How long did it take you to finish your first novel?

Interesting the differences. I finished mine in 5 years. But now I have to try to cut more than 23,000 words out, so I guess it's not done yet.

My first novel took 29 days to write (it was a nano too lol). Then about 5 months to edit. Queried for about 4 months. It will be published in Oct. 2012

My second novel took 29 days (nano lol). I'm almost finished with the second round of edits. Then I'm going to do line edits before I query it.

Jamesaritchie said:

It took exactly three weeks, but I had to write it that fast because an agent asked for it. I queried her, but neglected to mention that I hadn't written it yet. She called and said it sounded great, but also said she needed it by the first of the next month in order to get it to an editor who had an empty slot that my novel sounded perfect for.

What can you do? I wrote it, sent it to her, and it sold to the editor she had in mind.

This is not a method I recommend. I didn't know at the time that you were supposed to write a novel, and then query.

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Something like that would want to make me curl up in the fetal position, cry, then die. I could just figure your face when talking to your agent:

"Sure no problem!"


Then when you get of the phone you're like:

"Scheiße!"

Ten days. But I did have the swine flue at the time, so I was possibly a bit mad.

I had to rewrite it for three months. Usually rewrites take about three weeks.

The first draft took me about a year to finish (it was about 90K, but I only wrote about a page per day). I can't decide whether or not to trunk it (I mean, I understand that first drafts are supposed to be bad, but this one was truly terrible), but I've started a new WIP in the meantime.

My first novel took about six months from start to finish. That was working about 10-20 hours a week, with some time off for good behavior. But the hour count is probably what is more comparable, so I'd guess around 350 hours.

But I'm working on my third and planning on spending at least 500 hours. Hopefully taking longer will lead to a better end product.

Completely finished or first draft? I am about 92K words and 5 months into my very first one (that I really stuck to that is, there have been several I have given up on). I expect to be done with the first draft in another month or so. BUT it's probably another several months to go back and revise, test with beta readers and revise again.

Maybe revising forever if all I get are rejection letters

I started my first novel in probably October or November of 2005 when I was fifteen years old and a sophomore in high school. I finished it in August of 2006. Most of the work happened over the summer break between sophomore year and junior year.

Since then, I've completed seven novels. One of them took me nearly three years. More recently, I write the first draft of most of my novels in a month or less. Recently, I wrote a 100k word novel in 12 days. My current project I'm taking at a more leisurely pace.

My first attempt at a novel never got finished. Neither did my second, third, fourth, or fifth. The first one that I actually did finish took four years, almost exactly. (Where by "finished" I mean "finished a first draft.") It's 145k words, by the way.

I started a book early in 2002, which I think is when I got serious about all this, though I'd written things before. In the following 5+ years, I wrote and revised 3 books in that series, and queried 2 of them. They didn't sell. I'm going to have another go at them. So it's hard to day what all that adds up to -- just under 2 years/book, or over a decade.

Based on various estimates I've made, 500 hours butt-in-chair time sounds about right for most novels I would want to write.

First one took about three months.

It will never, ever see the light of day. In fact, I've buried it in the back yard, like the body of a drunken stranger that turned up on my doorstep one morning.

The later ones got better. I don't regret writing the first one. It was an exercise in "I can do this." Subsequent ones have taken longer, but I'm no longer embarrassed by them.

Two years for mine. A very off/on two years. I also gave up about six times.

Just entering the third draft of my first novel, which has taken almost 5 years to write with 170,000 words (but I am splitting it in half). But a lot of that time I have spent deliberating and leaving it to one side. It's only really the past year that I have 'cracked on' with it.

It took a few years to finish my first, mostly due to inexperience.

Second novel took about a year.

Third novel took four months plus another three for editing.

I'm just beginning my fourth, we'll see how long it takes.

Three weeks, writing like a mad woman, not eating or sleeping. Crazy, I know. I can't do that again, it almost killed me. Seriously.

Okay, maybe that's not entirely accurate. I do have to pace myself, though, otherwise, my health and relationships are compromised. Can't have that, wouldn't be prudent. . .

I started mine exactly one year ago this week, so it's been a year and I'm still not done...

My first novel took about six years before it reached a point where I was ready to have another human being read it. Add another year of revisions and polishing onto that. In contrast, my second novel only took about six months, plus a year of revisions and polishing.

DanielaTorre said:

Something like that would want to make me curl up in the fetal position, cry, then die. I could just figure your face when talking to your agent:

"Sure no problem!"

Then when you get of the phone you're like:

"Scheiße!"

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Well, I had one huge advantage. Those were pre-Internet days, and I didn't know enough to be intimidated. I knew nothing about writing, about technique, or mood, tone, flow, pace, characterization, etc.

I wrote my first short story just a couple of months prior. It sold, and so did the next two, all three in first draft form. Again, I didn't even know you were supposed to write more than one draft.

All I knew abut writing came from all the short stories and novels I'd read. All I did was write the kind of stories I'd read and loved. So writing a novel in three weeks, just meant dividing the number of words I needed by the number of days I had to write the, I think it came to something like 3,500 word per day, or a bit more. I don't remember exactly.

But I had all day, everyday to write, so that didn't seem like very many words, especially since I still didn't know anything about technique, or multiple drafts, or anything else.

It turned that writing that many words per day on a typewriter meant I spent all day, every day writing, and even ate most meals at the typewriter. But I did it.

