There’s a persistent myth that fast writing equals crap writing.
Those who believe in this myth fail to realize a few things:
- It doesn’t take into account the fact that traditional publishing, with its 1 book per year, per author schedule to prevent “over saturation” or “dilution” of an author’s brand has forced many authors to write under pen names because they can and do write in more than one genre or write more than one book per year. “Slow” writing is an outdated traditional publishing marketing gimmick.
- It doesn’t take into account how long one has been writing, and what sort of skill they’ve developed during that time.
- It doesn’t take into account whether an author is writing in a series, where each successive book is easier to write because all of the world-building/research has already been done.
- It doesn’t take into account either age or life experience of the writer.
- It doesn’t take into account length of each work. Not all works are novel length.
Let’s take three writers and consider the number of words they can write per hour. That will not include things like revisions and research, only the actual number of words they can produce in an hour.
Writer A – 250 words per hour
Writer B – 500 words per hour
Writer C – 1,000 words per hour
Here’s a table showing how many words they can write based on how many hours per day they devote to writing:
Hours Per Day | Writer A | Writer B | Writer C |
1 | 250 | 500 | 1,000 |
2 | 500 | 1,000 | 2,000 |
3 | 750 | 1,500 | 3,000 |
4 | 1,000 | 2,000 | 4,000 |
5 | 1,250 | 2,500 | 5,000 |
6 | 1,500 | 3,000 | 6,000 |
Now let’s say that each of those writers can only write on weekends during the year (52 weeks x 2 days = 104 days of writing time). Here’s their yearly output:
Hours Per Day | Writer A | Writer B | Writer C |
1 | 26,000 | 52,000 | 104,000 |
2 | 52,000 | 104,000 | 208,000 |
3 | 78,000 | 156,000 | 312,000 |
4 | 104,000 | 208,000 | 416,000 |
5 | 130,000 | 260,000 | 520,000 |
6 | 156,000 | 312,000 | 624,000 |
Even the slowest writer, Writer A, can complete an epic novel in a year, writing 6 hours per day, two days weekly. Or Writer A could complete two 78k word novels.
Let’s say each of them is a full-time writer, and can write every single day of each year.
Hours Per Day | Writer A | Writer B | Writer C |
1 | 91,250 | 182,500 | 365,000 |
2 | 182,500 | 365,000 | 730,000 |
3 | 273,750 | 547,500 | 1,095,000 |
4 | 365,000 | 730,000 | 1,460,000 |
5 | 456,250 | 912,500 | 1,825,000 |
6 | 547,500 | 1,095,000 | 2,190,000 |
I’m going to use Writer A’s lowest output as the standard novel length for the next two paragraphs.
At just 1 hour per day, Writer A would complete at least one novel. Writer B would complete two, and Writer C would complete four.
At the highest output for each writer (6 hours per day, which equals 42 hours of writing per week), Writer A would complete 6 novels, Writer B would complete 12 novels, and Writer C would finish 24 novels.
Basically, if a writer is treating writing as a full-time job, and devoting 42 hours per week to actual writing (not research/plotting/brainstorming/etc prep work), your “average” author could write anywhere from 1 to 24 complete novels per year.
And there are a lot of people who think that’s way too fast. I personally don’t think that’s too fast at all, not when you’re putting in full-time hours every week.
I have yet to get into the habit of devoting full-time hours to writing. Thus far this year, I’ve written on 129 days for an average of 1,552 words per day. My average word per hour output is 1,100, which means I’ve not spent more than about 1.4 hours per day actually writing.
I’m a slacker, y’all.
My goal is to set the habit of writing for roughly 92% of the days per year. 52 weeks – 4 weeks for off days/holidays/whatever = 48 weeks x 7 days per week = 336 days.
Here’s my daily output based on how many hours per day I write:
Hours Per Day | Writer Me |
1 | 1,100 |
2 | 2,200 |
3 | 3,300 |
4 | 4,400 |
5 | 5,500 |
6 | 6,600 |
Now, here’s my potential yearly output writing only on weekends (104 days per year) versus writing full-time (336 days per year) at each number of hours:
Hours Per Day | 104 Days Per Year | 336 Days Per Year |
1 | 114,400 | 369,600 |
2 | 228,800 | 739,200 |
3 | 343,200 | 1,108,800 |
4 | 457,600 | 1,478,400 |
5 | 572,000 | 1,848,000 |
6 | 686,400 | 2,217,600 |
If I became more of a slacker than I currently am, I could still finish at least 1 novel per year, plus a 20k or so novella. On the other hand, if I set the habit of writing 6 hours daily (and life didn’t constantly interrupt those hours), I could finish as many as 9.8 novels per year writing only 12 hours per week.
Of course, my average novel length isn’t 91,250 words. Mine is about 70k words, which would be 31.7 novel length titles per year for me if I wrote full-time (6 hours per day, 336 days of the year).
Or 63.4 novellas, or 147.8 novelettes—I don’t only write novel length works.
What I’m saying is, you can’t judge what’s good or crap simply by assuming the speed of its production is the major factor in quality.
It’s like any other job: Someone who has been doing it for years will have the experience, knowledge, and skill to do the job faster than someone who just started training for the same position. A person who can devote more time to it will produce more words than someone who can’t spend as much time doing it.