How many words do you write in an hour on average?

Don't stress word count and production rate. We're all different. Some people write fast, some write medium, some write slow. Some produce clean copy, some edit twelve times. There's no one right way - as long as your way gets the story on the page and finished, it's the right way for you.

Agreed.
And it's about your own expectations.
I'd love to write more, have more words, etc. At this point, I've set a goal of 500 words a day. If I do this, by the end of the month of January I'll have more than all of last year.
But each hour? I dunno.
Again, expectations.

I've been clocked at 100 WPM, so my fingers could do the job in 10 minutes.
I just don't think as fast as I type.
I don't think I've ever done 1k in an hour.
Maybe I'll make that a goal as well, just for fun. See if I can get to the point I can write that fast. My writing muscles are very small. Hopefully my 500 words a day exercise will strengthen them and I can crank 1k in 1 hour. A nice thought!

I work full-time and only have my lunch hour to write, so that hour has to be productive. No checking Facebook or Twitter. No researching and looking crap up as I write. Clickety-clickety-clack...don't talk smack. Aherm, yes, well, that kinda went off the rails. What were we talking about again? Oh right, writing productivity.

If I'm staring at a blank screen and the blinking cursor hypnotizes me into a gob-smacked brain stupor, I'm lucky to get 200 words on the page before its time to head back to the office.

On the other hand, if I've successfully thought about my story and sketched the thing out ahead of time like I'm supposed to, I can easily hit 1500 words during that lunch hour. For me, it really all depends on how PREPARED I am to write that day. More preps = more reps. No wait...that's evening gym time. Anyway, you know what I'm saying here.

I don't have any idea how many words per hour I can type. When I started writing I was using my index fingers to get my story written.

That was so slow I started using Dragon, a digital typing program. My word count went up considerably.

The problem that slowed the process down was misheard words. When you have to backup and fix the issue it slows the story down, making it hard to stay in the zone.

After one frustrating day I learned to type so I don't have to back up anymore. Writing is a lot more fun now.

Posted by: @storysinger

I don't have any idea how many words per hour I can type. When I started writing I was using my index fingers to get my story written.

That was so slow I started using Dragon, a digital typing program. My word count went up considerably.

The problem that slowed the process down was misheard words. When you have to backup and fix the issue it slows the story down, making it hard to stay in the zone.

After one frustrating day I learned to type so I don't have to back up anymore. Writing is a lot more fun now.

 

I've heard of Dragon dictation. Some writers have tremendous success with it. I tried it once. The good news is I wrote about 800 words. The bad news is it was 800 words of phrases like, "No wait, that's not how it goes...What was I saying again?...Holy crap I can't even read that...What are those letters—is that even English?"

If I'm in a particularly fast writing mood, I can reasonably bang out about 100 words in 5 minutes, but if it's slow then it's 100 words in 15 minutes or so. I've never measured word count for an hour though. 

@chezecaek, RETreasure put it best (and succinctly, compared to what follows). Find what works best for you. Resist the urge to judge yourself against others, as the negatives (longer-term stress at not measuring up) often erase what positives (a burst of initial productivity) may occur. But if you feel you write "slowly," how can you find out whether writing "fast" works for you?

When I started writing (NaNo 2019), I tapped out between 800-1000 words per hour (WPH) of non-outlined fiction. Two hours of writing per day, every day, notched a NaNo "win". Yay. Cue confetti. By May of 2020, I had doubled my speed, which I maintain as an average now. Two specific books helped me iteratively improve my process. They are: Chris Fox, 5000 Words Per Hour (full disclosure, I’ve never come close to that), and Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k. Of the two, Fox's helped me the most in terms of writing faster.

Three important factors to writing speed:

• Typing speed
• Thinking speed
• Time spent editing, correcting

Potential solutions to these factors:

• Take typing courses (I didn’t do this; I type no faster than I did two years ago).
• Spend 5 minutes thinking about your scene beforehand. Write notes, block beats.
• Don't edit, delete, correct, fix anything. Move your cursor forward, never backward. Don't use "delete." (By far the hardest)

I like to think of writing pace like jogging pace. Most people cannot run a fast, steady pace for two hours the first time they lace up their shoes. It takes training. Building up from short to long distances. Perhaps more importantly, running faster may or may not equate to enjoyment. If I pass out before reaching the finish line, or miss my family waving from the sideline because my eyes are blurry and stinging from sweat, or if I spend the rest of my post-race day yarking oatmeal and banana while fighting off hamstring cramps…well, it’s the entire process that needs to work for me, not just the running of one race.

