One Year of Scrivener

It’s been a little over a year now since I switched from MS Word and Campfire Pro to Scrivener. During this time, I’ve both written and edited in Scrivener (including this blog post and all others since January), so I’ve had ample time to get used to the program and judge how well it serves my needs. It has turned out that it serves my needs very well.

I had originally not switched from my prior setup with MS Word for the actually writing and Campfire Pro for my plotting and my project bibles because of Word. While Word does have a few weaknesses when it comes to long texts (mostly navigation, it handles large amounts of data well), I had been having problems with Campfire Pro which corrupted several of my files, causing me a lot of grief.
Just having bought the whiteboard software Scapple from the same company which does Scrivener, I decided to give the program another look. After a few days of testing, I then bought the licence and began working with it in earnest. I have not regretted it since, despite having to import all of my projects and organise them once more (after my switch from One Note to Campfire Pro a year earlier).
When it comes to possible corruption, I’m rather relaxed when it comes to Scrivener because I have both a backup (I’ve set it to 5 backups to be kept, but more can be set) and a set of files, so that the corruption of one file will not destroy my whole project.

I’ve also grown to love my word processor very much. It’s integrated with my notes, researches, and so on, which means I don’t have to switch programs to look up notes and thus I don’t have an excuse for long internet browsing while I should be writing.
I’ve pared it down to writing every scene as one file in the processor, as I have access to all files at all times. It’s much better than having one huge file which is hard to navigate (as it was with Word), yet easier than doing the same in Word, as I don’t have to keep several windows open at once.
Thanks to the binder setup of Scrivener, I can access all of my chapters and scenes easily and I can later on create my one file (usually as an .epub file) easily, too (took a while to get that compilation tool to behave, though). Being able to put out my story in different formats if I wish to is also a big advantage of Scrivener — it is much easier to format for publication in .epub or .pdf format than in Word which will have its formatting overwritten to a degree by Amazon and D2D.

Writing in the program is easy and quick, the word processor has everything I need, is easy to handle, and gives me no troubles even on the most busy writing days.
I can keep my plotting in the synopsis of the scene file and always know what the scene is supposed to be about so I can write what I’ve planned without switching between files or even, as before, between programs. Due to the synopsis, I can read a rough version of my story before it is even written, can judge whether I need to exchange two scenes, perhaps, or add another one to make it work better.
Even if I decide about it later, though, the structure of the binder which includes all of the files makes it easy to shift scenes between chapters or parts of the book right up to the moment of compilation.

Another thing I love about the program is that I can set a minimum length for a project in words and then see how far along I am by a discreet line of blue at the bottom of the space with the file name in it.
As the line creeps from left to right, becoming more and more visible, my project grows as well and nears completion. I like that for motivation, but I don’t have to do it. In the same space, I can also see how many words there are in the project (it’s Manuscript folder, that is) and how many words I have written that day within the project’s Manuscript folder and thus within my story.
I’ve always followed my word count per day and I still set myself a monthly count I want to reach (50,000 on regular months and 25,000 on release months). Having an easy way of seeing how much I’ve written on a day is very welcome, indeed.

I also really appreciate being able to put all my stuff in the same place. Not only can I keep my project bible (all notes, resources, character sheets, even downloaded websites) in the same place as my actual writing, I can also keep all books in a series in the same project.
This will make things easier for me when I’m finally ready to release book collections with two or three books of my series in one offer. As I hope to be able to start with that this or next year, I’m glad I have all my data where I need it now. Eventually, I also hope to re-format all of my books and put them up again in a better format than before.

For me, Scrivener has proven to be a good solution for all my writing needs. I can get my writing done, I can do my editing, I can keep all my additional information, all in one place. From the plotting through to the release, I have no need of other software any longer, which is great for me. Yet, it might not be the solution for everyone — people demand different things from their tools and Scrivener might be missing something you need. Yet, given the relatively low price and the great trial method (the trial version only counts days on which it is used for the 30-day trial period), I would suggest looking into it to all people who regularly work with big amounts of words, be it in fiction or in non-fiction.