A teacher assigns fifteen algebra problems as homework; it’s due the next school day. An accounting supervisor assigns an expense report reconciliation; it’s due before the end-of-month close. A parent assigns dinner dishes that must be done before a teen meets friends for a movie. Deadlines. There’s no escaping them. Some have more leeway than others. Like the dishes. Some are written in stone. Like those in publishing contracts.
When an author goes to contract, one of the first things s/he will have to decide is when s/he can reasonably deliver the sold manuscript. A first book is usually complete save for revisions, but a publisher will often make an offer for a second book, one which may be only a gleam in the author’s eye. Over the last fifteen years, I’ve signed many blind contracts — meaning I have a deadline to deliver a full manuscript on which I haven’t yet written a word. Yes, it happens. All the time. It’s the publisher making an investment.
How then does an author decide on delivery dates? What factors into that calculation? Unless an editor requests an author take part in a project that’s already scheduled, a holiday anthology, for example, which would require a story be turned in by a pre-determined date, most deadlines are up to the author to set. Sort of. I add that caveat because in genre fiction, once an author is seated in a publishing program, there are expectations of what s/he will produce. That investment, remember?
A category author writing for any of the Harlequin or Silhouette lines can usually count on at least two slots a year. Yes, some write more, some write less, but two makes for a good median. It’s the same with single title imprints. Editors will schedule an author’s releases every six to nine to twelve months, depending on how many established authors are writing for the house, the genres they represent, and the schedule’s needs.
In a perfect world, here’s how I would figure the delivery date on a 100K word manuscript. I can pretty easily write 1000 good words a day, so . . . 100 days x 1000 = 100,000 words. Because I write every day, and because I don’t draft but write finished product, I essentially need one hundred days to complete a single title length genre novel. What’s not figured into that calculation is the pre-planning of the book. The character development, the plotting, the research. Even coming up with the story premise. Usually, those are the things I jot notes on while writing my contracted work.
Let’s say I’ve done all that pre-planning. I know what I’m going to write about, have done enough character development, plotting, and research to get me started. Yes, more will be needed. The character development is fairly organic, falling into place as I write.
And 1000 words a day leaves a lot of time for working out plot twists and doing additional research. So, do I count off one hundred days on the calendar and give that date to my agent to offer my editor for my contract?
No. Way.
First of all, those one hundred days? Something is going to happen that will keep me from writing on a least one of them. Most likely more. Doctors appointments, car repairs, family functions. Some known. Some unexpected. I can stay up late to get the words done, but I don’t like doing that. I like to sleep. I can’t write when I’m not rested. Instead, I’m going to add at least two weeks to my 100 days — two weeks I may not need, but will provide a cushion if I do. (And if you’re on a regular publishing schedule and will have to deal with a previous book’s edits and proofs, build in that time, too.)
Then I’m going to add two more. Ideally, I’d add four, but I’ll stick with two. These days are important. And they don’t start until the book is done.
That’s right. These are the days I’m not going to touch the manuscript. I’m not going to open the file and futz with it. I’m not going to read a single page. I’m not even going to think about it. I’m going to set it aside and let it breathe and move on to another book. Once those two weeks have passed, I’ll come back to the story and read it again with a fresh eye and from the distance I’ve created. And because this is a perfect world, I’ve already added on another week to fix all the things I’m going to find that are wrong. Because I will find many things wrong. I know this because every time I read galleys before the book goes to press, I find repetition, overused words, awkward sentence structure, cliches, dialogue that doesn’t ring true.
(We’re up to 100 days and five weeks for those of you who’ve lost count.)
But I can’t afford to take five weeks on top of one hundred days, you say. My answer? You can’t afford not to. Remember, we’re building a perfect world scenario here. And in a perfect world, authors would take the time to let their stories breathe. They would not lose sleep to rush toward a deadline. They would not take vacation days to rush toward a deadline. They would not feed their family pizza or mac ‘n cheese for two weeks as they rush toward a deadline. In a perfect world, there would be no rushing toward deadlines.
I’ve heard authors say that no amount of time is going to change what they’ve wirtten. That their books are what they are. Because I see things in every one of my books that breathing room would have improved, I disagree. No, I don’t know their process. I’m not in their heads. But I think the biggest sin an author can commit is to rush a story, genre or not.
