How much time to write a story/chapter?

[Stella Blue]

We all write at different paces, of course, but there is variation even in our own writing speeds. Maybe you're a really fast writer and wrote a whole novel during NaNo - but one time it took months just to write one chapter. Or maybe you're generally a slow writer, but once  you wrote a chapter in less than an hour.

 

That's kind of the point of this thread - I'm curious if you consider yourself a fast or a slow writer, and if you've had any outstanding chapters in terms of time (really fast or really slow) that you want to share about! Are one-shots generally faster or slower than chapters of a WIP? (I know this can depend on word count, but... generally.)

 

I myself am a slow writer, definitely: on longer WIP's my average is about one chapter every two months (So my first novel took nearly seven years to write, and sadly this is the same rate at which I'm writing my current novel ). One-shots are definitely faster for me. As for extremes: Chapter 7 of Divided took me a year and a half to write - on the other hand, my one-shot low tide took about ten minutes, all in one sitting.

 

What about you all?

[PinsandKneazles]

I'd say much depends on my level of motivation and how easy/difficult I find the subject material to work with.

 

A 5000-word chapter that I'm enjoying could take me between one and three days to write, edit and proof-read.

A tedious 3000-word chapter could take anywhere between a week and forever to finish!

 

One-shots typically take me a couple of hours to write, but much longer to edit and proof-read.

[Diogenissa]

Mine largely depends on what's going on -- usually a general OS will take me about 2-3 weeks (if I stay on it and don't lose steam -- I have 2 OSs that are almost done that I started back in November that have just set ugh).

 

However during NaNo (both Nov. and Camps) I tend to their credo of just write and that helps me tremendously.  I find I can get stuff done faster when I just let the ideas fall where they may instead of trying to nitpick as I go along -- we writers are our own worst critics more oftentimes than not (at least so far as my own experience -- I'm terrible and never satisfied lol). 

 

It also doesn't help when you got a million and one story ideas fighting for space in your head w/ the already existing WIPs, thus making it hard to decide what to work on.

[lovegood27]

Depends with me. Sometimes I just really cannot be bothered with writing so I just spout out some stuff and I can get a chapter done with in 1-2 days (technically it's about an hour because that's how much time I spend writing every day). I don't proof read it or make changes, I just go ahead and post it (yes, I know, I'm such a dedicated author : )

 

If I really want to make an effort, however, it takes me about twice as much time. Normally it's when I write one-shots because then I need to spend some time thinking about how I can cram all my ideas into a single chapter. Once I have the ideas, though, it's easy to get writing. It's just that I then have to go over if for mistakes and edit it..again...and again. This goes on until I'm absolutely ready for it to be posted.

 

In short, never less than 1 day and never more than 5

[hedwig1751]

It really depends tbh... during the holidays I can get a chapter/ two chapters written in a day if I'm dedicated enough, but I really need to have a solid plan and ideas. For some chapters, I think as I write, so thinking about what should happen next takes quite a while longer. When I'm busy during weekdays, I can only squeeze in a section or two per couple of days.

 

Right now, I have a bit of writer's block . I have ideas for the next chapter of my Novella, I've written a few sections on it, and I know what I'm going to do next, but I just can't get it started. Sigh.

 

Anyway, I can only write quickly and efficiently once I have a plan going , assuming I don't have writer's block 

[Lost Muse]

I think I'm one of the rare few who ploughs through a chapter/one-shot in one go. It takes me somewhere between 2-5 hours but if I get cracking on a one-shot or a chapter, I don't stop until I finish writing. Unless of course something comes up and I've to take a break... but I never leave one chapter / one-shot to be continued for the next day... it's very important for me to get it all out at once in the flow, so even if it's with breaks, I tend to at least finish writing in one day. My chapter/one-shot lengths tend to not be very long for this reason probably, rarely exceeding 5000 words. Of course, once the writing is done, I can spend up to like 5 days on editing and proof-reading - sometimes I end up changing the original to a large extent, but as I said, the first draft definitely gets done in one sitting in a day. My average editing period is then 2-3 days of going over it before I finally am satisfied enough.

 

With that rambling out of the way, I think I'd consider myself a fast writer in terms of individual chapters/one-shots, but am slow when it comes to writing multiple chapters i.e. I tend to take much longer breaks between two chapters.... and my "planning and plotting" stage of a chapter before I actually get to the writing bit takes a while. I am a huge procrastinator when it comes to novels/WIPs!

