The Art of Writing Fast (Part I)

By Chrissy Hicks

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The idea of writing FAST excites me, because it’s something I always wanted to do but believed there was some code I needed to crack before I could achieve results. I’m here to tell you that’s not true. There’s no code, no secret, no one-size-fits-all formula. Nope. And you get all the details here, in my new mini-series, for free.

Introduction

Writing fast isn’t for everyone, and it’s not always feasible. Note: I didn’t say it was impossible, nor am I saying some people can or can’t. What I am saying is not everyone will enjoy this method, and even for those who do, it may not work 100% of the time.

I think anyone can complete a novel, and I believe anyone can complete a novel fast, if they set their mind to it. NaNoWriMo is a fantastic challenge to start with, if you’ve never tried. And if you enjoy writing and haven’t heard of National Novel Writing Month, then I have to ask, where have you been?? Just kidding. The challenge involves writing 50,000 words in one month (particularly November, but you can pick any month to challenge yourself). The idea is to get words on paper, stop procrastinating, and finish the dang book.

Keep in mind: this does NOT mean you’ll have a polished, publication-ready manuscript by the end of your speedy writing adventures. But what you will have, is something to work with. As Jodi Picoult once said, “You can’t edit a blank page.” 

Let’s dive in, shall we?

In this first article, I’ll go over what fast writing is and why to write fast

Next, I’ll tackle how to do so, as well as when and where you might do so. Later, we’ll explore the editing process and why you should approach this at a slower pace to accomplish your best work. 

What is Fast Writing?

Simply put: it’s writing fast. Getting words on paper without too much thinking or hesitation. Again, NaNoWriMo is a great example because it encourages just that: writing a book of 50,000 words in 30 days, which equates to 1,667 words per day, or approximately 7 typed pages. 

When you focus on speeding through the completion of a first draft (or draft zero, as I prefer to call my initial rough drafts), there’s no time to overthink or second-guess. You are forced to put your inner critic aside (or locked in a cage in a land far far away) so you can focus on simply getting the story out as quickly as possible.

Why Write Fast?

There are several benefits. Here’s 5 reasons WHY:

1. High-volume productivity

Let’s say you write adult fiction novels, and the average word count for these is about 80,000 (still unsure? Click HERE for a free, fun quiz on Reedsy to get a fair estimate). Now imagine, you dedicated time and energy to blasting through the first draft at a rate of 1,667 words per day (we’ll use NaNoWriMo rules for the sake of example). That would land you a completed first draft in 48 days, approximately a month and a half! Then there’s the editing, of course. Let’s factor in 2-3 months of applying the same amount of time you did writing to fine-tuning your draft. From start to your finishing touches, the whole process will take about 4-5 months. Now, you need a break from that book. So, you send it off to beta readers, editors, and friends with an eye for grammatical errors. And while they’re all reviewing and prepping your feedback, you’re already working on your next book! See the pattern? 

This kind of rhythm won’t work for everyone. But if you plan to write prolifically, this isn’t a bad formula for knocking out at least 2 books a year. 

2. Keep the Creative Juices flowing

If you prefer to take a break from an initial rough draft before editing (as I do), then you could knock out two books sequentially, and return to the first book to edit. Once editing is done, you’ll have had a sufficient break from the second book and can return to edit that one. This way you maintain a writing habit, keep the momentum going, and still give your rough drafts a “rest” period before returning to them. That or, perhaps you could turn to another creative endeavor (painting, music, ice sculpturing…take your pick!*).

*Pun absolutely intended. 

3. Practice makes better

I’ve often heard people say, “practice makes perfect.” But we’re not aiming for perfect—that’s an impossible task. We’re aiming to be better each day. How do you get better at writing? By writing! Like with anything else, we can study and read about craft all day but if we don’t actually put pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard), how else are we going to teach our brains to push past writer’s block? The more often you write, the closer you’ll get to your writer’s voice. The more often you write, and edit, and implement feedback, the more often you’ll understand the mistakes you’re making and not make them in the first place. This in turn, means churning out better and better first drafts. Tada! 

4.  Overcome fear of the blank page

Have you ever had this big idea for a novel, then sat down to start and stared at the blank page, wondering…where do I start? Am I even the right person to write this thing? When you fast write, you don’t give yourself the opportunity to doubt your writing ability. You just do it. Think: Nike

5. Write it fast, write it bad

Okay, I don’t really mean that. Not everything you write in a first draft is going to be bad. But a lot of it will be. There will be all sorts of room for tweaking and deleting and adding. Characters who probably didn’t need to be there, “Sally” that became “Sandy” halfway through the manuscript and you didn’t even notice, flat dialogue, lackluster scenery, flowery descriptions that have nothing to do with anything… you catch my drift. My point is simply this: give yourself permission to write it however it comes out, as bad as it might possibly present itself. Because anything is fixable, but you can’t fix something that is nothing.

