How Long Does It Take To Write 1000 Words? - WordAgents

How Long Does It Take To Write 1000 Words?

Published: Apr. 22, 2020 by Coral Ouellette, Updated: Sept. 8, 2025

Writing 1,000 words can seem like a lot or a little, depending on different factors. Are you knowledgeable about the topic and can write everything off the top of your head? Is extensive research required? How much supplementary work needs to be done to finish the piece (images, links, editing)? 

These are all great questions to ask, and they lead us to the conclusion that when writing a thousand-word essay or blog post, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all time frame for everyone. 

Thankfully, authors, students, and bloggers have recorded how long it takes to write a 1000-word article, and from that, we can get a pretty good guess for the typical writer.

Can You Write 1000 Words in an Hour?

The answer is yes. However, anyone who’s heard the phrase “quality over quantity,” knows it’s possible at an expense.

How long does it take?

If you’re a complete beginner, a 1000-word article should take 3 to 4 hours to complete.

In general, the rule to follow is:

Take the time needed to get everything in order. It’s better to use more time to submit a quality essay that readers will share, reply to, read back, email to friends, post on social media, and drop engaging comments on.

As a plus, Google algorithms will check an article for exceptional quality. A blog post that passes the inspection has a good chance of getting its title ranked on the first search page.

How many pages is 1000 words?

About two pages single-spaced.

How many words can you write in an hour?

See how fast your fingers can move with this typing speed test.

Typing speed is part of the equation, but the process is another.

As you gain experience, your writing process will be way clearer, allowing you to craft better articles that are longer, more in-depth pieces. You should be able to write a one-thousand-word essay in 1 to 2 hours instead of 3 to 4 hours.

To give some perspective on how long it should take a beginner to write an essay, here are some metrics you can use to keep track of how you’re improving.

How Long Does It Take to Write 200 Words?

200 words isn’t much. It’s less than a page, perhaps 1-2 paragraphs, and for a beginner writer, it should take 40 minutes.

The average length of a website’s homepage is around 200 words. Facebook posts, emails to family and friends, comments, comment threads, app descriptions, and an outline can be around 200 words as well.

It doesn’t require many points and can fit anywhere on your site in almost every case.

How Long Does it Take to Write a 500 Word Article?

Is your school making you write essays? Five hundred words is relatively short. If it takes 3 to 4 hours to jot down 1000 words, it should take you no more than 1 – 2 hours for 500 words.

However, a 500-word essay will be more complicated than you thought. Teachers assign subjects that require critical thinking, reason, and order, so getting everything into 500 words can be a challenge.

In this kind of paper, there’s zero room for fluff. Each sentence should be straight to the point, and each idea should be a cohesive element with an introduction and conclusion. The body should flow well from one point to the next.

What About 1200 Words?

Writing 1200 words should take you approximately three and a half to 4 and a half hours.

A 1200-word article is long enough to include key details, but you won’t be able to expand much unless the subject is straightforward.

An essay of this size usually requires a fair amount of research. You can dedicate at least half of your writing time to finding helpful websites, good topics to expand on, discussion, and anything that will get teachers’ votes and a good grade.

A 1200-word article could be a tutorial, a transcription of a conversation, a home report, a menu, a facts paper, or a lengthy product description including guidelines on how to use it.

How Long Should a 2000 Word Article Take to Write?

At 2000 words, the content becomes a project rather than a quick article. You can devote a fair amount of attention to the subject matter, whether that is a short short, an in-depth article, a listicle, or a buyer’s guide.

Writing 2000 words will probably take 6 – 8 hours. While that seems like a very long time to focus on one task, with time and improvements, you’ll be able to finish in three to four hours.

What’s The Average Writing Time for a 2500 Word Article?

This article is approximately 2500 words, and if it were printed out would be approximately five pages single-spaced.

It should take a beginner writer between 7 hours to 9 hours to write.

What can you write in 2500 words? Maybe a great blog post, product reviews, or a university term paper. You can also expand on a shorter assignment by including data, industry trends, language, statistics, numbers, or a statement.

How Long Does It Take to Write 5000 Words?

Following the trend of shorter pieces, it would take about 16 hours and 40 minutes to write a 5000-word essay.

