Email and Text Ghostwriting

Modern Communication’s Big Open Secret

The assumption that we are the sole authors of our texts and emails is a collective fiction—but a useful one.

JOE PINSKER | APRIL 15, 2021 | The Atlantic

GETTY / ADAM MAIDA / THE ATLANTIC

Updated at 1:00 p.m. ET on April 15, 2021.

In the late-19th-century play Cyrano de Bergerac, the eloquent title character gets a woman to fall deeply in love with another man by ghostwriting letters, as him, to her. The details are a bit messy—Cyrano himself is also in love with the woman, the woman is his cousin, and the other guy dies in Act IV—but much of the play’s drama revolves around the letters’ secret authorship.

One hundred–plus years later, in the age of texting and emailing, the world is full of Cyranos: Getting quick, surreptitious help writing high-stakes messages has never been easier, whether that means enlisting friends to consult on a flirty note in a dating app or turning to a co-worker for assistance on a sensitive email to your boss. Although this sort of collaboration is widespread, people still generally assume that the messages they receive were composed by the sender alone. Acknowledging how many of our supposedly one-on-one communications are written by committee would risk undermining the comforting illusions that “private” conversations are truly private and that we are all enlightened communicators who never need to look to other people to know what to say.

The feature of written communication that makes this kind of ghostwriting possible in the first place is “revisability,” to use a word introduced to me by Jeremy Birnholtz, a communication professor at Northwestern University. Because people can perfect messages before sending them, Birnholtz said, they often take advantage of that ability to increase the odds of a positive response. Plus, the fact that digital messages can be saved indefinitely, to be reviewed at any time, can add pressure to nail diction and tone.

Revisability is not a 21st-century innovation—it’s a feature of letters too, as Cyrano can attest. But what’s different about today’s ghostwriting is how quickly and easily it can happen: To get instant feedback, all you have to do is forward an email thread or screenshot a text exchange. This ease has enabled ghostwriting to flourish in all manner of everyday communications, whatever the author may need a second opinion on.

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Memoir Ghostwriting Services

Jamestown Woman's Book Published After Her Death

Elaine Haugen's family history is told with the help of a ghostwriter.

Written by Kathy Steiner | April 14, 2021

Elaine and Gene Haugen 2018. Submitted photo.

One of Elaine Haugen’s goals in life was to write a trilogy of books, said her husband, Gene. She did not live to see that goal but she did complete a book on her family history, a book that is now available through Amazon and the Dakota Store in Jamestown.

“Rings of a Family Tree” is Elaine Staaël Haugen's story, told with the help of ghostwriter Jennifer Bourne.

“It’s a really incredible family history, it’s an incredible story,” Bourne said.

Written in short chapters, the story begins with Elaine’s great-grandmother, Hannah, who journeys from her home in Norway to America and literally marries her betrothed before getting off the ship.

It is not a happy marriage. At one point, Hannah became a patient in the North Dakota State Hospital. Years later, Elaine would work there, helping others as she faced her own challenges.

“She ended up working there and developing programs for the State Hospital,” Bourne said. “It’s such a full circle, such a great family history. ...”

Born in North Dakota with no eyesight, Elaine was about 6 years old when a physician in Minot performed cosmetic surgery on her left eye that also restored a sliver of tunnel vision about the size of a straw, Gene said. In the last seven years of her life she had no vision, he said.

But Elaine was not one to let a lack of eyesight hold her back, Gene said.

“She navigated through life as if she could see as well as anyone,” he said.

Elaine graduated from the North Dakota School for the Blind and studied for a master’s degree in social work at the University of North Dakota. She married, had two children and became a single parent. She worked as a vocational rehabilitation counselor at the North Dakota State Hospital.

And that was how she met Gene.

“I was drifting aimlessly and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my life,” he said.

Elaine interviewed him as part of her job. After he tested at Job Service North Dakota, she directed him to work with children at the Anne Carlsen Center, which he did. Eventually, he, too, worked at the State Hospital until he retired.

They married in 1987 and were married for 33 years before her death at age 84 on June 14, 2020.

