How Long Does It Really Take To Write a Novel?
By Kathleen McCleary | April 12, 2023 |
If you Google “How long does it take to write a novel?” you get more than 700,000 results, with answers ranging from three months to a vague “years.” I can tell you it took me four years to write my first novel, while also raising two young kids and working part-time. My second novel took another four years. I wrote shitty draft after shitty draft while my agent told me that every author has at least one novel that ends up in a drawer. Three years in, I rewrote it yet again and my agent said, “I thought I was going to tell you it’s time to let this one go, but I think we can sell it.” We did, to an editor who said, “I think the book needs a second point of view.” She was right, but it meant writing another entire story. That took another year. After all that, I wrote my third novel in eighteen months.
Based on all this experience, what do I know now about how long it takes to write a novel? Honestly, almost nothing. It’s like having kids: You have one child and think you have parenting figured out and you have another child and realize you know nothing about parenting. I’m working on a new novel after a six-plus year hiatus from fiction, and while I’m 20,000 solid words in to it, every day I think, How long is this going to take?
According to this nifty infographic from Writer’s Digest, it took Charles Dickens six weeks to write A Christmas Carol, while Stephanie Meyer spent three months penning Twilight and Emily Bronte took nine months to produce Wuthering Heights. Audrey Niffenegger wrote The Time Traveler’s Wife in four years (a length of time close to my heart), and the 18 months I took to write my third novel matches the amount of time it took Rudyard Kipling to write The Jungle Book. All of which tells us pretty much nothing about how long it will take you or me to write our own novels.
Here’s what I do know about how long it takes to write a novel:
Writing every day does make a difference. As my mother always said, Clichés are clichés because they’re true. While writing my third novel, I participated in NaNoWriMo—not because I expected to finish my novel in a month, but because I wanted the structure and accountability and challenge. Writing 1,000-1,5000 words a day for one month seemed like a doable thing to me, and it was. I wrote 30,000 words in 30 days, and much of it was good. Every time I commit to a daily word count or number of writing hours it helps.
You can’t build a house without a foundation. I am a pantser and not a plotter. With all of my novels I knew the climactic scene, I just wasn’t sure how to get there. But with each book I have spent more time thinking through the steps along the way, and it helps. Right now I’m working with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat beat sheet, and knowing the “beats” of my story has made the writing process go much more quickly.
It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or has done. Yes, it’s reassuring that it took Margaret Mitchell a decade to write Gone with the Wind, but I don’t want to spend a decade writing my current book. And I know myself well enough to know that I can’t write a really good novel in three months. I’d like to finish this book within two years. So I’ve set that as my personal goal, and am trying to keep myself on track to do exactly that.
Let it go. Meaning, let go of your ideas of how long it should take you to write your book, and just write. You have a story to tell and you are the only one who can tell it, so let it unfold.
Listen, completing an entire novel is a tremendous accomplishment, no matter how long it takes. Kudos to all of us! We’ll get there, everyone.
How do you think about the time it will take you to finish your WIP? How long has it taken you in the past? Is there an ideal length of time for writing a book?
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (https://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she’s not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
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I totally agree with you, Kathleen, and it is very reassuring to read that not everyone writes – and publishes! – a novel a month.
I write historical fiction and writing my books takes a lot of time, simply because there is a lot of research to be done. From my experience as a beginning author (three books and a few short stories), it takes me at least a year to write a novel. I am currently working on the fourth one, but the story takes place in a different country and century from the others. So this means that writing is terribly slow, because I am always stuck for historical details which, on quite a few occasions, determine what can and cannot happen next.
Let others speed through their writing. I (have to) take my time to get my stories on paper.
I love your confidence about your own process, Birgit. And yes, historical fiction adds yet more layers to the entire process. Glad you find it as reassuring as I do to know that we can’t all crank out a novel year. Best of luck with your writing.
As an agent and a teacher of the craft, I can tell you two things: 1) most writers do not take long enough to write their novels, 2) some writers cling too long, pointlessly rewriting without making the novel any better.
If you doubt the first point, welcome to my query inbox. If you doubt the second point, meet X and Y, one a client the other a workshop student, both of whom have brilliant novels which I could sell in a heartbeat but who will not let go. It’s frustrating.
How do you know when you are done and how do you know when you are overdone? I think the answer is this: you are done when you are no longer anxious. Sometimes that is when you have written the novel that you wanted to write and there is nothing more to add. Sometimes that is a matter of faith in yourself.
Either way, my advice boils down to, do more and then…stop.
