How long does it take you to write a story?

[SimonDoom]

I'm curious how long it takes you to write a story, from the moment that the story idea first occurs to you until the time you submit it at Literotica.

I'm not talking about novels or long series. I'm talking about single chapters or standalone short stories.

I'm an extremely undisciplined writer, so I'm all over the map on this one. I have short stories that I've been working on for several years, and missed several contest deadlines for, but still haven't finished.

On the other hand, I completed my first story, The Holiday Party, in under 48 hours. I was writing another story in December 2016, but then noticed that a contest deadline was coming up. So I dropped that story (In the Hallway) and conceived of, wrote, edited, and submitted The Holiday Story in under 48 hours. It's not too long -- about 4,000 words. And it's not that great. But I was amazed that I could finish a story so quickly. I have not duplicated that since then. Most of my stories take several weeks or many months to write from conception to submission. On the other hand, my most viewed story, Late Night On The Loveseat With Mom, took exactly 7 days from conception to submission, and it's by far my most read and most favorited story. It's about 8,000 words.

Of the stories I've published so far, I think the longest time it took from conception to submission was about a year. But I'll blow that away once I finish and submit some of my other backlogged stories.

I don't know how it is for others, but for me, the creative process is very weird and unpredictable. That's probably part of why it's appealing. It's an adventure.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I don't know how it is for others, but for me, the creative process is very weird and unpredictable. That's probably part of why it's appealing. It's an adventure.

I'm still relatively new, but my Covid haircut story took a few days and my Ind Vs Aus stories took months.

All good fun though.

 

[NotWise]

I don't know how it is for others, but for me, the creative process is very weird and unpredictable. That's probably part of why it's appealing. It's an adventure.

Writing isn't all about the creative process. I can create a story in the process of waking up in the morning. Writing it is a different thing.

I don't remember how long it took from concept to completion for my early Lit stories. It wasn't very long. Early feedback made me realize that I needed to put more time into producing a finished product, so later stories took more time.

Since then . . . Let me think. I wrote "Pixie by the Pool" to break a writing slump. From concept to final version it took maybe five days and filled two Lit pages.

At the other end of things, I started "Working for Mom" (my longest stand-alone story) in September, 2019 and finished it at the end of April, 2020. I worked on nothing else until that story was out to beta readers in January, 2020.

I started the fourth part of "A Valentine's Day Mess" on March 19, 2018, and finished it (but for final edits) a couple weeks ago. That story has, in all, taken more than five years to write and I can't see the end of it soon enough.

Taking a long time to write a story seems like a bad thing to me.

 

[KeithD]

Usually one to three days. I'm working on other stories at the same time, though--writing or reviewing them.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

My fastest is about 12 hours. Twice; both stories are roughly 3000 words, and are really just snapshots (The Birthday Presents, and Hurt Me, Please) with a little atmosphere.

Longest? (Not counting the novel I'm 2/3 of the way through, that will probably be 100k words when im done. Started summer of 2019) A few weeks, I'd guess. My April Fools story from last year took some tweaking to make the mystery plausible.

So far, it seems like, if I don't have a draft complete in that time, the story kind of withers.

 

[mynameisben]

I don't write often, but when I do the stories are rather short. I usually crank them out in one sitting of four to six hours. But then I'll spend days worth of editing, fine-tuning, and grammar and spell checking.


Ben

 

[SamScribble]

In another life, I was usually writing to a deadline of some sort. So getting the story down on paper, crafting it, polishing it, all of that usually happens in a couple of days. Sorting out the idea can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to a couple of months.

And, like Keith, I'm usually working on three or four things at once.

 

[RejectReality]

All over the map. I have a Valentine's story that's been in my WIP folder for probably a decade. I fiddle with it every year, but it's never met my full level of satisfaction in time for the contest, so back into storage it goes.

Closer than ever this year, but I had no motivation to write sex scenes during the critical last few days.

Then I'll get an idea, write a 2.5-3k word story in a couple of hours, let it sit a day while I work on something else, run it through the editing process, and post it the next day.

I've got 2 Les stories, a Dark multi-chapter story, and an RR mature category story all open in Wordperfect right now, with several others that are currently on the back burner, but in various stages of completion.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Recently, I unearthed a draft from 2005, finished it, and had it posted here. Compared with that, everything else I've done seems efficient.

