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Thread: How long do you spend writing an update?

  1. #1
    Swaeft's Avatar Drama King
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    Default How long do you spend writing an update?

    Hello my fellow members of the Study,

    Today I have a question I've been wanting to pose for a long time: How much time do you spend on an update? To be a little more specific, from its conception to the time you hit the submit post button, how long does it usually take for you to churn out a chapter?

    The reason I'm asking this is because I think I might be spending my time inefficiently. Normally what I do is write the chapter out according to the plot I have planned, then once that is done I save the work and return to it maybe the next day or the day after to do the edits (improving the descriptions, fixing mistakes etc). The problem is I spend way more time editing than actually typing out the chapters, for example, I usually spend an hour or two coming up with the content in the chapters of God's Justice, but the editing takes over five to six hours (yeah I procrastinate a lot and usually am not satisfied with what I write) on separate days. I usually write for at most three hours a day, any more and my creative juices run dry.

    This isn't a 'how do I spend my time more efficiently' post though, I'm just curious as to how long you guys spend on your updates.

    Thanks in advance for the potential replies
    Last edited by Swaeft; January 25, 2019 at 01:34 AM.

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  2. #2
    NorseThing's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    I am truly not certain one the amount of time spent on each update. I often have several updates in process. Do a bit on one and then for continuity or perhaps to develop a character better, I need to tweak a few other chapters. Then of course there is the pictures. I have not done as much with pictures as I would like, just because I want the picts to help explain the narrative and of course the narrative to help explain the pictures. A balancing act that I need to improve. if I were guess, perhaps about 45 minutes on average which is about the same for the Tale of the Week as well.

    I would like to see others give their input on this as well. A good thread needs variety. In any case, if your are reading this out of curiiosity, give the submissions a try with the classic ]Tale of the Week or perhaps add a post to a thread such as 'Un Official' Single Post AAR Thread and see how long it takes you to have a post worth your efforts to submit!

    Edit: I thought a bit more. Yes I do indeed take a long time if you add it up. I thought about starting a single post AAR and time out the process. Here is what I discovered:

    Played Sicily in the basic game unmodified via steam. Made many screen shots and stopped after about 10 turns. I took my time and discovered that 10 turn game took about 90 minutes. I think part of the time was diverted by the cats though. The next day I reviewed the screen shots and made notes on a yellow pad. So 20th century! I then began the basic outline of single post AAR keeping in mind that there could be several posts preceding and several post after the Singe Post. That was less than two hours. Then earlier today I did the write up (about 2,000 words), cropped the photos (only used 6 of the dozens of screen shots) and did a 'final' edit of the post. Again I kept this under two hours. In total that would mean about 5 or 6 hours and I have not yet made the post to the thread!

    Posted but it took bit of fiddling http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15735017
    Last edited by NorseThing; January 27, 2019 at 08:02 PM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    It's an interesting question Swaeft, and one that is likely to have a lot of different answers depending on each writer's writing style and attention to detail. Some people just want to move the story forward, some want to build a world behind it, some have incredibly in-depth characters, etc. For a narrative AAR, I'd imagine (maybe even hope) that one spends at least a couple hours per post (unless, of course, the posts are very short). For creative writing, that might be very different, as the amount of characters and type of story may require far more or less.

    For myself, I think that all told an AAR update takes me about 7 to 8 hours of proper work, with a few days of passive thinking. The breakdown would be as follows:

    I start with probably about an hour of actual research (looking at maps, reading a bit about things that will be important, etc.), after which I just think for a day or two, letting things roll around in the back of my head. Once I have a good idea of what needs to go in I take about 3 or 4 hours for writing, split over a few evenings (and a few glasses of Scotch ). When the writing is done I then transcribe it (I first write by hand, as I find that to be really helpful for creativity), which usually takes about an hour. Then I read over it, looking for issues, making small tweaks, and improving things. That takes about another hour. Then I carefully read it again out loud, just to be sure I haven't missed anything (another half hour). Then I put together the post, which is roughly another half hour. All told, that adds to about 8 solid hours of working (more if the post is longer or makes more use of history/geography, as that adds to research time), but with a lot of hours between where I let things stew. For me, that stewing is important, as I think one of the biggest things that makes writing good is letting the story lead you, rather than the other way around, and for that to actually happen I need to think about who my characters are and what the situation would lead them to do. That can take time, and is usually best accomplished during walks with the dog. Aside from all of that, there is then the question of whether I'm including an image or map to the mix. That can lead to another couple hours, but is dependent on what the writing then requires.

