How to Write a Novel... FASTER!

How long does it take to write and publish a book? Truthfully, it depends. Today, we are going to tackle the first part of that question. Let’s dive into how fast you can write a book, and we’ll give you come key advice on how to write that book faster.

The time it takes to write the first draft of a book is going to vary by person. To figure out how long it will take you, all you need to do is perform a simple test.

1. Pull up a blank screen on the device you use for manuscript writing.

2. Set a timer for 15 minutes.

3. Free-write without stopping, backspacing, or editing until the timer goes off.

4. Count how many words you were able to write in that time.

Once you’ve taken this simple test, you want to multiply that word count based on the amount of time you spend writing a day.

• For 1 hour,  multiply that number by 4.

• For 2 hours, multiply that number by 8.

• So on and so forth

This calculation will help you to figure out how many words you can write in a day. Once you know that, you can also count how long it will take you to reach your word count goal. Yes, your word count goal isn’t necessarily the end of the book, but this is to just give you an idea of what you’re capable of.

Once upon a time, it would take you a long time to lace up your shoes. Today, it probably takes you 2.5 seconds to tie up those bad boys. The same will be true, the more you type the faster you will become.

Let me also note, having an outline of the day’s writing and the needed progression of the story will affect your daily and total writing speed. It’s good to add in sick days, writer’s block, and life just happening days when planning your writing schedule.

So, how can you effectively cut down your days spent writing? By dictating.

People feel that dictating manuscripts is a new concept with the rise of technology in the last 150 years. It’s really not.

Apostle Paul in the Bible didn’t actually write many of his letters. Yes, he was literate, a scholar, a Pharisee, a Hebrew of Hebrews! But he also didn’t handwrite many of his letters. He employed what is called a Scribe, someone trained and typically literate in more than one language, to transcribe his letter as he spoke them aloud.

Oh, it doesn’t stop there!

In the 1611 KJV, is a book of prophecy called 2 Esdras written by the prophet we know as Ezra in the Bible. He lived during the second major exile of the kingdom of Judah. Many people don’t know, but the Holy Scriptures had been destroyed as a method of subjugating the people of Judah.

Ezra, filled with the Holy Spirit, dictated 94 books of scripture while 5 Scribes wrote down everything he spoke. It took them 40 days to complete that work! (Just a tidbit to chew on. In 1611, there were about 50 books of the Old Testament that may have been transcribed by Ezra. So where are all the others?)

Dictation has always been a tool used by published writers since ancient times. Tools today make this process easier and faster. Our company as seen, on average, a dictating author taking no more than 30 minutes to record 2,000 words. In comparison, you could dictate around 10,000 words in about 2 hours. That’s 1/5 of a standard 50,000 word novel. That can be done in just a day!

As always, you having a firm grip of your storyline, character arcs, conflict, and world development can impact your dictation speed. Our authors have reported that dictation not only helps them finish chapters quicker, it also aids them in getting over writer’s block in some cases.

Well a well outlined plan, you could potentially complete a standard novel length book within 7 days!

A few cons that you want to take note of:

• Dictating with an accent may lead to confused words or phrases. A quick fix is to slow down and annunciate. There will still be some things the system just doesn’t get. Good thing is you’ll revise and edit in the second draft.

• Your dictation system won’t recognize words not in the established dictionary. For fantasy authors, you may want to use a common word—that isn’t used elsewhere in your manuscript—for made up names and words. This will make it easy to “Find and Replace” them in your manuscript. Make sure to keep a log!

• Depending on the took you use for dictation, you’ll have to also dictate punctuation marks. For those of you writers who already struggle to add periods where they need to be, the may be hard for you. Symbols such as commas and periods may be easy for the system to include as you talk naturally. Others such as exclamation marks, question marks, quotation marks, and hyphens will need to be spoken or typed in as you go. This is a small hassle for saving time.

If you are passionate about finishing your book, and you’re just struggling to find the time to do it, dictation may be the best solution for you. The road gets a bit easier once you have the first draft done. Now get off the internet and write that book!