Writing Speed

[Deleted]

So, I started writing the superhero novel, and holy bat underwear! First person, one POV, is so much faster to write than all those POVs (7?) in the other book. I'm probably going to get these all out, then start limiting the number of my POVs from now on.

And for all those people (mainly on KB) that say that plotting solves that, yeah, no. Catalyst was fully plotted ahead of time, and it went so slow. Plotting does not equal writing fast. I think a lot of other elements contribute to speed ahead of that aside from number of POVs, like action scenes slow me way down, and character development scenes are really fast to write. I think genre might play a large part in speed.

[cbedwards]

I like first person, writing and reading it.

[Pru Freda]

I write in first and third person POV but much prefer first. I write fastest when I'm writing dialogue. I love the cut and thrust of snappy conversation, though I have a bad habit of using dialogue for exposition.

[vrabinec]

Mine's a mix of first and third, and I write incrediblh slow in either POV. It takes time to write like James Joyce. Took him almost 20 years to write Finnegan's Wake. Oh, is this the wrong thread for that?

[Daniel]

For me, it's a matter of complexity. I can write quickly if I know in advance what I'm going to write. What really slows me down is when I have to struggle to figure out what scene comes next or what needs to happen in the scene. The more complex the story, the harder it is for me to select and craft scenes.

On the surface, POV is part of that equation for me too. My first book was 75K with two points of view: first for the hero and close third for the heroine. My second was 99K with four points of view: first for the hero and close third for the heroine, the villain, and one other character. The third book is looking like 120K with five points of view, having the same arrangement as the second book plus one extra "other character" POV. Each book has been successively more difficult to write, and I blame it on the increased complexity of each story. I can write any of the points of view equally fast, as long as I know what I'm going to write.

[Becca Mills]

Yeah, I don't think plotting vs. pantsing is the determiner of speed, though I bet forcing yourself to do what's "wrong" for you would slow anyone down. Elle is the fastest writer I know of, and I believe she pantses 100%. I remember her saying she just sits down and sees where the characters want to go. Other factors must account for speed. Maybe one of them is how long you get yourself struggle with sentence-level fixes as you write. Maybe another is the complexity of what you're trying to do. Are there a lot of plot balls in the air that to juggle, or just one main thrust? Do you need to distinguish multiple POVs, or do you just have one narrative voice? Are you going for some subtle effect -- emotional, psychological ... maybe a plot twist you have to seed without giving away -- or are things relatively straightforward? Maybe another is your ability to focus on your writing, either because you have big, uninterrupted blocks of time or because you are good at making yourself productive in smaller chunks.

[Becca Mills]

Apr 3, 2014 10:38:05 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

Mine's a mix of first and third, and I write incrediblh slow in either POV. It takes time to write like James Joyce. Took him almost 20 years to write Finnegan's Wake. Oh, is this the wrong thread for that?

My husband took a grad seminar on FW. The class did not read the whole book.

ETA: My husband says it only took Joyce 17 year to write the Wake. You'd better get a move on, vrab.

[Deleted]

I read Ulysses in high school for summer reading and liked it. I guess I'm weird.

Yeah, I think many people are too quick to blame pantsing for slowness. I am much faster when I pants, but when I do, I choose limited person and only 1 or 2 POVs. I also enjoy myself a lot more pantsing, and that may have been a problem with the third book. I wanted it to be over way before it was, because the story was all done in my head.

[vrabinec]

Apr 3, 2014 11:59:33 GMT -5 Becca Mills said:

Yeah, I don't think plotting vs. pantsing is the determiner of speed, though I bet forcing yourself to do what's "wrong" for you would slow anyone down. Elle is the fastest writer I know of, and I believe she pantses 100%. I remember her saying she just sits down and sees where the characters want to go. Other factors must account for speed. Maybe one of them is how long you get yourself struggle with sentence-level fixes as you write. Maybe another is the complexity of what you're trying to do. Are there a lot of plot balls in the air that to juggle, or just one main thrust? Do you need to distinguish multiple POVs, or do you just have one narrative voice? Are you going for some subtle effect -- emotional, psychological ... maybe a plot twist you have to seed without giving away -- or are things relatively straightforward? Maybe another is your ability to focus on your writing, either because you have big, uninterrupted blocks of time or because you are good at making yourself productive in smaller chunks.

