How long does it take to write 1,000 words?

Writing 1,000 words of your own takes about one to two hours ¹. The exact time depends on whether you are composing or copying. Typing a finished text takes about 20 minutes ², while composing is slower because planning takes most of the time ³.

Composing 1,000 words takes about 67 to 125 minutes

When you write original text, the words are not in front of you. An earlier reported composition rate with speech software was 8 to 15 words per minute, which the authors describe as much lower than normal speaking speed ⁴. At that rate, 1,000 words take about 67 to 125 minutes ¹. Those figures come from earlier recognizers, so a modern writer may be faster, but they show the scale of the task.

Most of the work is planning. In a 1978 study of letter writing, about two-thirds of the time went to planning, whether the letter was written, dictated or spoken ³. If planning takes most of the time, a faster typist saves less on composing than on copying.

Typing a finished text takes about 20 minutes

If the words already exist, the time drops sharply. At the average online typing speed of 51.56 words per minute ⁵, typing 1,000 words takes about 19.4 minutes of pure typing time ². That average comes from volunteers who chose an online test, so it may be higher than the population figure. The guide to writing speed has the full table of rates.

Copying by hand is slower. At the 22.85 words per minute mean of a 2014 study of university students ⁶, copying 1,000 words takes about 43.8 minutes ⁷.

Speaking is fast for entry, but editing takes longer

Speech entry is the fastest method on paper. At 153 words per minute from a phone study ⁸, 1,000 words take about 6.5 minutes to speak into a recognizer ⁹. That figure covers only the entry. The study used short phrases in a quiet room, and it did not measure the editing that a dictated draft usually needs.

Yap, which we make, is an on-device dictation app for Mac and Windows, so speech entry is part of what we build. You can try free speech input in the browser at online dictation. The 6.5 minute figure is for entry alone, not for a finished document.

How to estimate your own time

The formula is simple. Divide the number of words by your words per minute, using a rate you have measured for the task.

Minutes = words ÷ words per minute

Use the composing row for a first draft of original work. Use the typing row when you already have the text and only need to get it into a file.

Writers who want a daily target can compare their composing speed with the pace of published writers. The novelist Anthony Trollope set himself 250 words in every quarter of an hour ¹⁰, which works out to 1,000 words per hour ¹¹, or about 16.7 words per minute ¹². That is a personal target for one author, not an average, but it is above the composing rate reported for speech software.

What to do

1. Separate the tasks. Decide whether you are composing, typing a finished text or copying. Each one has a different time.
2. Measure composing for ten minutes. Write or dictate a paragraph on a topic you know, count the words, and divide by ten. Use that rate in the formula.
3. Add time for planning and revision. The composing rate does not include the review after a first draft, so add time for revision on top of the estimate. No study we found measures that time for a typical writer, so measure it on your own work.
4. Use the fastest method you can edit. Speech entry is quick, but a dictated draft needs correction. Choose the method that gives you the cleanest text in the least total time.

For the daily output of working writers, read how many words a day professional writers write. For the question of whether handwriting is faster than typing, see is typing faster than writing by hand. The typing speed overview covers the subject in full.