500 Words A Day: The Graham Greene Challenge
If you’re anything like me, sometimes you find it helpful to know what other writers are doing to get words on the page. If you’re a little more like me, this curiosity has become more of an obsession. Maybe I’m just hitting an experimental phase in my writing journey. In any case, I hope it’s an experiment that others can benefit from as well.
Recently, I read that Graham Greene, author of “The End of an Affair”, tried to restrict his writing to only 500 words a day, a 
little less than two pages. Not even two pages a day? The task seemed…well, like a piece of cake. However, like anything too good to be true, there was a catch. Greene stopped at exactly 500 words. That means even if you were in the middle of a sentence you would have to stop, you couldn’t exceed, not even by one extra word. I wanted to give it a whirl nonetheless.
I attempted this with some novel material I’ve been working on. I was picking up mid-scene and was going to have to be uber-conscious of my word count. However, I ran into a problem right off the bat. The writing started off slow and my muse didn’t seem to want to play along. This experiment wasn’t going to work if I couldn’t even get to the 500 words. I took a break with total word count of 93 and started to read, a nifty technique I like to use to invigorate my creativity. Half an hour later and I was ready to go.
My second attempt was much more successful. I fell into my stride and was going strong when I noticed that my word count had reached 489. Eleven more words. That’s all I had left and I was on a roll. I silently cursed myself for choosing this lousy experiment in the first place before begrudgingly continuing with the task at hand. My last sentence looked like this:
The wash basin shattered upon impact, sending tiny shards of porcelain
I could have gone on. The thought was on the tip of my brain ready to tumble to my fingers and onto the page. I played fair though and stopped. I walked away and tried desperately not to forget what came next. As it turns out, I don’t think I could have forgotten it if I had tried because all I could think about was what came next and even what came after that. Mr. Greene was definitely on to something.
The following day, I found myself eager to return to the writing and the 500 words seemed like nothing. I used Graham Greene’s technique for a whole week and found it to be amazingly beneficial. Forcing yourself to stop before you feel you’re finished keeps you thinking about the story and when you’re thinking about your story, you can’t help but to keep pushing it forward even if it is only in your mind. Not only that, but I found myself scrutinizing more over word choice. What would be the best fit for that sentence? Is that really what I want to say?
I enjoyed this exercise because it forced me to slow down and really see my story, something I think is key to a good narrative. Also, 500 words really isn’t asking a lot, is it?
Image courtesy of John Ochwat
Sarah Van Den Bosch graduated from Columbia College Chicago with her BA in Fiction Writing. Her work has been published in Bartleby-Snopes and she welcomes anyone who cares to follow her on Twitter.
What an intriguing idea. It sounds so simple, yet so inspired. That might be a good way to fit some writing in on all those days when life seems too busy to allow the time.
Sounds almost too simple to be true. I’ve recently forced myself to cut back to 1000ish words per day, and it’s been working well. I think I’ll try this 500-word on one of my projects this week!
Thanks for sharing.
If I had to come close to needing to write 500 words a day, I would give it a shot. It’s a novel idea for getting your ideas to flow and then spur them on the next day.
My first thought was what if I forget what I want to say. I’m so diligent about writing down ideas as they pop into my head and filing them away for blogs, articles, books etc, where ever I plan to use them.
But you’re saying that your mind holds the thought and cant wait to get back to it. Kind of like, you want something more when it’s taken away so when you force yourself away from completing the thought your mind wants to write even more. Wonderful! Thanks for this tip!
I seem to recall Stephen King using this same technique, though I’m not sure where I read that, and I know it was more than 500 words – maybe 1 or 2K. I thought “there’s no way I could do that”. I’m still doubtful, but the concept makes sense. You’d definitely be more willing to get back to the computer if you already knew you had something to say. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl.
Hmmm. Why not? Myself, I’ve always come up with excuses for not working at a novel idea. But, after reading your post, this moment I feel like casting caution to that wind blowing by my window, and doing it. 500 words every day. Here I go. Thank you for sharing.
Happy to lend the stop sign to such a worthy blog post. I’ve heard the stop mid-sentence advice before, but never tried it. Now that I’ve read this post, though, I think I
An excellent idea, totally takes the pressure off. I currently lead a hectic life, with a needy dog, my own business and an over energetic one year old, but even I think I could manage this.
Thanks!
Hi Sarah,
I know I’m a little late to the party here, but I had to chime in…
I just started a similar venture last week, though instead of 500 words per day, I’m writing an hour per day. The result is the same though — I get x number of words on the page (right now I’m averaging a little under 1,500 words per day) and when the timer goes off, I stop in mid-sentence even and pick up the next day.
I’m also blogging about it (www.afewstrongwords.com) for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that it is keeping me disciplined. Suddenly, I have someone to answer to — my blog — which so far is enough to keep me on track. And at the end of it all, I’ll have a record of the journey to boot.
(I’m also hoping readers will get something from it too…)
Whatever works to keep us focused, right?
~Graham
Debbie Ohi started a similar movement on her website last year, but with goals of 250, 500 and 1000 words. I tried my hand at the 1k challenge but it fell apart when some personal stuff came up. No matter how much life tries to get in the way, we should be open to the idea of enjoying the creative process because it opens doors to new ideas and mastery of the writing craft.
I really dig the idea Graham Strong suggested. It encourages us to set aside time each day to writing, and no matter how much we might think otherwise, we can make room for an hour a day. This time frame also pushes us to set tasks during the timeframe, whether conscious or sub-conscious, something I have learned from using a similar technique of late.
As for the 500 word challenge, even a slow typist can write up that much in a little over an hour. For those that haven’t tested out the Liberty Hall Writers challenges, there is a weekly 90 minute prompted challenge. I have come up with so many ideas from it over the last two years and highly recommend this an the various other challenges the community over there throws themselves into.
@Dianne – Yes, setting aside a particular block of time everyday is really helping me. And although I haven’t tried the word count thing, I think the biggest distraction for me would be watching that counter tick up with every word I write. I’d be more worried about that than actually writing.
I mean obviously it works for people — who am I to argue with Graham Greene? — but personally I love setting the timer and forgetting about it, just typing until the timer goes off…
~Graham