How Do You Write Books So Quickly?

Catriona King announced on Facebook yesterday that she’s almost completed the first edits on book #9 of her DCI Craig series. She’s then going to take a holiday before starting on books #10. Congratulations, Catriona.

People are asking, “How do you do it?” I don’t ask. Why? Because I write at that kind of speed myself. Writing the first draft of my novels, long or short, takes about month. If you’re doubtful about this, two years ago, I wrote the first draft of a novel in ONE WEEK. Independently verified, I turned out 60,000 words in seven days.

And do you know what the big secret is? There is no secret. Instead it’s all about man hours.

Ask yourself, how fast do you type? I can manage about 30-35 words per minute. Simple arithmetic will tell you that I can write 1,000 words in about half an hour. Let’s be generous and say that anyone can write one thousand words in one hour. Believe me, that’s quite slow.

The bog-standard novel is 100,000 words. Based on our calculations, that comes to 100 hours. I’m retired. I don’t do anything other than write. If I want to write a book in a month, I need only put in 25 hours a week, or five hours a day, which will allow me two days off.

Does writing a book so quickly seem so difficult now?

Naturally many people have full time jobs. They can’t give 25 hours a week to a novel. Suppose you can only give 10 hours?

You’ll still write it in 10 weeks.

You need one or two other things, as well. First, you need to know where the book is going. Not all the intricacies, the ins and outs of every scene, but certainly a good overview. Does that mean planning? That’s up to the individual. I find planning restrictive, so I don’t bother, but I still know where I’m going with the tale.

You need tunnel vision. When knocking out that first draft, I don’t stop to correct errors. I just keep on typing. Every chapter is a separate file, and at most I run a spellcheck when the chapter is finished. The rest can come at the editing stage.

Forget the flowery adjectives and adverbs. Most of those should be eliminated anyway, but if you want them in, do it during the editing. Forget the synonyms, unless they come naturally as you’re working. They can be slotted in when you’re editing.

Suppose you’re working away and you come to a dead end? You don’t know what happens next. No problem. Move on to another part of the book where you do know what happens next. We read books in a linear fashion, but we don’t have to write them like that.

Many writers will advise you, “Once it’s done, put it away for a couple of months, then come back to it.” I say that’s up to you, if our enthusiasm is still there, go back to page one and start working your way through it again. For me, I only leave a WIP when I’m thoroughly bored with it.

And that brings me to another ingredient you will need. Enthusiasm.

My hard drive is chocabloc with tales I’ve started, got XX,000 words in and abandoned because I ran out of patience and/or ideas. You need zeal, and to her credit, Catriona is as passionate now as she was with book #1.

And I say, well done, Catriona. I’m sure books #9 and #10 will be every bit as exciting as #1 and #2