Half a Million or a Million Words to Competency

[Gonk the Insane]

I've encountered several variations on a quote claiming that typically an author would need to write either a million or half a million words before becoming proficient as a writer. I've heard, too, that it takes about that for most authors to find their Voice. What I haven't been able to find is who quote originated from. I've read that it could have been Ray Bradbury or David Eddings. Does anyone know for sure?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Or 10,000 hours. (A rule of thumb for any occupation).

It's only a rough guide. Someone may be competent 1/2 way through first book, and someone else never.

Obviously it depends on how much you study the technical aspects of writing, the starting educational and life background (Someone starting serious writing at 40 to 60, well read and educated is in a better situation than a teenager or young adult writer.)

 

[Droflet]

Yeah, well said Ray. For me, starting at 50 it took me three crap books to get to one good book.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

it took me three crap books to get to one good book

I think I've written eleven rubbish books and nearly a million words (Fiction, far more than that in Non-Fiction)

 

[zmunkz]

Or 10,000 hours. (A rule of thumb for any occupation).

This is the figure I've heard... and it supposedly applies to mastering anything from piano, to programming, to dancing, to martial arts, to writing. I don't know if that is the same thing as being proficient... there are authors whose first novel is more than proficient, but it is more like, even those successful debut authors can improve dramatically as they keep working, until a plateau around 10K hours of investment.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I've encountered several variations on a quote claiming that typically an author would need to write either a million or half a million words before becoming proficient as a writer. I've heard, too, that it takes about that for most authors to find their Voice. What I haven't been able to find is who quote originated from. I've read that it could have been Ray Bradbury or David Eddings. Does anyone know for sure?

Interesting.

Tomorrow I will write out the word 'Pantaloon' 750,000 times to see if that gets me over the hurdle quicker than actually having to come up with 750,000 mostly different words. I might be onto a winner here...

...or I might be a bit giddy through overconsumption of too much bubblemint chewing gum.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think it was Iain Banks I first heard it from...

Anyway, I've written my million (it was a million he said) by now - but only just. I think it's not just about writing the first words - it's about getting to the end of something, learning how to edit it, and then being able to write something else. The whole picture if you like. Writing the first book is hard - but it's no easier trying to write a new book while promoting a different book(s) and having to keep them all in your mind. Then, you need all the skills the million words taught you to keep things even vaguely doable.

 

[Mad Alice]

I've encountered several variations on a quote claiming that typically an author would need to write either a million or half a million words before becoming proficient as a writer. I've heard, too, that it takes about that for most authors to find their Voice. What I haven't been able to find is who quote originated from. I've read that it could have been Ray Bradbury or David Eddings. Does anyone know for sure?

Karen Woodwards researched this very quote in a blog. Here is the link.

Karen Woodward: One Million Words To Competency, Who Said It First?
Basically the conclusion she makes is;
Eddings was famous for saying it in a speech.
Stephan King used it in his books and lectures.
Bradbury said to write a thousand words a day and in three years you'll be a writer.
Pournelle said to write a million publishable words, throw them away, then start writing
Jerry Pournelle Quotes at BrainyQuote.com
.
Heinlein would quote Bradbury, and Bradbury would quote Heinlein.
And John MacDonald also gave this advice.
She concludes it was Bradbury, because he wrote someone this specific advice.

In "the midnight disease,"a book about writers block by Alice Weaver Flaherty
The author cites Oliver Sacks as saying during the writing of his book, Uncle Tungsten, he wrote and discarded two million words to produce 100000.
But the earliest incident I have of it being used, was by Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway's points of style from his newspaper beginnings.
World Copywriting Blog: Four Copywriting Rules That Can Improve Just About Any Copywriter's Work
Letter to Scott F Fitzgerald from Hemingway.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/forget-you

 

[David Evil Overlord]

And it nicely compliments Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I think it was Iain Banks I first heard it from...

He was quoting someone, unless he was much older than he was supposed to be.

Ernest Hemingway.

At least that old. (the lettersofnote link is broken)

It's a suitably large round figure that's really meaningless, just the idea you need to write a lot. I could believe various people at various times suggested it independently.

1. Use short sentences.
No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them. - Ernest Hemmingway

I wonder what Hemmingway regards as a long sentence?

I liked this one:

Write a lot. And finish what you write. Don't join writer's clubs and go sit around having coffee reading pieces of your manuscript to people. Write it. Finish it. I set those rules up years ago, and nothing's changed.

 

[HareBrain]

If we used base twelve, people would still say "a million", because it's a nice round number, but it would actually be almost three million in base ten!

So it's lucky we as a species don't have twelve fingers, as not only would they get all tangled on the keyboard, it would take three times as long to become competent writers.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

If we used base twelve

Mysteriously "we" have used base five, twelve, twenty and sixty as well as base ten. Also using Alphabets as numbers (Hebrew and others.)
I read a brilliant book about it called from 1 to 0, (A universal History of Numbers) Georges Ifrah*. It's re-written as three larger volumes, I now have both versions.

[Section 2 covers Decimal, traces of base 5, Twenty fingers and toes for counting** and sexagesimal (Base 60 dates to ancient Babylonians and Sumerians, possibly 12 does too, used for hours, money and length). The Sumerians introduced the idea of dividing 60 as three tens. As long ago as 4th C. a commentator on Ptolemy mused on why 60 was chosen for astronomy, and earlier for all mathematics]

[** Cultures that used 20 extensively: Mayan, Celtic, Aztec. Of course 12 and 20 used in Ireland and UK for coinage prior to decimalisation. Three warriors, barefoot = 60, 59 in Mayan may literally mean ten nine after second man or ten nine of third man]