There was a study done nearly two decades ago where a scientist did a deep evaluation of how we write. What he found was that writing is done in a “burst-pause-evaluate” pattern.

Writers burst onto the page and write a sentence, quickly. Then, they pause and reread said sentence. And, finally, they judge whether or not the sentence is “good”.

Experienced writers tend to string multiple sentence bursts together at once.

An inexperienced writer’s pattern might look like…

Burst - Pause - Evaluate

While a more experienced writer’s pattern might look like…

Burst - Burst - Burst - Pause - Evaluate

Challenging yourself to spend more time in the “burst” sequence of the writing pattern is a very actionable way to increase your writing speed.

William F. Buckley, one of the more prolific writers of the 20th century, was notorious for writing in this fashion.

Back in 1969, he told The Paris Review that when he sat down to write, he forced himself to pen 250 words every 15 minutes.

If he didn't hit his mark by the time his 15 minutes were up, Buckley would jot down the words "FASTER" and continue on.

Writers and creatives of all shapes and sizes have a collective obsession with writing and creative speed.

Part of this is due to vanity.

But, I think we also subconsciously recognize that something gets lots in the transfer of thoughts to the page or canvas or instrument.

In think this is why Hunter S. Thompson joked that if they made a $12,000,000 typewriter that could get his thoughts down on the page faster, he'd write bad checks until he was forced to give it back.

By Cole Schafer.

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