Personally I think there's a golden ratio of content to words in there somewhere. It's uncommon, but I have seen a fic that went far in the other direction; IIRC it had a couple hundred thousand words across about 30 chapters, and nothing much really ever happened.

I can pull 2K in an hour if I can explain my story easily beforehand. If I'm still working out the details, it usually takes me a bit longer, because I like to leave my readers with a sense that they know what's going in.

But it never takes me a year to do that, good grief. If I'm spending a year or more on a single chapter's worth of content, then odds are it's a huge project that I'm working on and I want to make sure everything is top notch and polished for my quality of writing.

From the sounds of it, this guy/gal is just scrapping words together when they feel like it.

However, beware: it's one thing to expect your readers to pay attention and keep up, and another thing entirely to expect them to read your mind. Striking that balance of giving just enough information is tricky. There's always going to be someone who sees right through you and someone who just doesn't get it, so you sort of have to guess where the majority of your audience falls and write to them, all the while trying not to come off holier-than-thou on the one hand or condescending on the other.

I bring this up because I also expect people to keep up, and finding that balance has been a struggle for me, so I know what I'm talking about. {= P My rule of thumb these days is that if I want people to know something, I have to tell them. If I don't, then I shouldn't.

~Neshomeh