    So that's my method at least.
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  4. #4
    Swaeft's Avatar Drama King
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    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    Quote Originally Posted by NorseThing View Post
    I am truly not certain one the amount of time spent on each update. I often have several updates in process. Do a bit on one and then for continuity or perhaps to develop a character better, I need to tweak a few other chapters. Then of course there is the pictures. I have not done as much with pictures as I would like, just because I want the picts to help explain the narrative and of course the narrative to help explain the pictures. A balancing act that I need to improve. if I were guess, perhaps about 45 minutes on average which is about the same for the Tale of the Week as well.


    Played Sicily in the basic game unmodified via steam. Made many screen shots and stopped after about 10 turns. I took my time and discovered that 10 turn game took about 90 minutes. I think part of the time was diverted by the cats though. The next day I reviewed the screen shots and made notes on a yellow pad. So 20th century! I then began the basic outline of single post AAR keeping in mind that there could be several posts preceding and several post after the Singe Post. That was less than two hours. Then earlier today I did the write up (about 2,000 words), cropped the photos (only used 6 of the dozens of screen shots) and did a 'final' edit of the post. Again I kept this under two hours. In total that would mean about 5 or 6 hours and I have not yet made the post to the thread!
    Thanks for the reply NorseThing, you're a fast worker! I shall send some dogs over to solve your, err, problem with the cats. They are preventing me from reading more of your work! I kid, I kid, I know how much you love your cats, you have a CW dedicated to them Thanks for providing your input to this question.



    Quote Originally Posted by Kilo11 View Post
    It's an interesting question Swaeft, and one that is likely to have a lot of different answers depending on each writer's writing style and attention to detail. Some people just want to move the story forward, some want to build a world behind it, some have incredibly in-depth characters, etc. For a narrative AAR, I'd imagine (maybe even hope) that one spends at least a couple hours per post (unless, of course, the posts are very short). For creative writing, that might be very different, as the amount of characters and type of story may require far more or less.

    For myself, I think that all told an AAR update takes me about 7 to 8 hours of proper work, with a few days of passive thinking. The breakdown would be as follows:

    I start with probably about an hour of actual research (looking at maps, reading a bit about things that will be important, etc.), after which I just think for a day or two, letting things roll around in the back of my head. Once I have a good idea of what needs to go in I take about 3 or 4 hours for writing, split over a few evenings (and a few glasses of Scotch ). When the writing is done I then transcribe it (I first write by hand, as I find that to be really helpful for creativity), which usually takes about an hour. Then I read over it, looking for issues, making small tweaks, and improving things. That takes about another hour. Then I carefully read it again out loud, just to be sure I haven't missed anything (another half hour). Then I put together the post, which is roughly another half hour. All told, that adds to about 8 solid hours of working (more if the post is longer or makes more use of history/geography, as that adds to research time), but with a lot of hours between where I let things stew. For me, that stewing is important, as I think one of the biggest things that makes writing good is letting the story lead you, rather than the other way around, and for that to actually happen I need to think about who my characters are and what the situation would lead them to do. That can take time, and is usually best accomplished during walks with the dog. Aside from all of that, there is then the question of whether I'm including an image or map to the mix. That can lead to another couple hours, but is dependent on what the writing then requires.

    So that's my method at least.
    Wow, you are an efficient man. I write in Word, don't read it out loud, don't do that much research and still I take nearly as long as you. It's interesting to have some light shed on the way you do things though, I quite like the way you're doing things. Thanks for the reply!

