great plots

I don't understand your question - you want to hire someone to write a novel including the plotting?

crossword said:

I want to hire a ghostwriter that can write a great plot, for a paranormal book. I want them to write my concepts. I have various ideas for such a book but want to hire someone who can weave my ideas into a great plot.

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Thanks for clarifying. If you've got the 30k or so this would take, yes, there are people who can do this well. I don't know why you'd want to do this, but up to you.

crossword said:

can you please give me the names and contact info of people who can do this well? thanks.

Simply googling leads you to many ghostwriting services but I am looking for one who can, as I said, write great plots. Does anyone here have any personal experience with such a writer? Or do you know one who can provide samples of such writing?

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I know Old Hack has experience in this area. Again, this will cost you around $30,000 or so.

There is no actual ghostwriter who will engage in any sort of 'profit sharing once it's sold' scheme.

Not a seasoned and skilled one. They all want money up front, because of the effort and risk involved. Look at it this way: you are asking a professional to forge something unique and remarkable (hopefully) out of your concepts. For which the ghostwriter will take your money, and you will get to pretend that you wrote the book. I hate to say it, but your concepts are most likely not that original. Concepts are everywhere. It's in the execution where they turn into gold. If you can't learn how to do that yourself, then feel free to raise 30K in a risky investment...there's no guarantee you'll make your money back in sales or movie options.

crossword said:

"There is no actual ghostwriter who will engage in any sort of 'profit sharing once it's sold' scheme."

I wasn't looking for that.

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That's very small. Could you use bigger type?

If you want great plots, then maybe go looking for a midlist author who writes books you consider to have great plotting. Then get in touch with them and offer them $30,000 to ghost-write your book.

Even authors with successful publishing careers sometimes have a hard time making a living from their writing, and 30k up front is not to be sneezed at. I would think you'd get some interest, and you'd know exactly what skills that author is bringing to the table because you can read their other books before you contact them.

jjdebenedictis said:

If you want great plots, then maybe go looking for a midlist author who writes books you consider to have great plotting. Then get in touch with them and offer them $30,000 to ghost-write your book.

Even authors with successful publishing careers sometimes have a hard time making a living from their writing, and 30k up front is not to be sneezed at. I would think you'd get some interest, and you'd know exactly what skills that author is bringing to the table because you can read their other books before you contact them.

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Not a bad idea.

jjdebenedictis said:

If you want great plots, then maybe go looking for a midlist author who writes books you consider to have great plotting. Then get in touch with them and offer them $30,000 to ghost-write your book.

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shortstorymachinist said:

Not a bad idea.

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It happens - I know of someone who was approached with this very offer, and not a mid-lister either. They refused, and I don't blame them. Any reasonably successful author in their own right, who is capable of writing a marketable story with a great plot, will want their own name on the cover.

crossword, it sounds like you might be ever so slightly naive about how this works. As has already been said, concepts are not valuable commodities until you turn them into marketable novels. It's the process of doing that which takes all the skill. Anyone who has that skill is going to want to be paid a hefty chunk of change up front, because there's no guarantee there will ever be any profit seen. In fact, you're very likely to lose money. A lot of it.

The soundest advice anyone can give you is this: spare your cash, and spend your time learning the craft. Then turn your own concepts into novels yourself.

Write to Dan Brown's agent and say, "I want someone to ghost-write a novel for me with [following parameters]. Here's $30K. Who do you have?"

Good God, there are how many midlist PNR novels published every year? It's a huge genre and still going strong. Ok, against my better sense, I'm jumping back in here.

First, ask what kind of PNR novel you like. You mentioned TV shows like 'The Originals' which is based off a spin-off of a book packager's PNR series (I believe. I never watched 'The Vampire Diaries', and stopped watching 'The Originals' during the second season.) Be aware that screenplays have a different writing style than novels. Good screenplays have just enough efficient direction to 'lead' a skilled director, cast, and crew in their creation. Authors writing novels have to do everything, so there tends to be more set-up and more exposition. I'd seriously recommend you track down some movie or TV novelizations of shows you are familiar with, so you can see the difference. TV and movie plots actually tend to be condensed, whereas novels can include more layers and subplots.

The plot depth you are noticing in 'The Originals' is more reminiscent of soap-opera plots, with constantly-escalating stakes and shifting alliances. This might be another field to look in.

I still can't figure out why you want to pay a ghostwriter and not a writing teacher (so you can learn to wield your own take on the genre), but that's your call, Crossword.