Writing speed is no different. I started small; five minute blocks. I thought about a scene for five minutes, then wrote for five minutes without stopping. I still do this, and sometimes it's five, sometimes it's twenty. Call it a "plotting brainstorm session" for a panster. It helped sharpen my focus on a goal for my writing, which was often all I needed to get going. And the delete button? The delete button was and is my enemy. It took a long, long time for me to eliminate delete button usage. Weeks. A spelling and grammar check before submission is wise and recommended, but why bother doing it while I write? Slashing an entire block of text during revisions doesn't give back the time I spent polishing that section's spelling and grammar. My perfectionist brain struggled until I compromised (with myself, yes) to run a spell-check directly after every writing sprint. After a while, it made a big difference in speed (and it kept me in the dream state for longer blocks of time). Do I submit error-laden stories? No way. (I hope not.) I just don't worry about it when I draft.

Does this guarantee a more enjoyable writing process? No. Tracking words and not pausing for thought might strangle creativity. In that case, it might be a case of been-there, done-that, thank you, next. I don't think any of us want to lose our sense of joy or creativity in the process. I believe that's the most valuable part of this whole writing thing, anyway.

In the end, I believe faster / higher WPH only measures faster drafting. Improving my speed was a way for me to purge all (okay, some…okay, maybe a tenth…) of my bad words so I could mine the good ones. They're down deep. I probably should check if fracking is an option for writers, maybe then I'll publish something. Writing faster was a way for me to get ideas on the page and to not grind over one story for years. 

I went through periods where my WPH seemed to matter more than good story or finished / submitted manuscripts. When that happened, I stepped back and wrote slower. I did exercises (from Ursula K. LeGuin’s Steering the Craft, among others) which made me think and ponder and play while I wrote. For me, writing speed has little to do with the quality of my writing. I don't sound like a genius when I write slowly, I'm not illegible when I burn through a draft. This may be a good thing or it may be a bitter condemnation of my abilities. Only through writing a lot and studying have I (hopefully) improved my prose and storytelling.

For others, faster writing may not even reduce the time from idea to submission. As MrH mentions above, this idea of “writing speed” rarely (or never) considers time spent revising. My revision process is still a work in progress. It is molasses-slow, but that is regardless of whether I've written a slow first draft or a quick one. In that way, writing faster first drafts has helped speed up my overall process. Or that's what I tell myself so I don't crawl into my closet and whimper in the dirty laundry. 

John Steinbeck wrote Grapes of Wrath longhand over five months, 2000 words a day, but what went on the page, in general, stayed on the page. Stephen King wrote The Running Man in about two weeks. Robert Silverberg says he has published over 25 million words in his lifetime. Frank Herbert wrote Dune over a period of years. Does writing fast matter in the end? In terms of quality, or success, I don’t think so. But for writers who have limited time, one of the potential pitfalls of writing may be the time it takes to finish something. That’s where writing faster may help. The world doesn’t get to experience an unfinished novel or story, and someone is out there waiting for yours. So whether you write a hundred words a day or 2000 an hour, please keep writing. 

Best of luck.

In a three-hour stretch on a recent Saturday afternoon I knocked out 500 words, so 167 / hr. That resulted in a nearly-finished scene, edited, thought-out, and written so as to fit in its place in the story and accomplish its goal. The scene later filled-out to 730 words.

It seems to me very stupid to set some kind of framework, because we are all different and everyone writes differently, but if everything is bad with writing, then there are good services that will gladly help you 

@susan-737 

Susan, I completely agree with you, it is easy for someone to write and this person can write 2 thousand words in an hour, and someone cannot write 100 words in an hour, I am more of the second type of people, and writing is hard work for me

Posted by: @gary

@susan-737 

Susan, I completely agree with you, it is easy for someone to write and this person can write 2 thousand words in an hour, and someone cannot write 100 words in an hour, I am more of the second type of people, and writing is hard work for me

But if you never ask, you never know. Knowing you're uber-faster than average may explain your numerous mistakes. Knowing you're super-slower may inspire you to try new techniques.

