Do you set a minimum number of pages to write per day? Why or why not?
How many pages do you write per day or how many pages per day did you write when you were on track for publication?
What is a realistic amount required, on average, for deadline-set novel writing?
Not unless I'm actively trying to dig into or finish up a book. Even then I don't really manage to stick to a consistent schedule and it still gets done in about 4-5 months. You mostly just need to flesh an idea out enough beforehand and the rest more or less falls into place.
bump
Well it depends. Some might say that setting a minimum of pages per day will simply make you write to fill the pages. Some people prefer to set x hours per day into writing, but the risk might be that you will take longer to finish your book.
As already said, preparation is key: flesh out your idea from the start, you will save up some valuable time.
For a deadline, look at it like this: if you write 3 pages per day, you can reach 300 pages in 3 months, more or less.
I usually write until i hate myself, what im writing, the world in general, and sometimes reality itself. This takes somewhere between 3000 and 6000 words to accomplish usually and the vast majority of it is complete garbage
I never edit any of it either so it's just an unending stream of bullshit
Depends where you are in the work. Outlining is the most important stage of writing something worth reading. And I'm not talking the fucking web bullshit they teach you in elementary school but rather a hearty summary of the story, the plot, important events, separate summaries of each major character, what they're like and why they're like that. Identifying themes you want to explore and/or the overarching philosophical exposition/exploration you want to make.
Outlining is necessarily slower than actual writing, but if you're writing with a good outline it's easy to hum along at a reasonable pace.
>Depends where you are in the work. Outlining is the most important stage of writing something worth reading. And I'm not talking the fucking web bullshit they teach you in elementary school but rather a hearty summary of the story, the plot, important events, separate summaries of each major character, what they're like and why they're like that. Identifying themes you want to explore and/or the overarching philosophical exposition/exploration you want to make.
Cart before the horse tbqh.
I usually just write whenever I feel like it. If i feel good and inspired, I'll write up to 15 pages, but there have been many times when I just wrote a couple of paragraphs and called it a day
I saw a list that included some of the big name writers and it said they write between 1000-3000 words a day. Depends on the author.
I use word count instead of a page count. You should aim for 500 words a day, at least. You can do 1000 in half an hour once you're writing often enough.
Usually books on writing are reluctant to tell you how many words to aim for in a genre work, but they'll usually give you some idea. Something like 100k words for a fantasy novel. If you can get 1k words a day, it'll take you about 3 months to write a first draft. Seems about right.
Nah. He's right. Everything will flow a lot smoother once you've built up an outline that's at least 10-20 pages long and maybe some supplementary documents like character notes, research, etc.
Even if you don't use all of it or stick to your exact outline, putting at least that much forethought into it is more important than just jumping in and writing it because it centers the idea in a way that refines the writing in ways that would otherwise take extreme amounts of editing to achieve.
Tl;dr: you're saving yourself a lot of work down the line by outlining well.
Write every time you get an inspiration. It comes in the form of a picture, or a sentence, or both, or a scene, or a juxtaposition of many things. Just wait for it, patiently, and when it comes, you'll fly. Writing is like learning how to fly with angel wings. You wait for the pixie dust, and it's easy. You force yourself, and your grow horns and write like a fat cow.
>Do you set a minimum number of pages to write per day? Why or why not?
No. For one, writers go by word count, not pages. I TRY to get at least 1000 words a day, but if I don't i don't sweat it. It's good to write every day in general, but if you're not feeling it, then fuck it.
>How many pages do you write per day or how many pages per day did you write when you were on track for publication?
No fucking clue what you're asking here.
>What is a realistic amount required, on average, for deadline-set novel writing?
Most writers will say 1000-2000 words a day.
>Even if you don't use all of it or stick to your exact outline
That's exactly the problem tho. You do a lot of work that adds no value and doesn't bring you any closer to your goal. Much better off doing write a little plan a little. After you've done a first draft then maybe look at it structurally, but doing it before you have the work you'll have writing forced into a structure rather than a structure supporting the writing, or you have to throw a lot of work away.
as a copywriter at an ad company, i would write 2-5 pages of ad copy anywhere between 200-800 words) depending on the client, among other duties.
as a writer of fiction, i write around 1000-1,500 words per day (on good days), usually from 10am to 3-4pm.
for me, consistency is key. however, if inspiration strikes at 2am, i get up and get to writing. inspiration, though, usually finds me during my regular writing hours.
every writer is different. find what works for you and continue from there.
>No fucking clue what you're asking here.
I think it's "how much do you write with no external pressures and how much do you write once you have a contract and a deadline".
