!
I have this on my wishlist from our ebooks – Levithan is such a great collaborator. can’t wait to get my reader on this one.
Sounds interesting, I really like reading books when two different ppl have a special connection…
Sounds interesting, I really like reading books when two different person have a special connection…
This book is definitely a great suggestion because it compares the lives of two different men with the same names. Moreover, you have a change to experience how these two men differ and what similarities they share. I absolutely believe that this book is the type of book I would read.
This book sounds like it shows reality and I like to read realistic books as this book.
This is an awesome book because I read this book’s review before and that sounded like the genre I want to try.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR RECOMMENDATION BECAUSE I LIKE THE PEOPLE WHO ENCOURAGE ME TO READ BOOKS.
This actually sounds like a pretty epic idea–I like the idea of different people writing a story. And a story written by multiple authors is more creative and has more different perspectives.
Thats so cool!
My friend and I have tried this/something similar to this method, and we found it to be quite easy with today’s technology; Google Documents also is a great way to see each other’s work. The only con I would say is to try and find time to write this and keep on track.
Wow i love how the authors decided to experiment in writing this book!!!
Two lives different names!
The recommendation was great!
good thing it was chosen.
I love love love love love love John Green.. and all his awesomeness.. This was a great book with some memorable moment.
“you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose!”
wow it just so cool of how the two authors put their ideas into one book.
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