We'll have to agree to disagree about Dan Brown: I find his writing clumsy and boring (but I cut my teeth on secret histories from Tim Powers and Umberto Eco).

I think that maybe Crossword is trying to independently reinvent packaging. What I haven't figured out is what Crossword is bringing to the table (other than that $30K without which someone who can write those kinds of great plots under discussion won't get out of bed).

crossword said:

I did think of that. The problem is I know no midlist author who writes the kind of plot that keeps me reading. I've noticed for some time that while I might complete some novels, I can easily stop reading them. it's hard to find someone like Dan Brown who keeps you on the edge of your seat.

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That's because:
(1) Someone who can write like that can make more than 30k writing their own books, from their own ideas, so they have zero reason to take a ghost-writing commission, and
(2) People who can write like that are rare in the population, so it's not a matter of just ordering one up.

crossword said:

I want to hire a ghostwriter that can write a great plot, for a paranormal book. I want them to write my concepts. I have various ideas for such a book but want to hire someone who can weave my ideas into a great plot.

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Most willing to ghost a book have no experience at all. They've never sold a book of their own, and never written a book for anyone else that sold. Experience matters. A ghost that can't write a salable book on his own can't write one for you. They'll take your money, but your book will suck dead dust bunnies.

If you want a ghost that can write a novel good enough to sell, it's going to cost you a lot of money. Many thousands of dollars. And you'll have to pay the money upfront. No legitimate ghost will sign up for profits off a book that may never generate any profit, even if it does sell.

Why not just write the book yourself? We all have to learn how to write novels, and there's no reason not to try.

It all honesty, concepts and plot mean nothing. Your are no better, and no worse, than anyone else's. Anyone who can turn your concepts into a great novel doesn't need your concepts. They have plenty of their own that are just as good as yours. This is why you'll have to pay upfront, and why you'll have to pay so much.

Crossword, I truly didn't intend to come across as mean or dismissive. Please believe me, your ideas will mean more to you if you learn to develop them yourself. If Dan Brown can learn to write just coherently enough to get published, nearly anyone can.

But it won't be quick, either way. The ghost will be expensive and may take a while. You could be learning for a few years. Then comes about 2 years (roughly) of pitching the book to agents first then publishers. Then another span of time for publication if you're lucky, and then *more* time to see any earnings.

The one way I can see this working is if you, personally, have a name that will sell books, but you don't have the time (or whatever) to write a book yourself, e.g., you're the star of a long-running TV series and you, or your agent or publicist thinks it would be swell for you to have a novel out.

In that case, money is no object, and your agent will get with a literary agent who will find a suitable ghost writer.

Most (maybe all) writers who are capable of writing a good plot have plenty of ideas of their own that they would rather write about. Although $30,000 up front would be a good incentive for many writers to put aside their own ideas for a while and work with your concepts.

But if you want someone who can write the same kind of page-turners that Dan Brown can, I think you would have to pay much more than that.

Why would anybody capable of writing a huge bestseller like The DaVinci Code want to write one for your authorial credit?

caw

If you have the USD $30,000 up front now, I know some published authors who will write you a novel in 2 months.

Okay, I think the thread has covered the idea that it's not realistic to think Dan Brown will write one's book for any reasonable price. We don't have to harp on that point much more.

Crossword, what's your motivation for wanting to do this?

Is it a case of, "I've got these great stories in my head, and I don't have the skill to make them as amazing as they should be"? If that's the case, you should know that you're not the first person to feel this way. Most published authors have, at least once, had someone say to them, "How about I come up with the idea, you write it, and we split the money?" (Which never happens, by the way, since copyright law states the person who wrote the words owns the copyright and thus gets all the money, not half of it. That person can sell you their copyright--that's what ghostwriting is--but the human who put the words on the page owns those words regardless of whose story premise they're using.)

Also, what outcome are you hoping for? To get the story published? To make a profit?

As jj said - neither I, nor I think anyone else who said it, meant to impugn you or anything when we said profit-sharing schemes don't work. If that's not what you were thinking, good, but people think that *all the time*. It's a really common question pretty much every writer has been propositioned with at some point; there are tons of ads on various job sites looking for people to do it too.

As well, looking for a ghost, seriously, with real money behind it, is usually done by publishers. They tend to be the ones to put people together - a client of theirs and a ghoster they know, to produce said client's book. There are people who will do it regardless; as I said, Old Hack has experience in this area, from what I know. I'm not, god knows, suggesting she'd write for you. I just know she's been in that space and has a wealth of knowledge.