Sometimes I think new writers try to learn too much before just writing a novel. All the techniques and methods, the outlining or not outlining, the pace, mood, tone, pace, flow, etc., gets confusing and slows everything down.

If I had my way, I'd tell new writers to forget trying to learn any of this until well after they write a novel. Just sit down and tell a story like all the ones you've read and loved.

8 months, first draft. Another month for edits/revisions. Agent had me do another couple rounds of edits before we sold it to Simon & Schuster, where my editor there had me do another few. All for the best though. That was with full time job and kids. Honestly a first draft shouldn't take more than a handful of months - otherwise what's the point? The story (and plot) grows stale after that, and will show. Fresh is best. If a story takes over a year, or two, or three to write, it's pretty much an indication the author is bored with it and doesn't have the motivation to sit down and write it. Just my thoughts.

AltoidAddict said:

8 months, first draft. Another month for edits/revisions. Agent had me do another couple rounds of edits before we sold it to Simon & Schuster, where my editor there had me do another few. All for the best though. That was with full time job and kids. Honestly a first draft shouldn't take more than a handful of months - otherwise what's the point? The story (and plot) grows stale after that, and will show. Fresh is best. If a story takes over a year, or two, or three to write, it's pretty much an indication the author is bored with it and doesn't have the motivation to sit down and write it. Just my thoughts.

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I would have to disagree with this. I think we sometimes decide what is most important in our lives to focus on and it might not be the writing. That doesn't mean the story wasn't still developing in your head. And I don't think it necesarilly makes it stale. I was one of those that took years. But I am very happy with the way it turned out. But we all work in our own way.

AltoidAddict said:

8 months, first draft. Another month for edits/revisions. Agent had me do another couple rounds of edits before we sold it to Simon & Schuster, where my editor there had me do another few. All for the best though. That was with full time job and kids. Honestly a first draft shouldn't take more than a handful of months - otherwise what's the point? The story (and plot) grows stale after that, and will show. Fresh is best. If a story takes over a year, or two, or three to write, it's pretty much an indication the author is bored with it and doesn't have the motivation to sit down and write it. Just my thoughts.

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Troyen said:

I would have to disagree with this. I think we sometimes decide what is most important in our lives to focus on and it might not be the writing. That doesn't mean the story wasn't still developing in your head. And I don't think it necesarilly makes it stale. I was one of those that took years. But I am very happy with the way it turned out. But we all work in our own way.

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I also disagree. It can be an indication that the author is bored with the story, but that doesn't mean it is an indication of that. Sometimes it takes people a while to write an MS because they don't have time. I'm thankful I could complete my MS in the seven months that I did, but I wouldn't have admonished myself for taking a year or two. I work 80+ hours a week, and when you factor in time for family and friends, that gives me almost no time to work on my MS. If I hadn't finished it in seven months, it would be because I was too busy to write, not because I was bored with my story.

The only reason I did write it so fast is because I have an alarming awareness of my mortality (it's what I spend most of my time thinking about), so I want to make sure I write as much as I can before I die. I'm not partial to leisure.

Troyen said:

I would have to disagree with this. I think we sometimes decide what is most important in our lives to focus on and it might not be the writing. That doesn't mean the story wasn't still developing in your head. And I don't think it necesarilly makes it stale. I was one of those that took years. But I am very happy with the way it turned out. But we all work in our own way.

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Maybe a better way to put it is that if you're actually writing, actually sitting down five days per week and getting the words out, a novel shouldn't take more than a handful of months.

Some few people really do lack much time, though this is usually because of choice, but for the most part, it's been my experience that procrastination is what takes so long in most cases, not the writing itself.

I just finished my first one this month, and it took about a year to write and another six months to do three full edits and several proofs.

Before this one, I started two others, (both over ten years ago), but gave up only about 50 pages in on one, and about 100 pages in on the other.

I also spent three years on a memoir, (drafting, writing, and editing), queried it for another year with only a few requests and a ton of Rs, trunked it while I wrote the novel, and now I'm completely rewriting it. (Hoping I'm not wasting more time by revisiting, since I already sunk four years into the thing.)

The above posts have confirmed my experience: there are two ways to write a novel and the time differences are immense. One way, my favourite, is to go at it hell for leather and not stop until it's finished. You live and breathe the characters and the plot and write whole great chunks in your head as you walk the dog and do the washing up. The actual writing bit then is simply a question of how much typing you can do before the RSI really kicks in and/or you need to go to the toilet. To write like this I think you have to write at least 2,000 words per day and more like 4,000 is better. I wrote a 100k word novel this way in about 5 weeks. Sounds quick, but actually the writing itself probably only took a couple of hours per day. Of course now I need to hide it away for a couple of months so it's completely out of my head when I go back to edit it.

The other way is to take your time- to write slowly and carefully, weighing and editing each word as you go. I can't do it like this, though I admire people who can. One of the reasons I can't do it like this is the same reason I can't read a book too slowly- because I would lose track of character and plot and so forth and have to keep going back to remind myself. And then each time I went back I'd notice something I didn't like and would have to edit it. So then I'd wonder if that still worked with something I'd written before so I'd have to go back and edit that and, yes, I can imagine how it could easily end up taking years.

Me, I wouldn't have the patience though.

Oddly enough, btw, I wrote a blog post on this a while back.