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How many words can you write per day?

January 4th 2009 22:56

In a media interview recently, Alexander McCall Smith excitedly told the reporter, "I've written 3,000 words today."

It is a number which will make the more painstaking writers green, and which will make non-writers look blank. What's to get excited about?

To put it in perspective, 70,000 words is considered an average novel. Few people can consistently write 3,000 words of finished, polished prose a day, but if they could, they could finish a novel per month and have time left over for a few book signings.

McCall Smith published seven books in 2008, putting him in the prodigiously prolific class.

Donna Tartt famously took 10 years to write The Little Friend, the eagerly-awaited follow-up to her brilliant debut novel, The Secret History. The Little Friend is about 250,000 words, meaning Tartt averaged about 25,000 words a year, or just over 2,000 words a month, or just under 70 words a day.

NaNoWriMo is a hugely successful annual event where participants have one aim: to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That's 1,667 words a day of fresh material. In 2008, more than 119,000 people signed up, and it's a fair assumption that everyone who made the target struggled at some stage to maintain the momentum.

I recently set myself a target of writing 1,000 words a week on my novel. I have two strengths: I can write reasonably quickly, and I can procrastinate with a determination before which mountain ranges crumble to dust. My novel has been hatching for years, but I had found no way past my resolute procrastination until my 1,000-word-a-week target. In my mind, I broke it down to five 200-word sessions, and I found it worked well. I am, finally, writing my novel, and if 50,000 words a year isn't quick, it is not particularly slow either.

All writers are different. For those who write like Donna Tartt, take comfort in Gene Fowler's words: "Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." For those who write like Alexander McCall Smith, Evelyn Waugh suggests: "Anyone could write a novel given six weeks, pen, paper, and no telephone or wife."

So how do you write?

image: www.thewritersworkshop.net

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Writing

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Out, damn'd cliché 2

December 22nd 2008 11:28

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Orwell's edict, a fundamental rule of good writing, is about clichés. The word is taken from the French word for stereotype. In English, we use it to denote words, phrases or ideas which have been overused to the point where they lose their force.

To say something should be avoided like the plague would have been clever, amusing and memorable back whenever that expression was fresh. With overuse, it has become dull.

Use of clichés is lazy communication. In text, they denote an impoverished writer. They are a sin, and every time you use one the ghost of George Orwell writes your name in a large black book.

What follows is a writing exercise. The five sentences below contain clichés. Identify the infected area, spray with a mixture of one part red ink and three parts editorial zeal, and rewrite with words kissed by freshness.

Post your efforts as a comment so we can all see how you did. For each good effort, George's ghost will remove one mention of your name in that black book.

Are you going to respond or am I talking to a brick wall?

There will be hell to pay over this.

Okay, you’re the boss.

I don’t know if it was his car or his girlfriend, but I was green with envy.

I’m raising three kids and barely making ends meet.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Clichés, Writing

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100 words maketh half the language

December 10th 2008 06:25

It is a remarkable fact that, while English has more than 400,000 words, more than half of all writing in English consists of just 100 words.

Here are the 100 most commonly used words in English, in order of popularity:

1-10
the
be
to
of
and
a
in
that
have
I

11-20
it
for
not
on
with
he
as
you
do
at

21-30
this
but
his
by
from
they
we
say
her
she

31-40
or
an
will
my
one
all
would
there
their
what

41-50
so
up
out
if
about
who
get
which
go
me

51-60
when
make
can
like
time
no
just
him
know
take

61-70
people
into
year
your
good
some
could
them
see
other

71-80
than
then
now
look
only
come
its
over
think
also

81-90
back
after
use
two
how
our
work
first
well
way

91-100
even
new
want
because
any
these
give
day
most
us

Together they would make one decent-sized paragraph. Together they represent 50 percent of the English corpus.

Notes
The accuracy of the list is debatable. Different compilers have provided different word orders, even amongst the top 10, so the list should be considered a guide only.

Note the relative lack of nouns. The highest-ranking noun is 'time', at 55. 'People', without whom there would be no list, limps in at 61.

A list of the 300 most commonly used words would represent about 65 percent of all writing in English.
en.wikipedia.org, www.myenglishlessons.net, esl.about.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Writing

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Dark corners of the language: the split infinitive

November 30th 2008 06:38

Take an infinitive and split it and listen to the howls. How dare you commit such a crime against the English language, they will cry. It is a common complaint and even those who don't know precisely what a split infinitive is have been heard to sneer.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Grammar, Split infinitives, Writing

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Your guide to writing style

November 29th 2008 05:12

Great writers are born in moments of mystery when the stars and planets are serendipitously aligned and the ghosts of Dante, Goethe and Shakespeare are having a drink in a heavenly beer garden (perhaps ruing the decline of iambic pentameter).

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Consistency of style, Style guide, Writing

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Writing: when good enough is good enough

November 6th 2008 02:47

We have looked in previous postings at some of the characteristics of high-end literature. In terms of rules and definitions it can be anarchic: the emaciated prose of Hemingway, the opulent writing of Atwood and the chaotic creations of Joyce are all, by popular acclaim, worthy of the highest accolades of literature. So what can we learn from this in terms of rules of good writing? At first sight very little. At first sight we are given an overwhelming impression of vastly different styles adding up to the same thing: literary merit. Come up with a unifying definition of great literature from this sort of evidence? Might as well try to build a house from moonbeams and quicksand.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Writing

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10 rude rules for troubled bloggers

October 15th 2008 03:50

1.
Stop moaning. Stop whining and pouting and looking for someone or something to blame for your blog's lack of success. Admit that this is your fault. Yes, it is. Go on, say to yourself, "This is my blog, this is my responsibility, this is my doing." There, feels strange doesn't it. That's because you are now ready for point two.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging, Grammar, Spelling, Writing

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Defining good writing

October 14th 2008 00:13

I have struggled to define "good writing". We all know what it is, but can you put it into words?

A Google search on "definition of good writing" offers remarkably few useful results. The first page of offers links to Orwell's five rules for effective writing, to guides on good "content" and "what makes a good writing assignment", to a definition of what makes a good blog ("There are sqillions [sic] of blogs out there and I canot [sic] read them all", it starts, which is where I stopped), and to "Landmark Essays on Bakhtin, Rhetoric, and Writing

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Writing

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A 10-step guide to blogging riches

October 4th 2008 05:36

Masthead from the blog.fl-2 blog

1.
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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging, Writing

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For he's a jolly good bellow

September 29th 2008 00:53

I heard someone call my name. It was close to first edition deadline and I was deep in concentration, wrestling with a Page 3 story. Body copy too long, good headline idea too short. Good headline ideas never fit close to deadline.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging, Make it sing, Writing

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