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How much do you plan?

Hi Incanus,

Twelve novels a year? I'm good but nowhere near that good. My best year was four novels and two shorter works. And time management helps. Currently I have two tv shows a week that I watch - Castle and Humans - and the news. I live alone and I spend fairly much all my free time writing. As for Spaced, I freely admit this one is extreme production even for me.

But the key to my speed is that it's first draft. I write fast and with a lot of mistakes. Then comes the entire next step starting with the beta reading. So I may write a novel in a month, but it might then take me a second month to rewrite it, and the third to go through the rounds of editing.

However, I do feel compelled to mention Michael Moorcock. For a while he was writing a novel every ten days - though he had a team to help him. You should google his method. It was basically a very prescriptive method with his novels all quite short and following a pattern - and yet they're not bad reads at all.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Incanus

Auror
Yeah, I sort of extrapolated off that one stat you gave, knowing full well there was still editing to be taken into account. It's still almost unbelievable: four edited novels in a year. Astonishing.

I plan on being pretty sloppy for my upcoming first draft and increasing my output, but as I said earlier, I honestly don't believe I could even match Svrtnsse's 20000 word outlinein a month with a gun to my head. Totally not joking; I'd be a gonner. I could conceivably use a little more of my free time, but writing is really, really, really, really hard and drains my brain like nothing else. 3 or 4 hours and I turn into an empty husk of a human. Usually I do under 3 a day.

Time management not good: in about 13 months I've got a little under 60000 words, almost all of which has been edited 1 to 4 times. A typical writing week would be working 5-6 days, about 2 hours each session, I'd say. And, the stories are probably only mediocre at best. Still, I enjoy it, and plan to continue on.

I note that some famous books are written at wildly different rates-- Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was written in 9 days, and Lord of the Rings took about 16 years. I should fall somewhere in between those!!

edit--Interesing about Moorcock. I know Dumas was super-prolific as well, and also had a 'team'.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Time management not good: in about 13 months I've got a little under 60000 words, almost all of which has been edited 1 to 4 times. A typical writing week would be working 5-6 days, about 2 hours each session, I'd say. And, the stories are probably only mediocre at best.
Have faith in the idea that no writing performed in earnest is ever wasted.

I'm willing to bet you've learned a lot in those 13 months. You're also probably closer to establishing the vision of how you want to write, your developed voice & chosen style.

You might find in the future that you need to approach writing from a different angle, through a process completely different from what you described above. Yet, that time spent learning craft while you struggle to find your method is indispensable.

Continue to write. Keep challenging yourself. Stretch your boundaries and experiment. In time, if you don't give up, you'll find your way.
 
I'm currently working on a short story project where I'm muse-writing stories based on their (story) cover paintings. It's a weekly thing, and I am also painting the cover in that limited time. Along with other paying stuff to support my writing.

So, time is something I already don't have. That said, I am still trying to plan it before I start with the story. These stories are fairly short, around 3.5k-4k words, but I plan the main points of the story before I type anything. I have a somewhat clear idea of how it starts, what happens in there and how it ends. Still there are always endless revisions in the final, but that's another thing.

I'm also working on a novel-length illustrated dark sci-fi story. I have figured out almost all the main points of the story. Even already written a short synopsis-like rough draft. But I'm letting it sink in for a few months before start writing the first draft.

Both my projects are two very different approaches, and I'm kind of experimenting.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I'm willing to bet you've learned a lot in those 13 months. You're also probably closer to establishing the vision of how you want to write, your developed voice & chosen style.

A way of testing this is to pick a piece of your early writing and rewrite it. I did this a while back and it was very encouraging. I picked one of my very first short stories from a few years ago and used it as outline for a new story.

EDIT: It's on the blog too, both versions. Here: Stories | s v r t n s s e - scroll down to the end, it's the story about Tuuli.
 
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Incanus

Auror
Have faith in the idea that no writing performed in earnest is ever wasted.

I'm willing to bet you've learned a lot in those 13 months. You're also probably closer to establishing the vision of how you want to write, your developed voice & chosen style.

You might find in the future that you need to approach writing from a different angle, through a process completely different from what you described above. Yet, that time spent learning craft while you struggle to find your method is indispensable.

Continue to write. Keep challenging yourself. Stretch your boundaries and experiment. In time, if you don't give up, you'll find your way.

So well put. Indeed, the main point of my writing over the last year was to 'learn', as opposed to 'produce'. I occasionally have a fleeting moment where I lose sight of this.

I deliberately chose to work with different formats and POVs for this very reason.

The 8 titles I wrote contain at least one instance of the following features:

First-person POV; Third-person limited POV; Third-person omniscient POV.