Most writers will agree, never write anything under a deadline. Only agree to a deadline if you already got the work done, that's a pretty old writer's trick.
i would say avoid deadlines if you can. however, for anyone making a living at writing, that's nearly impossible. every type of writing other than creative or on spec has deadlines. neat theory, but not necessarily practical for the working writer.
4-5 months. Jesus it took me a year to get where I'm at and I'm not even an eighth of the way done. Currently suffering from George syndrome.
Have you ever been published or submitted anything? I'm assuming this is your thousands of pages magnum opus you're writing.
I've published a lot of poetry and one short story but all of my books get deleted because I never want to put my name on any of them. They're good enough to sell, but I wouldn't want people to know I was worse than I am now. And this is going to be aprox 7-8 hundred. I just spend too much time mulling over how I want each individual detail of everything to go over and over in my head.
It took me about a year to finish my first book. Did it at a pretty relaxed pace, and was drunk and incapable of writing 50% of the time. It was a learning experience too, I ended up with a 120k book that I eventually cut down to 80k.
Anymore, I can write a book in about 6 months, once again that's at a pretty relaxed pace.
If you got a year in, and you're not even 1/8th done....I'd seriously start re-evaluating whatever the hell it is you're doing.
i do this too
i'm not a writer though
No, sometimes I write for 14 hours and sometimes for 0. on unproductive days I spellcheck the whole thing or see if the crazy idea I had when hopped up on pepsi is still good . you need ideas and navel gazing is often good for ideas
I'm not saying your bad but do you think the quality of the work has anything to do with it? Sometimes I'll write 10-20 pages a day but then when a really integral part comes up. I'll break it down into segments small enough to make every single paragraph fantastic.
>They're good enough to sell, but I wouldn't want people to know I was worse than I am now.
Pen names bro. Pen names. I never submit any fiction under my birth name.
>I just spend too much time mulling over how I want each individual detail of everything to go over and over in my head.
Find the right time management for yourself. I of all things implement agile processes like kanban and sometimes scrum (scrum is actually pretty useful if you're behind on something and will have a short period of a few days to just sit down and spew out work product), but you don't have to go full retard like myself. Pomodoro is useful enough for most people (so sit down for 20 minutes and focus on 1 (ONE) process like writing or editing with little breaks in between). De Bono might also be quite useful. It's not bad to be detail focused but you don't want to be wasting effort for no reason either.
Quality has nothing to do with it if you don't even finish the project. If you've been working for a year, and the end isn't even in sight, quality is the least of your problems.
>all of my books get deleted because I never want to put my name on any of them. They're good enough to sell, but I wouldn't want people to know I was worse than I am now
not for nothing, but that's got to be one of the stupidest reasons for not publishing i've ever read.
Which is probably why it isn't true in the first place.
I'm aware it's illogical. But when I had the small fanbase I did I'd just look at them and be so disappointed. Imagine if you were the pewdiepie of books.
To each his own, but I find that having the framework already set out stops me from doing more 'valueless' work because rather than going back and editing out sections that are either not on-target or out of character, I catch myself half way through writing them and think 'no, that's not right because this character's actions are supposed to move him towards X and this moves him towards Y'
I then take what I have written and throw it into a document full of clippings. Sometimes I'll actually add them back in, but doing this more or less ensures that my first drafts are sharp. I prefer to start with an extremely sharp work, then dull it where appropriate rather than starting with a dull one and sharpening it via editing.
And yes, sometimes you should dull your works. People are too obsessed with 'getting to the point' of things nowadays. A good author knows when he needs to make use of mediocrity. Too many ideas being presented at too fast of a pace will overwhelm or annoy the reader. The entire reason I even bother with narrative and plot are to slow down the stream of ideas and render them more palatable via the garnish of fantasy and the spice of prose.
I tend to do this, but rather than writing for a story I write an idea. I incorporate the idea into a story or spin it out into one depending on how big of an idea it is.
So you've never written anything you weren't proud of?
Not for nothing....but I have trouble reading your entire posts because they're wordy and uninteresting. I can't imagine your actual writing is any better.
So...maybe you shouldn't get into this state of mind where you're trying to make everything into your idea of perfection. Because more than likely what you think is perfect is probably shit.
ah. you've deleted multiple novels because they didn't live up to your standards and then cite pewdiepie and disappointment of your fanbase? yeah. i think i'll quit responding to your imbecility.
>To each his own
Very true. If it works for you it works. But I don't agree with the above guy with the "total plan first or the writing is shit" mantra. Partly because
>'no, that's not right because this character's actions are supposed to move him towards X and this moves him towards Y'
If I'm writing and the character does actions that move towards X then they move towards X. They're all little experiments that explore certain themes and I would find the above artificial. But Kafka seems to me to have done something similar to what you're saying amongst others so I can see it can work your way.
