Getting ghost-writing right

By Brian Clegg

Listening to recent episode of Ed Balls and George Osborne’s usually excellent podcast, Political Currency, I felt that the pair failed to give a decent answer to a question about celebrity books where ghost writers are engaged.

They both effectively said that it was fine for a memoir to be ghost-written, as it made the writing better: it was still the stories told by the celeb. I’m sure this is often true, but I think that are three key problems with ghost writing that the ex-ministers didn’t touch on.

The first is the visibility of the ghost writer to the reader. As Ed and George mentioned, they usually get a mention somewhere. But for me the only acceptable thing is that a ghostwriter’s name appears clearly on the cover. I’ve no problem with the celeb’s name being bigger, but I expect to see ‘with Fred Ghost’ on the front of the book, not hidden away somewhere in the small print along with the ISBN on the title page inside.

Secondly, there’s the matter of how much the celebrity actually does contribute. We got the impression from Ed and George of a celebrity telling all their best stories, then carefully ensuring that the finished product doesn’t distort the truth. I remember hearing from someone involved in the production of a celebrity ‘autobiography’ where the celebrity was asked what he thought of it and his response was ‘Oh, I didn’t read it.’ That isn’t on.

But worst of all, we had no mention of the ultimate celebrity ‘written’ travesty: ghost-written fiction. All we heard about was memoirs. But there is a whole industry of children’s and adult’s fiction where the only bit the celebrity writes is their name on the cover. It’s one thing to get help turning interviews that gleaned your experience into a reasonable biography. But having a few vague ideas for a storyline does not give you the right to claim a piece of fiction. These things are abominations and booksellers should label them as such.

Image from Unsplash by Lara John – I wanted a ghost writing, but this was the best I could do without AI (I assume)

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.