posted
Novelist Gerald Petievich, author of _To Live and Die in LA_ completed his first novel by waking at 3:30am and working away for four hours before heading to his day job. Stephen Coonts, author of the bestseller _Flight of the Intruder_ put in four hours every night and ten hours on Saturday, Sunday and holidays.
I found these tidbits in the essay “Five Questions Every First Novelist Must Answer” by W. C. Stroby in _The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Novel Writing_ (Writer’s Digest Book: 1992)
Coonts advises a first-time novelist to plan for at least 2,000 hours in order to complete a novel of any length. He suggested two to four hours a day for the beginner, Monday to Friday, which I calculate would take about two to four years.
I had previously estimated for a 90,000 word novel about 1,000-1,500 hours. My limited experience in fiction has already showed how many drafts upon drafts it takes to find the story, only to edit and edit before the prose is sufficiently polished and the dialogue chewable. On top of that the research seems to consume about a quarter of the time. So I felt relieved to her 2,000 hours recommended by a pro. I’m sure other first-time authors write faster—though I suspect not (on average) with great literary quality and/or bestselling success.
Does anyone else have figures on completion times from successful novelists? Likewise, figures for short story writing would be appreciated.
posted
I'm not sure. I've only attempted one novel thus far and it took about twelve months just writing whenever. It is only 55,000 words and, save for yet another major overhaul, will never see publication.
Here is a link to something OSC sort of said on the subject:
You will have to scroll to the very last section to get to the bit about "How long..." but the whole things is worth your while.
quote:Swallowing the Whale. But what do you have against novels? Is it the length that intimidates you? It shouldn't. Novels may be ten times the pages (or more), but they are not ten times the storyline. I find that it takes as much energy to create a good short story as to create a good novel -- the development time is the same. Only the typing time differs -- and not by that much.
Let's say you have six months of writing ahead of you. Twenty-six weeks, 182 days. Let's say that when you're really moving on a story, you can write five pages a day; when you're just starting out, though, you write only two usable pages a day. Most writers I know are like me in that they can't finish a story and immediately plunge in and write at full speed on the next. You need time to shift gears, to change from one imaginary world to another. And I'm not speaking just of science fiction, fantasy, or historical fiction, in which you literally change worlds. Even in realistic contemporary fiction, you have to move into the world that your characters inhabit -- their relationships, their locale, their work, their concerns.
So let's be fantastically optimistic, and say that it takes you only a week to let go of one story and get started on the next. And let's say that your stories are an average of 3,000 words in length (a bit long for li-fi, quite short for sci-fi). Using a "page" of 250 words, a novel of 100,000 words is 400 pages and a story of 3,000 words is twelve pages.
In writing the novel, you struggle with the new voices and milieux for the first fifty pages. That's twenty-five days at two good pages a day. But after that, you're really in your stride, and you can average five good pages a day. So the remaining 350 pages take you seventy days. Allowing yourself some days off, so you can have a life, you've got a novel finished in about a hundred days.
posted
My first novel was finished at 55,000wds in three months. But this was just the first draft (a mess). Then came the second draft to the sixth draft and ending at 75,000wds. This took another six months. I think it all depends on the book, the author, and what other commitments get in the way. Simply put, no one can tell you how long it takes to write a GOOD novel.
My second novel is still unfinished but I see an end in sight soon..hopefully...maybe...if all goes as planned. Who knows when? The truth is, I'm trying not to care. What really matters is what the end result is, not how long it takes you to get there.
posted
I'd like to think that I am not on any type of schedule--that is to say I don't dedicate blocks of time to my writing, it just happens when I've got the time. But 2,000 hours... man that seems intimidating. Although I suppose when I am completely finished, it will have taken that long. To be honest, my only goal is to have my story finished in five years... and then on to the parallel novel I guess. But maybe it's the way I write that makes it so trivial an issue. The way I do things is I write in very small chapters, sections really. These can be immensly short, anywhere from about 500-1200 words. My plan is, as the story continues to develop (and so does my skill) I will be able to expand those sections with feeling and description, hopefully (as I plan) to reach 3X what I had before. So basically I'm writing an extreemly detailed outline of the entire story, then I'm adding what could make it or break it later--sounds messed up I'm sure, but this way I can feel the story before getting bogged down by details.
posted
I would agree. After all a 'plan' is just that, a plan. Sometimes projects are completed to plan, other times they are completed early and sometimes they run over-time and over-budget.
At my rate of writing I think 2000 hours is a pretty good guess. (Of course being uber-analytical, that equates to only about 50 words an hour, written, revised and edited.)
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited July 04, 2005).]
Printer-friendly view of this topic
