Ghostwriters in The Spotlight

With the release of two new films, Roman Polanski’s ‘The Ghost Writer’ and ‘L’Autre Dumas’ starring Gérard Depardieu, ghostwriters are back in the spotlight and yet again people seem shocked to discover that books are frequently not the work of the single authors named on the covers.

Everyone knows that film and television scripts are collaborative efforts and that politicians hire speech writers. Why are we so wedded to the romantic illusion of authors as poor, tortured, hungry souls labouring in unheated garrets until the day they are discovered and rewarded with fairy tale fortunes of Rowlingesque proportions?

At least half the titles in the bestselling non-fiction charts are actually penned by ghostwriters, and at least a quarter more are edited so heavily they might as well be.

There is even more outrage when fictional works are created in the same way. Novels marketed as being ‘by’ celebrities seem to particularly offend the sorts of people who would never dream of buying such a genre. I don’t believe that the readers who enjoy these stories care who actually does the typing, any more than they care whether Mr Kipling actually bakes his own cakes.

There were similar frissons of shock and horror when it was revealed a few years ago that the late Dick Francis’ family often worked with him on his massively popular racing novels, yet what family would not muck in on such an enjoyable cottage industry if they felt they had something positive to contribute?

But now the tide is finally turning. Trailers for Polanski’s film, starring Ewan McGregor as the ghostwriter of the title, are appearing on the Internet and a film about Alexandra Dumas and his ghost writer, (or ‘nègre’ as the French sweetly phrase it), Auguste Maquet, is being released in France.

Ghostwriters have been around ever since man first put pen to paper. We were the scribes in the marketplaces, helping the illiterate to write and read their letters and we are still here today helping people who have something to say but lack the time or ability to say it, (celebrities, business gurus, politicians or ordinary people with extraordinary stories). Publishers need famous names to market books, but they need professional writers to actually craft the words, just as they need professional editors, proof readers and designers. In the 1830s Maquet, himself a novelist and playwright, was told by a publisher: ‘You have written a masterpiece, but you’re not a name and we only want names’ – so nothing new there either.

There are bestselling writers who run ‘factories’ in much the same way as famous artists did in the past, (and maybe still do). James Patterson is possibly the most prolific and best selling author currently at work in the world. He makes no secret of the fact that virtually all his books are now collaborations – in fact he makes a feature of it. He has the ideas and other writers turn them into books which are marketed under his brand name.

Ghostwriting is a wonderful profession. On the opening page of “The Ghost” Robert Harris quotes me as saying “Of all the advantages that ghosting offers, one of the greatest must be the opportunity that you get to meet people of interest”.

So now, thanks to the efforts of the likes of Harris and Polanski, ghostwriters can bask for a moment or two in the sun. Rather than being seen as faceless hacks labouring in the shadows we are being represented by the likes of Ewan McGregor as protagonists in great adventures. Perhaps now more producers and directors will realize that ghostwriters’ lives are ripe for dramatization. Like doctors, policemen and lawyers, the mainstay professions of most dramas, our projects are neatly episodic, enormously varied and often both exciting and glamorous – what’s more we could write the scripts ourselves and wouldn’t even ask for credits.

Andrew Crofts is the author of Ghostwriting, published by A&C Black. www.andrewcrofts.com