How long did it take you to write your book(s)

kevin1977

Did you go hell for leather and try get it done ina couple of weeks/months.

Or did you write it as a long project, a few hours here and there when you were in the mood over a couple of years?

Just interested to see the timescales involved.

EileenG

For me, I tend to take less than three months to do the first draft. I'll write every day, and try to do at least 1000 words, but 1500 is better. It doesn't matter if they are rubbish, as long as they are written down, I can fix them later.

What really takes the time is going back fixing holes in the plot, developing characters, editing and polishing, and cutting out big chunks, and rewriting the bits that don't work, and getting critiques, and all that stuff.

Dublin141

First draft? Generally a couple of weeks, rarely more than a month. I like to get the whole thing down as quickly as possible. Although I sometimes leave partials and return to them when I have more time for that particular story/series. I like to write lean, so I wouldn't have 100k first drafts.

Editing is a different story, but I would still work relatively quickly. I'm slowly becoming more efficient with each book.

My very first novel took a good few years, but that was because I kept rewriting it once a year until I was happy with it (stupid novel wasn't going to beat me ). For a while, I absolutely hated the story so working on something for years probably doesn't agree with me so much. I finished it for good this year, and I'm afraid to reread it because I know I'll be itching to tweak it again.

crotalus667

EileenG wrote: »

I'll write every day, and try to do at least 1000 words, but 1500 is better. It doesn't matter if they are rubbish, as long as they are written down, I can fix them later..

IIRC King is the same ,he has a 2000 word traget it does not matter if it takes him a few hours or the whole day he hits his target.

bigsmokewriting

In one of our novel-writing classes, it ranged between 2 weeks ('fast drafting' - you do 5-6k a day) and 5 years - a year was about average. But that's only for a first draft, and it'll make a big difference if you're powering through a first draft or if you're going back and editing as you go. It depends on how you write, and how much rewriting you do, and when you do it.

iguana

Don't know yet.:)

I've just finished a decent first draft after 7 weeks. Technically it's the third draft but after the first pass at it I found I'd got the story of the main characters down but the secondary characters were very lacking. So on the second pass I developed the secondary characters I had and added a few new ones. Once that was done my suspicion that the story would flow better if I broke up the chronology was confirmed, so I spent some time messing about with it. The story spans 7 years but the bulk (about 70%) takes place in the last 3 years so now it starts on year 5 - going through to year 7, with years 1-4 interspersed throughout it. I feel that works better and I think draws neater parallels between the conflicts in the story and how the characters got themselves in such a mess in the first place. Though, who knows, a later draft may see me change it all around again.:cool:

I'm now planning to complete all my research. I had the bones of it done before starting to write but now that I know specifically what happens in the book I want to have it as accurate as possible. I always get thrown out of a book when something utterly impossible happens and it can make it hard to get back into it. Even simple things throw me, like a character who wants to have a baby taking ovulation tests first thing in the morning. Knowing that the author just assumed they were like pregnancy tests and didn't check makes me care less about the book. So I want to avoid that as much as possible.

I've also decided that I want to invoke a sense of nostalgia in a reader so if my characters watch a football match on a certain date, then I want to know who played that day, what the scores were and if anything noteworthy happened. If they watched tv I want to know what was the big hyped show that month in case it was one my characters would never have missed. Even if it doesn't make it into the book I want to know just what my characters felt. And that's the kind of research that's only possible after I've written the first draft.

Once that is done it's time to re-write everything over and over again. Who my characters are, is there but only a very rough outline. They still need a lot of work to be brought to life. The problem is I'm a bit bored of them now. When I was putting the time line together I found myself struggling at times because even though I think it's a good story I know it so well now that I'm a bit fatigued by it. So hopefully the research period will immerse me in their lives enough to remind me of exactly why I found this story so interesting in the first place.

pickarooney

5 years and counting. But I've been busy.