Ghostwriting is About the People
This week, Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing shared one person’s reflection on the act of ghostwriting. She described writing for other people as being similar to falling into a “deep and dark” hole, where she struggled to crawl back out and “return to the light” of writing for herself. As a very fulfilled ghostwriter, I was a little shocked to hear the profession described in this way.
Many writers turn to ghostwriting because they “needed the paycheck,” as this writer, Anna Mitchael, says she did. She draws a distinction between those who are “a writer first, and a ghostwriter second,” setting up an implied hierarchy. I’m biased, as someone who was a ghostwriter first, and who is now writing for himself after writing for other people for over 15 years, but I feel like this is a distinction that does not need to be made.
(To be fair to Mitchael, her complaints with ghostwriting seem to be more about the nature of publishing and how people who receive major book contracts do not seem to care so much about the book itself, but rather what it can get them. Fair enough. I still would say that in writing for someone like that, you are providing a needed service, and there’s nothing wrong with that. She also has some insightful comments about AI and the value of human storytelling. Her piece is quite good and you should read it.)
Ghostwriting and writing for oneself are two separate things. We do not need to compare them. One does not take away from the other, and in my experience, doing both helps make you better at both.
There are similarities, of course. They both use the power of words to achieve some goal. This goal depends on who the author is, what type of writing it is (fiction, prescriptive nonfiction, memoir, etc), and what the author wants to achieve with the piece. An author writing for herself, that goal could be an exploration of a few characters, some kind of commentary on society, building a fun world, telling a gripping narrative, or just making the reader feel something. She uses her craft to write scenes, share examples, build characters, and develop plots that, in Mitchael’s words, “transform people through story.”
For the ghostwriter, the goal of the writing should always be the same: Meet the needs of the author client. Both “writing” and “ghostwriting” share the common act of putting words together on a page (screen), but the goals are completely different. Ghostwriting isn’t about you as the writer, it’s about the people you, as someone who has honed your craft, are supporting to meet their goals through writing.
Some of the ghostwriting projects I’ve worked on have certainly made me feel like I was trapped in a “deep and dark” hole that I couldn’t wait to climb out of. But the good thing about being in that hole was, eventually, the project ended and poof! No more hole for me. I got to find the next project and, thanks to that terrible hole, I now knew a bit more about which projects I wanted to work on and which were going to suck me back down.
Also, whenever I felt like I was stuck and couldn’t see the light, well, I’d just hop on over to that other hole I’ve dug, for my own writing projects, that was much more enjoyable to play in (even if it could be, at times, much more frustrating than the other). Of course, it’s best to feel inspired and joyful in the ghostwriting work, and as Mitchael rightfully points out, there are many of those types of clients out there. I’m learning how to tell the difference between a project that’s exciting for me and one that makes me feel trapped.
Either way, though, I will always have my own writing, no matter the type of ghostwriting projects I have. Will it make me enough money to live off? Probably (definitely) not. Even if it did, I would certainly keep ghostwriting because I enjoy working people and helping them achieve their goals through books and other writing. I’m also pretty good at it, and getting better.
