Writer, Listener, Actor…Ghostwriter
“I hope the author likes what I wrote.”
“Wait - you’re the author.”
“Nope. I’m the ghostwriter. My client is the author.”
Ghostwriting is a somewhat opaque part of the publishing world that many people aren’t familiar with. I’ve had conversations like the one above numerous times the last few months as I’ve been working on a big ghostwriting contract for a new client.
In ghostwriting, an author hires someone else to write their story. The story is theirs. They review and edit the manuscript carefully to ensure it accurately portrays their story, fits their vision, and is in their style. But they are not the person behind the laptop staring off into space, mumbling adjectives under their breath as they try to conjure the perfect word, endlessly deleting and typing again. That person is the ghostwriter. That’s me.
When the manuscript is done, the ghostwriter’s role is complete. The ghostwriter’s name does not appear on the cover - that’s the author’s name. The ghostwriter does not receive credit for writing the book or proceeds from sales of the book - that goes to the author. Essentially, no one knows the ghostwriter was part of the process. And so, as you can imagine, the role of the ghostwriter is very hush-hush. Ghostwriting contracts always contain non-disclosure clauses that clearly state the ghostwriter cannot claim credit for the book; they can’t tell anyone about the work they did on the book!
Authors who use ghostwriters usually have compelling reasons for needing a ghostwriter. They have an important story to tell but are not able to do the actual writing at that time. Time, health, and ability are common reasons. Writing a book takes a lot of time and effort. Folx who are employed full-time (or more than full-time) simply don’t have the space to undertake 100,000 words. Sometimes authors are dealing with health struggles that make hours and hours at a computer impossible. And, of course, some people are just not writers. Their brains are wired for other things or they’ve not been able to partake of the education, training, and experience they need to feel confident writing their story or they’ve tried to write their story before and it has been a terrible, frustrating experience.
Whatever the reasons, I’m finding that ghostwriting fits me to a t. A few loved ones have been concerned for me about the lack of acknowledgement. They say things like, “But you’re the one doing all the work! Won’t you feel awful to see someone else get the credit?” or “Oh, yeah, that’s nice for now but you’re such a good writer! When are you going to write your own book?” I certainly may want to write my own book someday - maybe even someday soon! I’m a gifted and skilled writer and have always felt the divine flow when writing. I am filled with curiosity and hope as I regularly explore the question, what is my unique story to tell? I’m not sure yet. I’m excited to keep discerning and am confident the answer will be clear soon.
In the meantime, using my skills to help other people tell their stories is filling me with inspiration, joy, and a deep sense of purpose. For me, ghostwriting exists in the delightful nexus between writing, deep listening, and acting. I even made a cute little Venn diagram to show you what I mean.
I really love working within that white oval in the middle. It’s nestled between three of my favorite things.
The writing part is pretty obvious. I am telling a story using words. I’m choosing the structure, order, intensity, flow, tone, and style. I’m diving into the dark, welcoming depths of creativity to discover the words and phrases that fit just right.
The deep listening part is pretty clear, too. In writing someone else’s story, the first step is to deeply understand that story. It’s not enough to have a timeline or a basic outline of events in a person’s life, for example. To ghostwrite a good book I have to listen in a very deep way. I’m listening not just to know what happened, but to understand the person to which these things happened. Deep listening involves suspending judgment, which allows me to hear the events of a person’s life without my own biases getting in the way. When I imagine deep listening, I see myself standing with my hands extended out in front of me, palms up, as though waiting to receive a gift. My chest is open, my arms are slightly outstretched. I’m not closed off, arms crossed over my chest. Or eagerly waiting, hands on hips. Or even rigidly alert, hands hovering over the keyboard.
The first step in ghostwriting is fully and deeply receiving the gift of the author’s story without judgment or fear; just receiving. Giving their story room to fully breathe, to stretch its wings; providing a safe place for their story to stand in its full glory and fully reveal itself. I’m pretty passionate about this kind of deep listening - it’s what draws me to spiritual direction, which is fundamentally based on providing this kind of deep listening in a supportive relationship. Ghostwriting is not spiritual direction, of course. But there is some interesting crossover that I find fascinating and compelling.
The acting part might be the most surprising. I mean, I’m literally sitting behind a laptop tapping away with my fingers while acting is intrinsically manifested in one’s body. Actors perform on stage or on film - bodies, faces, eyebrows, hand gestures - acting is all about using one’s body to express things visually. Even voice acting - which is of course auditory rather than visual - is grounded in the body: the shape of the mouth, how the tongue moves, hand gestures and body posture. Excellent voice actors (like my beloved Amy Walker) carefully utilize all this and more in their art. Writing, on the other hand, initially seems inert, head-focused; word-smithing behind a laptop, disengaged from the body.
And yet, as I work on this current ghostwriting project - a full-length memoir - I constantly find my process transports me deeply into my body, oddly reminiscent of my on-stage memories from college and high school. When I portrayed characters on stage I spent hours immersing myself in the sights, sounds, smells, and touches of their experiences. What did their favorite foods smell like? What did home sound like? What sensations have stayed with them, old memories of trauma or joy, long-incorporated into their body? These are the same questions I ask as I ghostwrite.
In acting, I learned the most powerful place to embody a character is the overlap between what the character has experienced and what I’ve experienced. Perhaps I’m playing a character whose life is nothing like mine; they grew up in Miami, in a staunchly Catholic, multi-generational Irish family. If I focus on the things that are different - trying to imagine places, temperatures, landscapes, rituals, and culture I haven’t personally felt - my portrayal is likely to feel thin or fake. If instead, I dig deep into my own, real-life memories to find even the smallest of overlapping places and build upon those lived experiences, my expression of that character becomes so much fuller and richer. Perhaps I recall the handful of times in my life I’ve been in Catholic churches and dig deep to remember the smells, the sensations, the sounds, the colors. I then use those real, personal memories to build something that could be true for the character.
Interestingly, it’s exactly the same with ghostwriting. I’m telling someone else’s story so, in order to do it well (especially in memoir), I have to go deep into the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the author. Perhaps the author shares a story about other children bullying them, tossing insults and gravel at them across the playground. In order to write this scene well, I need to physically feel the experience of it. So I transport myself to a playground from my childhood and I look around. I recall each sensation, each sound, the colors, the textures. I recall every emotion I ever remember having at that playground. Perhaps I was never bullied or had gravel thrown at me but there was that girl who said I couldn’t play with her and her friends. Oh, I remember that burning shame - I can use that for the author’s playground memory. I build out the author’s scene, using my real, lived memories. This provides a rich, textured, real story that the author can then edit as needed to match their memory with better accuracy.
It’s so rewarding for me to exist in that little white oval cuddled up between writing, deep listening, and acting. It feels incredible to hear my author exclaim, “How did you know it felt just like that?!” I didn’t know. I just listened deeply, embodied a similar real experience from my life, and wrote the author’s story from that perspective.
Listener, Actor, Writer…Ghostwriter.
Do you know someone with a powerful story to share but not the time, skill, or desire to write it themselves?
Send them my way!
I’d love to explore if we might be a good fit for ghostwriting.