 

[SimonDoom]

Taking a long time to write a story seems like a bad thing to me.

If I felt this way, I'd just give up. Thank goodness I have not.

I don't get paid for this, so I'm just indulging the muse whenever she strikes. I've published 36 stories/chapters in 4 years and 3 months, and by the standards of what I expected when I got started that's amazing to me. I would never have guessed that I'd be here.

I will say I'm impressed at how quickly, in general, people write their stories. It's faster than I would have thought.

 

[gordo12]

I just finished two files dating back to 2017, a year before I started posting stories. I have at least twenty going now. I tend to work on one and then put it away until something new jells.

"Homeless" was started Nov 21 and posted for Christmas.

I'm all over the place time-wise. If I was going to write professionally, I'd really need to clean up my act

 

[HeyAll]

The fastest I've ever made a story was "Bus Ride with Sister" and it took 1 day to write, edit, submit. It's somewhere around 4-5 thousand words I think, somewhere on the lower end. I think it's one of my top 20 biggest stories, if not higher.

The speed of a story all depends on the idea and premise. If it's a fun story, for instance an incest story where mom accidentally takes a drug that makes her horny, then it can made quickly, as in within a week. I'm finishing up one right now that took 2 days and it'll be 3,500 words.

These days, I try making the plots and setups more unique. That excites me more than the usual plots. So things tend to take longer. Once I have a plot in mind, I write the intro quickly, then I take my time workout out the rest. Maybe 2 weeks I'm guessing, sometimes a story takes up to a 1 month.

Keep in mind, I like working on 2 stories at once.

On a side note, there's zero correlation between time spent on a story and the popularity it has. I've had quick stories become super popular. And stories I've spent too much time on become not that popular.

 

[TxRad]

263 stories in 15 years. You do the math.

That's not counting my mainstream stuff. six novels, 80-95K each. A dozen YA novels at 50-60k each.

No wonder I have two fingers and a thumb shorter than the others.

 

[Omenainen]

My fastest had to be the 750 words story. It took as long as it takes to type 750 words, because I quickly figured out I don’t want to tinker with it, when removing a word leads to adding another somewhere else. So it was maybe half an hour from start to finish, proofreading and all.

I’ve been publishing for ten months and have 21 stories up, so usually it’s a few weeks per story I suppose. I do not aim for perfection, I aim for good enough, I aim to get things finished. My longest? Well I wrote a story in August and still haven’t published it, so maybe that one, and I don’t know yet how long it’ll be.

I only write for fun and I don’t expect to keep up this pace. So far I’ve been inspired.

 

[Kay_Evans100]

The honest answer is it takes as long as it does.

Some come quickly in a rush and can be finished in days, others take weeks and months.

Of course it also depends on the time available and the commitment; some are very disciplined others only write when in a particular frame of mind.

For me it is also sometimes a cathartic process rather than actually writing for anyone else

 

[Emirus]

I'm an extremely undisciplined writer.

I'm just indulging the muse whenever she strikes. I've published 36 stories/chapters in 4 years and 3 months.

I could have written the words, “I’m an extremely undisciplined writer,” myself because they accurately sum me up. I write when I feel like it and the feeling is very much less than it was when my first story was published. I admire the writers who can discipline themselves to, as has been mentioned at different times, give themselves a target of writing a minimum number of words a day.

I can’t comprehend how some writers are able to publish a story weekly. I wonder how they find the time. Even 36 stories in 51 months is fantastic compared with my output.

I write when I feel like it and for the past year I haven’t felt like it very often. I’ve had ideas, written 2, 3 or 4 thousand words in an hour or two and then realised that’s it. There’s no more story to tell and, as I don’t think any story of mine is worthy of inflicting on readers if it’s less than a couple of pages they go in the bottom drawer, to perhaps be resurrected at some future time, or the bin.

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

Man (was a boy 50 years ago, but he grew up): Mr. Turtle, how many minutes does it take you to write a good story on Literotica?

Mr. Turtle: I never made it without biting … ask Ms. AA.

Man (was a boy ...): Ms. AA, how many minutes does it take you to write a good story on Literotica?

Ms. AA: Let’s find out… One.. Two…Three

*CRUNCH NOISE*

Ms. AA: Three

ANNOUNCER: Hey, this is just a thinly veiled excuse for lots of people to enjoy steaming hot and messy group sex together!

