Authors Blog

I prefer to write books—not just words

For much of the 20th Century, writers composed their masterpieces on 8.5 x 11 inch sheets of paper. Later they used word processing software that emulated the same shape on a PC monitor.

Also traditionally, most authors have a specific word-count in mind, such as 70,000 words, as they write their books.

But when I'm working on a book that I will be publishing, I usually have a specific page-count and price in mind, such as 300 pages/$15.95.

And rather than just spray words onto my monitor, I set up MS Word for the actual page size of my book (such as 6 x 9 inches for a paperback) and correct margins and start writing a book.

(from my Stories I'd Tell My Children (but maybe not until they're adults)

By viewing actual pages, it's much easier to judge my progress, and to know if chapters should be chopped or stretched or shifted.

I always insert a temporary left-hand "page zero" ahead of the real right-hand "page one" so I can view pages as realistic two-page spreads, instead of onesies, or with left-right-reversals.

This is not very important if a book is all-text, but if you have photos or illustrations or tables, it's important to view the spreads as your readers will see them, to avoid graphic disasters.

Viewing two-page spreads on a modern wide-screen monitor makes it easy to judge when illustrations should be enlarged, reduced or moved around; and to eliminate widows and orphans, and to see if a chapter needs to be trimmed to end at the bottom of a page.