Review Group discussion

I've heard Scrivener mentioned several times in the past year, and its devotees wouldn't dream of working without it. Others seem to have had a hard time getting to grips with it. So tell me, what is so good about it? How does it help the writing process? What format file do you end up with if it's not Word you're working with? (Is that a really dumb question?) And why is it difficult to learn?

I love Scrivener and can't use anything else now. I didn't find it hard to use at all, but I have a natural inclination to anything technology. But there's lots of video tutorials out there.

It helps nearly every part of the writing process. I use a scriv file to hold and organize all my story ideas. When I set up a new project, I use the notecard function to create a simple outline. Then I add folders for general notes and chapter outline notes. There's already folders for characters, places, and photos. In my general notes folder, I usually put a couple specific files such as general notes, things I need more of, questions I ask myself during writing, and anything specific to the story, such as in my current project it has CIA organization charts.

Once you set up the outline in the notecard board (looks like a cork board), then you can switch to writing view and it shows all the chapters in your outline on the left. You can rearrange by dragging. Very easy. You can write in fullscreen, just like the barebones ewriters, so you don't really need more than one (though sometimes I still find Written Kitten or Write or Die helpful).

You can output to .doc, rtf, .html, .txt, pdf, and a few others. Many indie authors publish straight to .html and upload directly to Amazon and others, never using Word at all.

Thanks for posting this, Lynn. It certainly sounds a very useful tool. Can you point me to a good intro video link? Maybe the one that convinced you to shell out the dosh for it?

Just wanted to add that the most frustrating thing has been backing up and moving projects from my desktop to my netbook. Scrivener runs fine on my netbook, but I tried both Dropbox and SugarSync, and found them slow and often they wouldn't update before I needed to leave or access the file. Then I read an article that said a flash drive works much better, and it does. I still use Dropbox to back up, but I don't use it to transfer files back and forth anymore.

I got a 50%-off coupon for winning Nano a couple years ago, and that's why I bought it. The person who designed Scrivener has tutorials though:

http://youtu.be/AdwnHo23Ub8

I seem to be the only person I know that doesn't like. I am so used to using Word in "show formatting" mode and I can't find any way to do that in Scrivener.

Ah, that setting is helpful, but I read HTML, so I don't need it. I found Word introduced more junk into the background than it helped, and that annoyed me, so now I go from .scriv straight to .html.

I love Scrivener. I haven't forsaken Word; I get my first draft done on Scrivener, then compile it to rich text format and do my next run-through on Word. It's hard to say what's so helpful about it for me; I love the corkboard and the ease of switching from one chapter to another or to the files on character sketches, etc., with one click. It also helps guide you through the beginning stages, kind of like the Snowflake method; you can integrate the two. then you've got all your character sketches, scenes, setting descriptions, summaries, etc., all done and right there to refer to.

OK, I now have Scrivener to trial for final edits and compiling of my anthology. I'll let you know how I get on...

Initial impression is good, I must admit.

I don't know how to use all the features, but I really like the corkboard, among other things. That layout view just grabs me, for some reason.

I have to admit I was wrong. There is a 'show formatting' option in Scrivener.

Where's that, Kathryn? I haven't noticed yet and it could be handy.

I'm stumbling through Scrivener. Maybe if I finished out the tutorial I'd understand it better. [insert hysterical laughter here]
I have pretty much always worked in Word Perfect. Reveal Codes is such a help when I'm trying to work on a scanned article and I much prefer the "leave me alone" style of writing. I don't need my spelling automatically corrected,especially when I know what I'm spelling! Since Word is industry standard I "save as" a .doc format for final edits, then submit according to the publisher guidelines.
Scrivener I'd like to use mainly for the opportunity to more easily work in scenes, then shift them around on the board. Once I can figure out how to accomplish that little act

What lovely days they were, when I had WordPerfect at home and at work. I've been stuck with Word since 1997 and I still miss reveal codes.

I'm certainly finding Scrivener useful for jotting down scraps of thoughts as I'm working and rearranging things as and when I'm ready.

Jay wrote: "What lovely days they were, when I had WordPerfect at home and at work. I've been stuck with Word since 1997 and I still miss reveal codes.

I'm certainly finding Scrivener useful for jotting down ..."

