The Mathematics of Writing a Novel

Writing a novel is a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. A bucket-list item. And like so many other bucket-list items, you have to find a way to make it happen.

For most of my life, I was a would-be novelist. A dreamer, a diarist, a lover of literature, but someone who never committed to writing my novel.

I started my first novel at age twenty-six but set it aside within the month. I got busy with life: graduate school, cross-country and international moves, three jobs, a marriage, three children, one dog. In my diary, I lamented my lack of time. How would I ever find time to write a book?

The second time I started a novel, sixteen years after the first, I completed a draft in ten months. After a year of revisions, I’m sending it out into the world. So what made the difference this time around?

Not a better idea.

Not leaving my husband and children (unlike my novel’s main character!).

Not a sudden windfall.

This time I did the math.

Wait. Math? I’m a writer, you say. I don’t truck with math.

Well, if you’ll pardon the business speak, a little math upfront might help you turn your dream of writing a novel from a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) into a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound).

NaNoWriMo is famous for helping people write their novels by providing community support and accountability during the month of November. The challenge, though, is that in order to hit 50,000 words (novel-length for middle grade or young adult; a bit shy for most other fiction genres), a writer has to average 1,667 words per day for 30 consecutive days. At my writing speed, that’s over three hours each day without a single day off. For many of us, this goal misses the “R” in SMART: it’s not realistic (and therefore, also not A, achievable).

Instead of attempting NaNoWriMo and surely failing, I decided to come up with a formula that adapted to my schedule. My own math revealed that by writing as little as two hours a day, three days per week, I could complete my first novel in roughly nine months.

Ready to try it? To begin, calculate your average writing speed. If you sit down to draft—letting the words flow, without polishing them—how many words do you write in an hour? Try this a couple of times to come up with your average writing pace. I have fast and slow days, but on average I write 500 words per hour.

Next, decide on a reasonable frequency and time commitment you can devote to writing a novel. This doesn’t have to be a massive chunk of time; it doesn’t have to mean writing every day. The key here is choosing a realistic time goal—and realistic means realistic for you.

Note that you’re committing to an input (a certain amount of time you’ll write) rather than an output (such as a word-count target to achieve each day). I can’t stress this enough: Writers starting out, especially as they face the daunting task of writing their first novel, might find themselves freezing in the face of a word count goal. By committing to a time parameter and by eliminating distractions during that time, you aren’t judging your output. You are holding yourself accountable for showing up.

The key here is choosing a realistic time goal—and realistic means realistic for you. 

Next, personalize the commitment. Can you wake up earlier and write for half an hour, six mornings per week? Or are you willing to give up an hour of Netflix every weeknight? In the first scenario, you’ve just opened up three hours of novel-writing per week; in the second, five hours. Now multiply that by your average writing speed (e.g. 500 words per hour) to come up with an estimated weekly output. Five hours times 500 words per hour = 2,500 words each week.

Lastly, do some research about the average word counts in your genre. I write adult literary fiction, where debuts clock between 70,000 and 100,000 words. Rom-coms can be shorter; fantasy and SciFi might be longer. Give yourself a target based on your genre.

Let’s say your target is 80,000 words. Now divide your target by your average weekly output to give an estimated time frame to write your novel. In this example, 80,000 words divided by 2,500 words per week equals 32 weeks. That’s only seven months! You can go from zero words to a completed first draft in seven months, while still balancing your job, your family needs, and other obligations.

The model is flexible: dial it up or down depending on the amount of time you can realistically commit. Maybe you can only write on weekends, one hour every Saturday and Sunday. Fine. Two hours per week at 500 words per hour will net you 1,000 words per week, so 80 weeks to finish your first draft. That’s still only a year and a half. For those of us who spent sixteen years saying we didn’t have time, we could have written ten and a half first drafts during that same period.

What about the dreaded “writer’s block?” Committing to writing time won’t amount to anything if you can’t find any words to put down. If you’re stuck, consider setting aside chunks of time to allow you to generate ideas. This can be part of the time you’ve set aside for your writing, or it could be in addition to your writing commitment.

You might find a writing class helpful (Catapult offers many fine options), or a walk outside, or a visit to someplace new, pen and notebook in hand. Now return to the blank page during your chosen time. Allow yourself to write what Anne Lamott calls a “shitty first draft.” Eventually, with time set aside, new ideas in mind and nothing to do but write, your words are bound to emerge.

So do the math. By calculating your average writing speed, committing to time blocks for writing (even small or infrequent ones), and deciding on your target novel length, you can deduce how long it will take you to write a novel. You may find, as I did, that the goal isn’t as hairy as you’d thought, and that the math you left behind in high school or college might actually help you on your way to becoming a novelist.