[Rhaenyra]

I've had a couple days in my history of NaNoWriMos where I've written 10k, so those days were obviously 2 or 3 chapters.  That is definitely the exception, though.  Like I said in another thread I like to have chapters that are 3-5k, so a lot of time that doesn't happen unless I have a lot of free time or when it flows.

 

Some stories have come out in one sitting (A Witch in the Family is the one that stands out in my mind), but others have been a lot of work.  I find that this happens more in longer stories, where you have to do all the connecting bits and build up rather than the fun stuff you can focus on in a one-shot.

[ImaRavenclaw]

For me it also really depends. Usually if I have a really good idea for something but I don't know how to write it I get frustrated and take a million years to start. But for one-shots I usually write them (depending on how long) all in one sitting, though I do sometimes take longer; this is usually so that I don't get out of touch with the story or what I had in mind. Behind This Mask (a 7000 word Neville/Cormac one-shot) I wrote in one sitting (and lacked sleep, survived the whole school day without coffee, I think that means something awesome), even when I knew that I should stop on account of it being three in the morning. Yeah, I didn't stop writing until six. But I started at eleven so you can do the math if you want 

 

My current novel focus The Great Tale of Me, Lyra Malfoy was something I started in May of 2016 so I'll have been writing it for a full year (my one year anniversary of posting fanfiction was on the 3rd!) soon, and I have 10 (the 11th is in the queue) posted totalling to about 21481 words.

 

Novels definitely take a lot of time. Writing in general takes time. But in conclusion it just depends on what day of the week it is, how much time I have, if I have good ideas, whether or not I have my magical fuzzy sherpa fur socks on, etc.

[BellaLestrange87]

too long

It depends. I haven't written anything in a while because I haven't had the muse *shakes fist at sky* but often how long it takes me to write a chapter depends on how long the chapter is. Seek and Chase chapters, for example, averaged around 3000 words or something, and they took me a few days to a week to write (sitting down and pounding out words for two or so hours a night). Fics with shorter chapters, like So Cruel, would only take a day or two because they're 1500 words at the maximum. It also depends on whether or not I've plotted the fic out; if I have to stop in the middle of a chapter to figure out what's going to happen and come up with foreshadowing and all that it takes longer than if I can just glance over at a notebook, say "okay, Thing A happens next", and then write Thing A.

[lebensmude]

I'm definitely a slow writer most of the time and that's usually because I get so incredibly busy that I completely forgetting about writing anything and then I lose all of the ideas that I had in my head and have to start from square one and it's so daunting have to come up with those ideas again. And my writing time is usually sporadic, I won't touch anything for two years and then over the summer, I'll finish writing all of the chapters for something that's been left undone for quite a bit. There've been some days where I've written 5000 words in a matter of three hours or a bit more, and there've been times where it's taken me a week just to write one sentence, and sometimes this is just because of how up to writing I feel.

For me, generally speaking, one-shots take less time than short stories or novels and novellas just because I know that once I finish the one-shot it'll be over and done with and I won't have to worry about it anymore, and they're usually not as complex as what a full novel would have to be. 

[nott theodore]

The amount of time it takes for me to write/finish a chapter really depends massively.  For instance, I am currently trying to work on a novel for one of my JulNo projects that I first started three years ago, and I still haven't posted a chapter of it.  And then at the weekend I wrote five drabbles over two days (which obviously are a lot shorter, but they were taking me less than an hour to write each).

When I'm actually into writing properly, I can write a chapter in a few hours, although it's harder to write in one sitting now because of work and life in general.  A cooperative muse tends to be far more useful for me than a deadline

[shadowycorner]

23 hours ago, nott theodore said:

 

When I'm actually into writing properly, I can write a chapter in a few hours, although it's harder to write in one sitting now because of work and life in general.

Totally! I feel like at my age and with all the different responsibilities I have, it's much harder to find the time without sacrificing something else from RL. It was way different when I was an introverted teenager with all the time in the world :D

For me, unsurprisingly, it also varies. Some chapters take weeks, some are written in a matter of hours. I think it's about the level of distraction I have plus my mental state and also the time I'm available to really focus on it and write. But to kind of make any sort of generalization I would say days, and only because even if I write a chapter quickly and in one go, I learned it's good if I let it sit at least until the next day when I can look at it with fresh eyes and do both effective editing as well as have the space for last minute changes and improvements. Very often I find things to fix or change, so I've conditioned myself to give myself that time.

When it comes to one-shots, those always take many sessions. I don't think I've ever written a one-shot in one go :D Since there is a story there that needs to kinda be finished in the same chapter, it takes much more agonizing over, lol.