How long should you spend planning a story?

It depends on the length of your story too. If you’re writing around a 150k word novel I would say at least 3 months to plan everything (committing a couple of hours a day) and then the rest of the year to write it. Further months would then be spent reading, editing and getting feedback.

How many hours a day do most writers write?

For me, it tends to be one or two hours a day, depending on my health. I know others who only work on their books on the week-end, because they don’t have time during the week. Unless you’re talking about ‘professional’, full-time writers, who don’t need another job to feed themselves and their family.

What is too long for a novel?

While anything over 40,000 words can fall into the novel category, 50,000 is considered the minimum novel length. Anything over 110,000 words is considered too long for a fiction novel. A fantasy novel will usually have 90,000 to 120,000 words.

How long does it take the average writer to write a book?

The average time to write a book for most authors is 180 days, or 6 months, more or less. Usually, it takes authors anywhere from 4-8 months to complete a book.

How much time do writers spend editing?

Successful writers spend 75\% of their time in the preparation and editing process and only 25\% of their time writing the content.

Is 130000 words too long for a novel?

Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels (90,000–130,000 words) Since you are creating entire worlds from scratch, you are meant to go longer in these genres, and anything less than 90,000 words might be looked at with concern. 110,000 words or so seems to be the magic number for science fiction and fantasy.

What happens when you spend too much time on a review?

Spending too much time on the review can lead to insanity or boredom, and spending too little time can result in errors getting through to the final draft. Rushing to get a product out can lead to a poorly written user manual. Is that going to sabotage the product?

Do you spend too much time in the planning stage?

Being creative and having a realistic opinion of the importance of the planning stage to your project will help you get the job done right, without having to cut twice. There are a number of different viewpoints you can adopt to determine whether you’re spending more time than necessary in the planning stage.

How do you slow down the pace of a novel?

There are several ways to slow down your story in strategic places. You can reduce the pace of a story by: Shifting focus to a secondary subplot ( more on this here) for a while to take the heat off your main story line A great novel has balance: Some scenes hurtle along while others dawdle and meander.

What happens when you read what you have written?

You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.