Scrivener: An Introduction to Novel Writing
From LiveHacked:
It’s no secret around here that I’m a huge fan of Scrivener, the #1 tool for writing. I’ve used it for two novels, six nonfiction books, and even for quickly formatting copied text to generate personal-use PDFs.
Still, I get questions all the time about what it really does that Word or Pages can’t handle.
There’s no easy answer.
However, I wanted to write a post that would provide the “pre-user” a good starting point for comparing Scrivener to their current writing tool of choice, to help people decide if it in fact would benefit their workflow.
. . . .
Scrivener makes writing easy. Unbelievably easy — it won’t give you the correct words, but its easy-to-use interface, helpful tips, and loads of features will inspire you to write and get out of the way when you just need a muse-capturing device.
. . . .
For “Fiction,” you can choose from Novel, Novel (with Parts), or Short Story. Each has its benefits, though for fiction I tend to go with a blank canvas and build out my story’s structure from there.
. . . .
For “Non-Fiction,” you can choose from numerous templates for educational purposes (marked conveniently with a little graduation cap) like Essay (Chicago Style), Paper (APA or MLA), and Research Proposal for the grant-writers out there. Also included are some more general non-fiction templates.
. . . .
The “Notebook” is a really helpful feature, and it’s a dream-come-true for those of us who’ve had to put up with Word’s lack of internal organization within a file structure.
A great example for how to use the Notebook in Scrivener is if you’re writing a novel according to the Scene/Sequel layout . . . the Notebook makes it easy to drag/drop the different sections or chapters around in your book. Try doing that with a word processor.
Rather than creating and managing a different file for each chapter or each scene, Scrivener handles all of that for you.
Link to the rest at LiveHacked
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases.
I use Scrivener for fiction, non-fiction, e-book formatting, world notes…
Another huge Scrivener fan here. Not only is it wonderful for organizing huge, unwieldy novels, it also produces great epub and mobi files.
I hardly know anymore what I would do without it.
I adore Scrivener. Until I switched to Scrivener this spring, I was a diehard Corel WordPerfect user. It’s a superior product to Word; it gets out of my way and just lets me write. If weird formatting happened, I could just use the reveal codes feature and be on my way.
Then I found out about Scrivener. At first I thought it was interesting just because I heard it could output to Kindle and epub. Then I took a look at the binder. Sold! It appeals to my organizing skills, it allows me to put my research right within the novel’s file, and I can keep notes off on the side or inline. I’ve actually been more productive since using it. Plus, users have created useful templates for different types of projects, such as creating a design document for a video game. Since Scrivener offers screenplay layouts I pretty much consider it one-stop shopping for writing needs.
I used to love Wordperfect – but I had to go with Word and the dayjob.
I bought Scrivener to organize my story fragments and as a way to organize my research.
There is a pretty steep learning curve, but it’s worth it.
I’ve been tempted by Scrivener but being a bit of a Luddite, I don’t fancy having to spend weeks learning a new system. For those that use it, could you tell me if it is easy to get to grips with? I’m often put off by software because of over functionality. Is it easy to just sit down create a manuscript format and begin typing? What about formatting manuscripts to epub – does that take a lot of learning? I’m asking this as somebody who has read Smashword’s guidelines and various online guides to formatting e-books and POD and find them all too daunting, which means I’ll inevitably have to pay somebody to do it for me, which obviously I’d rather not do – could Scrivener be the answer?
In my day job I’m a journalist and find Word’s language tools quite useful for assisting in copyediting and picking up basic errors, although for my fiction, I find the grammar tool close to useless. Is Scrivener’s any better?
Sorry for all the questions, bu I am seriously considering it but don’t want to spend money unnecessarily?
There’s a learning curve to it. For the most part you can just go an write without much problems. Most of the interface will be familiar. What gets finicky is tuning your export controls for how you want the end result to look. Scrivener’s spelling and Grammar are more rudimentary than Word’s. The website for Scrivener has a number of invaluable videos on how to use its different features. I highly recommend viewing.
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/video.php
Jutoh is also popular.
I used Mariner Software’s StoryMill to write my first novel, but I’ve since switched to Scrivener. StoryMill is a good writing tool, but lacks the export controls that Scrivener and Jutoh have.
I used Word for my first novel because, well, it was my first novel and that’s what we had. I’ve been using Scrivener for almost a year now and have used it for the first draft of my next novel, and a novella. It’s a terrific organizing tool and I will never go back to the old way.
The only thing I don’t like is the lack of a built-in thesaurus (Word’s *only* advantage). I miss being able to just right-click on a word that’s bugging me and be presented with some alternatives. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge time-saver.
