For novelists in Google Docs
Writing a novel in Google Docs, and when to move
You can write a whole novel in Docs, and plenty of people do. It's free and it's everywhere. If it's working, stay. This is for when it starts to get in the way.
Pride and Prejudice
Asking your reader
When does Elizabeth first doubt Wickham?
Not until Darcy's letter, in Chapter XXXVI. On rereading it she remembers their first conversation and says she “was now struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before.” Before that she brushes off every hint against him.
Where it gets harder
One long document
Writers report Docs getting slow as a manuscript grows, and the common answer is to split the book across several files.
Then it's in pieces
Once the book is split, nothing has the whole of it in view, including you.
No reader has read it
Getting a reader's eye on the whole book means copying it somewhere. An AI you paste a chapter into only knows that chapter.
Questions only your book can answer
- Which threads did I start and never finish?
- Is the brother older or younger?
- Where did I last mention the red car?
- Does Part Two sag after the funeral?
Bringing your draft across
Add a book and choose Paste it in, then copy your whole document across. Or download it from Docs as a Word file (.docx) and choose From a file.
Chapters are found from your headings, or from lines that read like one, such as “Chapter 12” or “Prologue”. You see what it found, the chapters and the word count, before anything is saved. It takes up to about 500,000 words in one go.
Italics and bold come with it
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”
A novel uses italics on every page, and losing them is hundreds of fixes by hand.
What you'd give up
Writing with someone at the same moment. You can invite people to a book here, but Docs is better when two people are typing at once.
Comments in the margin.
Page layout, fonts and images. Here the manuscript is words, chapters, italics and bold, and nothing else on the screen.
What you'd get
The book as one thing: chapters down the side, your notes on characters and places beside them.
Every version kept, and what changed between them.
It opens without a signal, because your book lives on your device too.
A reader that has read all of it, through the Claude you already have, and that can't change a word.
You aren't locked in: download the whole manuscript as text whenever you like. The first 14 days are free, with no card to enter, and if you don't stay, your book stays open to read and download.
Bring your worst chapter.
Sign in with Google and start on your book today. The first 14 days are free, and there's no card to enter.
Already have a book here? The same button signs you in.
Or see it on Pride and Prejudice, no sign-in