*CRUNCH NOISE*

ANNOUNCER: The world may never know.

 

[Dark_Logan_]

For a short story (or chapter) 4 to 5 days on average.

Day1 = Plotting/Writing
Day 2-3 = Writing/Editing
Day 3 - 5 = Proofing (myself and a companion) Editing, Reviewing, Checking etc.

Guess everyone works differently but in honesty I’m plotting all the time on story’s so by time I sit to write in my mind I know how things are 90% going to play out thanks to what’s captured in my scribble pad - and the above is on the basis of having very little real world responsibility to get in the way. (Being unemployed for 5 months has some perks.)

I usually end up writing the majority of my tales on my phone then transfer to PC for final stages !!

Heaven help my eyesight in years to come !!

 

[ElectricBlue]

When I look at my output from one year to the next, I seem to average 10k - 12k a month, with some more productive periods when I had more time. But I'll go days without writing, and then... blurt. I'm slower now than I was, but the writing (I think) is better. Hope so, anyway.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

I tend to write longer stories (6-9 Lit pages) so it can take a while.

I write in my head when out walking and plan a scene out that way. Usually manage to remember the good bits as I crash a first draft in on my tablet then transfer into Word for inclusion with the main story. I then refine it a few times then use the Word read aloud feature to read it back to me.

In that way each scene can take 2-3 days. Usually there are eight to ten scenes so it is quite a long process.

Some have come together quite quickly, as with my Halloween entry Heaven Up Here, which is relatively short for me. That was about 4 days from idea, to working it out on holiday walks then making it happen on my return.

My recent Girl Seven story took over two years from getting the idea to pressing the publish button and I must have written another fifteen stories in that time. Some of them were interrupted by others as well.

One of my problems is that I start with a good idea then find I have no ending, so shelve it for a while.

Other times I find it is not fitting the intended category so do a bit of a rewrite. My lockdown story We'll Get Through This Together went through that process twice and started out in Mature, then went to Group Sex. I preferred the all-female scenes and found a cute love interest for Tallulah, the leading lady, so did a major revamp, wrote the guys out and made it a Lesbian Sex story. Took way longer than it should as a consequence, but I prefer it that way. In fact, it took so long, I hoped it would be published post-lockdown, but that has proven to be a vain hope.

So, i suppose a more succinct answer would be 'a long time and it varies wildly!'

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm curious how long it takes you to write a story, from the moment that the story idea first occurs to you until the time you submit it at Literotica.

For me it's rarely just one idea. At any given time I have a bunch of ideas drifting round in my head, occasionally colliding with one another, and at some point enough of them click together that I think "I can write this". It might be a decade or more between the first idea and when I actually use it.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

A story, or a good story? My most recent, I did in 2 days to meet a contest deadline, and it really shows. I usually go back to do another edit after a week or two which shows where I need to flesh out bits and get rid of other parts, and then I often leave them again for some re-read and more polishing, so 3-12 months would be more usual. I have a number of stories lying around that I wrote years ago as drafts and could be turned into decent stories with a bit of work.

 

[oggbashan]

Anything from three hours to nineteen years - or never.
My best was for the 2003 NaNoWriMo - 12 linked chapters of 50,000 words written edited and POSTED on LIT - allowing for the then delays in posting - before the end of the NaNO month.

That set of stories is still untouched as Flawed Red Silk but I know of at least one typo - ThReshad for threshed.

 

[SimonDoom]

For me it's rarely just one idea. At any given time I have a bunch of ideas drifting round in my head, occasionally colliding with one another, and at some point enough of them click together that I think "I can write this". It might be a decade or more between the first idea and when I actually use it.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one like this.

I read erotic stories for years -- about 15 years or more -- before publishing my first one. But all that time I thought about writing, and reading other people's stories would give me ideas about how to treat a similar theme in my own way. Ideas bounced around in my head for years and years before I wrote anything. Then I started writing a few stories, and lost all of them in a hard drive crash (idiot). Then I wrote nothing for a while. And then in 2016 I got started here at last. But the process continues, with most stories gestating in a primordial form in my head, or as semi-organized notes in a Word document, before anything comes of them.

 

[oggbashan]

When I thought I would die soon, I published most of my incomplete stories on Lit. This is the first part of four:

https://www.literotica.com/s/oggbashan-stew-pt-01

Now I have enough pending, part-written to make part five.