Writing fast

I imagine that anyone who writes or wants to write novels will probably find themselves wondering, “How can I write faster?” 

There are a number of factors to take into account.

What’s your record?  You can’t know if you are writing faster unless you have been keeping track of your productivity in the first place.   I have a spreadsheet on which I track the dates I have written, my starting and stopping times, and my word-count during that period of time.  I’ve been doing this for several years and this helps me notice work patterns and gives me a baseline for judging my own productivity.

What is the best way that you work?  Experiment. 

I actually write fiction faster if I handwrite it instead of typing it.  This was totally counter-intuitive to me, and only a freak accident could pry my Macbook Air from my fingers long enough for me to figure this out.

Story time!   

I was at a writing retreat and on the second-to-last day in the afternoon I discovered that I had inexplicably unconsciously severed my computer’s power cord. (gasp) Long story as to how, but essentially I couldn’t use my computer for the rest of the retreat. (Chagrin! Dismay!)

I could have spent the rest of the time commiserating endlessly with my writing buddies (and thereby wasting their time). I could have demanded someone take me to an Apple store immediately so I could replace my power cord.  But instead, I chose to go old school--paper and pencil.  How productive could I be while handwriting?   I decided to experiment to find out.

I recorded my start time and my end time, and then I counted every word I had written.  (A bit mind-numbing, yes. But I was curious.)  My word count actually went up. 

So I did it again.  Wrote for an hour, recording start and end time, and then counted my words.  My word-count went up again.  I had actually improved!

I did it again.  My word-count went up again.   

Whoooooa!  Dude!  What does this mean?  Could it be....?

Over the process of experimenting with this, I discovered that I really did compose fiction faster when handwriting.  This shocked me because I have typed my journal entries for years because that is faster.   I type when journaling, but I compose fiction best while handwriting.

Why was handwriting faster for me?  When I try to compose while typing, I write a sentence quickly, and then spend minutes between sentences thinking of what I’m going to say next.  And I get distracted by other thoughts and I have to pull myself back on task and then I forget where I was in the story, so I have to reread and then think some more.  And when I finally think of something to write, the words don’t seem to appear until I’m actually typing them. 

When I’m handwriting, I think of a sentence, and as I am writing out that sentence, my mind has time to think about the next sentence. By the time I get to the period, the next sentence is there in my head and I never pause, just keep writing.  Sure, I can type faster than I can handwrite, but the important part isn’t putting the words down, it is composing them. 

So what does this mean for you?  You need to figure out what speed you naturally compose at, and you need to pick the capture method best synchronized to that, otherwise you will frustrate yourself.  I have talked to people who compose in gushes and they don’t have time to handwrite it out.  They have to capture it or it’s gone.  Typing or dictation is the best method there.  If it comes out slow, then handwrite it. 

Another thing I learned by experimenting is that I work best by writing in hour-long spurts.  I have ADD, and even though I take medication for it, it is very hard for me to sit longer than that and be productive.  So after an hour of writing, I’ll stand up, walk around, get a drink of water, do a spot of housework, and then go back to writing.  Writing in general is not very natural to me; I’ve had to train myself little by little over years to do this. 

You have to figure out the best way that you work. 

Is there a best time of day for you?  Morning? Afternoon?  Late at night?

Do you have to be in a certain place?

Do you need music or silence? 

Do you need to be fresh or can you be tired?

Do you write best by working for a period of time, or chasing a work-count goal?

Typing or handwriting?

Long writing sessions or shorter sessions?

Do you know what has to happen in your next scene?  Do you know where it's supposed to go? It is hard to write anything if you don’t know what to say.  

 If you don’t know exactly what the characters say, you can at least write down what they are supposed to talk about or what they are supposed to argue about. You can even write down what they might argue about.

I seem to work best when I make a list for a scene of all the important things characters could debate, then a list of things they could gossip about, as well as important things that need to happen.  With that list, I put it in order of priority, and then I start imagining how the characters are going to attack that list.  (It’s like I pretend the character has a to do list.) 

You might think a scene planned like this could end up sounded really mechanical and contrived, but fortunately my ADD kicks in, and I let the characters go through that list any old way they want to.  They can even go off on tangents, but by the end of the scene, they must have hit all the necessary things on the list.  If they don’t hit the important stuff, I keep them there until they finish it.

Occasionally my characters surprise me by throwing in important things I hadn’t previously thought of, rendering my list moot. They open new cans of worms.   After I get done being torked off about that, I realize they were smarter than me and the new direction is better for the story anyway. 

Does this mean the list was a failure?  No, my list becomes the criteria by which I can judge digressions and plot bunnies to see whether they are any good or not.  If it looks better than the stuff I’ve planned, then I know the digression was definitely a good thing.  Otherwise, I need to find where I went off the rails.

Essentially, I outline the things that need to happen in a scene, but I discovery-write the order in which they will occur.  That's one way I try to make my ADD work for me.

Are you excited about what’s supposed to happen?  Let’s face it.  If it doesn’t interest you, then how the heck do you expect a reader to be interested?   However, if you are interested, then by golly, nothing is going to get in the way of your writing that scene.  You’ll want to write it as soon as you can. 

And guess what? You can write it right now.

In my teens, the thing that always made me get bogged down when trying to write a story was that I felt like I had to write through a bunch of boring stuff to get to the exciting stuff.  I thought I had to start at the beginning and write straight to the end. As a result, I never made it very far before I lost interest.

On my first novel that I am currently working on, I threw out the write-from-beginning-to-end rule.  I told myself, “I’m going to write the shiny-sparkly-awesome scenes when I want to.”   And thereby I have written far more on this story than I have ever written on any other story I tried. 

I’ve said to myself, “I’m really interested in writing this scene where the bandit flirts with the priestess while chopping wood,” and even though most of my story hadn’t actually gotten there yet, I wrote it anyway.  I wrote devastating revelations for the end of my story, and then starting filling in the scenes that led up to it.

It’s like building islands in an ocean and then building bridges between them.

What about filler scenes that have to happen but are boring?  You have two tactics you can use.  First, do everything you can to keep from having to write the boring scene. (In the professional office world that 's called procrastination, but in the fictional writing world it's just common courtesy to yourself and your readers.)  Second, if you absolutely have to write it, think of all the crazy things you could do to it to make it more interesting for yourself.  Include a sentient land squid, if you have to, or kill someone with the Traveling Shovel of Death.    

Conclusion

I don’t know if this is all the factors involved in maximizing productivity.  But they are what I have discovered thus far.  (After all, I'm only on my first novel.)

1)   Track your productivity. Dates, times, word-count.  Use mad spreadsheet skilz.

2)   Experiment to find your best working conditions and best capture method that matches your composition speed.

3)   Know what is supposed to happen in that scene in front of you.

4)   Only write the scenes that interest you.   Don’t write the boring scenes until you’ve figured out how they can interest you.