Writing Fast and Writing Well
Writing Fast and Writing Well
by Wen Rui’an
Writing is a pleasure. The inverse of that sentence is: if you find writing to be a chore, then please stop writing at once. Forced work will never be a success, and the craft of writing cannot be carried out casually; you have to write your best in order to see results.
I can write 3,500 characters an hour. Among Chinese authors, I’m naturally not the fastest, but I’m already fast enough to be considered a “swift pen”. Some doubt that word count, but actually there’s really no need to:
Writing fast does not mean writing well. If you write fast but slipshod, then fast is not a good thing.
This kind of speed requires focus, plus some practice, and then anyone can do it. When I write I am often unfocused, so much of the time I can’t reach even half of that speed.
What’s weird is, if you asked me to copy out a manuscript, I couldn’t do it that fast, perhaps because when I write I am spurred on by the urge to create, pushed forward by the plot, so I am able to get in the zone, focus, and generate a tremendous interest to be able to bring my latent talents to the fore. Copying a manuscript is not as stimulating and lacks novelty, so I’m slower. Many people are quicker copiers than I, and the reason is they can focus better.
Accustomed to writing fast, recently I’ve thought to write about some of my own works (especially wuxia fiction), but when I get serious, pour over my words, deliberate on the plot structure, I often can get no more than 1,000 characters an hour. But is writing slower better? Of course not. Writing slow usually means one lacks talent or is not focused enough. Outside of writing dissertations, whenever anyone tells you he is writing slow because he is taking his time, you can absolutely bet that it’s because his talent is lacking, or he isn’t engrossed in it enough. There are many works in the history of literature that testify to the adage that “slow work makes a fine product”, but similarly there is much counter-evidence showing furious flurries of writing.
Don’t think that fast means better; for the same reason, slow is even less of a virtue. If a person doesn’t have talent and is preoccupied when writing, then either fast or slow will be of no use, and will only be good for producing an inferior work or a blank piece of paper.
I went from writing fast to writing slow for only two reasons: one is because “I can”; two is I want to conduct an experiment, see what results I get from writing fast and what I get when I write slow. My “quickly written” Marvelous Xia of Shenzhou is definitely came out more vivid than my “carefully outlined” Legend of the Great Xia. And my painstakingly written Tang Zhan the Killer seems to be somewhat more readable than my Shattered Dream Sabre that was dashed off in one sitting.
Authors who can only write slow and can’t write fast are a bit at a disadvantage. Except for a very few exceptions that were extremely lucky, it’s hard to survive as a Chinese author if you write slow. Writing slow isn’t a good thing. That writer who flaunts how he only writes 30 characters a day, and any random noises will disturb his work, I don’t admire him one bit. Only he who can write with a lot of noise around, who can carry on as before despite the worst conditions, who can write to the point that not one word need be changed, only that person can be considered a master. As for writing fast, that’s not a glorious thing either. Fast food is quick enough, but aside from convenience, will you take fast food to be a gourmet meal?