5 ms·
Goosebumps books are very short (23000 words each), it is very conceivable that he wrote them all himself. Here's a chart of words written by prolific authors
by cm2012 4y ago
Goosebumps books are very short (23000 words each), it is very conceivable that he wrote them all himself.
Here's a chart of words written by prolific authors (Wildbow added in here is the author of a bunch of Web Serials like Worm, Pale, etc.): https://i.redd.it/cviz2vld5t461.png https://i.redd.it/cviz2vld5t461.png
Wildbow right now writes about 22,000 words a week, or ~one goosebumps book to completion.
That said, I suspect Stein did have them ghost written only because it would be so. tedious. to write the same story over and over.
- tcmart14 4y agoDaily dose of depression when I look at that graph, see Rothfuss's line and thinking about the 5 years I have been waiting for book 3.
- saalweachter 4y agoOnly five years?
- jabroni_salad 4y agoWildbow is being matched by pirateaba's Wandering Inn these days. https://wanderinginn.neocities.org/statistics.html https://wanderinginn.neocities.org/statistics.html
- ghaff 4y ago>22,000 words a week Which, to be clear, is a lot. As someone who writes non-fiction (but less straightforward than technical docs) and is considered fast, I find about 2,000 words a day about my limit without doing any research etc. I know a few trade journalists who probably crank out a bit more. But even if you're literally writing every day of every week, an average of 22,000 words per week is a real stretch and I have to believe would be hard to sustain. That said, a few people can do it. In the UK, Enid Blyton was a ridiculously prolific writer of young adult novels over the course of many years.
- 0des 4y ago
- tzs 4y agoAsimov averaged about 36000 words/week over about 40 years.
- idiotsecant 4y agoThe Wildbow comparison is sort of amazing. The Worm series wasn't some kind of earth-shattering literature but it was definitely well written content. I would be interested in what that workflow looks like given that the rate of content creation is an order of magnitude higher than anyone else in that list.
- cm2012 4y agoHe's writing even faster now than when Worm was written and the content is much more complex, characterizations are richer, the world is even deeper, etc.
- jimmydorry 4y agoWhere are you reading their stuff? I remember reading the Worm and liking it a lot, many years ago.
- cm2012 4y agoParahumans is about Canadian Webnovelist Wildbow (aka John C McRae) various novels: Worm - Superhero story focusing on a bullied teen’s first night out in costume. (WB’s first story: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/arc-1-gestation/1-01/ https://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/...) (COMPLETE) Ward - Sequel to Worm, focused on a retired superhero trying to deal with a changed society . (https://www.parahumans.net/ https://www.parahumans.net/) (COMPLETE) Pact - Urban Horror focused on a man’s magically cursed inheritance and the hidden supernatural horror (https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/ https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/) (COMPLETE) Pale - (Same universe as Pact but not a sequel) focusing on a murder-mystery and the relationships between humans and monstrous creatures (ONGOING: Pale: https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/blood-run-cold-0-0/ https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/blood-run-col...) Twig - Biopunk set in 1920’s following a team of experimental children dealing with political and assassination plots (https://twigserial.wordpress.com/ https://twigserial.wordpress.com/) (COMPLETE)
- jimmydorry 4y ago
- NoGravitas 4y agoHe has said that he spent one week on each Goosebumps book, two days of which were outlining. I do agree that the "boredom" argument is stronger than the "impossibility" argumemt.
- retrac 4y agoWho says it's boring? I find jigsaw puzzles - especially doing the same one over and over -- to be intolerably boring, personally. But some people absolutely love them. Same with puzzles of all kinds. Writing the same story over and over with slightly different characters/settings/twists is kind of like a puzzle. I can pretty easily imagine the kind of person who would enjoy that, as a sort of largely-mindless recreational process. Lucky to get paid for it, though!
- maxwell 4y agoLooks like he authored 62 Goosebumps books, published from 1992 to 1997. So potentially only a little over a year's labor in total at a book a week.