Writing Blog Number 2

20240503 How Long Does Writing Take?

How Long Does Writing Take?

This comes from Elfycia Lee ☮ asking me a question after yesterday’s blog post:
”Let's say you are to write a 5k words short story. How long does it take you?
         My teacher kinda made us outline and write five drafts within a week. Is that doable or I'm just slow? Okay, I know that you said to each our own. Just very curious.
         It takes me a whole week to write a first draft for a 5k-word.”

First, I will say this – five drafts in a week is excessive, and when I was a teacher I would never demand that of any students. It feels like giving work for the sake of giving work. Okay, got that off my chest.

Right. To the crux of the question – speed of writing.

There is nothing right or wrong. And no two writers are the same. However, in general, it will often come down to if you are a plotter or pantser (see "20240120 Plotting and Pantsing" ).

Now, if you are a plotter, then the planning phase generally take the longest , and even for a short story, this can take weeks. But once you have the plan sorted, the writing phase generally can be relatively quick, and edits tend to be less about story and character because you worked it out beforehand.

If you are a pantser, then the initial writing phase takes less time because you want to get the idea out before you lose it. However, because of the rush, there is a greater chance of character and plot errors.

For the record, I am a chronic pantser, and very, very rarely plot anything.

But time.

Look, you need to work at what speed suits you. In general, if an idea is there, and either a plan is finished or a pantser is on a role, the average according to many sites seems to be 1000 words a day. However, in my creative writing degree, the lecturers gave us 1000 to 1500 words a day as an average. But averages mean half write more and half write less.

Using Elfycia Lee ☮’s example, a 5000 word story would take me 1 to 2 days to finish a first draft. My former editor would have taken a week to two weeks. Stephen King would have taken a day. Lionel Fanthorpe would have written three in a day. JD Salinger would have taken a month or more.

This brings me to a point I think needs to be made:
         Do not compare yourself to other writers.

Every writer is different. I have found in the past in some writing groups that people feel intimidated by my word count when I am on a roll. Last year during NaNoWriMo I wrote more than 153k words in a month. That averages out to 5000+ words a day. On my local NaNo server, some writers stopped because of how I was going (and one other woman who ended up clearing off 225k words for the month).

NaNoWriMo is one of the few times when you are required to write a certain word count in a certain time. Others include entering contests, submitting to open calls, and getting work finished before a life event (surgery, marriage, etc.).

In the end, though, you are the writer and you know what is best for you.

There was a writer whose name escapes me who wrote a sentence a day, but he would agonise over each word, and sometimes he would rewrite that sentence the next day. In that regard, if you edit as you go, that is going to slow you. If you change your plan as you go, this is going to slow you. If you get into a groove, that is going to speed you up. But pace is individual.

How long does it take to write anything?

Does it matter?