How many hours, days, weeks do you spend building your story universe and characters?

[Quantum]

I'm working on a 5-book litRPG series and I've probably spent roughly 60 hours building the story universe and characters and a rough outline in a spreadsheet. That includes research because I'm a little in the hard SF area. I'm still not done. Maybe at least double or even triple that 60.

How about the rest of you--especially SF&F writers? How many hours, days, weeks do you spend?

[[deleted user]]

I don't have an actual time total for what I spend to build up my stories, characters and universes, but I spend at least as much time on researching and preparing my stories than I take to write them. One example was my JOVIAN UPRISING, a pure space adventure happening in 2315, where I took time to imagine what Humanity would look like in the early 24th Century, both on Earth and within the Solar System. That involved having to research and gather a pile of astronomical data about the Solar System, its planets and moons and the conditions encountered on those worlds. I also 'designed' the various space vessels featured in my novel, including detailed drawings and floorplans of my main vessel, a giant cargo ship. That last part was important in my mind, since I didn't want to appear inconsistent when describing it or parts of it in my novel. Building my characters took comparatively little time.

[Quantum]

That sounds very cool.

How about a rough order of magnitude duration-wise? 1 month? 6 months? 9 months? 12 months?

[[deleted user]]

On average, I produce two novels per year, sometimes three (I have 18 ebooks online by now). So, say an average six months total to plan, research and write a book (average 300-500 pages), done on a part-time basis (I am retired but I do my share of the home work, including cooking). At least half of that time will be used by me to research my subject, get my historical facts and references right and learn in depth about the time period or place involved. So, say 3 months for the basic research and world building (if a world needs to be built). Only maybe a week or two will be used to flesh out both main and secondary characters. I very well may buy a few specialized books to deepen my knowledge of the time period or place(s) featured in my story but lots of my research is done on the Internet (including use of Google Earth to map specific locations). This sounds fastidious but it is actually half of the fun for me.

[Ian]

I probably hold a record for slowness, which is not a desirable one. I started writing "Red Gold", about the colonisation of Mars, about 1991. I had followed closely the NASA programs up until then, so the background on Mars was more or less a given. Nevertheless, I still try for detail. For those that read "A Face on Cydonia", when Fiona looks at the heavens during her "space walk", I integrated up the planetary movements, so they should be in the right place for the specified time.

Back to "Red Gold", I tried to get that published, and an editor was interested, but he died. His replacement wanted to clear his desk, so I was rejected on the grounds the plot was too unrealistic. (The book was probably too long as well.) I had postulated a satellite at L1 with a huge magnetic field to redirect solar wind. Ambitious, but unrealistic? (For what it is worth, this was proposed by NASA this year.) I also postulated urea deposits at the bottom of Hellas Planitia, which made the settlement viable.

Maybe it was the urea, so I pulled the script, and decided to work a bit harder on the hypothesis I had formulated to put it there. That ended up with a lot of scientific reviewing, and concluded with the ebook I published called "Planetary Formation and Biogenesis", which shows how I believe the evidence points to how planets are formed, and why they start with the reduced atmosphere I needed. So, I then stuck with the plot of "Red Gold", and I am reasonably confident that eventually these nitrogenous deposits will be found (because in my view, there is no other plausible explanation for the fluid floors on Mars.)

More amusingly, the discovery of nitrogenous material underground on Mars had to be "a complete surprise" to everybody, but my actions had falsified my own premise! So I put in a little scene wherein it had been published, by an Armenian, but thoroughly ignored and forgotten. Of course that only works if my books are ignored and forgotten, which is really not my objective, but may well turn out to be.

[Quantum]

Very enlightening, Michel and Ian. I suppose I'm in good company, time-wise.

[Graeme]

Michel wrote: "I don't have an actual time total for what I spend to build up my stories, characters and universes, but I spend at least as much time on researching and preparing my stories than I take to write t..."

Hi Michel, that seems like a labour of love.

For me - I took a massive shortcut and set my stories in a world that looks a lot like ours so that I can reuse nearly everything.

I set the time to be 10 to 15 years in the future to allow for a few sorta high-techy sci-fi toys like railguns.

I spent about 18 months designing my story before I started writing my first book.

All part-time, as I have a demanding full time IT role.

[Philip]

Each book scene or character vary on research. I want to write a time travel book but I know the historical bits will take a lot of time just for a few paragraphs