I would suspect that much depends on the style of the individual writer and the genre of the book. To take a ready example, hard-boiled, gimlet-eyed detective fiction shouldn’t be groaning with thick pages and its prose weighted down with heavy description. Think Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, or Elmore Leonard for prime examples of the style. While I have no doubt that copious amounts of cutting and re-writing may have given the end product its angular thrust and perfect frugal geometry, I also suspect that this style can be churned out by a skilled writer faster than others. Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy come to mind in the sparseness of their prose and the tight structure of their narratives as well of course. Again, I mention this only to suggest the contrast between such authors and the likes of Poe, Lovecraft, or even Dickens (though if you want to site prolific authors, Dickens can’t be too far down the list). Different styles of writing need also I suspect, different approaches. They likely progress at diverse speeds due to factors such as the complexity of sentence structure, levels of description, plot, and pacing.

This brings me to my final suggestion: the skill and experience of the writer must affect how quickly one can produce quality writing. If you write 10,000+ words each day, for five, ten, or even fifty or more years, I can only imagine that you can, if possessed of such native talent as do all the authors I’ve named above and haven’t drowned your creative talents in drink or too much easy living, produce good work potentially far faster than a less experienced or naturally talented author. Not that writing becomes inherently easier with experience, but you’d expect a skilled writer at the very least to become able to physically put down words to paper more quickly than a more novitiate scribbler. I could be wrong, but it seems like what you’d expect to happen as you would in most crafts. Certainly, as a beginning writer, I’m often struggling just to find my tone, my own voice, and I spend it feels an inordinate amount of time mired down in overly cumbersome sentences and meandering, Gormenghastian descriptions. But already I notice that now almost ten chapters into the first book I’ve ever written, in the span of a little over two weeks it’s getting easier already.

Finally, I suppose that along with the style of the writer, the genre of the novel, and the native skill and the years of writing an individual writer might possess, there is the subtle notion of pacing to consider. Some stories are intended (and I suppose this is closely connected to all of the above) to move at a set pace as the story unfolds. I can see that a book written at breakneck speed by a skilled author might even add to the urgency that comes across in the reading, and to good effect.

Eric

As for speed, I’m trying (and succeeding so far) at producing 49 chapters + a prelude of an original fantasy novel in 10-12 weeks. As I have a very limited time each day to write, and not every day at that, it is challenging to say the least.

However, the pressure of producing a minimum of 6,000 to 7,000 words every other day, it is a goad that I need. All my other attempts over the past four or five months since I decided to try my hand at writing have simply sputtered out, bogged down in slow writing, long considerations of setting and plot, and too much damned re-writing and all that lies in between those hellish gates.

My rationale is that the story moves faster in my mind than I can type. So what I really need to do is to write faster and let the story that is impatiently tapping its foot in my feverish brain, set the pace and call the shots.

Oh, and no doubt ruthlessly re-write and chop the damn monster into shape once it’s all down in digital ink and on virtual paper.

Eric

I came into work this morning, our entire network was down. I got everyone back up and running in 20 mins. Nobody commented on how quickly I got the network back up, just moaned about how crap the IT is. Such is life whether you are an editor, an IT worker, or virtually any job, but Joe makes a very fair point. How is it possible to identify good editing?

Do we see perceived issues with editing as being the Editor’s problem? It’s an interesting question. I think the blame always ultimately lays with the author (at least for me). I’ve always really strived to make the life of whatever editor I’ve worked for as easy as possible (although they’ve only been small scale projects). But maybe in my naivety I see them as the last guardians of sanity in a chain of edits and proofreads – far enough removed to view any piece of text with impartiality. I read as a reader then mull as a writer, but when (on very rare occasions) I see something that forces me to turn on my crit-switch, I find myself wondering “Did no-one spot this? Was it identified by the editor and the writer not act on it?”

But I also think that the reader (reviewer or not) has the right to question the editing. Maybe they lack the vocabulary to accurately describe their point (i.e. that the issue is pacing rather than the actual edit) but that doesn’t mean they don’t ultimately have a point.

I’ve been working on the first novel in my Epic Fantasy trilogy and since the end of Feb I’ve reached 20000 words, a big chunk of that (at least 15-16000 words) in the space of a week, and I it’s damn difficult to keep the quality up while keeping the wordcount ticking over. Sometimes I write absolutely awesome stuff, but most of the time I ask myself just why the hell I’m writing when I can only seem to churn out major crap – thank goodness I’ve decided to edit when I’m done!

I partly agree with the fact that some novels aren’t edited properly – wait, hear me out! I’ve read quite a lot of novels that were edited by the author him- / herself, and it doesn’t matter if the author does ten edits, there are always some things that escape his/her notice (speaking from embarrassing experiences here), and even some of the independent publishers employ editors that miss a couple of things. I do also agree, though, that what one person thinks is wrong, or could have been written better, is what another person will love.

It’s something I try to keep in mind when reviewing a book – and is the same reason why I’ll only lift out absolutely glaring errors. One of the books I reviewed, The Uprising, could use a proper edit (lot’s of spelling and grammar mistakes) but it really didn’t impact on my reading experience because it was such an awesome book.

So I guess that editing, done well and ruthlessly, is completely invisible – that’s when we think that the book seemed effortless.

This post could have used a bit more editing – a tightening of a sentence or two here, further elaborations of a point or two there. The pacing may not be what you fully desired, either.

Oh, wait, you didn’t want an off-hand critique like that?

Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks on the writing speed/quality. I remember spending a couple of 20 hour day/nights writing the first draft of my undergraduate thesis for review. Thank God there was a record snowfall that February (1996) that gave me an extra day to work on it, as I was contemplating skipping classes then. A little over 7,000 words then. Probably could have used a bit more editing there, come and think of it But I also know of several who spent weeks writing their papers and the quality was not as high when the papers were critiqued, so I guess it is, as some say above, all down to what skills each individual writer has developed over time.

Sorry for the double comment but I realized I missed something – I deeply admire most pro writers, where by a pro writer I mean someone who makes all his/her “working” living from writing irrespective of how much I like their work for the simple reason that it is not easy to do that, the same way it is not easy to make your living independently in pretty much any job as opposed to staying within the corporate/government/academic umbrella where you have much more protection and acceptance so to speak

Editing isn’t a matter of what there was to begin with, it’s a matter of what you end up with. If the final manuscript is riddled with fixable errors, of course the quality of the editing should, and can, be commented upon. At the end of the day, who cares how much work was already put into it? If a novel can be better, it can be better, despite however much time and energy was already put into the improvement.