A novel is long. At 80,000 words it is several hundred pages, dozens of chapters and, for most writers, a year or more of drafts, notes and second thoughts. How you arrange it on disk decides how easily you find your way round it, how safely you can move chapters about, and how much work it is to turn into a finished book at the end.
There are two sensible ways to do it: one long document, or one document for each chapter. This guide covers both, with the way Retroprose handles each.
One file or one file a chapter?
| One document | One document a chapter | |
|---|---|---|
| Finding your place | Search, Go to page, or the outline of headings | The chapter's name in List files |
| Moving a chapter | Cut and paste | Rename it, or move it to another folder |
| Seeing the whole | Scroll through it all | The folder shows every chapter at once |
| Word goal | One for the whole book | One for each chapter |
| Search and replace | Across the whole book at once | One chapter at a time |
| Turning it into a book | Export the one document | Export the folder as one book Zip disk and hard disk editions |
Many writers start with one file, because it is simple, and split it into chapters once the book has a shape. Either is fine. The rest of this guide assumes one document a chapter, then comes back to the single file.
A folder for the book
Make a folder for the book and keep each chapter in it as a document of its own. If the book has parts, make a folder inside it for each part:
THE LONG NIGHT
├── Book details.md
├── 1 Before
│ ├── 01 The station.md
│ └── 02 The night train.md
└── 2 After
├── 03 The harbour.md
└── 04 Home.md
Retroprose lets folders hold folders up to 8 deep, with names of up to 100 characters, so there is room for a trilogy and its drafts.
Name chapters so they sort
Start each name with a number, with a nought in front of the numbers below 10: 01 The station, 02 The night train. Then they sort in reading order everywhere, in Retroprose and in any other app you ever open them in. Without the nought, some apps put chapter 10 before chapter 2.
Numbering the names, not only the headings, also means you can see the order at a glance, and change it by renaming. When you move a chapter, give it a number between the two it now sits between, such as 05a, and renumber properly at the end of the draft.
Keep notes outside the book
When the folder becomes a book, every document in it is a chapter. So keep research, character notes and cut scenes in a folder of their own beside the book, not inside it:
THE LONG NIGHT
NOTES FOR THE LONG NIGHT
To keep notes in view as you write, open them as a second document. Retroprose holds two documents at once: open the chapter, then the notes, and Shift+F3 switches between them, each with its own place and its own undo. To move a passage from one to the other, copy it, switch and paste.
Moving chapters about
In List files (F5), press 9 on a chapter to pick it up, open the folder it should go to, and press 9 again to put it down. You can mark several chapters first with Space and move them together, or drag them onto a folder with the mouse. On the dashboard, Move to on a chapter's menu does the same. If you delete a chapter by mistake, it waits in the trash for 30 days.
Goals for a book in chapters
Each document can have its own word goal (Ctrl+F8), shown as a small bar at the top of the screen. With one document a chapter, give each chapter a goal, such as 4,000 words, and watch it fill as you write. For the book as a whole, a daily goal on your account page counts every word you type in any chapter, and keeps a streak of the days you reach it. The guide How many words should you write a day? has more on choosing one.
Writing the book in one long document
A single document suits a first draft, or a shorter book. Give each chapter a heading 1 (Ctrl+Alt+1) and each part or section a heading 2. Then:
- Go to page (Ctrl+G) jumps to a page by its number.
- Search (F2) finds a name or a line anywhere in the book.
- The outline Hard disk edition shows every heading in a pane at the side, numbered 1, 1.1 and 1.1.1, and takes you to any of them. Under it, the document stats give the words in the chapter you are in, as well as the whole book.
- One word goal covers the whole book, such as 80,000.
Scene breaks and chapter openings
A line of three hyphens, ---, on its own line marks a break between scenes, with a blank line above and below. In the Book template of an ebook or a PDF book it becomes a short line centred between the scenes. Use Layout, Horizontal line and Retroprose puts in the blank lines for you.
Start each chapter document with its heading, such as # The station. If it has none, the book uses the title set in File, Properties, and failing that the document's name, number and all. So a heading is the tidy way to name a chapter.
Turning the folder into a book
On the Zip disk and hard disk editions Zip disk and hard disk editions, the folder becomes the book in one step. In List files, choose the book's folder and press Ctrl+E, or choose Export as book on its menu. Each document becomes a chapter and each folder a part, in name order, with a contents page, and you choose an EPUB ebook or a PDF book to read on screen or print. The book's title, blurb, dedication and cover colours live in the document named Book details.md in the book's folder, and it is never a chapter. The guide How to make an EPUB ebook takes you through it.
On the free floppy disk edition, export each chapter on its own to Word, PDF or OpenDocument, or keep the book in one document and export it whole.