Have you ever sat down for a work session intending to write a few pages, only to look up hours later and realize you’ve written just one paragraph? You’re left feeling confused and frustrated. It shouldn’t take this long to write one paragraph, right? You wonder what you’re doing wrong, and worry that every paragraph will take this much time. Working at this pace isn’t sustainable!
I’m going to share some reasons why your writing might be taking longer than you’d like. You can use these reasons to evaluate your own writing process and even identify some areas that you can change to use your time more efficiently. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it does cover some common reasons you end up staring at the same paragraph for hours.
Before we get into the reasons that academic writing can take so long, let’s agree that a “long time” is relative. There’s no consensus on how long a paragraph should take to write (or a chapter, or a book). The purpose of this essay isn’t to 10x your writing speed, but instead to help you understand how you’re using your time. Once you know how you’re using your time, you can make a decision about whether you’d like to continue using it this way.
Reason #1: You’re revising as you write.
Instead of just getting all of your ideas on the page, you’re changing the idea mid-sentence. You’re organizing and reorganizing paragraphs before you have a section complete. You might be thinking that this will save revision time later on, but it won’t. It’s hard to determine whether an idea will work before you get it on the page to evaluate it. Further, when you second-guess everything that you write, you start to hesitate.
Reason #2: You didn’t plan what you wanted to write in advance.
I find that there are two types of people in the world: those who love to outline and those who freeze when they see a Roman numeral. Whether you love it or hate it, outlining is a strategy that can help you write faster because you’re taking the time to organize your thoughts. Yet, even if you are writing faster, you may be using the same amount of time cumulatively. That’s because ultimately, it’s an issue of where you want to spend your time. You can work your thoughts out in the prose, or you can map out some ideas in advance.
Reason #3: You’re focusing on style too early in the process
This is where if you start too early, you’ll see diminishing returns. It’s devastating to have that perfect sentence or turn of phrase in an early draft, only to have to hit delete because you changed your argument or decided that your opening vignette doesn’t adequately foreshadow your chapter. I see this a lot with qualitative researchers who are committed to having a solid narrative arc and writing accessibly. I don’t want to diminish the importance of storytelling or style, but in non-fiction academic writing, structure is queen. Plus, when you nail structure & argument, the story will be more compelling.
Conclusion
Taking a “long time” isn’t necessarily a problem that needs to be solved. Good writing takes time! Time, however, is finite. If you’re spending time you don’t have, it’s important to troubleshoot your process. It’s also important to understand your writing habits so you can decide if you actually like them, or if you’re just writing a certain way because you think you’re supposed to. Reflecting on your process without judgment is a crucial step in cultivating a writing practice where you use your time well.