Found a stat that blew my mind about how many novels never get finished

I was reading through some old writing forums last night and stumbled on a stat that said something like 80% of people who start a novel never finish the first draft. I had to check it a few times because that number feels crazy high. But then I thought about my own desk drawer with three half done manuscripts sitting in it and yeah, I get it. It made me wonder if that high failure rate is more about losing steam or if people just get scared they won't measure up. On one hand, writing a full novel is a huge time commitment and life gets in the way. On the other hand, maybe we put too much pressure on ourselves to make it perfect from page one. So which side are you on, is it the daily grind that kills stories or the fear of them not being good enough?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix1477d agoTop Commenter

80% seems high but honestly who's actually checking those numbers. I've got a buddy who swears he's writing a novel for like 5 years now and he's got maybe 30 pages of notes. Most people just like the idea of writing a novel more than actually doing it. The daily grind is real but it's also not that serious, you know. My cousin finished a whole 400 page draft in a month by just typing garbage and fixing it later.

jennys726d ago

Oh man, your cousin's garbage draft method is genius honestly. Reminds me of this girl I knew in college who wrote her entire thesis in one weekend by just speed-typing everything that came to mind and then spent the next month fixing it. She said the hardest part was just getting the words out without stopping to judge them. lol. Meanwhile I've got a friend who's been "researching" his fantasy novel for like three years and hasn't typed a single word yet. Dude's got binders full of worldbuilding notes though. So yeah, the whole trying to be perfect from the start is probably why most people never finish.