I do have an outline, but it isn’t detailed, and maybe I should have developed it more before starting. I’ll have to stop now, anyway, and fix a couple of plot holes. If I was a true Nano’er, I suppose I would plough on regardless and fix the mess at the end of the month. But I can’t work like that. I see no point in writing that I know will be redundant. I realise for others it’s all about establishing a flow.
I read Susan Hill’s ‘Printer’s Devil Court’ recently. The book has only 95 pages with actual text. The other 20 are start-of-chapter blanks and illustrations. The typesetting is spacious, so the average page contains only 175 words. The total length of the book is therefore about 16.5k words. The price of the book: £9.99
Could any debut writer get away with this?
It’s actually a good story, and doesn’t feel overly short. It’s typical Susan Hill: concise, spare prose and limited description.