Now, losing sleep and taking vacation and eating pizza because the muse is demanding and the story has to get out is fine. Do that, then put the book away for two to four weeks. Come back. Polish and fix and tweak until it shines. But slamming through to the end and turning it in does no one any favors. Not the author, the editor, the readers, and especially not the book.
The feeling of writing “The End” is euphoric, but writing “The End” and knowing with just one more week, things could be made better is a bucket of cold water in euphoria’s face. No author wants to face massive revisions because s/he cut things too close to deadline and dropped a plot thread that impacts dozens of scenes. No author wants to face getting dinged by a reviewer because an approaching deadline had him/her taking a shortcut in characterization. And no author wants to lose a reader because in rushing toward the end, s/he relied on a cliche instead of an original plot device.
I wish that years ago I’d been advised to build breathing room into my contract delivery dates, and not just extra emergency time, but time to let the finished manuscript age. And really, I don’t even like to think of it as “building in” because that makes it sound disposable. As if it’s a luxury, an opt-in rather than a creative necessity. A lot of genre fiction takes a bad rap as being pulp, quickly and thoughtlessly churned out, and I can’t help but wonder if giving our work time to breathe wouldn’t be an effective counter to that complaint.
I haven’t always done so in the past, but in any future contracts I’m fortunate to sign, I’ll be including plenty of breathing room. I’m pretty sure the difference will show in my work – even if I have to eat a lot of Ramen to carry me those extra weeks between checks.
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The actual writing time is like the tip of the iceberg. Sigh.
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It is. Obviously, an author’s mileage will vary depending on how s/he writes. Someone who blasts through a draft might only need 50 days of drafting, then 50 days to tighten and polish and revise. I think I mentioned in my post about respecting the creative process, that I tried that and for me it was a big fail, so I do my measly 1000 words a day *g* and polish them before moving on.
Still, the more galleys / proofs I read through, the more I’m convinced that breathing room is vital for a manuscript, if for nothing more than fixing unnecessary repetition and finding better words. I’m all about the words.
At the end of a book, I’m convinced our brains are too fried to do a final polish. Sure, we can read through, but we miss so many things. As much as the manuscript needs to breathe, our brains need to air out!!
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You know what drives me batty? It drove me batty in college when people were talking about papers and it drives me batty now when writers talk about deadlines: “I work better under pressure.” i.e. When the deadline is a week away and they’re faced with writing 10 k words a day to get it done. Dude, get an extension.
Whatever my deadline is, I mentally move that a month ahead. That’s my first draft deadline. Then I have a month to let it sit, ferment, and to make revisions.
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Carrie – I’ve been guilty of getting into that bind where I have to write an obscene number of words a day to make a deadline. Never 10K, but I have needed 5K, and since I’m a regular 1K a day writer, that was too painful to describe.
Good call to back up a month and tell yourself you have to be done by then. You’ve easily built in breathing room.
As far as working better under pressure, I know I work better when I have a contract; making myself write to sell a new project is the worst. There’s a whole lot of discipline at work here, and I’m convinced wielding that whip is the key to success.
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I’m a big believer in the “let it breathe” method, too. My current process: Blast through a really messy first draft in 4-8 weeks (4 for a YA, 8 for an adult) at roughly 1750-2000 words/day). Let it sit for a month while I work on something else, then take another month for a second draft. Turn that in.
Many weeks later, with my editor and beta readers’ feedback, I do a sweeping rewrite, where I usually change the plot, the ending, kill off characters who survived the original drafts (and vice versa for other characters), etc. This usually takes 6-8 weeks (for an adult novel): 2 weeks brainstorming/replotting, 4 weeks rewriting, 1 week revising, 1 week polishing.
If I could do it all faster, or get the story right the first time, I could write at least one more book a year. But I always come up with better ideas the second time around.
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Ugh, your process scares me, LOL! I don’t like having to rework a story. I’d almost rather write a new one. Three manuscripts ago, I had to do that, and I knew it was the suck when I turned it in, but rewriting it was a killer!
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Ideally, I need three months for a first draft (60K), 1-2 weeks for the first, horrible, gag-inducing first edit pass, a week to let the thing breathe, then 1-2 weeks for AT LEAST two more passes. Two out of the last three first drafts, however, have taken longer than I’d hoped, and because the books were already slotted I had no breathing space. In fact, on the book I just turned in, I had two weeks to do four weeks’ worth of editing. I did all three passes (and boy, am I glad I did — couldn’t believe the number of goofs I found in that third read-through), and I’m okay with it…but I’m wondering how many eye-rolling moments I’m gonna have come line edit time.
