# Famous novels supposedly written in a few days **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 30, 2003, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564 "2003-01-30T06:37:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/1 "2003-01-30T06:37:26Z")
Over the years I have come across claims by various people that certain famous novels were written in a very short period of time. These claims have a suspicious sameness about them. There’s never any supporting evidence given, not even a direct quote from the author. The time period claimed is always either two or three days. Never one, never four. I have heard the story about London’s _ **Call of the Wild** _, Stevenson’s _ **Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde** _, Voltaire’s _ **Candide** _, and Stephen King’s _ **The Running Man** _ (published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym). They are all rather short novels, and I assume we’re talking about just the first draft, not the completed book. But is there evidence to support any of these claims? I would be willing to accept the word of the author in most cases, and would consider the word of someone close to the author (spouse, child, literary agent, etc.). Finally, I want to hear what similar stories you have heard about other novels. Did someone once try to tell you that _War and Peace_ was written on a paper napkin during a three-martini lunch? Did you believe them after the third one? ---
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/2 "2003-01-30T07:49:35Z")
One of the most famous examples, though I’m not sure if it’s myth or fact, must be the writing of On the Road–supposedly written over a few days of drug-induced stupor on one continuous ream of paper (so Kerouac wouldn’t have to waste time whipping a new page into the typerwriter, I guess). In Zen and the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury claims the first draft of Farenheit 451 was written over a very short period–perhaps 10 days, for a total of 25,000 words (he goes on to state the final draft was about 50,000 words). In the same book, Bradbury recalls the events leading up to the publication of the Martian Chronicles, and how he had one night to write several of those basic single-page interconnecting stories in order to make the whole work more thematically unified, because he had to show it all to a publisher in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/3 "2003-01-30T07:59:17Z")
[hijack] I don’t know about _The Running Man_, but I can well believe that _Dreamcatcher_ was written in a day, by cutting and pasting from _Tommyknockers_ and _It_. Similarly with creating _Desperation_ from _The Regulators_ (or vice versa). [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/4 "2003-01-30T10:53:14Z")
I’m not certain, but I believe _Naked Lunch_\* fell out of William S. Burroughs typewriter in a cold turkey lock-in (coming off heroin) over 11 days and nights. But I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/5 "2003-01-30T10:57:31Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Aro \* > but I believe Naked Lunch_ I believe that would be a very interesting HTML rendering above. Wonder if someone can implement it. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/6 "2003-01-30T11:11:45Z")
Okay, [scrap that idea.](http://books.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,3923721,00.html) Seems Burroughs wrote it over the course of a year, whilst on heroin, in Tangiers. So much for that rumour, then. (Damn that i and b confusion…Ghrrrr!!) ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/7 "2003-01-30T12:28:04Z")
Samuel Johnson is supposed to have written _Rasselas_ in 6 days, to help cover the expenses of his mother’s funeral. The only citation I can find for that in short order is [here](http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/victorian/previctorian/johnson/rasselas1.html), which says it was written “in a week’s time.” It’s a fairly short book. The whole text is online at [http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/rasselas.html](http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/rasselas.html) ---
**Author:** ![longjohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@longjohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/longjohn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/8 "2003-01-30T13:05:05Z")
Well, Iain (M) Banks claims that each year he spends the first nine months travelling round and visiting friends without a thought about his next novel, then he sits down and bangs out either a fiction or non-fiction work in the rest of the year. I don’t have a cite, i’m afraid. I read it in an interview with him in a sunday paper. He does publish roughly a book a year, though. I remember this clearly as i thought at the time, how wonderful to spend thre quarters of each year playing, then pour forth such excellent prose for the next three months. Then I thought, wonder how good he’d be if he really buckled down to it? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.A.Nemo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/94ad74/32.png) [@Mr.A.Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.A.Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/9 "2003-01-30T14:13:57Z")
Mary Shelley supposedly wrote **Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus** _overnight_. Of course, this is supposedly one of those well-documented truths, with regards to the whole ghost story contest with Lord Byron, Percy, et al. ---
**Author:** ![Yossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9de0a6/32.png) [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/10 "2003-01-30T14:26:06Z")
While not nearly in the same category as the aforementioned novels–and indeed, probably unworthy to even deserve mention in this thread–allegedly _The Bridges of Madison County_ was written during a long weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/11 "2003-01-30T14:35:10Z")