Hi, Pat. I just go into google now and look for synonyms. Being forced by Scrivener to look elsewhere, for alternatives was a great thing because there’s so much more out there than Word’s thesaurus.
Hi, Robert. I hear you about the learning curve. It didn’t take me long to work it out. I suggest you spend an hour scanning the manual and then just go for it.
I love the color coding options.
I do use Word for the final revisions and polishes simply because that’s how I submit to Smashwords and Amazon and I don’t have to worry about the formatting at the end.
For Epub, I just put the whole document back into one page on Scrivener and then compile to epub. I don’t need a table of contents on my books so that works well.
Robert, I began by just diving in and doing it. I was a beta tester, having ‘won’ in NaNoWriMo 2010 and receiving a copy. I purchased it when it went ‘real’. I suppose, like Kat Sheridan, I was a ‘tinkerer’. It was a useful tool, I felt safe with it and it worked better than Word for a long manuscript. So far, so good.
About a year after acquiring the real thing, as I finished NaNoWriMo 2012 and had added 50K words to it as a ‘NaNo rebel’, I realised that it was far more powerful than I had imagined so–at that point–I started over and re-did the tutorials, read parts of the manual, moved my whole 150,000 word manuscript to a new file…and so on.
I was happy with it before, just bumbling along, knowing there was more but focusing on ‘getting words on paper’. It was a usable tool even for someone who hadn’t paid much attention to its functionality.
Now I am ecstatic with it, having more skill and understanding. And I am really taking advantage of some of its power–because I am ready for it. I know there are yet more levels to it but, for now, in the serious first draft editing phase, I am happy to have all the chapter statuses, labels, cork board pieces, etc to work with and track myself through to the end.
I recommend Scrivener and have been very happy with the user forum, the documentation and the product itself.
I tinkered with Scrivener, since Nanowrimo winners can get 50% off until April, but it feels a bit too much for me. Like handing a Ferrari to someone who doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift. That said, there IS a “dummies” book for it, written by Gwen Hernandez. She also offers a course on it (I think the next one is in February).
Gwen’s course sends you a daily lesson for four weeks, and then she’s available for questions for two more.
You don’t learn anything until you actually follow through – the difference between a video game and driving a real car down a highway.
BUT, if you will do the work – which is relatively minimum – reading each thing and then doing it, darned if she doesn’t walk you through everything you need to get well started. And you get to keep the lessons.
There were a large number of people signed up – and it wasn’t a problem. People tackled different questions – and those of us who read them learned even more that way.
She was invariably helpful – and resolved everything I saw within a day or so.
Buy the program – cheap. Buy the For Dummies book. Take the course – and you’ll be well on your way.
Do the work as it goes if you can, and the lessons make more sense. Several people tried to catch up and it sounded as if they had a harder time.
Since then I have used Scrivener for all kinds of new projects, and I’m transferring the WIP – and a huge number of structural details – into Scrivener.
The transfer is WORK – but Word (I had a Mac 2004 version) was driving me insane with the slowness and the lack of anything but me keeping the structural details connected – Scrivener, after an investment, is turning out exactly what I want for writing.
I bought it because of the ebook creation feature – and I haven’t even used that yet. My practice is to learn a new feature as I need it.
If you are frustrated with your current setup – and are planning a change anyway – or, like me, have a huge project that was completely unmanageable in Word – go for it.
If you are happy where you are – it has been an investment of a lot of hours (probably also holding dementia at bay by stretching my brain).
I love the way I keep finding new things that are so intuitively RIGHT.
Robert, I found Scrivener intimidating when I first approached it. I downloaded the trial and never used it. This fall, as part of my preparation for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I set myself the task of — and gave myself the time for — going through Scrivener’s interactive tutorial and user manual. After that, I had no problems. I didn’t bother with many bells and whistles until I had more or less finished my rough draft and had time to play around.
I find Scrivener much, much better for both writing a first draft and editing one. The “binder” (which this article calls the “Notebook” — a Windows vs. Mac difference?) lets me organize by scenes and chapters, then add or relocate a scene with minimal effort. Because I can easily look at two scenes (or collections of scenes) at once, it’s easy to check on possible inconsistencies or go back for a forgotten detail. The “notes” one can append to a document or to the entire project are great for keeping track of unresolved issues. The “snapshots” one can take of a document make it possible to go back to a previous version. . . . OK, I’ll stop, or this will be a whole other article. (Actually, I wrote one, called In Praise of Scrivener, at http://looking-around.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-praise-of-scrivener.html.)