I do not work well under extreme pressure — if anything, I choke and can’t string three words together that make sense. So you’ll never find me cranking out a half dozen books a year — my brain just doesn’t cough up the ideas, let alone the words, that fast. That it’s gotten slower over the years does not make me happy, because I rarely, rarely have that blessed week to let the book rest anymore.
The good news, however, is that my lightening-fast editing skillz have improved immensely in the past little while.
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Three months is about my working time on a category, too, though I’ve been known to do it in six weeks, OUCH!
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“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Douglas Adams
I’d rather pierce my own tongue than attempt to let a deadline sneak up on me. I set my own (usually nine months after the start of the project) and I do not work well under pressure. Pressure means I’m not sleeping, slamming coffee, and lusting for a cigarette the size of a NYC subway train. (I quit smoking a few years ago, but that need is still there when I’m stressed.)
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I love that quote as much as I love sleep. I have tried to write for too long on too little, and this last year I stopped. I went to bed when I was tired. I didn’t stay up and force the words. And a funny thing happened. I got more writing done in fewer hours because I was rested.
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I really enjoyed this post. It’s a rare insight into the process from start to final turn-in. So…six months is not an unreasonable length of time from the first word you type until you send it off for the last time?
And there are some things I do very well under pressure. Writing is not one of them.
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Six months isn’t unreasonable at all, no. To me, it’s a very comfortable time frame, but do work with your agent and editor to see if it’s comfortable for the publisher, too!
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I enjoyed this post. As a reader of many books, I can always tell when the author rushed through it. An editor can only catch so many mistakes in the book. I can tell that you take your time, Alison. I can’t remember finding any mistakes in your books. That drives me bonkers. Reading books and finding spelling errors or the wrong names for the characters. Had that happen very recently and I almost put the book down. I know authors are human, but you should know the names of your characters especially if they’re one of the main ones!
Keep up the good work!
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Oh, I have rushed and I see the mistakes, LOL! But hopefully they are small enough that the reader doesn’t!
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Last year I had a deadline moved up a month by the publisher, which caused it to collide with another deadline I already had scheduled for the same week. Finishing one novel is hard enough, but two at once? My brain was mush. Then a few days before the double deadline date arrived, they tried to move one of the deadlines up again (as in, “Can you turn in the book now instead of next week?”)
I always try to accomodate them, but sometimes the demands are really unreasonable and always seem to come at the worst possible time during the writing process.
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I was going to mention this, too, and forgot. Publishers will occasionally want to move things in the schedule, and will need manuscripts sooner than the contracted deadline. Of course we want to accommodate them when possible, so having the built in time already aids in doing so. As in, instead of using two weeks to let a book ferment, use a week or a few days in order to finish it sooner. Having a built in cushion can come in handy in many situations.
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This was a great post. As an aspiring writer still in the glorious “pre-pub” days where I can just fuss and fuss over my three books, it was interesting to read what the “real world” is like. Stephen King recommends this breathing room in “On Writing,” as well. He suggests doing it after the first draft, when you can come back at the book with fresh eyes and zero in on any holes, inconsistencies and other silliness. However, he also mentions that this is where you might find some of your subconscious gems, too, like those motifs you put in, or those symbols you didn’t even see before that you can go back and polish. So “breathing room” unveils a lot of good things, too. : )
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Oh, I always find those subconscious things, yes. It’s amazing how the subconscious works.
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OK, I don’t have a “usually” since I’m working on my first novel. But when I typed “The End” I knew it was far from over. And recently I had to step away when I realized I was revising and editing and reading the same page over and over again and not getting anywhere at all. Two weeks on other projects and now I’m on a roll. I’ve reworked the first 50 pages, tightened them, added, deleted and made the story what it needs to be. I think I’m going to work in 50 page batches…perhaps that will be my “usually.”
Great topic. Is it novice writers who don’t take a break and let their manuscript and themselves breathe? Do any seasoned writers just barrel through? I’d be curious.
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I know a lot of seasoned writers who barrel through, and I think for the most part it’s contractual obligations, and not any disrespect for the work. Maybe we think we can do more in a span of time than we end up being able to do, so we give our editors what we have, and then hope for revisions to make it better! I’ve only been able to do this because of being so familiar with the tenets of my genre, so when I go out with something else, I will be taking much more time!
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