Fourth Wing came out in May 2023, and within weeks the question chasing Rebecca Yarros everywhere was some version of: how did you write this that fast? The honest answer isn't just about speed. It's about what the speed took out of her.
The Pitch That Almost Wasn't First
Fourth Wing wasn't Yarros's top pick when she pitched it. Her longtime publisher, Entangled, had just launched a new romantasy imprint called Red Tower Books, and Yarros brought the team five different story ideas, ranked in the order that excited her most. Fourth Wing landed third or fourth on that list, by her own account, not first. Red Tower picked it anyway, and the dragon-rider world she'd been holding onto became the fastest-selling book of her career.
Two and a Half Months, By Her Own Account
Yarros has described writing the Fourth Wing draft in roughly two and a half months, a period she's talked about as the story simply pouring out of her. That's a fast turnaround for a novel that runs past 500 pages in print. It also lines up with something she's said about having ADHD: when a project locks in her attention, she hyperfixates and the pages move fast. When it doesn't, the same project can sit untouched for far longer.
The speed came with a cost. That hyperfixation window landed at the same time she'd decided, in her own words, not to accept limits from her body, which has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that also affects two of her sons and shows up in her fiction through Violet Sorrengail.
Twelve to Fifteen Hour Days
In a 2025 interview with Today, Yarros said that when she started Fourth Wing, she was determined to push through rather than slow down, working 12 to 15 hour days despite what her body was telling her. That pace didn't end when the book did. It carried through Iron Flame and into Onyx Storm, alongside a contemporary romance called Variation that she wrote in the same stretch.
I drove my body to a place that was untenable, and I knew it, and my family knew it, and my husband knew it, and it shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have allowed it to happen.
Rebecca Yarros, in a 2025 interview with Today.com
She's since said she's working to bring that down to something closer to an eight hour day, five days a week. See the full Rebecca Yarros writing routine for how that shift is playing out.
The Decade Before the Fast Draft
None of this happened cold. Yarros published her debut novel, Full Measures, in 2014, and had written more than a dozen romance and new adult novels before Fourth Wing. She's also described herself as a plotter who lays out her plot, character, and romance arcs before she drafts, checking that each chapter is pulling weight on all three. The two and a half months people talk about was the drafting sprint. The decade of craft before it is what made the sprint possible.
What You Can Steal
- Do the years before you chase the sprint. Yarros had a decade of novels behind her before Fourth Wing. The speed came from the practice, not around it.
- Know your own focus pattern. She's said her ADHD means she hyperfixates hard on some projects and stalls on others. Working with that pattern beats fighting it.
- Watch what a deadline costs you. Twelve to fifteen hour days got the book written, and Yarros has said plainly it wasn't a price worth paying twice.
- Pitch more than one idea. Fourth Wing wasn't Yarros's first choice out of five. The book that breaks out isn't always the one you'd have bet on.