500th page!!
Posted: Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
Comments
You're doing great, Moo. Chapters: I believe you can do this in Microsoft Word, although I've never done it myself. Not sure about Works, but if you poke around in the Help you might find something useful. In Word they refer to 'sub-documents' so you could try that. I'm sure there are many IB people who can help you better than this! Good luck.
Jill from EK
If you haven't broken your book up into chapters yet, then you need to go back and work out where the logical story breaks are and insert chapter headings. Then you can work out which page each and every chapter begins and ends and when you have to print you insert the page numbers that correspond. Any agent will want three chapters and a synopsis and none of them will look at a manuscript that isn't split thus. 500 pages is a very very long book. Most agents are looking for 80-120000 words unless the amterial is absolutely exceptional. And remember JK Rowling got 19 rejections for H Potter so patience is the key. If you do a complete synopsis of the arc of your story it should help with economy of words and give you a template. Hope that helps
calumannabel from ness lewis
Go to www.openoffice.org and download (for free!) the open office suite. Contains a database, spreadsheet, writer, and presentation components that can read/write files in MS format as well as native openoffice format. The writer module is similar to MS Word and allows you to break up large documents into chapters by creating Chapter Templates
Duncan from Brum
Nah, you are all making Moo's life difficult. All she has to do is consider the 500 pages to be one chapter. Then open another file, another 500 pages, and there you have it: chapter 2. And so on, and so forth. Life is simple, really.
mjc from NM, USA
Calumannabel, 500 pages is the length of Michelle's word-processor document, I assume, not 500 pages as would be printed in a finished book. This number would be considerably smaller (depending on the font size she is using). The example of JK Rowling is one that every would-be author must now bear in mind. I'm not sure I could keep taking that level of discouragement!
Jill from EK
While this may be the long way round ... decide where your chapters begin and end, save them as a separate document naming them 'Chapter 1', 'Chapter 2' etc. Ummmm .... not being too cheeky here, but do you need a proof reader [tongue firmly in cheek]. Best of luck!
Plaid from Outback
Just had a thought ... [a rare thing that is] if you print your pages out and read them through you will [without a doubt] find it easier to make alterations that may otherwise be difficult to find on screen. We tend to read what we think we have written on the screen, but printed out in black and white any simple mistakes become obvious.
Plaid from back again
I agree with Plaid. I am a proofreader (among other things), and reading onscreen is much harder and more tiring than on paper, and it's far easier to miss things, even when written by someone else. What Moo probably needs more is an editor, who can help with structure and so on. Proofreaders as such come into play towards the end of a long process (and are at the bottom of the publishing food chain, too) but of course the text can be checked at any stage for obvious errors. I've already offered Moo a substantial IB discount on proofreading services!
Jill from EK
this blog is becomming boring--- its easy to write but please find out about the practible side before trying to publish!!!
feeling bored from other things to do
Well, pardon moi for boring you, "Other Things To Do." I'm sure you'll find other "Island Blogging" blogs that will suit your interest with a variety of things that I don't write about. That's one of the reasons I love IB - there's so much variety! I for one am not too proud to ask for advice when I do not know what I am doing and IB being IB it's the perfect place to ask questions! I thank all of you for said advice because everything you're saying I've never heard of before! Yes, I'll need editor and proofreaders etc etc but first I'm going to pound these two books out before I lose the thread. That's my goal at this point: get the story OUT. Then, I'll go back and add things and tidy things up etc. Consider these 500 pages my "rough draft" if you will. Thanks again for all of your help and please, feel free to add any other advice or info - I'm not bored by your input. Cheerio!
Michelle Therese from Moo!
If 'feeling bored' has other things to do there's an obvious answer - GO DO THEM!!!!
Flying Cat from Moo never hurt anyone...
500 pages still represents about quarter of a million words which is three times the length of the average paperback.
calum from lewis
The 500 pages belong to two books: I'm writing a triology and at the moment I'm plugging away at the second book. I would say each book will have about 250 - 300 pages or so.
Michelle Therese from Moo
Old Trollope clearly thought that trilogies are for the iron deficient. Seven, eight volumes: that shows grit. If some old dead white English male can do it, Moo, so can you. Instead of the Palliser novels, you could call your output the Dounby Chronicles.
mjc from NM, USA
Bea-tific!
Flying Cat from among the crabs
So...I traded my quiet cabin in the Alaskan woods for the howling winds of Orkney and life on a farm. 
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