Siobhan McKeown » How Scrivener Makes my Writing Life Better » Siobhan McKeown This morning I was writing away and I came to the end of a Chapter 3 and I realised that I had to move Chapter 2 after Chapter 3, leaving a big hole were Chapter 2 is. Apart from the problems that leaves me in having to actually write a whole new chapter with some dramatic tension, it reminded me of how much I love Scrivener so I thought I’d put my madd screenshotting skillz to use right here on my personal blog (usually they’re reserved for tutorials) and review the shit out of it. What the Hell is Scrivener? Scrivener is a content management tool for writers (they call it a content generation tool, but I generate my content, Scrivener manages it, geddit?). Organisation When you open Scrivener, on the left hand side is the binder. You can see how I’ve organised my book and my information. Here is the manuscript with the folders open: Each part is broken down into folders of chapters, and each chapter is broken down into discrete scenes. Labels Status The Corkboard Inspector The Not-So-Good
Scrivener: Powerful OS X app for writers Literature and Latte - Scrivener Scrivener, a full-featured writing program that I've been raving about a lot lately on MacBreak Weekly, has now reached the 1.0 milestone and is available for purchase from Literature and Latte. Scrivener's product page has also been updated with a terrific explanation of why this app feels so different. Personally, I like the excellent fullscreen mode, built-in (round-trip) outliner, tricked-out Inspector, and all-in-one form factor, but my favorite feature (which can be hard to explain without actually using the app for yourself) is Scrivener's use of the index card and corkboard metaphor. If you write like I do (and I pray that you do not), you have a messy approach to drafting that is iterative, intuitive, and far from linear. Scrivener makes the anarchic approach to writing a little less chaotic by letting you create any number of "index cards" which contain a title and a short synopsis of what that index card is meant to contain.
Scrivener | Behind the Curtain I have discovered an awesome writing tool for the Mac called Scrivener. They also make a version for Windows, but I cannot use Windows for psychological reasons, so will only speak of the Mac. I love Scrivener! I have already felt its power, and know that it will help me write a book which could change the world. For years I have wanted to write a book about meditation. While searching in the Mac App store for writing tools, I came across Scrivener. I began to feel Scrivener’s power as soon as I began converting my book. Remember in elementary school when they made you write research papers, and they made you use those stupid note cards? A flat textfile just doesn’t cut it for non-sequential writing. I read on their site about the metaphor of the cards and suddenly all these visual metaphors made sense. I love it when a program does exactly what you need it to. Be Sociable, Share! Tagged as: Mac , Meditation
J.D. Nichols Writes.: Why Every Writer Needs Scrivener. Note: this article was originally posted on WriterOnTheVerge.com which is no longer in commission. Because of that the language is a little less colloquial than it normally is. But still just as fan-girly. Unless you’re living under a writing rock, you’ve heard of Scrivener. Or as I like to call it, the God of Writing Software. Want to know the secret behind why Scrivener is so amazing? Now, here is the most important part: I’m going to tell you why Scrivener is better than Microsoft Word. Way back in the days of MS Word, I’d write book in one file about 211 pages in length (number taken from actual old drafts). While it’s an easy thing to recreate in MS Word files, by simply creating a million different files. And now to the Corkboard. There is also a mode that lets you look at your Corkboard while working on a chapter. Nifty, huh? Now, research. Here’s a list of small, but very cool functions: - it automatically saves every two seconds. - easy comments and footnotes.
