Afterword By Amelia Williams

[galacticprobe]

It looks great so far, 14th. One way to figure out the size of the book would be to print out the Afterword (leave a box around the edges to mark the 5 x 7 inch size) and cut the page accordingly. Then hold it in your hand like the Doctor is holding the book - or get someone to hold the page for you - and then take a look at how the size fits in the hand. That would be a great indicator of whether the size is 5 x 7, or 4 x 6.

You could try it both ways. Rework your 4 x 6 version so the paragraphs and word spacing match the way it is on the 5 x 7 version and print the 4 x 6 as well. This way you can compare both versions at the same time. Get a friend to hold one page, see how it looks, then have them switch to the other size page and see how that looks.

Will that help?

Dino.

[The14thDr]

Thanks Dino, that will help massively with working out the correct size of the book. I'll rework the 4x6 version and print out both versions, and take a couple of photos with them in my hands to see which looks better (and I'll post the photos here for a second opinion)

I also finished typing up the back of the afterword page and the contents page, but when I saved them, I think I clicked on the wrong setting, as the text is all pixelated. I'll try again with the highest resolution this week and post the final versions (as soon as I work out the correct sizing)

Kind regards, The14thDr

[galacticprobe]

And the nice thing about this prop is that there are downloadable images of the book's cover (just search Google Images for "Melody Malone"). There are mostly medium-sized covers out there for this particular book, and I grabbed this one when I found it:

It was the largest of them all, though there was one that was over 4,000 pixels tall, but it was only the back cover and spine: no front cover. Still, one like this could work well enough for a scratch-made book prop. I can't remember where I grabbed it from, and I just went looking for it again but couldn't find it among all of the other Melody Malone covers. But like I mentioned, just search Google Images for "Melody Malone" and you'll get plenty of hits, and maybe even find a larger version of the cover that will work better.

Then if someone really wants to, they can rework a transcript of the episode into Chapter form and print that out, with the Contents and Afterword, and bind it inside that cover (printed on card stock) to make a personalized version that looks like an actual novel.

For the less industrious of us, we can always get the novelization of the episode and glue on the cover, and glue in the Contents and Afterword, and it will still look cool (but making one from scratch sounds like it could be fun!).

Dino.

[The14thDr]

Thanks for posting that book cover, Dino! That's a really great idea about reworking a transcript of the episode into the actual book, but I don't think I have the patience to do this (maybe some of our more literary-minded members could try this
I checked online for a novelisation of the episode, but I don't think there is one. Maybe a novelisation of a different episode would suffice?

Kind regards, The14thDr

[The14thDr]

This morning I cut out two pieces of paper (one at 4" x 6"; the other at 5" x 7") and the 5 x 7 piece looked closer in size to the page that the Doctor was holding in the episode, so this is the size that I went for with the final printout.

If anyone wants to create a 4" x 6" version of the pages, they will just need to resize the images before they are printed out. Also, the two pages of the afterword should be printed out double sided (if your printer doesn't have a setting for this, print out the first side, place the same piece of paper back into the printer, with the writing facing upwards, and print the second side.)






Finally, I would like to thank Dino for his excellent help, support and feedback throughout this project, as this probably would have taken a while longer to complete without his help (especially with the identification of the chapter headings on the contents page)
Kind regards, The14thDr

[galacticprobe]

Here are two choices for a transcript of the episode's script:

http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/33-5.htm

http://jpgr.livejournal.com/147298.html

Both read as a script for a production, but each has its own take on the description of the non-speaking parts of the scenes, though to be honest, the second link looks better in that respect. Both are really good with the dialogue, but because it is a script, there is nothing "book-like" with the spoken lines (i.e. they just have the character's name, and then the lines...

AMY:
(sarcastically) She's got ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips and a vulnerable side she keeps well-hidden.

...whereas in book form it might read something like:

"She's got ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips and a vulnerable side she keeps well-hidden," Amy said sarcastically).

As for your Afterword and Contents, 14th, they look fantastic! One little tweak to the Contents, though - and this time maybe call it "Book Nazi" or "Word Counter" - but I actually counted those periods (dots) between the chapter numbers and the chapter titles on the grabs of the original.

Chapters 1 through 9 have eight dots, Chapters 10 through 12 have only seven dots. So that might help things line up a little better, and make the Contents just like the original book prop.

I hope some of this helps. (And we'll see who works on that episode transcription and gets it posted first. The hard part is going to be the page breaks when copying and pasting the transcription into the 5 x 7 page window; but the transcription has to come first. )

One quick question, since I don't have access to the episode anymore: at the start of the Afterword, is 'HELLO' really all upper case letters? I really can't see it in the grab that's posted here, and haven't been able to find a better grab of it anywhere else.

Dino.

[The14thDr]

Thanks Dino. And don't worry about being a Word Counter; I really want to make this as screen accurate as possible, so Word Count away! For the 'HELLO', I used a bit of artistic license for that part. In the screenshot at the top of this thread, when I zoomed right in on my tablet, the first word looks like a solid block, so I'm just guessing that the word was fully capitalised (also, I think that it's common practice for many books to capitalise the first word of each chapter, but I'm not sure whether the same thing applies to the afterword) In other words, I could be completely wrong about that HELLO being in complete capitals, so feel free to prove me wrong (it wouldn't be the first time )

Kind regards, The14thDr