DUNE 7 BLOG

Saturday, July 15, 2006

The Speed of Words

A few days ago I delivered the fourth draft of METAL SWARM to my editor at Warner Books -- a 700-page manuscript, with as many storylines and complexities as all the previous "Saga of Seven Suns" novels, written from start to finish (and edited four times) in four months.

In order to do that, I worked eight- to ten-hour days, seven days a week. I went away on several "concentrated writing trips" where I did nothing but hike and write all day long, without interruption. In the next couple of days, I'll be making a last round of editorial revisions on SLAN HUNTER, and then start another very thorough edit on SANDWORMS OF DUNE, the eighth draft.

I have always been a very prolific writer. My imagination works overtime, and I love to write. When I go out to dictate a new chapter, scene after scene flows out of my mind. During free time, I like to ponder new plot twists, develop characters, build settings.

Some months ago we received a letter from a fan that, in effect, said that Brian and I shouldn't be writing so quickly. "I know that you can write good scifi in that amount of time, but how can anyone possibly write great literature at such a breakneck pace?" he wrote. "Is it possible to write one's best while struggling under a deadline?"

First, I don't hold science fiction to lower standards than any other type of fiction. DUNE is a perfect case in point that good science fiction can be great literature. And I don't believe that any writer sits down and says "Today I am going to write great literature." (The ones who do invariably produce horribly self-important, ponderous, and boring works.) When I write, I have a story in my head that needs to be told; I see the characters, and I know what they do. I love to create the imaginary worlds, to let my people interact. The most enduring literature usually started out as a good story well told.

Don't let yourself fall into the old misconception that "writing quickly" can't possibly mean "writing well." That's something stodgy English professors have been trying to foist on their students for decades, and it's just plain misinformation. Sir Walter Scott penned his novels at a furious pace, as did Alexander Dumas and Jules Verne. Charles Dickens wrote A CHRISTMAS CAROL, one of the most enduring classics in all of literature, in three days; Faulkner wrote his classic AS I LAY DYING over a weekend while he was working a day job; Handel wrote his masterpiece "Messiah" in less than a week -- and those people wrote in longhand.

The creative process is something that each writer experiences differently. I have read incredibly bad books that the author labored over for more than a decade, and I've enjoyed wonderful works that were written in a very short period of time. My novels GROUND ZERO (1995) and RUINS (1996) were voted the "Best SF Novel of the Year" by the readers of SFX Magazine, and they were written in six weeks and four weeks, respectively. That's just the speed I write, and each manuscript goes through between six and twelve drafts. Taking an extra year is not going to make any difference.

Also, please bear in mind that what matters is the number of hours we put into a project, not the number of days on the calendar. In writing HUNTERS and SANDWORMS, Brian and I both consistently put in 8-10 hours a day, every day of the week, for months. That's about six hundred hours of work on the manuscript in a month -- as much time as most other writers put into a book in half a year.

I work well writing under a deadline, as does Brian. We feel an adrenaline rush to keep producing, and we do our best work. And if we didn't write the novels at the speed we do, I'm positive we'd get plenty of letters complaining that we're too slow.

-- KJA