Focused Fire: On Vanishing...
A ghost replies to Notes from Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter by J. R. Moehringer
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” is my reply when people ask who I’ve ghostwritten for. My secret, mysterious job is one I’ve come to quietly, taking on several ghost books over the last five years. I’m happy for people to know I’m a ghost, but questions around whom I’ve worked for compel my silence. My job as a ghost is to vanish.
Reading Notes from Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter by J. R. Moehringer in The New Yorker had me thinking about this strange job of mine. Several people, including my father-in-law, sent the article over for me. Moeringer has ghosted for some of the most famous people in the world, and has written the best selling ghost book ever, so he knows. And yet. Some of what he says is absolutely accurate about the work as I’ve seen it, but in other places I’ve found differences that I want to share.
The line that resonated in J.R. Moehringer’s piece was this: Maybe the alchemy of each ghost-author pairing is unique. In my experience, that’s essentially what I’ve seen over and over. Ghosting is about the pairing, the ghost and the author—different book to book, because it’s different from one author to another.
A British friend asked me over Slack what ghosts call the celebrities, the clients.
Author, I replied. A minute later, I added: ‘My author’
I thought a bit, then wrote:
Then I’m the writer
I know the terminology in Canada, but I clarified for her:
Might be different in the UK, but even when I started it seemed to be the term everywhere
And then I finished with:
So I’d say: ‘my author and I met today’
I’m a working writer and I love words, I’m sure like J.R Moehringer. I can’t think why anyone would ghost otherwise. Words fill me up and make me calm. I write because it helps me understand the world better. And this is where my approach is different to Moehringer’s.
In the article, he says, At the outset, I do what ghostwriters do. I listen. And eventually, after the callers talk themselves out, I ask a few gentle questions. The first (aside from “How did you get this number?”) is always: How bad do you want it?
Even from this, our approach is different. I don’t think either is better, and I have no criticism, I wouldn’t. It’s a singularly individualized—bespoke even—experience, tailored for the author of the book. Each ghost offers what they offer, and what I offer might be what Moehringer describes as ‘glorified stenographer’, to his mind.
One of a ghostwriter’s main jobs is having a big mouth. You win some, you lose most, but you have to keep pushing, not unlike a demanding parent or a tyrannical coach. Otherwise, you’re nothing but a glorified stenographer, and that’s disloyalty to the author, to the book—to books.
—Moehringer
I thought as I read this, Oh, that’s such a male way of being a ghost. Because I see myself entirely as the crafter of the words and the story as my author wants it to be. Moehringer describes this as glorified stenography, but I see this as truly listening and hearing the story amongst the other words the author shares. Finding the beauty and the shape of what I hear, adding structure, shape, and craft, but not forcing the book into what I want it to be.
Opposition is true Friendship, William Blake wrote, and if I had to choose a ghostwriting credo, that would be it.
—Moehringer
My credo would be different: Listen to what is not said and make sure to ask questions about that space. Wait, wait, breathe, and the story will emerge. I’ve published several books with my name on the cover when I’m not a ghost, where I’m the author myself. So, my first stipulation when I ghost is that I don’t exist.
Playing with a ghostwriter who is a character in the novel I’m writing, my character says: “Then I disappear.”
The author lets out a little laugh. “Is that what you want?” she asks.
“It’ll be as if I never existed,” I say. “As if I were never here.”
When we begin, I ask the author what they want their book to be. I ask that a lot because often they do not read books at all. It makes this question difficult, but I value what I learn here. There’s something fascinating to me about a person who wants to write a book but who doesn’t love to read. I think this speaks to the value of storytelling, to the importance we each assign to our own experiences, and in my authors’ cases, that value is visible to them once their book is a published thing.
Usually they want to talk, have lots to say, and are used to talking about themselves. I get them to mix stories with ones that are well known (which they are otherwise forget to mention), and stories where they reveal their intimate life. That takes time and trust. Technically, I make notes while they talk. The space I’m in needs to be silent so I can truly hear. We don’t ever meet in noisy cafes and often we meet online.
I always ask if they want to do any writing themselves—often they do—and frequently they send pieces of writing to me that come up outside of our sessions. I’m absolutely available at any time (which is led to me doing interviews in my car, frantically mouthing to my kids to quiet down). I encourage my authors to trust me with everything and I don’t tell anyone, not even my partner, Y., a single word. I think it’s easier for my authors to feel like I’m trustworthy if I honour the contract to be discreet.
I remind my authors to tell me everything, small, silly, vital, shameful, and we can redact afterward. That requires them to trust me. I ask them not to censor for now, and tell them they can cut anything they want later. It’s writing advice for any book, honestly, particularly memoir.
If my author wants me to, and the job requires it, I interview others in their life. I usually say at the start to the editor and to the author that my experience and passion is to find and shape my author’s life onto the page, not to have an opinion on their expertise or their interpretation of the world, not to juxtapose my ideas onto theirs, or plaster responses from people I’ve interviewed onto the author’s vision for their book.
Not only are my authors not interested in me, they actively don’t want to know a single thing about my life. We’re not friends, but we’re incredibly close—often, I’m told words that they’ve never shared, even with the people they most love. Especially with those people.
It makes it complicated if I inhabit the space as a real person. I don’t exist to their mind. If I chattily share something about my life, my authors are puzzled: they don’t need me to talk about me; I’m there for their book. My mother asks: Don’t you want your name on the cover, Alice? I know she’s really asking why I want to vanish.
I always consider the question, but the answer is the same. I want the author to feel like the book is theirs because it is their book, not mine. I have my own books, books I pour myself into. My job, I believe, in the books that I ghost, is the opposite. My skill, such as it is, with words, is what I offer my authors. Ultimately, I believe that to make their book the best it can be, disappearing is the best I can do for their book. I was never in their story before they began to write it, so why do I need to put myself in it now? My primary ambition is for them to feel like they own their story because they do.
I position myself as a pen and work diligently to let them fill the white space. It is their space to fill, to my mind, after all.
A tiny word-game for today:
FILL IN THE BLANKS
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Question: Fill in the blanks with the name of a fill in the blanks game.
I’m so utterly in love with Maggie Smith’s memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful. I’ve written lots for today, so my next newsletter will be more my latest love affair with this book.
I’ll also tell you why I changed the name of this newsletter and share a little of what I’m working on.
Any questions? About writing or ghosting or memoir? Ask me and I’ll answer.
Did you get the Fill in the Blanks answer? Comment below.
xoxoxox
Alice