Flash fiction; Prose-poem; Short story; Novelette; Novella

One is written in a rich, dense, old-fashioned style, and one is in a modern, lean style--the rest fall somewhere in between (though admittedly closer to the 'rich' side).

All of it was quite 'earnest', to say the least. Actually, looking over the list I just wrote, it seems pretty comprehensive. Could be worse.
 

Russ

Istar
edit--Interesing about Moorcock. I know Dumas was super-prolific as well, and also had a 'team'.

The Moorcock mad productivity stories are interesting. Keep in mind they were 60,000 word novels. I don't think he had anything resembling a "team" in those days. You should also consider that in some older articles that I have not yet seen on the interweb he inferred he was using some interesting substances to help himself write. Can't recommend that.

How to Write a Book in Three Days: Lessons from Michael Moorcock | Wet Asphalt

I know lots of seasoned pros who are happy with 1000-2000 words a day.
 

Incanus

Auror
The Moorcock mad productivity stories are interesting. Keep in mind they were 60,000 word novels. I don't think he had anything resembling a "team" in those days. You should also consider that in some older articles that I have not yet seen on the interweb he inferred he was using some interesting substances to help himself write. Can't recommend that.

How to Write a Book in Three Days: Lessons from Michael Moorcock | Wet Asphalt

I know lots of seasoned pros who are happy with 1000-2000 words a day.

Thanks Russ. Great link. Aside from the speed factor, there is some good basic info in there--should apply whether you're spending 3 days or 3 years. Setting up and sticking to a structure just makes a great deal of sense, particularly while first-drafting. It can always be messed with later.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I know lots of seasoned pros who are happy with 1000-2000 words a day.

Is this rough draft? Edited? In what stage?

After reading through the last part of this thread, I became interested in the question:

How many hours would it take to write and edit a 60,000 word novel (not counting down time while it's at the beta readers, editors, etc. Just total hours with butt in chair.)?

Here's what I came up with:

1st Draft - 2000 WPH
2nd Draft - 3000 WPH
3rd Draft - 6000 WPH (ready to send to beta readers)
4th Draft - 3000 WPH
5th Draft - 12000 WPH
Proof - 12000 WPH (ready to send to copy editor)
Pick up Copy Edits - 12000 WPH (time spent picking up proofreader comments negligible)

If I did my math right, I'm creating 632 publishable words per hour spent with my butt in the chair. Therefore, a 60k novel will take roughly 95 hours. At 1.5 hours per day, I can produce a novel every 63 days. Not great but not horrible.
 
Usually, I give myself about 2 to 3 months of playing it out in my head before taking it to paper but on my last two projects, I really didn't give myself much time at all. The one I'm working on now, I gave it maybe a month or two and it definitely went through a couple of changes before I took it to paper but the one before that I started on it as soon as I got the idea.
 

Incanus

Auror
At 1.5 hours per day, I can produce a novel every 63 days. Not great but not horrible.

Not great, really? That works out to 6 (albeit short) completed novels a year! Even better than psychotick.

If I recall correctly, didn't you spend around 4 years on your first novel? You'd sure be picking up a lot of speed there.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Not great, really? That works out to 6 (albeit short) completed novels a year! Even better than psychotick.

If I recall correctly, didn't you spend around 4 years on your first novel? You'd sure be picking up a lot of speed there.

I've gotten really serious about writing in the last few months. Those numbers I gave aren't pie in the sky plans; they're on the low end of what I'm actually doing.

Understand that it took me four years to learn how to write and find my voice. Now that I have something that I think works for me, I can go full speed ahead.

I started outlining Repulsive , at that point barely a concept in my head, on 7/14. Started writing on 8/3. Friday morning, I'll be complete with the 2nd draft at 55,000 words; that's less than a month.

My big challenge for myself will be to write the entire rough draft of Gryphon, estimated around 120k, during the month of November. I'm going to have to push myself to two hours a day.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
The day you sat down to begin your novel, how much planning had you done? Did you have just a few ideas and a handful of scratch notes? Or did you have everything about plot and characters all worked out ahead of time? Maybe something in between? What things do you absolutely have to have ready before you start? Is there a minimum? Do you do more than the minimum? How did you know you were ready to begin writing?

For me, this has changed pretty radically down through the decades.

To be clear, my initial writing efforts back then were AD&D writing rip offs. Looking back at some of those early fragments, I can almost hear the dice rolling. Likewise, my rather...over-extensive world building was very much AD&D focused. Usually I'd just pick an idea I deemed 'cool' and start writing. When in doubt, I went back to the AD&D handbooks. Predictably, I wrote myself into a lot of corners; while I wrote a lot back then, I finished very little.

