At the end of September, I finished my first book which was written in Scrivener. Before that, I had already edited one book in the program, so I have experienced both of the things which I need to do in Scrivener by now.
To be fair, I didn’t fully write and edit the books - I did the content edit of “Ignition Rites” before I switched to Scrivener and I also wrote four chapters (of twenty-seven) of “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall” in Word before I switched over. Yet, I certainly did the majority of the work for each of them in Scrivener.
I can now judge better how useful Scrivener is for me and whether the switch from Word was a good idea.
For someone like me, who writes a lot of series, Scrivener projects are a marvellous thing. The project format with a multitude of files which will be compiled in the end is practical all by itself, but it is even more useful when you are writing a series.
Unlike Word, Scrivener has been developed with authors in mind. Authors need something different than Larry from Sales who needs to write short letters and the occasional report and business proposal (which is what Word is great for, mind). Scrivener projects hold a lot of different files - the actual manuscript with the text you want to eventually publish, the plotting of your story or even non-fiction book, and all of your notes, research, character or location sheets, and so on. There is a lot of background information which will never be in a story, but is absolutely necessary for the author to have available.
When I was still working with Word, I needed extra files and extra programs to keep track of all the background information - first in OneNote, then in Campfire Pro. When Campfire Pro again corrupted one of my files and made it hard for me to preserve my notes, I gave Scrivener a second look, devoting more time to it. With Scrivener, I have all in one place - and that goes twice for series. Because, you see, the project is easy to navigate even with a lot (and I mean A Lot) of text in it.
Every scene/chapter/novel has its own files and folders. I can keep all the manuscripts of a series in the same project, each of them has its own folder, and if I want to compile one for use in another program (as a .doc or .pdf or .epub file, for instance), I put it in the ‘Manuscript’ folder and do so. While I write a new part of the series, I put the files in the ‘Manuscript’ folder, too, for a few useful functions, but once the release is done, I just shift the new part to its regular folder away from ‘Manuscript.’
In my Word files, I had a hard time navigating between all that data, but the ‘binder’ window on the left-handed side of the Scrivener window makes it a breeze - not to mention I can also put bookmarks on parts of the binder I need often, such as the character sheets or my notes or my research. Like this, I don’t even have to leave Scrivener when I need to look up something in a prior story of the series, because all of the text is in the Scrivener project. In addition, this will make it easier for me to create the collections of two or three books of a series for sale as I plan to.
I’ve always tracked my words per day to see how far I’ve gotten and how much is left to do. Before Scrivener, I did that on paper - writing down the next target to reach once or twice a day. Now, it is much easier. Scrivener allows me to set targets which I can then follow up in the program: words per day, words per manuscript, words per file or folder. I am not using the word target per day, but I am using a target for the manuscript (estimated from the number of chapters and the type of book) and I’m giving my chapter folders a target, so I see how much more space I have in this chapter for all scenes together. It’s easier than having to calculate all the words from all the scenes in the chapter I have written. In the same space where I can see the project target, I can also see how much I’ve written in that project that day - only in the manuscript, so changes made to notes or other background material don’t count. For me, that makes keeping up with my word count much, much easier.
The scenes, too, were an eye-opener! I’ve never really looked at writing from the level of scene-by-scene, although I have written that way, of course. Being a linear writer, I have never had that much of a problem with finding where I needed to continue - always at the end of the written text. Yet, being able to find every scene and to give every scene a title which tells me what it is about has helped me a lot more than I would have expected.
First of all, I can plot in the manuscript that way - I have all my scenes listed as a file of their own and each file has a synopsis with all I intend to write in this one. Yet, it has also proven very good for editing. While content editing has to be done from the beginning to the end of the story, copy editing profits from not being done in a linear fashion. With “Ignition Rites”, I did the copy edits from the end to the beginning, which helped me with staying on the word level instead of looking out for the story. Like this, it was much easier.
It is also much easier to change the order of the scenes in this program. Each is its own file and I can move them back and forth in the narrative whatever way I want. Not that I often need to do that after plotting, but having the possibility to do so is still good - and it’s useful for the plotting process, being able to exchange scenes, so they fit better into the narrative.
I also enjoy using the editor much more than I enjoy using Word. I’ve set a sepia theme which is very easy on the eyes as I write. The editor shows me the number of words per scene at every point, so I know how far along I am and if I should better get to the end of it. To the left, I have the binder for quick checks, to the right I can have the inspector with the synopsis, the bookmarks, or a couple of other things. I can split the editor into up to four windows for referencing different files at the same time (and through the bookmarks can add a fifth window there). This, of course, goes well with having all information in one place.
I especially love the typewriter mode in which the last line of the text (or the one I’m currently working on) always stays in the middle of the window, which means I can keep my head in a comfortable position and write much longer without any troubles.
Automatic saving and backups are the final thing I really love about the program. When I stop writing for a certain amount of time (standard are two seconds, I’ve set it to one), the program saves automatically. I do not have to worry about when I’ve last saved (which I tend to forget when I’m really into writing), the program does it for me.
Every time I close a project and have made changes there, Scrivener also creates a .zip backup file for me and keeps the last few of them (settings include three, five, ten, and twenty-five). Like this, should a file be corrupted, I have a backup to work with.
As you might already have guessed from this, I love Scrivener and I will not return to Word plus several other programs. I had a good time writing “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall” (out next year in August) and I had a better time than usually editing “Ignition Rites”, too. If you are a writer who goes for long texts, fiction or non-fiction, you should give Scrivener a look. It might or might not work for you, but it’s certainly worth your consideration.
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