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I've started watching him. I think he did write his own work at first. He makes a passing comment early on that if HE writes an outline to the story, it turns out great. But if he doesn't, the book isn't as good (but he still puts his name on it in the big letters.) So, he's basically trashing the author who did write it, but he still lays claim to it. So it must not be THAT bad.
I forget off hand, but I think his class is almost 4 hours and I'm only about 20 minutes in so I will report back when I finish it.
I found this author through the Clubhouse when Bev did his reading. She also participated as well as another author (who I will talk about when I finish her book.)
This is a book of poems and I'm not a poetry girl. But, she got me when she talked about this book. It is a series of poems about true crime murdered and missing females. She writes about a case from every state. Every state has someone in the book, (or a couple someones -- a drop in the missing and murdered bucket unfortunately) as well as Puerto Rico. I remember many of these people. And I have wondered about them from time to time. Were they ever found? Was justice served?
It's heartbreaking.
It's a very quick read. But, it took me awhile. Not that Cynthia will see this, but I want her to know, every single case she wrote about, I looked up that person. I looked at their photographs or the composite drawings and I read about the crime. I felt I owed that to these missing and murdered females. I owed it to the people still looking for the lost, seeking justice. I owed it to the found ones seeking justice. I felt I owed it to Cynthia and all her hard work.
To the victims and their friends and families, I see you. You are not forgotten.
Cambridge dictionary:
collaboration: the situation of two or more people working together to create or achieve the same thing.
So, I think we as readers have a very different thought about collaboration. We think they are an equal partnership. By that above definition, Patterson's books are collaborations. People are working to achieve one thing: Patterson's Book. They all agree they are collaborating. I would call that something else.
James Patterson addresses his co-authoring in this class. And two of his co-authors speak.
The first thing he says right out of the gate about it:
paraphrasing, " Have you heard of Woodward and Bernstein, Simon and Garfunkel, Lennon and McCartney, Rogers and Hammerstein, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, STEPHEN KING AND PETER STRAUB etc..."
He says that working with a coauthor is great as long as they know it's a James Patterson book. I'm pretty sure Stephen King did NOT say that to Peter Straub. I don't think Paul looked at Art and said, "Dude. You can work with me as long as you know this is my stuff." Or wait, maybe he did and that's why they broke up.
@NN, you commented you saw a Sunday Morning on him with bookcases filled with outlines. How thick were those? Because he says, he works on those outlines for months and he said, if you do an outline right, it could be the book. So he's basically saying he does write these stories, the "co-authors" just fill in some stuff. He also says he likes their feedback as they sometimes have good ideas.
He's really pretty insulting about it on one hand, but then turns around and gives a nice compliment. It's like he beats a dog and then pats it on the head and tells it "who's a good boy? you're a good boy."
I have watched I think 10 masterclasses???? somewhere right there -- of all of them so far, his is the least professional looking. There are a million jump cuts mid sentence where he's talking and then all of a sudden, we're in another location, it's obvious it's another day because he's changed clothes. I do not for one minute think this was Masterclass's doing. I believe Patterson was a difficult teacher to deal with.
Now, having said all this, I did find his class interesting enough to have spent time on. I do think he knows what he's doing. In every possible way. He's working smart, not hard. But there is something not quite admirable about it.