After a while, I realized that gaming systems simply don't translate well to story telling and writing.

Ok, flash forward to about eight years ago. After a long hiatus, I started writing again. Same deal as before: I picked a cool idea and started writing. And when I hit roadblocks, I turned to my old notes and the AD&D collection. But this time, I used all that in strictly an advisory capacity. And (rare for me) I finished a rough draft (though I didn't realize it as such) of a longer work.

This exercise prompted me to reevaluate my old material not for gaming, but for story telling. I made maps and rough guides, noting potential issues leading to story telling possibilities: barbarians destroying an old empire, cities ruled by demons, technology emerging in a sort of revamped roman empire and more.

Result: I now have two worlds with relatively detailed histories, cultures, magic, and technology - and an abundance of transition points for stories, long and short. Hence, when I start a new work set in either of those worlds, much of the background worldbuilding is done, and because of the history, I know the general course, at least, the story must take.

About the time I came here I decided I wasn't going to start a story unless I had at least a hazy idea as to the beginning, middle, and end. I have learned this approach works fine for short stories and novelettes - up to around 15,000 words. Past that, complications ensue.

I have been working on a series of novella's (35,000 - 40,000 words) the past few years. Ok, I wrote the first draft of the first one three years ago, botched a rewrite a year and a half ago, and finally finished the second rewrite a few months ago. Then I started on the second in the series, and realized that while I had solid ideas for the majority of the scenes, I didn't know the order those scenes went in, plus a couple of dang big plot holes had slid by me. I was getting tangled. So, I did an outline. Just a few pages, maybe a thousand words. It helped a lot. Composing the outline helped me further organize my concepts.

I finished the draft for that novella in May. Then in July, I started the third in the series. July was a hectic month, with many real world distractions. I composed part of an outline, which was not well thought out. As a result, my scenes were not well thought out, and I was engaging in major rewrites almost from the start. August, if anything was at least as hectic as July, and as a result my progress has slowed to a crawl - if that.

But to sum up:

Begin with a cool idea. Maybe write a scene based on said cool idea (which I think of as an 'idea piece.'

Brainstorm some more. Long or short story? Shorter story, determine beginning, middle, and end. Longer story, put together an outline. This phase can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months. Often I realize that other 'cool' idea's or situations can be merged with this effort.

Start writing. Usually a crude first draft with gaping plot holes and other issues, a smoothed over second draft, and then an edit pass.

Went and ordered that '5000 words per hour' book, see if it'll help.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Went and ordered that '5000 words per hour' book, see if it'll help.

I think the book is a help, but for me, it's really all about motivation. Two things that most helped me:

1. Reading about increasing my efficiency.

I found this motivating in two ways:

a: The concept of sprints lowers the barrier to start writing. Instead of thinking "I'm going to write a book" (a huge freaking task) or even an entire chapter, I think "I'm going to devote the next thirty minutes solely to writing." That's not all that hard to do. What's 30 minutes?

b: I had actually discovered this next part prior to reading books on the subject - the act of tracking my progress helps make me do more. The theory has something to do with brain chemicals or something, but being able to check off in a spreadsheet that you did something gives you this happy feeling, which your brain wants more and more of.

2. I discovered that there are a lot of self published authors who are achieving success.

It really seems like anyone can get to the $1000 - $2000 a month range, and a lot of people are over $5000/month. Some are doing much, much better than that.

For a long time, the message I got around the internet was, "The only way you're going to succeed as a writer is if you get lucky."

I found that message incredibly demotivating. If I have no control over my destiny, what's the point of putting in the work? That message saddled me with a "writing is a hobby only" mentality for a long time.

Then I discovered that I can control my destiny. I am absolutely positive that I can succeed. All I have to do is work hard enough and smart enough for long enough. Okay, that's a big, big, huge "all," but still ... I find that message incredibly uplifting. It propels me to spend that 1.5 to 2 hours a day with my butt in a seat putting words on the page.
 

Adalind

Dreamer
When I was working on my previous novels, I didn’t plan anything. As a consequence they were just … lacking, and I never did anything with them again because fixing them seemed to be an impossible task.

With my current project I’ve decided to make a detailled outline and character profiles before I start writing. This way I can immediately see if the plot makes sense, if it’s exciting enough and if there are any plot holes. I’ve even decided what goes into which chapter.
 
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Helen

Inkling
The day you sat down to begin your novel, how much planning had you done?

Tons.

I try to "see the story."

But that doesn't mean I won't have written anything at all - often I'll have written scenes to see how they pan out, how many pages they take up, what's missing from them etc.
 
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