I haven’t tried exporting to .mobi or .epub yet, so that’s one part of Robert’s comment that I can’t address — but I’m optimistic about it, given how terrific the program is in general.
I’ll come out of lurking to say Scrivener is worth every penny & I have no idea how I wrote without it.
Scrivener is as complicated or as easy as you want it–just make sure to do the tutorial. I personally find writing in broken up, yet organized small sections, is worth it alone–but the compile feature is a work of art. Yes, it takes time to learn, but Compile can do just about anything you’d need.
Full screen/distraction free writing mode is also amazing.
And then there’s file syncing, notes, tags, and meta-data, and…I love this software. <3
Agreed 100%!
I’ll chime in as well. If you take the time to get the learning curve, it’s amazing and worth everh penny. A big one for me was the binder, in that you can input research and character info and story info right in the project. I can’t say how many times I’ve had to open up a previous manuscript or dig through notes or go looking through the existing manuscript to find info tk move forward. Now its al there.
Love scrivener.
Scrivener is amazing. An inexpensive and helpful guide is Writing a Novel with Scrivener by David Hewson: http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Novel-Scrivener-ebook/dp/B004ZG7BMU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355496832&sr=8-1&keywords=writing+a+novel+with+scrivener
I have the guide on Kindle and that made it easy to keep it at hand while having Scrivener open on the laptop. Hewson shows how you don’t actually need to learn every single function in Scrivener, just the ones that are useful for what and how you write–in this case, your novel.
There’s also a recipe collection template in Scrivener that I use bit by bit to get my collection in one place and in one format.
yWriter is also a very good writing program.
I’ve been using yWriter the past year, and finding it gave me some great structural support. If there are any who have used both that and Scrivener, I’d love to hear a comparison.
I haven’t used yWriter in a long time so I can’t make a fair comparison. I know yWriter cannot natively make an ePub or mobi file. The developer did include an export function for a stripped html format for easy conversions to ePub or mobi using Calibre. I have no idea how well that works. yWriter is free, though.
Thanks everyone, most helpful, but by the sounds of it, I’m not sure its for me. I’m a scraps of paper and happily disorganised kind of writer, so I am not sure the functions people have mentioned would be of much use to me. Plus In my career I’ve had to go from electric typewriters to green screen computers to the Windows and PC revolution. Not sure I can take any more. Sigh, I must be getting old.
Thanks though.
I think the interesting thing about your comment is that the program is really more designed to work for the disorganized writer than the organized writer. In fact the programmer said that is why he made it, because most things like Word and other programs like this kind of assume (or work better) you have an idea of where you are going already. A bit of a scene you wrote and have no idea where it goes can be put into the document, in a loose maybe-here-maybe-there way, rather than on a post-it note somewhere that falls behind the desk. You can just write around it and slide it right in when it makes sense to—or toss it.
I guess it works well for people who meticulously plan everything out as well. I have no idea what such a beast looks like. I can say for myself, as a crazy person that writes in twenty places at once and never knows where I’m going until I’m already five pages in, I think Scrivener works perfectly for that.
I’ll second Robert Forrester. Thank you to everyone for your experiences and thoughts on Scrivener but it sounds like Word still fits my style and needs better. I might keep Scrivener in mind for writing friends who are looking for something more all-in-one than Word and a loose-leaf notebook(s).
There are Much better YouTube tutorials on scrivener now. When I first looked at it, most of them didn’t encourage me, the new ones (or the better ones there in) helped to sell it.
Amongst my favorite features:
1. Project wide find and replace. Finally decided on a name for that character you’ve been using for 3 chapters? Fix the whole manuscript and the character notes all at once.
2. Easily switching between multiple tweaked output formats.
3. Selective inclusion. I only want to send CH 3-5 to that Beta reader right now, okay I edit the title page, pick the format and print only the title page and the chapters I want. Then I can email that PDF/Mobi/Epub to them.
4. Re-arrange sections or chapters via click & drag. Does it create a better dramatic effect if you switch chapters 5 and 6? Should chapter 4 really be chapter 7 since it takes place in another locale? You can rearrange then in a matter of seconds without any of that nasty Cut/Paste stuff.
5. I keep a Fubar folder in the binder that never joins my output. If I just can not make a chapter work from that angle, I don’t delete it, I drag it down and drop it into Fubar. But I never have to worry about it accidentally ending up in a file I send someone. If I ever decide to try and salvage it, I can edit it even within the Fubar folder.
