Seeing it as a whole and planning an essay

I'm back in Korea now and getting back into the swing of studying, after a summer of madness. I've been working on chapters 3, 4 and 5 this week, which are now in there 2nd proper draft. Chapters 1-5 make up the 20 thousand word limit. I've previously been working on them as individual documents, but last night I put them all in to one. The idea is to (finally) view them as a whole and see how they work together. I'm having a bit of a problem with word limits for each chapter- I want the chapters to be fairly equal in length but also want them to end at exciting places. I feel like I'm trying to manipulate where the excitement happens to make the words fit what I want.
Chapter 1 is the most polished and chapter 2 the second, so after reading the piece through as a whole and deciding one and for all where the chapters end, I will separate them again and work more on the last three chapters.


I've made a list of research I still want to do for my essay:

• A Guide to Fantasy Literature, Philip Martin
• On Writing, Stephen King
• The Everything Creative Writing Book, Wendy Burt-Thomas
• Podcasts from La Trobe University- Evaluation of Fantasy Literature for Children, Harry Potter and High Fantasy, Hero Fantasy in Children's Literature.

 This on is for defining the world of Drail and what that is like for children"

• Children to a degree-Growing up under the Third Reich, Horst Christian

 

 This week I want to:
1. Read through my work as a complete draft, revising and editing it as a whole.
2. Structure essay/ make essay Plan
3. Begin writing essay
4. Research- A Guide to Fantasy Literature and 1 Podcast.

In other words, I have my work cut out!