Many of the rest of us have avoided collaboration because of the horror stories we have heard about it. Collaboration enjoys a long and enduring tradition in motion pictures. Over the years, some of moviedom's best films have been written by writing partnerships, and, as any review of contemporary writing credits will show, collaboration is alive and well in the movie industry and remains as common as apple pie in television. First, we should appreciate that there are as many different partnering arrangements as there are writers, so thinking in terms of formulas or rules will not help. Here, we explore some of the more directly visible and logical considerations and try to isolate what is important, what is relevant to success.
Collaboration probably works best when each partner is at about the same level of skill.
This reduces the chances of imbalances in the amount of work done by each writer, avoiding disputes about workload and easing the burden of deciding credits. Professional writers who collaborate gauge the capabilities of a potential partner by previously earned writing credits. A writer who has sold five screenplays might decide their capability is roughly equal with another who has sold two scripts and five teleplays. A writer who has sold one script might decide that his or her capability is roughly equal with another writer who has also sold one. And so on.