5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter

by Chris Fox

I’ve used this method to publish three novels in the last nine months, and the last of those novels was written in 13 days.

This process takes work. It takes consistency, and it takes planning.

Fast forward five years. I now crank out a minimum of 5,000 words every single day, and this generally takes me less than an hour and a half.

This system is all about incremental improvements. Start small and dream big.

A writing sprint is, quite simply, a pre-defined length of time where you will do nothing but write.

Once a sprint begins your fingers fly across the keyboard until you are finished. You do not stop. You do not go back and edit. You keep writing until the buzzer goes off. It’s that simple.

Your micro sprint will last for exactly five minutes. That’s a nice bite-size chunk of time, and it should let you focus on just one scene. More importantly, it’s manageable for your brain. Writing stamina is built just like muscle.

Open your word processor of choice to a blank document

Turn off wifi and/or internet on your computer. Put on mood music appropriate to the scene you’re about to write. Jot down a quick paragraph describing the scene or topic you’re about to write about. These words do not count towards the micro sprint. DO NOT STOP

The goal, at first, is quantity over quality.

There are several massive advantages: You’re learning to complete projects. The vast majority of writers will never finish a short story, much less a novel. Teaching yourself to write in sprints will propel you to the end of your project. You’ll begin seeing things at a larger level.

Advantages of Word Sprints.

By that I mean you pick out common problems in your writing that show up over and over. Things like word re-use, character tics and all sorts of other problems. Once you see those tendencies you’ll automatically begin to compensate, and future drafts will be better while still being written at high speed. You’ll learn story structure, something that those who endlessly tinker with the same three chapters will never experience. Completing projects teaches characterization, plotting, pacing and a

whole host of other parts to your craft. You complete entire novels by cranking out thousands of words each and every day. As of this writing I’ve written seven novels. Every last one has massively improved my sk...

Words Per Hour.

WPH,

Instead I’ll continue to improve every day, and if you do the work so will you.

This exercise will be ongoing. Create a daily reminder in whatever app you use (a calendar program, the reminder app on your smartphone or any other method will work). This reminder is for a 5 minute writing sprint every day. You’ll

put a reminder in Google calendar

You can use the spreadsheet I created (chrisfoxwrites.com/5kwph) to track your sprints.

5kwph spreadsheet

You need a writing habit, one that you will practice for the rest of your life.

by John Cleese.

tortoise enclosure,

it. It’s a time and place your mind must associate with writing. When you’re there, you write. It’s that simple. This is why I don’t recommend writing in the same space you do other activities. If you watch Netflix or mindlessly surf the web in the same chair where you write, it will be that much harder to buckle down and work when it’s time to work.

You’ll need to erect barriers to prevent yourself from indulging in distractions.

physical boundaries.

You need a pre-defined start time and end time, and these times do not necessarily need to correspond with just one sprint.

At the end of the first sprint, I will take ten minutes to surf the web, check email, check Facebook or deal with any other distraction. Then I’m right back at it. This hour and ten minutes is sacred, and my loved ones know that when I am in this space I am not to be interrupted.

If eating a frog is the toughest thing you have to do every day, then you should start with that or that frog will croak at you all day. Do the hardest thing you need to do first thing, because then you know it got done.

Do your writing first thing, before the pressures of the day begin to mount. Eat that frog, people.

write out a contract with yourself.

Each and every day you’ll record your writing

I promise you can double or triple your output through the simple act of daily tracking.

Once you’ve done so, record the micro sprint(s) you’ve already done, and continue to track them for the rest of the week.

Now set a goal to double that amount in the next week.

I deal with everything on my list so they’ll no longer be a distraction. I

Define a scene using the drill down section, then let that scene play through your mind.

Visualize your characters, the action and the resolution. Bonus: Create a story timeline for your novel, defining the inciting incident and both doorways. Add an awesome ending.

You need to give yourself permission to suck. Once you start writing, you are not allowed to tinker or edit at all. After you’ve written the words they stay exactly as they are. That means no stopping and no going back, not even to correct typos.

I’ll deviate from my current scene just long enough to create a placeholder document for the new scene.

So if you find yourself running into logical or narrative problems while writing, just write as if the previous scenes already supported what you’re writing now.

Exercise #6- Full Sprints

This is day one. In a few weeks that number will be

Become Better at Typing

free typing courses out there.

Voice Dictation

Dragon on Kboards.com. It changed my life.

Dragon Dictate.

You can dump audio files into Dragon,

Download Dragon Dictate (or the PC equivalent) and force yourself to use it for one week. It will change your life forever.

It’s only through practice, repetition, and study that these patterns will emerge. This is why it’s so important to track every sprint, and

to use the graphs that I’ve provided to track your progress over time. Give me 30 days and I promise you’ll see a burst of productivity that exceeds anything you could have expected.