I love this, Don. I’ve always been somewhat skeptical when a writer tells me they wrote a novel in a few months, and consider it not a “shitty first draft,” to borrow Anne Lamott’s phrase, but finished. But your second point is such a good one, and adds so much to this discussion. There is a time when the story is done and you have to let go. At that point, rewriting is washing a floor that’s already clean—no one else is ever really going to notice. Isn’t faith in yourself the single most important thing a writer can bring to the table (or laptop or notepad)? Thanks so much for the terrific comment.
“Sometimes that is a matter of faith in yourself.” It’s taken me slightly over three years to reach that point.
Finding the heartbeat of a story, that emotional journey your protagonist must undertake–something like that takes time and vulnerability and yes, a certain faith in yourself and in what you need to say.
I’m finished, but now fear the work is too long. So I’m going to combine two chapters. My wish for today, that as writers, we will truly know when the work is complete. And then an editor or agent makes suggestions…
Hi, Beth. Congrats on finishing! As I said, it is such a monumental achievement to write an entire book. You’re wise to know that it may need some cutting/revising/restructuring, which is what all good writers go through. And, as you and Don both point out, we all have to make sure we know when we’re done with THAT part of the process, too. I hope it goes smoothy for you. Cheers.
Kathleen, your point about each story being like a child is so true. No two are alike and every story has something to teach me. As a short story writer, I discovered the importance of letting stories rest a while before coming back to them and many took a year before they were polished. So I’d lament that if a thousand words take a year, 50K might take 50 yrs. Except I discovered that the relationship isn’t linear. Whew! The first novel that I completed and polished took me 3 yrs. I haven’t attempted a second one–those shorts are always calling me. There’s a historical that I’ve been playing with off and on (mostly off) for 20 yrs–my first attempt when I didn’t know anything at all, but just the story. I hope the next time I pull it out, it’ll be to polish and send it out. Ideally, though, because I have stories that I want to tell that refuse the short form, I’d like to be able write and revise and polish them one after the other, taking a year or two each. I hope I reach that point. And I hope you arrive at your dreams too. Thank you.
How long does it take to shop for groceries?
How long does it take to mow the lawn?
How long does it take to read a book?
How long does it take to tie a shoe?
How Long is a Chinese novelist!
These are almost like Zen koans, Jay. ;-) Thanks for the comment.
I’m all over the map when it comes to how long it’s taken me to write a novel. With my historicals, the longest took four years, but I was also recovering from chemo fog. The fastest I’ve written a historical is about eight months, but that was an exceptional case. The average time is about fourteen months (or used to be). Then there’s Bear Country, the children’s book releasing next Tuesday, which I started writing when I was 19 (35 years ago, ahem). The current WIP (historical) has been so on again, off again the past couple of years, I don’t think I’ll be able to time it, if I ever actually finish it.* I’m currently working on another children’s book that again has been too on again, off again to accurately time, but I’m pushing through to finish it asap. *I don’t know if it’s all we’ve been through these past years, and are still facing, but I’m not sure I have it in me right now to write the rather wrenching (and demanding) historicals I’ve been publishing for the past decade. I’m finding it refreshing to write about (and illustrate!) a story about teddy bear lost in the wilderness and the animals he meets. Or a story about talking mice. I might just do that for a bit longer. And, as you suggest, never mind how long each takes.
Oh, Lori, I really hear you on finding it difficult to get immersed in writing hard stories after the last few years of hard times. I love your teddy bear lost in the wilderness story (which in its own way could be an analogy for the last few years:-) My current WIP includes a character and POV of a 13-year-old girl, something refreshingly different for me to write. I think you’re smart to put your time and heart into the stories that feel right right now. Best of luck with all of it. I look forward to reading your books.
FIFTEEN years for the first novel in my mainstream trilogy (published 2015); SEVEN for the second novel in it (2022); and I hope somewhat less for the third and final part of a single story – just really getting started on that one.
And it’s not for the reason Donald Maass says above, that I can’t let go: my process is to work on the extremely plotted novels one scene at a time from beginning to end, sequentially – because of chronic illness and the lack of an ability to keep more than about that much information in my head at a time. When a scene is gathered, organized, written, edited, and polished – ie, finished – I move on to the next one, trusting my plotting to have decided the sequence and content before writing each book, and not changing that. I rarely go back, NEVER do whole-book editing of any kind. And I love the results. Even as I know most people don’t write that way. Eh – you do what you need to do to get the story out.