I was so lucky with my jobs in California, both employers were adamantly against change, so they stuck with Word Perfect . I've since learned Word but only enough to use it to review or submit (to publishers---forcing me to use it otherwise would be cruel and unusual punishment)

Yep, I was a real Word Perfect fan, too. In fact, I remember using WordStar...what I really want is an electronic typewriter. I hate it when the program re-formats my paragraphs or indents for me. Stop that! And I really used to hate Mr. Paperclip or whatever his name was. Sadistic little sucker: "Hi! You seem to be writing a letter? May I totally bollix it up for you?"

K.A. wrote: "Yep, I was a real Word Perfect fan, too. In fact, I remember using WordStar...what I really want is an electronic typewriter. I hate it when the program re-formats my paragraphs or indents for me. ..."

I used to bring up Mr Paperclip just for the fun of deleting him. And yeah, I remember electric typewriters. I'll do you one better, I learned to type on a manual, and wrote my first book on a portable manual. Had to stick a bit of wood in the ribbon spool so it would move the ribbon forward

Jay wrote: "Where's that, Kathryn? I haven't noticed yet and it could be handy."

Format-> Options -> Show Invisibles.

Mona wrote: "K.A. wrote: "Yep, I was a real Word Perfect fan, too. In fact, I remember using WordStar...what I really want is an electronic typewriter. I hate it when the program re-formats my paragraphs or ind..."

Oh, I learned to type and write on a manual, too - an old Royal with the keys that would stick together if you hit two at once. I had a portable manual as well. I'm fine with a very basic word-processing program with a few extras, and I'm actually pretty conversant with WORD, some of the defaults just bug me. I think you should have to add features in rather than disable them...

I tried Scrivener. It was alright. My issue was that it wasn't flexible enough. I shopped around and found Liquid Story Binder XE. It's not as pretty and has a REALLY steep learning curve but I love it. There are tons of options and hidden gems (if you can find them).

I like Word Perfect because I can ignore the bells and whistles, or use them if I want to. I was looking at Scrivener for a story I've written in scenes. Mostly done, just needs the scenes moved around and I thought Scrivener would be the best for that exercise
????

I liked Liquid Story Binder quite a bit, especially to create a decorative writing workspace with photos of my characters. It was way too resource intensive for my netbook, though, and it can be kind of a pain to set up.

Mona, Scrivener is specifically set up to move scenes around, so I'd answer your question-marks with a yes! I don't use the scene features myself much, because that's not how I tend to write, but that's one of the first "lessons" you're presented with in the tutorials.

Lynn wrote: "I liked Liquid Story Binder quite a bit, especially to create a decorative writing workspace with photos of my characters. It was way too resource intensive for my netbook, though, and it can be ki..."

"Kind of a pain" is being nice. It took me two weeks to set up the program and figure out how to use it. I wasn't aware that it used much of your computer's space or RAM. That's too bad. I do like changing the 'decorations' but having separate desktops for each chapter is much more useful. My genre is urban fantasy, so the character/location dossiers were extremely important to me, as were timelines. Scrivener is much easier to use going in though. LSB tends to freeze, or used to. I haven't noticed that lately, maybe they fixed it. Both programs have the ability to rearrange scenes but I am mostly linear, so that is one feature I will never use. The coup de grace in my opinion is that you can install it on a thumb drive. At one point, I lost half of my novel. Now I just keep the drive plugged in and write directly to it. If I ever need to use a different computer, I can and I'll never go through that hell again.

K.A. wrote: "Mona, Scrivener is specifically set up to move scenes around, so I'd answer your question-marks with a yes! I don't use the scene features myself much, because that's not how I tend to write, but t..."

Yeah, I normally write "beginning to end" but one of my more recent stories has come out in scenes instead. Not sure if I really like that change in procedure

I can do everything with Scrivener that LSB can do, like character dossiers, I just do them in folders and text files. I did like the ability to combine images with text in LSB, and wish Scrivener did better with that, but as far as information collection, I feel like that is about the same.

I also use a flash drive to jump from desktop to netbook on Scrivener, and I back up to Dropbox.

