When I was in the fifth grade my best friend and I recorded five double-sided cassette tapes worth of radio shows in my bedroom. I had my own boom box (which was pretty much the coolest shit ever back then) with a six dollar Radio Shack microphone, and the two of us made jokes, ridiculous skits, and character impersonations we improvised on the fly. I’ve still got them in a box somewhere as a time capsule of my earliest creative work.
Unlike the stories and comics I used to make as a kid, though, the radio shows were significant in that they were my first time making creative work with another person, as opposed to working alone. That shit matters—a lot.
Working with Others Makes You Better at What You Do
A lot of creative people (but especially writers) romanticize the ideal of the struggling artist working alone on a creative masterwork that they’ll unveil to the world one day when it’s finally finished. That’s a pretty cool image (and one that highlights all the hard work that goes into creative projects), but it leaves a pretty big concern—what if your work sucks and there’s no one around to tell you?
One of my big takeaways from grad school was being around a bunch of other writers who could look critically at my work and tell me where it was lacking. Those outside critiques expanded my view and helped break up the tunnel vision I’d fallen victim to over several years of working basically on my own, since I needed to view my own work from an outside perspective.
Having other people check out your work (in either its unfinished or finished stages) is super important because it shows you what effect it actually has on people in the real world, rather than the effect you think or hope it has. Other people’s perspectives help you link your own work with the bigger world of creative work that exists all around you, and that happens through communication and sharing.
Now here’s where I loop back to the point I made in the title: What better people to make this exchange with than your friends?
Having good friends that you can share your creative work with is so incredibly important, yet we don’t talk about it nearly enough. A lot of the people I had writing workshops with in grad school were just reading my work as an assignment, or because they needed the credit—I didn’t always have good relationships with them outside of class, and had I asked them to look at a piece of writing outside of workshop as a favor, I doubt many of them would have said yes (lame…).
On the flip side, though, I’ve had plenty of people that I had solid friendships with who would always make time to look at my writing. I’ve also had friends who gave me valuable feedback on this blog in its early stages, and others who listened to speeches I had to give and let me know how they went. Likewise, if my friends come to me for help or advice on a project they’re working on, I’ll always make time to help however I can, because these relationships matter to me and want to see my friends succeed in their own quests to make cool stuff.
Exchanging creative work not only makes your friendships stronger (because you’re working on things together), they make your work stronger as you work on bigger things. That’s win-win for both of you, in your friendship, and in your work.
Actual Collaborations Make Better Work
So far I’ve been talking about asking your friends for advice and feedback, but collaboration doesn’t stop there. The radio shows I recorded as a kid worked because I had a best friend to record them with—not only would they have been less fun to record alone, but they would have been less funny and lower quality. That’s because my friend brought ideas, humor, and recording skills to the table that eleven-year-old-Ian didn’t have on his own.
When you work with someone (or many people) on a project, you can combine your ideas, manpower, and skills to make something that’s bigger than either of you could make working solo. That’s the principle behind movies, where hundreds or thousands of people have to write, act, direct, film, edit, create a crazy amount of CG, and do all those other jobs you see in the credits because no one makes an entire movie on their own. It’s also a major push behind music, where people play together in bands and orchestras, and in comics where one person does the writing and another does the drawing.
Here’s the thing that a lot of people don’t understand, though: when you’re just starting out, these collaborative relationships are about a thousand times stronger if you’re friends with the person.
The more you think about this, the more sense it makes. If you already know, trust, and hang out with someone because you like being with them, you can carry that relationship into the collaborative realm where it’ll help you work together more easily. And if you like the creative work that the other person does, and the person likes yours, you can carry that energy into a collaborative project where it can grow into something new.
Also, on a purely practical level, the people you know in real life are also more likely to say yes to working with you because you, like, know them and stuff. They’re your social network, and you already have bonds with them.
There are a lot of examples of regular friendships that became collaborative friendships in the real world. How many bands do you know where the members grew up together, or started playing together because they already knew each other in real life? When Kevin Smith was making Clerks he reached out to his high school friends to act and asked his old boss for permission to film nights at the convenience store where he used to work. And when I wanted a cool sketch of me giving the thumbs-up for my website sidebar, I asked my college friend Sam Roman to help me out because I still can’t draw anything but stick figures worth a damn.
Now, just to be clear, I’m totally NOT telling you to go out and recruit your friends for projects that mostly benefit you, or create an unbalanced power dynamic where you’re the boss and your friends are doing your work for you, because that would be douchey and taking advantage of them. (Side Note: This is how multilevel marketing companies make their money.) Rather, if you reach out to their friends and make use of the relationships you already have, you can build things together that benefit both of you, and once again, that’s win-win.
Takeaways: Talk To Your Friends and Reach Out
I wrote this post in part because I’ve been reflecting on ways I’ve been able to work with my friends throughout the years—my old high school friend Katie Rogers (no relation) took the professional-style pic I use for plugs (one of many that she took for her portfolio), I’ve had multiple grad school friends willing to sit down for Day Job interviews, and my old roommate introduced me to a third. Then there’s the dozens of people I’ve asked to look at my writing over the years, and whose feedback has proven invaluable.
If you’re looking to expand your creative work, I hope you consider reaching out to your friends for help—they’re a great resource, they can bring a lot to the table, and working together can often make your friendship even stronger. That’s win-win for both of you, and for the people who get to enjoy your work.
Plus, you know, it’s fun.
You know what else is win-win…
But I Also Have a Day Job on Facebook
My Instagram where I post cool pics from Japan