If I didn’t have to wait for my brain to be usable for a while each good day, I’d probably be faster. But then I wouldn’t be writing these novels. Shrug.
Alicia, you’re in good company: I think it took Tolkien 16 years to write his Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think it’s terrific that you have figured out a way to work that works for you. That’s so smart. I understand it’s borne of necessity (and I am sorry you have to deal with chronic illness) but how wonderful to have figured out a way to do something you love and to keep doing it. I write very character-driven novels, so I’m always in awe of anyone who can write (and finish!) a story with a complex plot. Keep going! Thanks for your comment.
I’m working on the sixth novel in my Highway Mysteries series. I can’t tell you how long it takes to write one, though. I wrote the first one and almost sold it in 1994 before starting the second. In the fall of 1995 I found out that my husband had terminal cancer and life got in the way of my writing. Dusted the manuscripts off in 2011 when I discovered ebooks and self-published both of them. Since then, I wrote and published three more in the series. The last one I published in the summer of 2019. (The last two were finalists for the Whistler Independent Book Award in fiction so I must be doing something right!) I started the sixth but unfortunately let life get in the way again, this time partly Covid, partly family health problems, partly and unfortunately a lack of self-discipline when it comes to distractions. This finds me at 60K words (2/3 of the way) after 3 1/2 years and now working on it daily with a fervent hope to finish it by this summer.
How long did each novel take to write? I have no idea. Ideally, given the demands on my time of living on a ranch and being a news junkie, I should be able to finish a book a year and as a retiree, I think that’s quite doable. I blame my procrastination and lack of discipline on having an incompetent boss. (Me!)
I’ve been fighting the first book blues. After six years of write and rewrite, I expect to have a solid draft for the critique partners in about a month and a half. I did my first draft in a year. It was awful. I went to school on it’s problems. I did another draft, It was less awful. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Each series of fixes exposed more issues to solve. Now, I’m at Version 12.17 and pretty happy with what I’ve written. I tell myself that all the extra words I wrote and time I spent writing them were the price of learning. Next time, it will not take six years.
It’s varied pretty widely across my catalog.
The first one (85k) took about two weeks. The last one (120k) took about 7 weeks. The longest one (195k) took 12 weeks.
Then there was the one I couldn’t get the handle on. I first started hacking away at it in 2011 but never got it to work until I grew up enough as a writer to tackle a very difficult subject in 2019. I have no idea how much time I spent on it in total.
I’ve got 3 WIPs running now. One with the editor, one going to the editor, one about to be revised while the editor is working on the other two. I wrote the whole trilogy in one file over about 16 weeks, then spent almost 3 months breaking the file down into individual titles. The first one was a mess and took 6 weeks to whip into shape. Book 2 has been a lot smoother. I’m cracking book 3 open tomorrow.
My ideal day is 2 hrs of writing work. I draft 1000 words an hour on average so I can get a 100k first draft in just under 2 months without pushing too hard.
My goal is to write and publish 4 novels a year, but I’ve only managed that twice since I started in 2007.
My first novel, the first installment of an urban fantasy series, took five months to write over a few years and then two years, four editors, one rejection from Penguin pre-merger, and a rewrite before I it was accepted by a publisher. While writing the second book in the series, I stopped taken by an idea burning in my brain for a reverse May-December romantic women’s fiction. Plotted in three days, finished writing in 45 days. That book got my an agent. Sold the second book in the series. Since then, life and all that crap, while struggling over three years to finish a small-town mystery. Started to write a rom-com during the last NaNo to cope with my mom was dying. She’s since passed and the novel is in the homestretch. Will need more editing than usual…due to the grief factor. But six months start to finish. Bottom line for me: tropey, no research, character-focused novels are much easier and faster to write. I bow with admiration to all you historical writers!
It took me a good five years to finish my last novel, but there were extenuating circumstances: a cheating spouse, a painful divorce, therapy, crawling under a rock for a few years, then dipping my toe into the dating pool, going back to grad school, etc., etc. I finally, finally finished it last year and I don’t even know how many drafts it went through, but I was a fundamentally different person than when I started the thing. And even though I kept slogging away at that story, I never lost faith that it was a GOOD story, and I’m rather proud of it. It, like my life, went through a metamorphosis.
Wow, Melissa. What an accomplishment to have finished that book! For me, the stories that have grown and changed along with periods of intense change in my own life have always had an emotional truth that I believe takes them to the next. level. Your story of writing your story is a terrific one. Kudos to you, and thanks for the comment. I hope the book soars.