Haunted By Your Conscience?

by Linda Nix

Ghost writing. Its very name conjures up death; an authorial death, the writer committing suicide, disappearing from sight, from consciousness as the words materialise for public consumption, yet haunting the pages nonetheless. The ghost writer sells his or her soul, and the price is secrecy: ghost writing is by definition unacknowledged, secret, hidden. Publishers, desperate for bestsellers, desperately hope their famous names are able to write, but being invariably disappointed, summon ghost writers to perform their supernatural tricks behind closed doors. Ghost writing is publishing's dark secret.

Dark secrets, and the promise of their revelation, was what made me read At Risk* in the first place. Though I like thrillers anyway, I picked this one up mainly because of the author's name: Stella Rimington. It's evocative of other undercover stories—Della Street, Remington Steele. It sounds like a pen name, but it's not, and this is why it was enticing. In case you haven't heard of Stella Rimington, the publisher has made sure you don't miss why this thriller will be different by boldly proclaiming on the cover: "The debut thriller from the former head of Britain's MI5." But it wasn't different. Rimington does not sellout her former profession and provide fascinating insights to set this spy novel apart from the countless others available on airport racks. The thriller was not especially thrilling, though it was competent in a formulaic way. I wondered why an ex-spook would turn her hand to novel writing, and yet have nothing new to say. Rimington herself feels the need to explain:

I have dreamed for years of writing a thriller and have had the main character, Liz, in my mind all that time. ….. The other main characters in the book are entirely imaginary, as is the story. They first emerged in a conversation over dinner at the Winstub Gilg in Mittelbergheim Alsace in June 2001. I have to thank John Rimington, who was sharing the dinner, as well as the Gilg Tokay Pinot Gris, which stoked the conversation and the imagination. The art of novelist and that of intelligence officer are very different, whatever some people may think, and had it no been for the perseverance and encouragement of Sue Freestone, my publisher at Hutchinson, I would not have been able to turn myself from one into the other. Huge thanks are also due to Luke Jennings whose help with the research and the writing made it all happen [my emphasis].

As I read this, I realised where the sellout was. Stella Rimington wanted to be a novelist (don't we all?) but to become one, she had a publisher pushing her all the way and another novelist to help her write it. Most debut novelists have to rely on the strength of their writing, that is, their own talent, and their own determination, that is, a completed manuscript, to gain the attention of a publisher. Rimington has an idea, but more importantly, she has clout. It's speculation, of course, but was Jennings, a published novelist with Hutchinson, the ex-spook's ghost writer? In a world of struggling novelists, what is wrong with supplementing your income with a little ghost writing? It's quite common. But, I would argue, ghost writing is only morally acceptable in certain applications. Fiction is not one of them.

Ghost writing is most frequently found in autobiographies and in nonfiction. It is frequently found in business, where an ‘editor' has to rewrite an appalling piece of English. Ghost writing is far more common than most people imagine. The public is quite prepared to accept ghost-written autobiographies, because who expects people with lives worth writing about—politicians, sports stars, entertainers—to have time or skills for writing as well? (Rimington's first book was her autobiography—was it ghost-written too?) Similarly in nonfiction, the source of the book may have the knowledge necessary, and can claim the ideas as their own, but not the skills to render this knowledge into elegant, readable prose.

So why call it ghost writing? Why not materialise these ghosts, who haunt every page of a book, and instead of a single author credit, say "Ideas and Argument by X," "Written by Y"? Possibly the public suspects some books are ghost written anyway. If you told someone that an autobiography or a nonfiction book was ghost-written, I doubt that would change their opinion of the book or the purported author—unless their enjoyment came particularly from the words themselves, not the content. Generally, though, everyone is willing to go along with this fiction.

Except when it comes to fiction. Fiction, even genre thrillers, belongs to the realm of art, the art of words and the art of storyteller, and we expect the author named on the cover to be the person responsible for both words and story. Sure, editing is needed, to a greater or lesser degree. But sometimes the line between editor and ghost writer blurs. (Rimington doesn't even name her editor, though she surely had one.) Show me another artistic pursuit in which a major contributor to the finished artwork is not acknowledged. Though a singer may be the star, the songwriter still gets credit: "Lyrics by A," "Music by B." The painter who executes the painting is credited as the artist, though someone else commissioned the work, that is, had the idea. The legal concepts of intellectual property and moral rights show that what is at stake is not just money but integrity, honesty, morality. What is ghost writing, if not plagiarism in reverse—the passing off of your own words as someone else's?

Yet what we find unacceptable in other arts we accept in writing. Even academic writing—so fearful of plagiarism—is not immune. It turns out plagiarism is only a crime when the writer whose words you are stealing is published, not when it is a writer you have employed to help edit your essay. Some justify this practice for foreign students, who can grasp the concepts but not express them in English. To those people, I would say, let the students hire translators, not editors. Can you really separate thoughts from the words? Why isn't an essay seen as art form, no matter what the subject? Do art students employ professional artists to help polish their projects? Does a music student get someone else to perform for him or her?

Even setting aside fiction and essays as art forms, is ghost writing really ever morally justified? What editor, who has effectively re-written a poorly composed manuscript to make it publishable, does not feel more than a little cheated when the reviews come in praising not only the ideas of the book but also the named author's lucid, expressive prose as a delight to read? Who wins when reputations are made and new contracts signed on the basis a person can write, leaving the next editor to wrestle silently with the mangled mess of the next manuscript? In the case of Stella Rimington, she is now writing her second novel. She asks us to believe that she successfully turned herself from career spy to novelist, acknowledging a push from her publisher Freestone and help from a writer, Jennings. Both, with their silence, collude in the fiction that Rimington is now a novelist. It is no coincidence that ghost writing is by definition unacknowledged, secret, hidden. There is a sense of shame, of cheating. And we, writers and editors, do it for the money. Is this not the ultimate sellout?

* At Risk, Rimington, Stella. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005.

Linda Nix, PhD, is an editor and writer who has recently relocated to Seattle. She is working on her first novel, while looking for full-time writing and editing work.