In the book’s introduction, George MacDonald Fraser claimed to have written **The General Danced at Dawn** in about as much time as it takes to read it, IIRC (I read it around 25 years ago). ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/12 "2003-01-30T14:55:14Z")
Veering slightly off-topic, virtuallly every hit song of the last centruy was allegedly written in 15 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/13 "2003-01-30T16:49:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Mary Shelley supposedly wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus overnight. Are you thinking of the anecdote concerning Mary, Byron and Polidori telling each other ghost stories one night? It suggests that out of that evening came Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s The Vampyre (supposedly based on Byron). I think that if the story’s true, it just means that Shelley conceived of the bare bones of the story that night. Jean Cocteau apparently wrote Les Enfants Terribles over a very short amount of time. He went abroad to write the novel, spent four months lying on the coach eating boiled sweets (entirely pissing off his boyfriend, Jean Marais) then wrote furiously for two weeks. I think it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/14 "2003-01-30T16:51:09Z")
Oh, and apparently Enid Blyton wrote one of her children’s books over one weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.A.Nemo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/94ad74/32.png) [@Mr.A.Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.A.Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/15 "2003-01-30T17:23:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bifar \* > \*\*Are you thinking of the anecdote concerning Mary, Byron and Polidori telling each other ghost stories one night? It suggests that out of that evening came Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s The Vampyre (supposedly based on Byron). I think that if the story’s true, it just means that Shelley conceived of the bare bones of the story that night. > > \*\* Yes. But the anecdote, is that they challenged each other to write a truly frightening story and present it the _next_ night. Now, how rough of a draft it was… ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/16 "2003-01-30T17:50:32Z")
Addressing the OP: I don’t have much to offer, but I have I heard Stephen King say in interviews that he tries to write at least 10,000 words a day (or used to). That could certainly make for a short novel in less than a week. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/17 "2003-01-30T21:23:35Z")
In _Literary Feuds_, Anthony Arthur writes about Hemingway: > [@](#): > > How could he break out of the three-book contract…with Boni & Liveright? Simple enough: he would give them a demeaning parody of their star writer, Sherwood Anderson. [Hemingway] slapped together a fifteen-thousand-word manuscript over ten days in November 1925, and called it _The Torrents of Spring_. But this is nothing at all compared to genre writers. Barry Malzberg wrote the biographical essay on Robert Silverberg for the special Silverberg issue of the _Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction_ many years ago (April 1974, to be exact), which haunts me to this very day. > [@](#): > > I pointed out to Silverberg with some pride that I hold the world’s record for novel writing: a published novel in sixteen working hours, sixty-five thousand words, fifteen hundred dollars. “So you want to play productivity machismo, eh, wiseacre?” he said in a letter. “Well, look at this,” and then passed on to me his working logs for 1962/3; it indicated that in the latter year he produced one point nine million words distributed over forty-five books and a fair number of short stories. “As you can see,” he noted, “your moaning and groaning about having nine novels due in eight months would have been cause for laughter for me back in those golden years.” I must point out for those unfamiliar with his career that while he was a true hack in the 1960s, Silverberg slowed down to a mere two or three books a year in the 1970s, all of incredibly high quality and still readable today. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/18 "2003-01-30T23:19:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wumpus \* > \*\*Veering slightly off-topic, virtuallly every hit song of the last centruy was allegedly written in 15 minutes. \*\* I remember hearing on the radio once that Handel’s _Messiah_ was written in two weeks. The same program went on to say that now they think Handel was manic-depressive. Anybody know anything about it? ---
**Author:** ![universe.zip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@universe.zip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/universe.zip)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/19 "2003-01-31T11:11:38Z")
Well, I´ve got a cite for Stevenson - from the highly recommendable “Writing on Drugs” by Sadie Plant: > [@](#): > > Robert Louis Stevenson wrote _The Strange Case (of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, full title added by me)_ during six days and nights of a cocaine high. In spite - or perhaps because - of his poor state of health, he shut himself away and reappeared with the story complete. “That an invalid in my husband´s condition of health should have been able to perform the manual labour alone of putting sixty thousand words on paper in six days, seems almost incredible,” wrote his wife Fanny. Cocaine was the substance of this new legend and, hardly surprisingly, the potion used by Jekyll is a telling caricature of Stevenson´s drug. (pages 65/66) Sheds quite an interesting light on the story. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564/20 "2003-01-31T11:22:57Z")
it’s a little known fact that Ayn had developed a lab for turning coffee & cigarrettes into a caffeine-nicotine prototype for crystal meth- it was while on this, she wrote ATLAS SHRUGGED in three days, working 24/7- “This Is John Galt” speech only took 38 min 17 sec. And now you know… the rest of the story! Good day! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-supposedly-written-in-a-few-days/151564.md?page=2)