Elaine’s book is written

Elaine wrote journals for many years, Gene said. After retiring, Elaine’s long-held desire to write books rekindled. With the need to hire a new caregiver to help Elaine, who had Parkinson’s disease, Marilyn Teckenburg began working for the couple and introduced them to her daughter, Jennifer Bourne, a writer who agreed to serve as ghostwriter for Elaine.

“They had a year-and-a-half-long process of going through journals and interviews to come up with the book,” Gene said.

Bourne said all told, it was about a five-year project.

“It was so unlike any other ghostwriting experience because typically as a ghostwriter, people email you or give you typewritten work and then you go through it,” Bourne said. “But this was an interview process so I was interviewing her and writing the book from there. Her knowledge and her memory of her family history was just - it was incredible.”

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Malaysia Ghostwriters

The writing game

Amshida Rohayani Ahmad Rani and Noor Jahan Ebrahim speak about being ghost writers

BISSME S. | 15 APR 2021

Amshida Rohayani Ahman in bookstore | The Writing Game | thesundaily.my

BOTH Amshida Rohayani Ahmad Rani, 52, from Johor Baru and 60-year-old Noor Jahan Ebrahim from Petaling Jaya, Selangor, have something in common. They are ghost writers who write both in English and Bahasa Malaysia.

“Ghost writing simply means writing for other people,“ said Noor Jahan.

“We are the writer but our name does not appear anywhere as the writer. We get paid an agreed sum and usually, the person who pays us to write is the named author.”

Putting more perspective to the term of ghost writing, Amshida explains: “A ghost writer is almost similar to a client who commissions an artist to paint his portrait. The only difference in ghost writing is that the client commissions you to write their book.”

Noor Jahan said everyone has a story to tell, but some experience constraints in terms of time and skills.

“It is a win-win situation where one party gets a book written and another earns a living. If we expect famous and successful people to write their own books, then some great books will never get written.”

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Wonder Woman Ghostwriter Dies

Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly, Wonder Woman Ghostwriter, Dies at 97

Posted on April 9, 2021 

by Rich Johnston

In 2018, at the age of 94, Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly attended San Diego Comic-Con to received the Bill Finger Award. A much-ignored figure in superhero comic book history, Kelly ghost-write numerous issues of Wonder Woman that were credited to the character's co-creator William Moulton Marston. That a comic about female empowerment was written by a woman for years, whose identity was kept a secret to preserve the myth of the male writer, does seem rather odd.

Born on April 4th, 1924, and a Long Island resident, Kelly began working for William Moulton Marston, writing on Wonder Woman in 1944 when she was 20, after taking a psychology class from him. He tutored her as an assistant writer on the comic books – three titles and a newspaper strip – and she took over writing the comics entirely, from Wonder Woman #12's The Winged Maidens of Venus. She wrote over riting 70 Wonder Woman stories through to 1947, when William Moulton Marston died of cancer. But when she was credited, it was with the in-house pseudonym of Charles Moulton.

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Ghostwritten Book Axed but Author Keeps Advance

Kim Richards’ Tell-All Book Gets Axed By Publisher; Gets To Keep $300K Advance Anyway

by Alex Darus on March 30th, 2021

 

Out of all the ladies on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kim Richards undoubtedly has the craziest story to tell. Kim was a child star, sisters to socialites Kathy Hilton and Kyle Richards. Her relationships were tumultuous in many aspects of her life, including on-camera with her sisters. She’s been open about her struggles with addiction and the law. And she’s a single mom, all while being in the spotlight.

Despite the ups and downs, Kim’s honesty on RHOBH is directly responsible for some of the best scenes in housewives’ history. So when she announced she was writing a tell-all book, that she didn’t even tell Kyle and Kathy about, I couldn’t contain my excitement.

But after more than a few delays, The Daily Mail reports that Kim’s publisher, Harper Collins, will not be releasing the book. The source claims that The Whole Truth: The Reality Of It All, which was due in October, will never hit the shelves.

“They killed it and they’re letting Kim keep the $300k book advance,” the source said. At least Kim gets to keep her money but come on, will we really never get to read Kim’s truth?  Like the story behind Kyle stealing her goddamn house? Or the dirt she knows about Harry Hamlin, even though Lisa Rinna won’t own it.

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