I never intended to be a ghostwriter, but the job made me a better writer and a better person, despite the inherent deception. To capture another’s life requires deep understanding. To write in their voice means smothering your own ego. And what’s wrong with empathy and humility?
Young men who set out to be writers often need more of both qualities. Probably young women, too, but I’m thinking of myself. Like many others, I absorbed early the romantic vision of the writer’s special talent, and I basked in the publication of my juvenile work.
It’s important for children to feel special, but I needed to get outside and beyond myself. Inspiration is overrated. To master the tools of language one needs discipline. There’s no easy path. Naïve expression can be charming, but only craftsmanship built of long practice produces the control wielded by real artists, who are free to work with any subject, any pallet.
Ghostwriting exercises these skills (as does credited first-person writing for a client), because it forces the writer to disassociate the self from the selection of words and literary effects. The spiritual feeling that one’s essence flows forth in a particular style or choice of words is a defeating limitation. Far greater power comes in creating other selves—anyone—in how you use with your words.
Firstly, the sound must be right. Vic Fischer, the Alaskan founding father, corrected me as I began work on his memoir. English was Vic’s third language, and my initial sentences on his behalf were too complex and flowing. We settled on a more percussive rhythm, recalling the crisp inflection that I imagine derived from his German and Russian upbringing.
But a literary voice isn’t a speaking voice, and ghostwriting is not transcribing the spoken word. The voice on the page is deeper, more profound—the version of the author at his or her most thoughtful, poetic, efficient, and precise. Vic never would have spoken the words I wrote for him, but he would have thought them.
The book should come as if from another life—a life in which the client became a skilled writer in addition to doing whatever the memoir is about, such as politics, science, or business. But, because there was no such life, the ghostwriter again must abandon ego, as the invisible character in this fantasy.
Sometimes, clients not only do not know how to write well, but they also do not appreciate good writing. After the text is in a client’s hands, he or she may edit or rewrite the prose to introduce cliches, break the rhythm and pace, muddy the story, introduce irrelevancies, or cut the most piquant details.
I’ve learned, imperfectly, but generally successfully, to give my best counsel, and then let go, remembering who the book belongs to. In the end, these are not my words. I am only the conduit for what the client wanted to create.
That’s a good lesson, too, and not only teaching humility. Words are plentiful and new work is always at hand.
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