Yeah, sentence level is my downfall. Let's say I find a word that better expresses what I mean. I remove the word that's in the sentence, and replace it with the new word. But that's not where it ends, because now the cadence of the sentence may not be right. So maybe I switch it around to have the cadence and rhythm I want, but now the sentence that leads into it is wrong, because the last letter of that sentence forms a tongue twister with the first letter of the new version of this sentence. Voila, I now have to rework the previous sentence. And it goes on ad infinitum. But I don't really give a shit. I can't do it any other way at this point.

[scdaffron]

Apr 3, 2014 11:59:33 GMT -5 Becca Mills said:

Yeah, I don't think plotting vs. pantsing is the determiner of speed, though I bet forcing yourself to do what's "wrong" for you would slow anyone down

I suspect this is true. If I were trying to "pants" a whole book, I'd just sit there staring at a blank page, which would be a major set back for productivity

[Becca Mills]

Apr 3, 2014 14:57:53 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

Apr 3, 2014 11:59:33 GMT -5 Becca Mills said:

Yeah, I don't think plotting vs. pantsing is the determiner of speed, though I bet forcing yourself to do what's "wrong" for you would slow anyone down. Elle is the fastest writer I know of, and I believe she pantses 100%. I remember her saying she just sits down and sees where the characters want to go. Other factors must account for speed. Maybe one of them is how long you get yourself struggle with sentence-level fixes as you write. Maybe another is the complexity of what you're trying to do. Are there a lot of plot balls in the air that to juggle, or just one main thrust? Do you need to distinguish multiple POVs, or do you just have one narrative voice? Are you going for some subtle effect -- emotional, psychological ... maybe a plot twist you have to seed without giving away -- or are things relatively straightforward? Maybe another is your ability to focus on your writing, either because you have big, uninterrupted blocks of time or because you are good at making yourself productive in smaller chunks.

Yeah, sentence level is my downfall. Let's say I find a word that better expresses what I mean. I remove the word that's in the sentence, and replace it with the new word. But that's not where it ends, because now the cadence of the sentence may not be right. So maybe I switch it around to have the cadence and rhythm I want, but now the sentence that leads into it is wrong, because the last letter of that sentence forms a tongue twister with the first letter of the new version of this sentence. Voila, I now have to rework the previous sentence. And it goes on ad infinitum. But I don't really give a shit. I can't do it any other way at this point.

Heh. I tend to do this, too, but in a less extreme way. I've never worried about tongue-twisters, for instance.

That kind of sentence-level attention is usually productive for me. Often I end up finding that a section that's giving me particular problems on the sentence level really just needs to be rewritten entirely -- the micro problem is actually a macro problem in disguise.

[Becca Mills]

P.S. Ulysses is wonderful.

[Suzy]

I'm a total pantser. Used to be a plotter but that was when I was new to writing novels. But I always have ideas in my head for at least half a chapter when I sit down to write. Then I stop and get back to it again when I have another half chapter in my head. I write quite fast in order to get it down before I forget it. 1-2K a day is my norm. More if I'm really inspired.

[cate]

I'm a bit of both. I use a beat sheet to fill in the plot points, and the romance back and forth with my heroine/hero. Then I fill in the rest as I write. The single biggest change I made that doubled my word count (stolen again from Rachel Aaron - her book 2k-10k really sang to me): writing down what I'm going to write about at the start of each session. It took me from a 2k average per session to 5k, 7 if I'm on a roll. I love her for sharing her process.

I used to edit as I wrote, but I found that if I know what I'm writing for the day, my draft is much cleaner, even though I'm writing faster than I ever have. My editing sessions are proof of that - they have gone down from 3 weeks to about a week and a half.

[Deleted]

Totally agree with Becca's comment up-thread. I've been a 100% pantser so far, but for some reason (probably because I bought Scrivener and was so taken with all the notes I could put everywhere) I decided to try plotting out what will be the final installment of my series. 'Plotting' for me turns out to be a whole lot of sitting and thinking and no writing whatsoever.



Worst decision ever - I've gone from steadily cranking out a book every 6-8 weeks to losing all momentum. I've now been 'working' on my WIP for five weeks, and have around 2000 words written. It's proving really hard to get that momentum back, and now I have scraps of 'plot' that I feel I need to work towards, where previously I let my characters take me wherever they wanted, and those scraps are just getting in the way and making the process feel unnatural.



Lesson learned: don't try to fix what ain't broken in the middle of writing a series.



Damn you Scrivener!
 