Posted by: @susan-737

It seems to me very stupid to set some kind of framework, because we are all different and everyone writes differently

I think it’s all really just knowing how you write, when you write best, at what speeds you can work productively, etc. Getting to know yourself as a writer is important so you can understand where your current limitations and weaknesses are. That way you can push past yourself and improve over time. Stephen Covey once said, “Where performance is measured, performance improves.” Imagine being a long-distance runner and having no idea what your pace times are. Can’t get better if you don’t know where you are. 

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead
I've heard of Dragon dictation. Some writers have tremendous success with it. I tried it once. The good news is I wrote about 800 words. The bad news is it was 800 words of phrases like, "No wait, that's not how it goes...What was I saying again?...Holy crap I can't even read that...What are those letters—is that even English?"

Respectfully: If you’ve tried it once, you haven’t tried it. It took me three months to get productive, a year to get good. Today? 54,000 words in a month is not uncommon.

I was forced to stick with it in order to make use of two hours of commute each day. It started really awkwardly. It got better.

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

I think it’s all really just knowing how you write, when you write best, at what speeds you can work productively, etc. Getting to know yourself as a writer is important so you can understand where your current limitations and weaknesses are. That way you can push past yourself and improve over time. Stephen Covey once said, “Where performance is measured, performance improves.” Imagine being a long-distance runner and having no idea what your pace times are. Can’t get better if you don’t know where you are. 

I’ve been tracking the data for a year now, and it’s eye-opening.

If I dictate during my morning or afternoon commute, I dictate 25-30 words per minute. (But I once hit 100 wpm on my morning commute. Pure inspiration!)

If I dictate on almost any other trip: 30-40 wpm. Maybe traffic is more risky during the commute?

If I dictate on my treadmill: 45-55 wpm. And I burn 500 calories in an hour!

If I dictate in a quiet room, sitting still with NO distractions: 60-65 wpm.

Obviously the quiet room works best IF I can arrange no distractions. Usually I can’t. When I’m on the treadmill or driving, I’m forced to ignore email, Facebook, etc.

Knowing these numbers helps me plan ahead.

@martin-l-shoemaker 

I definitely have some research to do and some equipment/apps to purchase to get myself set up productively. Several of us have been discussing best practices/equipment. Just purchased On Being a Dictator, so I'm hoping that will help me out.

Just to chip in my notes here, I am aware of how much I can write. When I know exactly where my writing is going, when I have no distractions, and when I'm just hitting it, my general typing word-count hits between 1,500 and 2,000 words an hour. That's quite rare, however, and I've learned not to really judge myself on how much I write, but more on simply whether I write.

For example, yesterday, I spent an evening thinking through some scenes that I wanted to write, and wrote exactly zero words of any of them. Tonight, I worked on the first of those, and wrote 1,100 words in 45 minutes, which is close to that 1,500 words an hour. But I couldn't write those words without first having written none. And sometimes, my writing is more exploratory. This scene was active, in part a chase, which had an easy dynamic to follow. Other scenes are more careful and thoughtful, and may require a lot more. I've had other times when I found it a slog to get out 500 words in an hour. Generally, if it drops below that level, though, I'm not feeling any sense of flow with my writing, and I'm likely not enjoying it, or finding it at all rewarding. I'll usually break from it and return later, in the hopes that the gears will click the next time.

That actually touches on my feelings about dictation, I keep thinking about trying it, as I've been intrigued by the idea of how well it might work--but I've come to suspect that my underlying blocker with it is not so much a sense of whether it would work, but rather whether I would enjoy it. I'm not naturally someone who likes to story-tell. When my wife'll say tell me a story, I'm almost immediately at a loss. I know people who can sit around a table and share stories for hours on end without seeming to pause for breath, but my brain doesn't get into that gear very naturally.