However, the truth is, 5000 words is a lot more complex than writing 1,000 words. This type of essay requires a more detailed outline and a strategy to map out time, editing, and leaving lots of room for errors.

An essay or article this long allows you to dive deep into different fields, answer a complicated question, and channel different thoughts.

A small dissertation essay or term paper is commonly 5000 words, or it’s a thesis proposal for a PhD.

And, How Does It Take to Write 10,000 Words?

It takes about 33 hours and 20 minutes to write a 10,000-word essay. You won’t (and shouldn’t!) be writing it all in one sitting.

Although it’s not quite as long as a thesis, this type of essay requires a hell of a lot of planning. You can easily spend more than 5 hours on fact-checking, gathering data, organizing the structure, collecting figures from research, and thinking of ways to get your point across.

Writers need to gain knowledge and become experts in each section of the report. A 10000-word essay could be a dissertation, a marketing strategy for a client, a revision of a safety system or medical technology, and many other things.

Many short books are 10,000 words. If you’re a blogger, you can create an ultimate guide filled with solutions, issues, problem-solving a-level information that acts as an excellent service to your audience.

What Are My Writing Times?

I am a person who incorporates writing into my daily life. I write for clients as my career and have been doing so for years now. Even before I started making money from writing, I had a blog. As a child, I was the author of my own little fictional books with a thin plot.

I’ll share a secret: When I first started writing for money, I was one of those UpWork writers who would fill sentences with jargon. My writing wasn’t to the point, I would include my own opinions, and I would submit the piece basically as a draft. While quality was always my intention, I had some problems delivering it. I was anxious to get it done and get it delivered as soon as I could. I’m sure my clients didn’t have fun editing the work they paid for.

While content writing still makes me break a sweat, over the last three years, my improvement has skyrocketed because I write all the time. I’ve gotten way more efficient and waste little (but not zero) time being stuck on what to write. Thanks to the pressure, the aggressive deadline, and a world of competition, bit by bit, my ability to write got stronger. I no longer fear the blank page of doom because writing something banishes it.

How Long Does It Take Me to Write a 1000 Word Essay?

I can write a thousand-word essay in 1 to 2 hours. Of course, that depends on what my client expects, the extent of the topic, and the writing voice.

Keep in mind, 1 hour to 2 hours includes the entire writing process from developing points to answer the question, going back and fixing typos, adding image attributes, temporarily posting it, and reading it out loud.

I’m not sure when, but at some point, writing and editing became a second nature to me.

Factors That Influence Your Writing Times

Below, I will list a few factors that could contribute to the time it takes you to write.

How Long Have You Been Writing?

Whether it’s for school, a paper, a novel, a case study, an instruction book, a debate, a dissertation, or a course, writing is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. 

Beginners often struggle with the writing phase because they don’t take the time to plan, take too much time researching, or write too fast.

If writing a 1k article takes you more than a day, you’re overthinking it. Or, your typing skills are terrible. On the other hand, if you write too fast, the results likely won’t turn out, and you’ll spend time going back to review the material. Writing quickly doesn’t help if you end up writing it twice.

The thing is, with time, you’ll get a better idea of how to find points that support your idea and be able to research your story more effectively. This allows you to craft longer, more in-depth pieces without getting stuck or lacking vital information.

How Well Do You Know the Topic?

Another important factor to consider is how deeply you know the subject matter.

Are you a PPC and SEO expert who can write about the current industry trends without any doubts? Or are you creating a travel guide based on memories and emotions from a recent trip?

If so, the research stage will be a lot faster. The time it takes depends more on your typing speed than anything else. 

If you need to dig for data, do calculations, find different materials, look for answers, and record sources, it will take much longer.

How Well Did You Organize the Content?

While very experienced writers can generally measure 1000 words in their heads, others need to spend more time in preparation mode. 

Save time by outlining details, such as different headings, subheadings, and key points underneath. This may seem like a waste of time, but it’s helpful to have everything altogether so you can focus on writing. 

A great outline looks something like this:

While yours doesn’t necessarily need to be the same, it’s an excellent example to aim for. Outlining helps content writing by breaking things down into chunks. It eliminates the need to think about what to write and how to format while you’re writing the paper.

How Much Editing Needs to Be Done?

