Ghostwriting is one of my favorite ways to write. While I may not own the final article, I own the process. My clients keep coming back for one simple reason, because I am efficient and can channel them and their essence in a way that fits their message using (what sounds like) their voice.
I might struggle to write my own articles, but I never struggle with a client’s article. The process of ghostwriting means you attempt to become your subject so wholly you can’t help but write like them. You have to pay attention to them linguistically, understand their vision, and understand their history so that you can put these elements into a context which truly makes a reader believe they’re reading your client’s words.
You can’t just go mix Southernisms with GRE level vocabulary telling background stories about their simple upbringing. Their vision will be shaped by what the see and how they perceive the world. Background is going to play a role in the experiences they draw upon. If something sticks out too much, it usually needs to be explained.
Hearing Their Words
Take note of what your client says, but more importantly how they say it. The how matters just as much as the why for ghostwriting. You want your writing to be believable without having to fake it.
But, how exactly do you pull this off? You need to truly understand the linguistic intricacies of how your topic speaks and how they write. Read and listen to whatever they’ve produced, no matter how mundane. The more mundane, the more organic it tends to be.
What idioms and phrases do they use? If they write, this process is easy, but most of the clients you ghostwrite for won’t have written much of anything (on their own). Their audience is probably expecting their works to read like they speak. If your subject only speaks, why would you write any differently? If they write as well as speak publically, you can draw on either or even a mixture.
Hearing Their Thoughts
Words will get you far, but not near as far as understanding their thoughts and their vision. The words provide the form, the vision provides the feel. You have to understand what your client is doing and more importantly why.
A price hike is sinister when done for profit, but understandable when done for rising costs. The result is the same, but the cause is different. What is their cause? What is their reason? How do they do what they do? Why?
The language matters for conveying your subject, but you have to know why they say what they do. A ghostwriter which doesn’t understand their client is relying on brand awareness and hoping it masks the shortcomings, or else hoping inertia carries them. Why settle on mediocre when you are capable of greatness? There’s no reason to be penny smart, pound foolish; write them as if with their own voice and vision.
Past Lives
Who are you writing for? Who are they and who were they? How does their past relate to their present? How does their past relate to their future?
If you can’t hear their words or emulate their thoughts in your imagination, you’ll never understand how their past relates to their present or future. A character written which only lives in the past will constantly spiral between lows and highs with the folly of Sisyphus. The past shapes the present and the present shapes the future.
Cause and effect (and the perception of cause and effect) determine how one processes an experience. The difference between rationality and superstition boils down to the difference between correlation and causation. What does the past mean to your client? Were they raised as a farmer or in the upper class? Vivaldi’s Four Seasons won’t mean as much to someone on the equator. Experience shapes expectation.
The past is a powerful tool to draw on. It can betray your narrative or empower it. If you are writing about a low-class farmer-type gone billionaire, a story about boarding school will betray trust in the writings of your subject. Their past has to be drawn on organically. Too much lamp-shading and you erase their past, too much creativity and you betray their life. Where do you draw the line?
Personification and Application
The person you write as needs to fit your client’s words and their vision. How would they write in your spot (if writing skill weren’t a factor)? What words, what idioms, and what comparisons do they use? What do they do in their free time they would be open to share? Do they travel?
You need to answer these questions to truly channel someone when ghostwriting. If the client speaks aggressively (and their isn’t literature to the contrary), you should write them aggressively. And, if they’re polite, write them as such. If they aren’t known for their writing already, write them as they would speak. What is their popular perception? Channel that perception, extend it to portray your angle, and embrace the rest of their imprint on the zeitgeist.
Vision and Vocabulary
Make their vision and their vocabulary overlap. Some visions require a more complicated vocabulary or thought process to explain. How would your client express it? A physicist won’t tell anyone that atoms are basically “little solar systems” as more than a trivial model for kids.
The southerner trying to portray their success is going to sound differently than old money from the Northeast carrying the family torch. The vision may be the same, but the vocabulary will be different. A boarding school attendee probably won’t know what 4H is, and a country school student may not know much about Greek mythology.
The journey around family and friends is going to sound differently between a suburbanite and an inner city kid gone big. Experiences drawn on are going to affect both the vision and the vocabulary. What is their crossroads and why does it exist where it is?
Conclusion
To really channel a person’s essence into a ghostwritten work requires you to draw on the way they write or speak, what their vision is, and what their background is. These each have to be factored across each other to add depth.
By combining these factors, the linguistic elements showcase the expectation of the person being channeled, their vision shapes the words, and the background feeds into fleshing out the individual. Like a roux, a combination of flour, oil, and heat are all required to make these work. If you have the wrong combination of any of these, you just end up with a mess.
Image by Amy_Gillard from Pixabay