Manuscript format is usually specifically called out by type of work and publisher but generally speaking, a manuscript page is commonly written in a monospaced font (one of the Courier fonts being most common) in 10 to 12 points (which yields approximately 10 characters to the inch), double-spaced, and allowing at least an inch of margin space around the text.
This format yields approximately 250 words per page (this is the accepted standard) but because of varying word lengths in the English language, this word count is said to range easily from 175 to 300 words per page.
I am not familiar with the Dutch language so I can not guess how these numbers might translate to actual words per page for you even given your translation of your manuscript from Dutch to English. For example: the longest Dutch word on record with Guinness Book of World Records in 1996 was Kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamheden (49 characters) which I am given to understand may be translated as "preparation activities for a children's carnival procession” (59 characters), yielding a rough difference of 1 to 7 words after translation.
This is probably an extreme example but I would assume then that you would have the opposite problem: a 50,000-word story written in Dutch would be much longer than 200 pages but your 50K manuscript only has 135 pages. In this case then I would use your actual page count for the Beat Sheet calculator (link in post) and compare your story structure page count to the actual numbers provided by the calculator (based on percentages). So in this case, your “debate” beat might fall anywhere from page 15 to page 31 which according to your comment does indeed fall on page 28.
Please also keep in mind that these numbers are only approximations and guidelines, what I like to think of as “rules of thumb” especially given that what we write during NNWM is a first draft. I like to plot my story guided by the Save the Cat beats for the rough draft and if I happen to hit the numbers that’s all well and fine but it’s not something that I worry about. Fine tuning pacing and length will come later.
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Date: 2011-10-28 02:33 pm (UTC)This format yields approximately 250 words per page (this is the accepted standard) but because of varying word lengths in the English language, this word count is said to range easily from 175 to 300 words per page.
I am not familiar with the Dutch language so I can not guess how these numbers might translate to actual words per page for you even given your translation of your manuscript from Dutch to English. For example: the longest Dutch word on record with Guinness Book of World Records in 1996 was Kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamheden (49 characters) which I am given to understand may be translated as "preparation activities for a children's carnival procession” (59 characters), yielding a rough difference of 1 to 7 words after translation.
This is probably an extreme example but I would assume then that you would have the opposite problem: a 50,000-word story written in Dutch would be much longer than 200 pages but your 50K manuscript only has 135 pages. In this case then I would use your actual page count for the Beat Sheet calculator (link in post) and compare your story structure page count to the actual numbers provided by the calculator (based on percentages). So in this case, your “debate” beat might fall anywhere from page 15 to page 31 which according to your comment does indeed fall on page 28.
Please also keep in mind that these numbers are only approximations and guidelines, what I like to think of as “rules of thumb” especially given that what we write during NNWM is a first draft. I like to plot my story guided by the Save the Cat beats for the rough draft and if I happen to hit the numbers that’s all well and fine but it’s not something that I worry about. Fine tuning pacing and length will come later.
Hope that this might have been helpful!