Beyond the Page: An Exclusive Guest Post from the Writing Duo Known as Christina Lauren, Author of The Honeymoon Crashers, an Audiobook Original 

Listen to a Sample of The Honeymoon Crashers

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As a co-writing team, the one question we get asked more than anything else is “How do you write together?” It makes sense, of course because the process of writing solo is much easier for a reader to imagine than the process of writing in tandem. But we have a confession: we don’t have a system. 

An outsider watching us start a book would think we’ve never done it before. Sometimes we brainstorm with index cards. Or maybe we have a wall of Post-It notes with scenes we move around until the plot makes sense. Occasionally, we just talk for days and then write the outline in a word doc start to finish. And when we’re really desperate, we roll out a big piece of wrapping paper on the dining room table, flip it over to the blank side, and draw a story timeline.  

Once we start writing, it also looks different every time, too. Maybe one of us writes a fast draft and the other comes behind and rewrites a polished version. Sometimes we write in tandem, alternating chapters and building the manuscript as we go. But at the end, we find ourselves with a finished book… and we are delighted that we managed to do it again.  

But one thing is constant: we always start with dialogue. 

In the outline, in the fast draft and in the polished draft, the dialogue is what comes first and provides the scaffolding for the entire book. The dialogue comes out as we banter together, as we create the characters and their circumstances, as we find the voice for each particular project. It’s this love for dialogue that made writing our audio original, The Honeymoon Crashers one of the best experiences we’ve had creating a story start to finish.  

There was something about imagining different voices engaging with the text that crystallized the novella for us from the very first word. When you’re writing a book entirely in prose, you’re leaving it to your readers to put voices and inflections on the words the way you intended; you are hoping they get your sense of humor, that they hear the weight of pauses in a serious moment, or the overlapping excitement of a group scene. We know how to write prose; polishing the internal monologue portions of the audio original felt familiar and intuitive. But writing the scripted portions of The Honeymoon Crashers was like capturing the two of us in our natural state, like pouring our happiest selves and our love for banter directly onto the page. And having our dream voice actors Harry Shum Jr. and Jessica Marie Garcia capture Brody and Ami precisely the way we’d heard them in our own heads was a revelation. Of course, as co-authors, collaboration is our favorite thing about the creative process, so extending this collaboration beyond the page and into the minds and talent of a full cast made this project feel like the best kind of party. 

And of course, if we do it again, chances are we’ll do it completely differently… but believe us when we promise you, we will still have just as much fun.