So the reason I did this, I wanted to get a feel for the flow of my book as well as how lengthy the chapters are compared to each other. I read the excellent idea from a Wow! Women on Writing article.
Each page is one chapter, 5pt and single spaced. As you can see, there are a couple of really long chapters and I haven't quite decided what to do yet. Do I lengthen the shorter ones or shorten the lengthy ones? I've already chopped out over 14,500 words over the last couple of weeks. (and trust me, that completely freaked me out)
Printing the book this way also gave me the "Big Picture" view of my book and the flow. I've marked where the action parts are so I can check the pace and structure. Other things I'm planning on marking are:
- Dialog
- Action
- Interactions between the main characters
- Settings
Shrinking the whole book and printing it this way gave me such gratification to see all of my words at once. Looking at it this way doesn't seem like it really has 80,000 words, but it's still cool to see it. I highly recommend it!
Warning: Do not leave pages on the floor overnight due to a four year old who may use this as an opportunity for a dry slip & slide. (Good thing I had taken the photo beforehand!)
So tell me, do you think this sounds like something you'll try or have you actually done it before? Did it help?