How long does it take to go through and edit your paper? Before you publish something, make sure it’s 100% ready for success. It should be visually appealing with pictures, structured, and easy to read with headings and digestible parts. 

Depending on how big the paper is, you can spend as little as thirty minutes or as long as 5 hours editing.

For beginners, WordPress can be tricky to navigate, and you may end up spending time watching “how-to” videos on YouTube or reading tips on the internet. Also, if you need to add a meta description, alt tags on images, add keywords, or any other SEO thing, it can take much longer.

Create an SEO checklist so you can swift through future articles without forgetting any steps.

Pro tip: Read the article out loud AT LEAST TWICE to look for improvements before publishing. Reading helps to catch awkward sentences and grammar mistakes. There’s also nothing wrong with sending the article to a friend, a member of your team, or an editor to check your essay and give feedback.

If you haven’t formatted it yet, change the font face of the whole article to trick your brain into thinking it’s new information. Errors that you may have skimmed over before will suddenly stand out.

Another option is to use an app. Thanks to tools like Grammarly, you can edit all your writing from your computer screen. If you want to explore more apps, there are tons on the market.

Tips to Help You Write a Quality Essay Faster

Whether you’re a student struggling to write papers faster, or a blogger on a weekly publishing schedule, there are ways to make your writing faster (while maintaining the quality, of course).

Embrace Technology

Fun fact: Blogs that publish often gain much more traffic.

When Neil Patel experimented with publishing 2 posts per week instead of 1, he saw traffic grow from 46,124 to 59,787 visitors per month. 

HubSpot analyzed the 13,500 companies and found that those who posted 16+ posts per month got 3.5 times more traffic than those who posted 0 to 4 blog posts per month. 

Just make sure it’s all quality!

Good to know: Asana is an effective app to create a publishing calendar. In the calendar, you can color-code, give others tasks, and assign a name to an article.

So, what can you do to write 1000 words faster and more effectively to reach your weekly publishing goal?

Find Your Productive Hours

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

The majority of writers can work at their own pace and schedule. Often, it’s only the conditions you give yourself that matter.

If you’re working from home, give yourself enough time to rest and make sure the place where you sleep isn’t your office. Taking advantage of productive hours lets you process word essays much more easily. Better ideas come to mind, and not much time is wasted. If you try to write while you’re tired or in the mood for something else, your concentration will be elsewhere.

Discover Your Ideal Writing Process

If you’ve been writing articles for a while, you’ve probably heard things like:

• Don’t edit while you write. 
• Write first, edit later. 
• You can fix a first draft, but you can’t fix a blank page.

Listen to this advice. If your brain is full of ideas, get them written down before you forget! 

Editing as you write is tempting, but it can cause beginners to forget the next point or lose the flow of the article. Empty your head and then go back and filter it.

Write Under Pressure

Most people with a writing career get the bulk of their work done with a metaphorical gun pointed at their heads. As deadlines creep closer, the pressure to write increases. Deadlines work. 

Take it from the professional writers: set your own deadlines.

If you’re writing one thousand words for the first time, set your timer for 4 hours from now.

When you write your next 1000 words, try setting your alarm for 3.45 hours. When that time is up, set your alarm for 3.15 hours. Keep decreasing until you achieve a time that meets your goals.

Practice Until You Get It

Practice writing. Take Tim Ferris as an example: “My quota is two crappy pages per day. I keep it really low, so I’m not so intimidated that I never get started.” 

At the start, word count doesn’t matter. Even a paragraph per day can help. The goal is to build yourself up until writing a one-thousand-word essay with real information becomes close to effortless.

Conclusion

Nobody writes fast AND writes well at the same time from the start. It takes time to hone your skills to a level where you can do both well. If you have to choose, writing an essay well is the obvious answer. Give yourself more time to finish the piece because writing fast comes naturally with time.

Now, before you sit down and start an article, remember the rule: find a comfortable place, eliminate the number of distractions in the area (people, noise), take time to research thoroughly, and focus on your paper during your productive hours.

If you gained inspiration, get out there and be a writer who gets shares and likes on their articles and good grades on their essays.

If becoming a writer is something you want to do in the future, but you need content now, let WordAgents pick up the task with our content writing service.