Having recently completed and sent off a long and fairly complex writing project, I was delighted when my client got in touch a few days later, once he’d been able to look over everything, to tell me he was very pleased with the end result. In fact, in giving my work this thumbs-up, he paid me a compliment of the highest order in ghostwriting terms, which felt almost as gratifying as the knowledge that the final instalment of my fee would shortly be landing in my bank account. (Well, this is a job, of course, even if it’s one I’m passionate about.)

The reason I’m telling you this is not, I can assure you, to ‘big up’ my own achievements, but rather to give you an insight into how ghostwriting differs from almost every other type of writing, and to highlight one of the key abilities a ghostwriter needs to have.

In any context, when it comes to the kind of feedback a writer most wants to hear, you’d probably, quite rightly, expect this to relate to such factors as the power of their words to express an emotion, set a scene, convey an atmosphere, or capture a real or fictional character’s essence. Or to focus on qualities such as the originality of their writing style, or the sheer readability of their work, or the concision and economy with which they use words – and so on.

As it turns out, there are any number of aspects of someone’s writing which can be singled out for praise – and the value of such feedback for the writer will, of course, depend on what they were trying to achieve and what they rate most about their own work.

But one thing which you might not normally expect any author to be happy about is to be told that their work perfectly mimics someone else’s style, and completely mirrors someone else’s way of seeing the world.

Imagine if you said to a budding fiction author: ‘Your book is great – I really can’t tell the difference between your writing and that of JK Rowling/Maggie O’Farrell/Thomas Hardy…’ Unless you’re a ChatGPT bot (in which case you’d find this most gratifying), this type of feedback isn’t too far away from accusing you of plagiarism or, at the very least, an utter lack of originality. (Though I suppose it depends on the stature and talent of the writer you cite!)

When you’re a ghostwriter, however, being told precisely this – that you sound exactly like someone else – is generally one of the greatest accolades a client can give you.

In our world, because we’re writing as and for our clients and not on our own accounts, positive feedback can take a very different form. Hence my delight when the client in question told me: ‘The book is reading very well – I really like it. Every single sentence sounds just like me, and I honestly can’t tell which parts have come from you and which are mine… I was reading it and nodding along – and then I thought, “I don’t remember having written that story” – but I quickly decided that it must have been me, because I’m the only person who could have put it in quite that way.’

Just to give a little background, this project involved a slightly different scenario from the one I and my UG colleagues usually deal with – where we’re starting from scratch with a client, who hasn’t yet written a word of their story, and may not even have given much thought to exactly what they want to say. All of us here are very comfortable working in this kind of situation, and will help the prospective author hammer out the basic content, the structure and the detail of their book.

In this case, however, the author, an interior designer and a skilled writer himself, had already put together a full first draft of the text. He had enlisted my help to fill out some parts of the book, and particularly to expand the emotional aspects of the story – something which, he told me at the outset, he knew wasn’t one of his strengths. So there were large sections of the manuscript which had been written by him, and which needed very limited input from me. He’d written the draft many months earlier and had been very busy working on other projects in the interim, which is why he couldn’t always remember exactly what had come directly from him.

So, if you’re considering working with a professional writer or you’re in the process of looking for one, this is something worth remembering. The mark of a really good ghostwriter is a willingness to enter into the process in a way which seems to go against every instinct most creative writers have or are at pains to cultivate.

Instead of spending time honing our own distinctive style and way of seeing the world, we ghostwriters must be capable of completely setting aside our own ego, outlook and convictions in order to enable someone else to tell their unique story in the fullest, truest possible way.

For any writer with a sense of their own identity, this is not a small ask. For some, it just isn’t possible at all. But this is what makes for a truly competent professional ghostwriter. Over and above pure writing skills and ability, it’s the biggest single attribute you need.