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  5. #5

    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    It takes me roughly 3-4 hours to write up a basic outline of what happened, and then 7-8 hours in total to edit, fill in the blanks, and post the update with screenshots. I've attempted a couple AARs before on games not in the Total War series, and have often run into the issue of the game outpacing the AAR and giving me a huge backlog (Especially when major events happen), which I try to remedy by spending more time on the AAR than the game, which in turn just burns me out and I end up losing interest, and thus the AAR ends with almost all the story-lines left unfinished. It's a vicious cycle that's only exacerbated by a lengthy writing style, and it's one of the main things that I'm trying to work on as an AAR writer.

  6. #6
    Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar my horse for a unicode
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    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    For lack of updates on this site to reference, I will instead address the root behind the question and say, no, you don't strike me as inefficient. You spend the appropriate time in actually producing content and then you perform the real work, the editing. The writing down must be accomplished quickly and is its own special challenge, but it's the editing that makes the content worth the read. Thus, it is perfectly appropriate to spend as much time as you need on making it right.

    You're only in trouble when you edit while you write. If you're not? You're doing just fine.

  7. #7
    Swaeft's Avatar Drama King
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    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    Quote Originally Posted by ZhongBoy View Post
    It takes me roughly 3-4 hours to write up a basic outline of what happened, and then 7-8 hours in total to edit, fill in the blanks, and post the update with screenshots. I've attempted a couple AARs before on games not in the Total War series, and have often run into the issue of the game outpacing the AAR and giving me a huge backlog (Especially when major events happen), which I try to remedy by spending more time on the AAR than the game, which in turn just burns me out and I end up losing interest, and thus the AAR ends with almost all the story-lines left unfinished. It's a vicious cycle that's only exacerbated by a lengthy writing style, and it's one of the main things that I'm trying to work on as an AAR writer.
    Thanks for the response! I feel similarly as you do, especially the spending more time on the AAR than the game part, but I do believe the thrill of creating a wonderful story alleviates that problem somewhat, for me at least. Best of luck with your AAR, man!

    Quote Originally Posted by CommodusIV View Post
    For lack of updates on this site to reference, I will instead address the root behind the question and say, no, you don't strike me as inefficient. You spend the appropriate time in actually producing content and then you perform the real work, the editing. The writing down must be accomplished quickly and is its own special challenge, but it's the editing that makes the content worth the read. Thus, it is perfectly appropriate to spend as much time as you need on making it right.

    You're only in trouble when you edit while you write. If you're not? You're doing just fine.
    That's a perspective I hadn't thought of before. I did use to edit as I write, as I would often be dissatisfied with how I wrote a particular phrase or sentence. I don't do that anymore, but that's really more because of my laziness to edit as I write, instead I just try to finish it then look it over.

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  8. #8
    Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar my horse for a unicode
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    Default Re: How long do you spend writing an update?

    Quote Originally Posted by Swaeft View Post
    That's a perspective I hadn't thought of before. I did use to edit as I write, as I would often be dissatisfied with how I wrote a particular phrase or sentence. I don't do that anymore, but that's really more because of my laziness to edit as I write, instead I just try to finish it then look it over.
    Lazy is quite the opposite - every authoritative writer I've met will swear that editing while writing is a murderous thing to do for your speed and/or inspiration. The key is to get it out and then work your ideas into something more usable.

    The first draft is merely expressing the concepts, while later revisions are where you make the particular phrase or sentence sound better. It's not viable to do when speaking, but when writing, you basically have all the time you need. So long as you aren't spending months just to spit out a few paragraphs or you aren't willfully delaying the editing process, it's quite a healthy cycle.

    To reference something above, you might find the editing process more efficient should you build 'read it out' into your procedure. If you have trouble conceiving it in your head, sounding it out is a very effective alternative, both to realize something just isn't worded properly and to test what replaces that segment. Something more general that I do - though not necessarily recommend, and only do it regularly for the sake of roleplay - is to get into the minds of the characters and develop a mental image of what is being constructed. As opposed to simply researching the context, I try to be in the context, to parse decisions and events in a way I can more directly understand. But that's another matter.

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