*I have bought that Rachel Aaron book though - I guess I'd better read it and hope it kicks me back into gear

[cate]

I used to be a total pantser, krg. And I have a file cabinet filled with half finished projects to prove it.

What I do is spend maybe two hours hammering out the basic story that is already in my head - we're talking 1-2 sentence descriptions of the important points. Those are my landmarks, the things that have to go in the story. The rest is an adventure I go on with my characters. I am often delighted and surprised by them, and what ends up in the book that I did not plan.

After quite a bit of trial and error, this is working really well for me.

[Becca Mills]

Apr 13, 2014 15:56:20 GMT -5 @krg said:

Totally agree with Becca's comment up-thread. I've been a 100% pantser so far, but for some reason (probably because I bought Scrivener and was so taken with all the notes I could put everywhere) I decided to try plotting out what will be the final installment of my series. 'Plotting' for me turns out to be a whole lot of sitting and thinking and no writing whatsoever.

Worst decision ever - I've gone from steadily cranking out a book every 6-8 weeks to losing all momentum. I've now been 'working' on my WIP for five weeks, and have around 2000 words written. It's proving really hard to get that momentum back, and now I have scraps of 'plot' that I feel I need to work towards, where previously I let my characters take me wherever they wanted, and those scraps are just getting in the way and making the process feel unnatural.

Lesson learned: don't try to fix what ain't broken in the middle of writing a series.

Damn you Scrivener!
 

*I have bought that Rachel Aaron book though - I guess I'd better read it and hope it kicks me back into gear

I'm so glad I'm not the only one!

That said, pantsing is NOT enabling me to produce a book every 6-8 weeks.

[Daniel]

Apr 13, 2014 16:14:13 GMT -5 cate said:

I used to be a total pantser, krg. And I have a file cabinet filled with half finished projects to prove it.

What I do is spend maybe two hours hammering out the basic story that is already in my head - we're talking 1-2 sentence descriptions of the important points. Those are my landmarks, the things that have to go in the story. The rest is an adventure I go on with my characters. I am often delighted and surprised by them, and what ends up in the book that I did not plan.

After quite a bit of trial and error, this is working really well for me.

Have you looked into the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson? I liked it so much that I bought his Snowflake Pro software. I need to know my characters before I can develop a plot, yet I craft my characters to play specific roles in the story. The best thing about the Snowflake Method is that you alternate between character development and story development in parallel. That technique has been very helpful for me. Most of my writing process is similar to yours, based on what you wrote above, so I thought you might be interested.

Once I get down to the scene level, I move to a beat sheet of my own design and start drafting in Scrivener. Things still evolve, but at least I know where I'm going (and whom I'm going with) by that point.

[Deleted]

See, I think knowing the ending too early makes my head believe it's all over and done, so I crawl like krg. I almost always get a brilliant idea for the ending at the 2/3rds point, and it's usually way better than anything I plot.

My stories also usually come out fairly well structured. If I change structures, it's usually on minor stuff.

[cate]

Apr 13, 2014 17:30:43 GMT -5 Daniel said:

Apr 13, 2014 16:14:13 GMT -5 cate said:

I used to be a total pantser, krg. And I have a file cabinet filled with half finished projects to prove it.

What I do is spend maybe two hours hammering out the basic story that is already in my head - we're talking 1-2 sentence descriptions of the important points. Those are my landmarks, the things that have to go in the story. The rest is an adventure I go on with my characters. I am often delighted and surprised by them, and what ends up in the book that I did not plan.

After quite a bit of trial and error, this is working really well for me.

Have you looked into the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson? I liked it so much that I bought his Snowflake Pro software. I need to know my characters before I can develop a plot, yet I craft my characters to play specific roles in the story. The best thing about the Snowflake Method is that you alternate between character development and story development in parallel. That technique has been very helpful for me. Most of my writing process is similar to yours, based on what you wrote above, so I thought you might be interested.

Once I get down to the scene level, I move to a beat sheet of my own design and start drafting in Scrivener. Things still evolve, but at least I know where I'm going (and whom I'm going with) by that point.

I did - totally did not work for me, but I know I'm in the minority of people who try it.

I am a little odd when it comes to developing my stories - they spring pretty much already done from my far too active imagination, and the characters are an integral part of the story by the time I start my beat sheet. I tend to do the character stuff when I'm about halfway through the story, once they are on the page and concrete. I've been making up multi-plot stories in my head since I was about eight. Weird, yes, but it works for me.