Okay… do I have you convinced? You might think, this is nuts. Or I have no time. Or where did I leave the remote? Or, perhaps, you’re chomping at the bit, ready to knock out that first draft, indexes poised at the F and J keys on your QWERTY keyboard. If so, stay tuned for my five ways on HOW to do that in Part II.

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Chrissy’s work has appeared in three consecutive issues of Bridgewater State University’s “Embracing Writing” book for first-year freshmen. Her writing portfolio also includes publications in The Broadkill Review, SUSIE Mag, The Storyteller, and informative pieces for a local online newspaper. One of her unpublished novels, Foul Play, was a Suspense Finalist for the 2022 Claymore Award, and an excerpt from her unpublished novel Overshadow won Top Three Finalist of the 2024 Thomas Mabry Creative Writing Award. Though her background is in counseling, having earned a master’s degree in this field, when it comes to the art of writing, she’s an autodidact. She studies books she loves and enjoys completing various creative writing classes online, and attending writer’s conferences whenever she can; Killer Nashville is one of her favorites. Additionally, she’s volunteered since 2023 as a general editor for the Killer Nashville Magazine. She resides in Tennessee with her family, their talkative Husky, and a frenetic cat. You can find her online here: https://chrissyhicks.wordpress.com/ where she occasionally blogs about the writing life and reviews craft books.

Punctuation Is Power - Part 4: Finding your style: Free your mind and readers will follow

By Angela K. Durden

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Ernest Hemingway wrote a novel you may have heard of called The Old Man and the Sea. It is described as a brilliant short novel, but before editors got hold of it, it was neither brilliant nor short. In fact, it meandered here and there. What a mess. It took an editor to find the story and chop out the crap, after which Ernest could finish it to become the brilliant, short novel we all know and love. 

Part 3 of my series ended with the recommendation of getting an editor who was not in love with a particular style manual and forcing your story into a predetermined mold that may not fit. Hemingway was well served by just such editors. This column is about finding a style and training readers to it.

Many new writers, not having a technique or approach of their own, attempt to copy the writing style of an author they love. For writers endeavoring to learn the foundational elements of storytelling, pacing, power, scene setting, and so forth, there is nothing wrong with that. Like a musician practicing scales of chords and note patterns of famous works and then learning to vary those themes with his own flavor, a writer must can emulate the masters until that deeper understanding of interplay comes.  

Delve into your heart of hearts and answer this question: Why do you write?

For myself, that answer is: Because I can’t not. Words are my thing and have been since I began learning to talk. Semper fidelis—always in the service of words.

Still, the question can lead to a huge list of follow-ups we don’t have time to cover here. King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 12:12: “To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion to them is wearisome to the flesh.” And this is a business that demands attention and can weary a soul.

That being said, it is important to know your own reason. There are no right or wrong answers to the question. But if you find you are wanting to write in order to sell your work for a large, anonymous crowd of readers—that is, you want to sell it in the retail marketplace and be in the business of book sales you will want to bring the best version of your work to that arena and make it stand out from other books also vying for readers’ attentions. 

A book may feel like a baby, but it is a product. So, how can you find your own voice and train a reader to like it, understand it, want more of it?

Finding your own voice is a mysterious process. It cannot be taught, but it can happen. Training a reader is easy. Once you’ve found your voice, now you refine it on the page. Once you’ve got the story pretty close to finished, the hard work of checking the flow begins. 

Then and only then you will question the use of every punctuation mark you’ve put in. You may find a long, run-on sentence that is convoluted and meanders down paths no one can find, yet each part seems important. You must now decide if it needs to be broken up into fragments and whole sentences of varying lengths, or something else entirely. 

What I like to do is copy that one sentence (or graph) and paste it twice into a blank document. The first I will leave as my reference to the original. The second I then play with. Break here, here, and here? Comma there? Colon or semicolon? Then I paste the original sentence in for a third time and play again using both the original and the new edits as reference. Comparing how the meaning and pacing has changed, I change the order of the words, use a thesaurus, maybe work in some alliteration, and look for clichés and repetitions.

After about the third time of doing this, an Aha! moment may arise and you’ll see that maybe the original was perfectly fine, but that the problem was the graphs leading up to it. You rework those portions and bingo, bango, bungo, you got some words worth keeping. 

That’s just one method. However, at this time something seemingly magical will happen. You will begin to find your voice. Like the musician practicing his scales, chord progressions, and inversions, and thus seeing all the variety he can produce, you won’t be afraid of words any longer because the words will know you are treating them as equals and respecting the power they bring to your tale by punctuating with powerful effect and affect. 

Now, once you start punctuating to tell you story your way, make sure you follow that same style throughout the book, and guess what? By about the end of the second chapter, the reader will learn to follow along, simply and naturally enjoying the story.

Punctuation should never get in the way of a tale. Those marks are the workhorses that make the story look good, but they never take center stage away from the star, your story.

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Author, editor, publisher, and more: learn about Angela K. Durden here and here and here.