How Long Does it Take to Write a Novel? Your Answer

How Long Does it Take to Write a Novel? The One Answer You Need

When considering to write a story, this question is often asked: “How long does it take to write a novel?” A book project is a big undertaking, a 60,000-110,000 word project which will take time to write.  

The novel you are considering to undertake will be a part of yourself—a piece of your life, mind, and heart. Something with such weight will take a lot of love, energy, and time.

The length of time you will invest in writing your story depends on several variables: Your process, schedule, genre, etc. This is why you hear stories about well-known authors taking ten years to write their books, and others only ten days.

The answer you seek is intertwined specifically with you and your novel, so I can’t give you a guaranteed answer of how long writing your novel will take. However, I can provide you with the information you’ll need to find your one specific answer.

We have a bunch to dig into, so let’s get started!

How Long Should a Novel Be?

How long a novel takes to write will depend in part on how long your book will be. 

After looking through a few articles on how long novels in each genre are, I found vast discrepancies as large as 50,000 words. This shows there are many subjective opinions, but also some universal guidelines to adhere by.

Below I’ve recorded some novel word counts by genre collected by The Write Life’s article “A Word Count Guide for 18 Different Book Genres” by Blake Atwood:

• Romance: 40,000-100,000 words
• Science Fiction/Fantasy: 90,000-120,000 (even up to 150,000) words
• Historical Fiction: 80,000-100,000
• Thrillers/Horrors/Mysteries/Crime: 70,000-90,000 words
• Young Adult: 50,000-80,000 words
• Middle Grade: 25,000-40,000 words

These are guidelines to target between, and these targets vary upon your source. However, if your novel is much longer than commonly suggested guidelines (especially if it is your first novel), you may have trouble getting people to read your work.

However, there have been works longer and shorter than guidelines recommend which have been published with success. Therefore, these rules are not the defining factor on whether your story is worth being published. 

For now, let’s set aside specific word counts and settle on an estimate related to your genre while we move on to how long your novel will take to write. 

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Evidence From Literary History

• It took six years for J.K. Rowling to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas took John Boyne two and a half days to write.
• J.R.R. Tolkien spent twelve years writing The Lord of The Rings.
• Ian Fleming wrote Casino Royale in about two months time.
• Margaret Mitchell took ten years to write and publish Gone With the Wind.
• Arthur Conan Doyle wrote A Study in Scarlet in three weeks.

These are examples on extreme sides of the scale. Some of these works are shorter novels and some are much longer, but they were—and are—all successful. No matter their word counts or the time their creators spent on writing their books, every single one of these stories were successful. 

By looking at these examples, understand your story may take a week or twenty years to write, but both numbers are acceptable.

For me, I would love to write a novel in just two weeks time, but that has yet to be accomplished. Maybe someday.

So, take a breath. If you are going into your fourth year of writing the same story, take heart—you are far from alone.

Six Years of Novel Writing

About the year 2012, the inspiration for my current work-in-progress struck me. I was participating in a road trip to Leavenworth, WA, when I wrote the first scene of my novel The New Dawn (working title).

However, I didn’t finish the first draft until the beginning of 2016. About 3 and a half years later. From there I rewrote the first draft from scratch, and finished the second draft in 2018—two years. As of this blogpost’s birth date my third draft is underway, and I’ve crossed my fingers it won’t take more than a year.

From the conception of The New Dawn till today, I have been writing this novel for about six years time.

Six years. 

 I’m already head to head with J.K. Rowling’s six years to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Publishing has not even started, so I’m still looking at a lengthy journey ahead of me before I finish this novel completely. 

For some time that was a point of shame and embarrassment, as writers around me finished their novels in less time. Doubts crept in concerning how I wasn’t cut out for this, and how I wouldn’t have time to write all the stories in my head if it took me such time to write one novel. 

I wanted to be the person who got their novels written in one year.

But that isn’t how The New Dawn has turned out, and I’m glad it hasn’t. 

3 Lessons by Which to Write a Novel

Because it has taken so many years to write this novel, I know what it’s like working on a single novel for years. While I still hold out hope my novels after this will take much less time to write, I’m glad I’ve had an experience of a long creation process.

So far I’ve learned a few invaluable lessons from this novel: 1) the more experience you put under your belt, the quicker your drafts may become, 2) persistence does pay off, 3) my story needed the me of today, not just the me of 2012. 

