Lee and Andrew Child share what it's like writing with each other

No Plan B is the third book you have written with each other. How has your collaborative process changed since you wrote The Sentinel together?

Our process changed dramatically in the middle of writing The Sentinel because we started before the pandemic hit and could sit in the same room, talking through ideas and figuring out where the story was going next. Suddenly that wasn’t possible so we switched to working remotely, talking on the phone or via text and emailing portions of the manuscript back and forth. That wasn’t as much fun – it was great to hang out together – but in terms of the writing it turned out to have an unexpected advantage. Opening the latest version of the file with no explanation or justification meant that we only had the words on the page to work with – exactly like someone who had bought the finished book. It helped us to sort the wheat from the chaff more quickly and efficiently so we have stuck with the same method ever since.

Where did the idea for No Plan B come from?

We like to start out with a feeling of the mood and tone we want a book to have, and from there come up with a line of dialogue or a sense of a defining scene. With No Plan B, that scene was a tragic accident in which everyone – except Reacher – bought the misdirection that it was an accident. That led us to the essential questions: Who was the victim? Who wanted them dead? Why? And the rest of the plot flowed from there.

How do you decide who writes which parts of the story?

We don’t divide up the work in advance. We work scene by scene, episode by episode, and the initiative naturally switches back and forth between us as we go. We don’t force it – it happens on its own as the momentum of the plot continues to build.

Do you have a favourite Reacher quote?

‘Like teaching Hindu to a beagle.’ (A Wanted Man.)

What’s next?

We’ve already started writing Reacher’s next adventure. (We began on September 1st, in keeping with Lee’s long-standing tradition.) So we know how Reacher gets himself into trouble. How he gets out again remains to be seen…

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