How Long Does it Take to Write a Novel?

To put it simply it all depends on the writer.

Each one of us has our own lives we're living, as much as many of us wish we could spend every moment of the day writing, we have other responsibilities that sometimes have to come first.

Jobs, commuting for the aforementioned job- to and from, family, caring for our elders or young, laundry, eating, dishes, basic self-care, advanced procrastination, and sleeping. Plus many, many others that I could list out, but then we both would be stuck here for a while instead of doing that thing we should both be doing at this moment.

Writing our novels. 

The time it takes to write a novel will depend on you, your determination, and your typing speed.

If you sat my dad and me next to each other and had us write out the same paragraph, I could run a 5k, grab a coffee, and then type up my paragraph and still be finished before he and his two-finger typing method placed his final punctuation. 

Based on data from a 2021 survey Reedsy conducted, it takes most authors six months to a year to write a book. A writer's timeline depends on the genre of the novel, the word count of the story, the amount of research you do, and the time you spend editing the completed draft.

I don't count editing as part of the time it takes to write a novel. It's part of the time that it takes to fix the novel I've already written. 

After you write your novel you should wait at least a month before reading it again that way you're looking at it with fresh eyes ready to strike with a red pen held firm. 

How many words should you write every day?

If you're only able to write 200 words a day, in two weeks you would have added 2,800 words to your novel. That's about the minimum length of a chapter. 

The minimum amount I would suggest for anyone to write every day would be 500 words. 

(For this example I'm using 70,000 words as your novel-length as it should be the minimum you aim for in your first draft.)

If you were to write 500 words a day it would take you 140 days to finish your novel or about 4 1/2 months. 

That might seem long, but the time is up to you.

If you write:

700 words a day: it'll take you 100 days 

1,000 words a day: it'll take you 70 days 

1,500 words a day: it'll take you 46 days 

I always aim for a goal of 2600–3000 words, but as a full-time writer, it's part of my daily workload that I make time for every day of the week that I can.

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The time that it will take you to write your novel will depend on the time that you can give yourself to write it. 

If your manuscript sits in a document folder on your computer untouched for weeks on end, it's going to take you a long time to finish writing it.

Keep writing, every day that you write you become one more day closer to finishing it.

With love, 

B.K. xo

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