Save Time Writing With Scrivener It’s no secret that I am a big fan of tools that save time and effort. When it comes to writing, there are only a few tools I use. For my blog, I do most of my post writing in WordPress. When it comes to longer projects, I use Scrivener for Mac. Scrivener is my top pick when it comes to writing and creative work. My Writing Adventures I have spent a lot of my free time over the past few years writing and I participated in two NaNoWriMo contests. All of that writing was done in a great software tool called Scrivener. Scrivener is the writer’s best friend when it comes to context creation, editing, compilation, and more. “Scrivener is the Swiss Army knive of writing software.It has almost every tool you could need for your writing project, big or small.However, the genius is that it stays out of your way and you only see what you need.I probably use only 1/10 of its features, and it serves my needs brilliantly.” Scrivener is the best tool to capture your writing. How I Save Time Using Scrivener
Why I Love “Scrivener”—a word processor for the creative mind | Talking the Walk The cork board view in Scrivener Most of us do not think in a linear fashion and most creative acts don’t emerge from a tidy, cause-and-effect process. Essentially, creativity springs from an emotional place; ideas break the surface of our subconscious like slippery fish that we have to catch and hold on to before they dive deep again. It seems odd then for writers to use word processing tools, such as Word, that don’t support the way our minds work. Word is a very product-oriented program, and by that I mean, since it allows for sophisticated formatting and style options, it can make the final product look sharp; however, what it offers tends to support only the goal in writing, not the process. I wrote my first novel in Appleworks (yikes!) My point is that Word didn’t make editing my novel any easier. In Scrivener, your entire project is contained within a single document. What I like most about Scrivener, however, is that it feels designed to serve the creative mind. Like this:
Writing Advice 24—Scrivener and Building a Better Book When I began writing these posts I started by discussing the various tools of the trade, in particular word processors, one of those being Scrivener. My computer runs Windows 7 and back then I was using MS Word and was having trouble seeing the point in using any of the writing programs. I had heard great things about Scrivener, mostly from folks with Macs. I even know of one person who bought a Mac just to be able to use Scrivener. Last month, at the start of November, Scrivener ended its Windows beta and put out their official release. I was pleasantly impressed. A lot of changes were made from the year before, and those aspects that had made the program unusable by me, (the most glaring being the inability to resize the text on the screen independent of the print size,) were fixed. The thing about Scrivener is that it is open-ended, meaning that it is simply a tool like a hammer, not a process like a diet plan. I sat down to find out. 1.Advance Chapter Breakdowns 2. 3. Wow!
Tech Tuesday: Clipping text to Scrivener 2.x « The Edited Life You probably know that you can import text documents and web pages into Scrivener, but what if you just want to copy a portion of the text. Or you’re browsing the file or site and don’t want to switch over to Scrivener to import? Try Services. Once you’ve installed Scrivener and restarted it once, Services should be available to you from all compatible applications. (NOTE: If you don’t have Scrivener options under the Services menu, see the ** below.) First, a couple of rules for clipping to Scrivener to work: You must have at least one Scrivener project open.You must have text selected in the current program (the one to clip from) before the Services will be available. *Add a Clipping to the Project* In this example, I chose to add a clipping (a reference-type file) from a Word document. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The clipping now appears at the bottom of your Binder in a new folder called Clippings. At this point, you can leave the new file there, or move it to the desired folder. 1. 2. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3.
Tommy Donbavand >> Scrivener Today I finished the first draft of my 32nd book – and the eighth I’ve written entirely in Scrivener – I’ve also used Scrivener to write dozens of short stories, a handful of magazine articles and countless book proposals. I’ve got a stage script or two on the go, and I’ve even had a shot at my first comic book script. As a writer, changing software is a big deal; I’d got used to how to write in MS Word, even if that meant the usual glitches I’d come to expect from the industry standard software. I was used to scrolling through page after page of manuscript to find that one spot where I wanted to rename a minor character, or drop in a clue to the identity of the villain. I knew I’d have to spend time juggling with formatting before submitting my work. Then I discovered Scrivener – software created especially for writers. Whatever you want to write, give Scrivener a try.
More words without Word, and an idea for a piece of choral music | Another Woozle? A lot of this month has been taken up with the Poetry Teaching Project, and I’m at that stage where, as when tidying an office or garage, items for consideration and allocation are multiplying as if under the Geminio curse,1 and you know that the situation is going to look considerably worse before getting any better. You have to live through chaos to get to order. But the chaos could be worse, and the fact it’s not is thanks once more to the magic software. This next bit’s strictly for anyone interested in how to use content-creation software for data analysis. Having collected our data in the form of transcribed audio interviews, we (my extremely learned colleague and I) had to work out a process for our data analysis. So here, for anyone remotely interested, is a summary of the process so far. 1. So far, it’s working well. OK, you can come back in now. Project in progress (names have of course been changed). Teacher interviewee: In this lesson I was doing some High Q. 1. 2. 3.
MOSX Tumblelog - Custom Icons in Scrivener Scrivener Publishing Software Review Since Scrivener debuted in 2007, I’ve used it to write two (terrible) novels and a (terrible) screenplay, among other projects. It’s a favorite among Macworld staffers, too, earning a 2010 Editors’ Choice Award. Its many refinements to the already great original make Scrivener 2.0.2 worth every penny. Like its predecessor, Scrivener 2 offers an extensive suite of writing aids without ever forcing users to confirm to any set process. The new version makes it even more seamless to switch between viewing individual documents as text, virtual index cards, or sections on an outline. The new Collections let you gather subsets of documents (say, every chapter in which a certain character appears, or all your research on the city of Petra) in tabbed folders at the top of the left-hand Binder column. Scrivener 2 also simplifies editing and revising. A host of smaller features round out Scrivener 2’s appeal. Macworld’s buying advice