6. It doesn’t make my eyes bleed.
7. It lets me do silly things like setting a word count goal, on draft material, each time I fire it up.
8. It provides a word count on just what is included at the time you check. Only putting up to chapter 3 in that Beta reader section, okay that’s going to be about 7K words, etc.
One other thing — you know how you write a scene, but it doesn’t quite work for you, so you decide to write a different version and perhaps another version after that? Or maybe you decide to delete a chapter/scene but aren’t sure you ought to have? Scrivener has a “snapshot” function that lets you save different versions of the scene so that you can pick and choose without having to save multiple versions of your whole file. Instead of saving “novel version 1, version 1.1., version 1.2 etc. for the different permutations your revisions, you can just take a snapshot of the variations inside the novel. If you change your mind about a revision there’s no harm done, just retrieve the snapshot.
I want the exporting features in Scrivener but really nothing else. Can you work on one long document and still get the benefit of the export to say epub with chapters and everything without having to break your story up into separate sections?
What I mean is that I do have plenty of chapters and scenes, but I don’t actually want my document broken up. I like working on one long document and scrolling back when I need to. I hate searching through sections or files looking for something when I can scroll in Word. I don’t care how long or how many chapters and scenes I have. I want to work with one long unbroken document.
Does the program work like that or would I have to break it up to get the chapter headings to show up in the exported files?
It is possible to work with the text in a single “document”. You loose a bunch of convenient compile functionality, but there are work arounds. With styles, scrivener links and compile as-is settings you should be able to replicate the same features.
You can work in the entire draft as if it’s a single document, even though it’s broken up in chapters and scenes, with the chapter headings showing up in the compiled version. Any change you make in a particular scene, while you have the whole draft as your selection, will be saved as part of the scene. You can scroll up and down as much as you want. (You can also use the “Find” function in the Edit menu and have it search the entire draft.)
Personally, I use yWriter5 (which is free) to organize all my notes, character descriptions, etc. It has many of the same functions as Scrivener, in a much less fancy package, such as letting me rearrange scenes, etc., but the word processing part is bare bones minimum, so I don’t use it. I prefere Write or Die for fast production of raw text, then import into a Word doc. I especially like being able to keep character and settings info in yWriter (where the heroine’s eyes blue? Were the draperies in the study red velvet or gold satin?), plus I like the “timeline” in it so I can track the passage of time in the story. For a free product and a small learning curve, it suits me.
Desktop client? Proprietary Format? Local storage? Per Seat Licensing?
Sign me up~!!
I recently gave Scrivner a test drive. Out of writing programs I’ve used, it was the best so far at being usable for the way I write. That said, I returned to my normal writing tools. Why? Because Scrivner didn’t do much beyond what my current set up could, and added another layer of processing to finishing a novel.
The article stated:
I do that with my word processor, Libre/Open Office. I’ve written on my blog how to set it up to not only move scenes and chapters, but renumber them when you do. I use the tree-style database Treeline for keeping my notes and outlines, essentially the same function as the notes/research and binder sections in Scrivner. Plus, I find it handier to have that in an alternate program/window I can easily look at without having to go to a split screen in the same program. About the only feature I could do in Scrivner that I can’t in my current setup easily is the snapshot function, which I admit can be a handy feature if you want to rollback to a previous version of a scene.
But the big thing for me is I lost control. That is, the export function couldn’t output it to the files in a way that required minimal editing on how I want the final output to be. Chapter headings couldn’t be assigned a separate style, so that required manually doing that once in my word processor. Also, it couldn’t space the scene dividers correctly. It would either look lopsided if I had no surrounding lines, and if I added one on the side it was missing, it created a huge space that didn’t look right. So I’d have to manually edit all scene dividers in the exported document (I did use search and replace for that, but took a few steps).
Had the same problems in the epub export with scene dividers. Couldn’t get them to look right after multiple tests and theories and creative solutions. Which meant if I wanted to create a professional looking epub, I’d still need to export it to my word processor, format, and go through my normal epub creation steps.
Consequently, since the program offered little added benefits for me but did add extra steps/work to creating a final file, I opted to keep using my current set up. It works, its efficient, and I have total control over it.
But I guess that’s why each person is different. But I do like Scrivner among writing programs. It can be used with the Snowflake method of writing, whereas all the others I’ve tried tend to not be intuitive to that method. It is a good, all-in-one-package, writing set up. And depending on your needs, the export function may be fine for some. Just didn’t do what I wanted it to do, creating more work for me, not less.
