Posts tagged dr. wicked's write or die

No, this is not a threat to boost your word count.

Write or Die is a website where you’re having a word war, but it’s against a computer program. No one is writing against you (unless you purchase the $10 desktop feature, which has an option for you to find a partner to do a word war with).

First, you type in how many words you want to get done in your period of time. You don’t want to set your goal too high, but you don’t want to go too low, either. Make the goal obtainable within reason; in other words, don’t say your goal is to write just one word.

Next, select how long you want to write for. The shortest time is ten minutes, and the longest is 2 hours. Like in a word war between two or more people, fifteen minutes works best. Once you actually start writing, you are only aloud one pause; think about that when selecting your time.

You are given three consequences: gentle mode, normal mode and kamikaze mode. This ties in with your grace period: forgiving, strict, and evil.

When you’ve begun writing, you will see the consequences and grace period work first hand. Grace period allows you a bit of time to come up with the word you’re racking your brain for; if you give yourself a forgiving grace period, you’ll have more time than the evil grace period.

The background will begin to turn red when you haven’t typed for a certain number of seconds. Once you’ve gone over your allotted seconds, the consequences kick in: words begin to be deleted!

I know, I know. This seems cruel. But if you’re desperate for a word count boost, working against the clock is a major factor. If you’re in kamikaze mood, the words delete a lot faster than if you’re in gentle mode.

Once you’ve made the settings to your liking, you may begin writing in the box provided. Your word count is kept track in large letters at the bottom as is the time.

I tend to set my goal for 250 words in 15 minutes with normal consequences and a strict grace period, and this works well for me. After you’ve played around with it a few times, you’ll know what works best for you.