1. Novel Writing Experience

Each draft I have undertaken has been quicker than the last. With each 70,000+ word draft I write, I learn how to do it better, faster, and with cleaner prose. I have come head to head already with some of my biggest demons and obstacles, and have learned how to help myself overcome the odds. 

I’ve learned the time spent on this project is the amount of time I needed to spend. Comparing myself to other writers helps no one. Judging myself helps no one either. 

I’m learning all I can from the experience, and applying the lessons I’ve learned for my next draft, and my next book. 

2. Persistence Pays Off

There have been countless times I’ve wondered if I will ever finish. When I was a year and a half into my first draft, I seriously doubted if I would ever finish this novel, if it was just a waste of time I could spend productively elsewhere. 

But I couldn’t give up on it. Even when I wouldn’t touch my story for months, I could never give it up completely. It was an annoyance always nagging my mind, but I never wanted it to go away. And it kept on annoying me and will continue to until I’ve finished.

I have persisted through six years of painful growing to be a writer. I’ve learned a novel may take a long time to write, but if you keep persisting to move forward, there is an end waiting to greet you.

If you’re in your sixth year like me, or if you are on your fifteenth year, keep persisting. If you are writing your book in record speed, keep persisting forward.

3. The Writer of Today

From the start of The New Dawn to today, I have seen a lot of change and undergone some growth. I have traveled internationally, recovered from hip surgeries, been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and have met friends I never want to lose. 

The person I was when I penned the first words of The New Dawn couldn’t do justice to the story my imagination had sparked. But if I had finished this novel in six months time, it wouldn’t have been very good. I’ve needed those several years to learn, grow, and experience events that have shaped who my characters are. I still have some growth left before this novel can reach the hands of readers. 

The New Dawn is a piece of myself, and the me of the present was needed to do justice to the story and characters I love.

Don’t Wait to Write Your Novel

If the novel you want to write is meant to be written now, you will write it in two weeks. If you need more time to do your novel justice, then you take the time you need. 

An easy conclusion I don’t want you to come to is to wait for the muse to strike until you sit down to write. As romantic as waiting for the muse to come seems, the muse is fickle, and will not appear for you in your greatest hour.

I don’t want you to give yourself an excuse not to write when you don’t feel ready to write. You will never feel ready to write. Accomplished authors will tell you the mark of a true writer is sitting down to write when you don’’t feel like it. 

What I hope you conclude is working hard and being passionate about your novel doesn’t automatically mean you finish your story in record time. Taking 12 years to write The Lord of The Rings does not mean J.R.R. Tolkien did not like his story. Tolkien was engrossed in his story world.

It also means that Ian Fleming did not care enough about bringing the famous James Bond character to life in those two months of writing.

The time you take to write is the time you need to write it. Don’t be ashamed to have spent a long or short time writing your story. Do what’s best for your novel. Keep moving forward as much as you can a day, and let the time be what it is.

And maybe you’ll write the next book in two months, two days, or seven years. Simply persist.

Keep Your Head in the Writing

What to obsess over is not how long it will take you to write your novel, but rather writing. Keep your head obsessed in what you need to do, in staying on a moving track forward. The rest will follow. 

This is not to say you can’t plan deadlines for chapters and have goals for when to finish your novel. A timeline for writing is important to keep organized and on track with a writing project. But don’t lay your worth as a writer on the alter of how long it will take you to write a novel.

I don’t think anyone would accuse Margaret Mitchell or J.K. Rowling of being bad writers for the sole reason of how long they took to write their first novels. 

Neither does anyone think Aurthur Conan Doyle was a bad writer for how quickly he wrote A Study in Pink.

They all are judged on the quality and intrigue of their books, not how long it took them to write. There are elements to admire in both shortly written works and ones which took a decade or more. Don’t waste your energy on judging yourself. 

Persist and succeed. 

How Long Will Your Novel Take to Write?

You’ve found your guidelines for word counts, examples from successful authors, and thoughts from my own experience with a long writing process. You now have the information you need to form a conclusion on how long you believe novels should take to write, and how that will apply to yourself.

A short writing process is logically desirable, but a long process is not bad either. You and your novel are unique, and so will be your answer.

Be it long or short, it will be right.

The time you take will not define your novel’s success—history has proven the contrary.