Scrivener will generate perfectly validated epub files, easily. You’ll want to convert those epubs to .mobi using Calibre. The .mobi files made with Scrivener work great but are bloated, and since Amazon has that ridiculous data charge per copy sold …
I’ve been using Scrivener since 1.0 years ago back when Mac sales were far less than now and most novelists hadn’t heard of it. Now that so many use it … I don’t use it much anymore.
Entering final edits from my editor friends and producing the book is all I use Scrivener for these days. Do all my writing on the iPad or by manual typewriter.
Scrivener has a lot of bloat these days. Used to be a much leaner program, but now has features for everything writers could need. Which is cool, don’t get me wrong. But I just need a stack of text files I can move between like with the Daedalus app that I write in. And it’s not Word bloat, mind you. All the features in Scrivener are for writer writers, you know?
If anyone wants Scrivener, but only wants to pay 1/2 price. I have a code that I can give you. I finished NaNo and there’s a 50% off for winners – they allow me to pass it on to someone.
First come first serve. email me at pawilson@pawilson.ca
I’ll post here when it’s gone.
Everyone who hasn’t should give Scrivener a try. The feature I use the most is the binder, which is basically just a side panel of your different files arranged in an outline-style structure. Being able to switch between different documents quickly saves a lot of time. There are a lot of features that I don’t use and don’t care about.
There is no real learning curve to Scrivener. You don’t have to understand most of it to get good use of it. Create a new text file in the binder, name it, and start writing. Create a new one for the next scene, and so on. You’ll pick up a lot as you go, and there are tons of support materials for it.
It’s all of the little things that make it worthwhile, IMO. I love being able to click my Scrivener icon and have it open quickly to exactly the place I left off.
I used to use Liquid Story Binder and loved it because it did literally anything I wanted it to and got in or out of my way exactly as much as I wanted it to. I heard Scrivener was like it and jumped on the bandwagon.
And fell right back off.
It’s a pain for me. I can’t choose what colors go to the color-coding system, so marking storylines is next to impossible in a way that I’ll actually remember. You can’t start writing on notecards or see multiple levels of anything at once, except in folder view, and I hate folder views with a passion. Want to write a bunch of disparate snippets, then bring them all together by dropping them where they fit best? Well, I can’t SEE enough of the big picture to pull it off. I can at least maximize Word and drag things around. In fact, I dislike Scrivener because it’s not wholly configurable to work the way I do and it doesn’t even try to get out of my way to make up for it.
Liana: You can change the colors and names easily. In the little menu thing where you pick a color for the section there is an edit choice at the bottom. You just add a new one, like it says right there in the window, double-click the color tile to change it.
Well, I can do those other things you say you cannot do, too. I don’t know how to explain myself though. If I want to view some snippets together I just click on them and view them. They show right up, and drag and drop seems to be working fine. Maybe you had a defective version if you couldn’t do these basic things.
I did just figure out colors, which is why I now am giving Scrivener a real go. Without that they were worthless.
As for snippets. Still no go. My snippets are between a sentence and a few paragraphs long. The only way to do that is with Scrivenings, which is for something for a lot further in the process than I am than when I’m snippeting. But I’m trying it out by using really good titles for each text, something I’m not actually that good at. I think it’s working though. But as for viewing roughly 5000+ words of 30+ documents of snippets and viewing the CONTENTS thereof, not the titles and/or summaries (which are a pain because they do not populate into the contents) while dragging and dropping back and forth, etc.? I’d love to know how you’re pulling it off because it is NOT basic Scrivener functionality.
I’m guesstimating on the word count there. I just realized I have more like 60+ snippet files. :headdesk:
I might know something that could help! I think we work a lot alike in this regard, except I don’t worry about naming things so much. I just let it name the thing off of the first few words that I type. I have that option turned on. That’s usually enough for me to know what it is about and I’d rather be going on to the next thing that worrying about names. So maybe that option will help.
Okay, and with the drag drop while viewing “Scrivenings”, what I do is lock the editor. You click on the icon beside the name, above the text editor, and there should be a menu. One of the features there is “Lock in place”. I really like this feature because it lets me drag things around in the left sidebar without disturbing my selection. I am using the Mac, by the way, so I don’t know if this works in Windows, but if you have “Scrivenings” turned on and it is locked, then when you drag the snippets around in the left sidebar, the order changes right in the editor. It’s super handy, not just for snippets but when you are trying to figure out how a chapter should read. I keep all of the little pieces separate.
All right, maybe that is not so basic! But it is easy once you know it.
Sounds doable. Thank you and will try it out. It’s good to be able to give it a decent test, especially as I am using the Windows version and I hate to waste a good trial.