: Re: How many words/hour should you aim for when writing your first draft? A couple of axioms here. Firstly, most people agree that you should write your first draft quickly, without too much care

@Cooney417

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Slow and steady wins the race.

Cliché's out the way (although I do think it's true), one of the things I find with writing is that you should always stick to what you're comfortable with, unless you're finding it detrimental to your writing.

So, if you're doing 250 words/hour, and feel that's too slow, then I would suggest you set yourself an easy target. Double it to 500wph, or increase it to 1000wph, and try achieve that.

If you can sustain it, and feel that it's easy, then up the ante again. If you find yourself struggling, then lower it.

The best thing really is to experiment, and find the level that you feel most comfortable with.

Edit: I also wanted to add that, according to this article, author Dean Wesley Smith says:

“Most professional writers can average
about one thousand words an hour, when
going on a novel. Not in the struggle
of the beginnings, but once the novel
is underway. So, simple math says that
to write a 90,000 word novel, you have
about 90 hours of work.”

That would suggest that you should set your own expectations based on where you are in the process of writing your novel, but I still recommend sticking with what you feel comfortable with. With practise, your wph will likely start to increase naturally by itself.

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