Writing Faster With “Brisk Words”
If you need to write a first draft really fast for some reason, don’t be afraid to use what I would like to call Brisk Words. They are small nonsense words that replace larger words or names. They’re markers or stand-ins so you can type as quickly as possible.
An example of this is how I type “without”. whenever I come to a place where I want to type “without” I type “wot” instead. Those three letters hardly appear in other words so I can type it quickly and use find to highlight and change all of the “wot”s into “without”s instantly.
If I don’t have a character name yet I make up a nonsense word using a characteristic of the character. I.E. a main character may be named mainy, a council member may be named thinkstaff, or a love interest might be named hottygrl. I replace all the fake names instantly when I edit at the end.
When I use brisk words I can increase my original typing speed by at least ten words per minute (The specific speeds I recorded were 55-58, which increased to 65-72). That may not seem like a major difference, but if your slammed for time it makes all the difference.