Pretty much this. It's not wasted because even ideas that don't work help shape the overall work while you're hashing them out. It speeds the process up too because you'll catch things that don't work before writing them out in full.
You're only "stuck" to the extent you want to be.
>It speeds the process up too because you'll catch things that don't work before writing them out in full.
That's one thing a waterfall methodology promises but in practice it doesn't deliver. You can't tell a bad design until you're actually building the thing, and a lot of writers use outlining (designing the story) to procrastinate and feel like they're doing something useful while they aren't actually writing.
You get to a key turning point and you can't convincingly do the thing you wanted to do there? The plan beyond that point is trash. Doesn't shape anything
I write 1000 words a day, no less, usually upon waking but if I oversleep and am running late for work ill write while I unwind in the evening. I don't write any more, though, even if I feel I still have more I could put down, I don't go more than 1100 words. Leaving something at the bottom of the well, as Hemingway put it. That way I get a 40,000 word first draft done in just over a month and I spend another month or so tinkering and re-writing which I do generally whenever. That way the work is completed in less than 3 months.
A lot of "writers" have no idea what they're doing. If you work out a system of outlining that works for you it'll absolutely work and make everything flow more smoothly. The key is knowing how much you need to get yourself started and then adding or subtracting as you go along. You don't need to have absolutely every detail of every part outlined from the start.
Sometimes I also find it feeling a bit bare which is why I often bring back in superfluous bits.
When drawing a river the first thing I do is connect the source and the mouth using a straight line, so to speak. Then I add in the bends, rapids, oxbows and side channels as I please. It's kind of how I do everything in life.
Most writers really don't think that much about it either.
If you're getting good results, your method is fine. If you're not, change something.
>40k word first draft
how many words for the final draft? seems rather a low count. isn't that more novella territory than novel? not slighting you in any way. i've written one 110k novel and i'm currently at the midpoint of another at 45k. i just can't seem to fit all i want to say that succinctly.
hmm, maybe i should try for brevity in my work and aim for 50k for my next one.
Do you mean George Constanza syndrome? Like your brain is too occupied with sex to do productive mental tasks?
Usually about the same, I add and change as much as I cut. Heart of Darkness was 38,000 words; I guess it would be more of a novella. But I don't set out with an established word count in mind, I give myself a flexible outline for the things I want to happen and keep going until the story's finished, however long it is. The one I'm writing at the moment, I started yesterday, 2200 words in and it feels like I've barely scratched the surface.it could end up 50,000 words, or 100,000. But I'm a firm believer that the first draft of anything is (relatively) shit.
I do this too.
And then trash the whole text.
I think 50k is the bare minimum for it to technically be considered a novel, but 80k is supposedly the average size.
>Counting your progress in pages
Never gonna make it
I don't have any writing schedule. I have an editing schedule though, I guess, which is more of just "I need to edit something or I'll feel like shit until I do."
At the same time, I write my books in about a month, usually about 30-50k words in the first draft. Then I lay around and feel depressed for approximately two to four weeks. Then I spend months rewriting and editing that first draft, from begin to end.
The first draft is always garbage and has no description and is fanfiction tier. So I have motivation to want to fix it, hense my lack of schedule. Also, the finished products usually increase in length by about 150%, 60-80k is standard length for my novels.
my outlines generally dictate length. i've three outlines i'm currently considering novelizing after the current novel i'm working on and can only see one as possibly less than 50k. the other two are simply too expansive.
i was just curious to see if you doubled the length on subsequent drafts or kept the work the same length as the initial draft. i agree with you on first drafts.
Have you published any of your novels?
One, recently. Self-published a few novellas before it. Hopefully, if this one does well, more than one.
OP here, thanks for all the replies.
Word count over pages makes a lot more sense.
>I never submit any fiction under my birth name.
I'm considering doing this. I have a few large scale projects that I don't write on a schedule because I want them to be my best and not forced, but I want to write more so I'm thinking about setting time to just work on lesser generic projects to get good habits going.
On these main projects, I'm happy with 90% of the bits I write while inspired, but I still spend so much of my life doing fucking nothing of value or clinging to hopeless dreams that further deteriorate my physical well being.
When I used to write essays or STEM writing I would outline heavily and it would definitely guide my research and help finish the thing quickly. My creative writing background kicks in, though, and I always had to flint-nap the thing anyway. So, my outlines for prose are basically just lines or ideas that I go back to whenever. This is very loose and doesn't feel super productive, hence my questions.
This is good to know, I had a page length in mind but I can convert that to word count or change my perspective. I really want my current project to be marketable without compromising my style or the concept.