Lynn wrote: "I can do everything with Scrivener that LSB can do, like character dossiers, I just do them in folders and text files. I did like the ability to combine images with text in LSB, and wish Scrivener ..."
I didn't use Scrivener for very long (3 days I think). I know it has character dossiers but can you customize the character data? (Like adding fields?) I can't remember how it worked. Ugh, my memory is shot. Does it have story boards, journals and mindmaps too? I know what you mean about text files and folders. That's what I did before I had any program. I still organize my images that way. I also used to keep a word doc for each character with all their stats and personality quirks. I didn't know Scrivener could be installed on a thumb. Cool! If they ever incorporate the images and timelines, I might consider switching. It's better organized. I don't like the look of LSB. It looks too DOS-y, if you know what I mean. I did try Newnovelist 3 for a while (about 6 months). It's very 'pretty', fairly flexible and VERY easy to use. It has a dictate function that is nice and readability analyzer too. It doesn't use outlines though. Instead, you add resources like characters, locations, objects and ideas to chapters. It has a notepad type feature that you could use for that, I suppose. It also doesn't have the show format marks button. Something that annoyed me was that you could open a browser inside the program but there was no way to bookmark anything. ??? If you aren't particularly computer savvy, NN3 is a good way to go. (I know you are Lynn) Scrivener costs 40(US), NN3 is 50 dollars (US) and LSB runs the same unless you find one of their half-off coupons, which is pretty easy to do. UK prices are roughly 30£. I think I gave everything out there at least a cursory try and these three were the best of the bunch. Then again, it depends on what you're looking for.

Jeez, I talk too much!

Just to answer one part - Scrivener uses a "corkboard" arrangement that I really like - it has the appearance of a bunch of index cards thumbtacked to a corkboard, each one with a couple sentences. Each card is connected to a chapter or other file within that particular group and can be color-coded or pattern-coded depending on if it's a draft, final draft, etc. Not sure if you could do it graphically or not, though (i.e., add images).

I've really enjoyed working with Scrivener on sorting out my anthology - it's so easy to rearrange things and feels easy for straight writing. Where I've had a problem is with the export. I had way more formatting to do than I expected. I didn't get a clean Word file, or rtf, and ended up going to txt and starting with a fresh file into my preset Word 2003 template. Then I had to do some find and replace of extra spaces. I normally use Word 2010 but that leaves too much garbage in a file for consistent eBook formatting. I've kept 2003 for final edits.

So, for ease of creating the final draft, brilliant. For final formatting - a fair bit of work, but at least it's just the format to worry about by then.

I exported to .rtf and haven't had an issue. Wonder what the difference is?

I don't know why but I got extra page breaks that I couldn't get rid of - looked like a black square at the beginning of the page that wouldn't b****r off when I told it to. It also didn't do the first line indents right.

I'll carry on using it for draft stage, though. The benefits outweigh the formatting issues.

I also had trouble with the indents when I tried to fix them after setting up the file. There are some guides out there to setting up defaults, but I couldn't find the one I used. I wish I had saved it.

Jay wrote: "I don't know why but I got extra page breaks that I couldn't get rid of - looked like a black square at the beginning of the page that wouldn't b****r off when I told it to. It also didn't do the f..."

I just used Scrivener for my new novel. I had it in pieces all over my computer so it was easier to use it to put things together. However my sister uses Mac and she did an edit for me and put in notes which I couldn't get access in my Windows version!

I ended up exporting it to Word for formatting. I'm not sure if Word is better for formatting or if I'm just more familiar with it but figure there it's pretty easy to make use of the features of each.

I agree, Kathryn - Scrivener for working on the MS, Word (preferably 2003) for formatting for publication.

Yep, that's how I'm working it, too.

Scrivener discussion came up on an Amazon forum, and I learned it can convert your book into an e-book format.

Jay and K.A - I read something about being able to track changes in Scrivener but couldn't find it in my edits. I do think that is one of the better features of word.

I don't usually track changes unless I'm working with my editor, in which case she does it in Word, so that hasn't been something I've looked for in Scrivener (I usually cut sections into a "Hold" file if I might want to use them later). I also haven't tried converting directly to ebook from Scrivener - I'll have to look into that. I definitely like it for ease of moving from file-to-file and organization purposes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - you can't beat Mark Coker's formatting advice for getting a file that will consistently convert to all formats.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52

Looks like it only applies to Smashwords formatting, right? or is it more general (I've used Createspace for one of my books)?

The advice is generic as Smashwords deals with conversion to all formats. I convert my files to mobi to upload to Amazon so that I'm happy with how it behaves on my Kindle. I also use CreateSpace. Wherever I'm publishing I follow the Smashwords guide to get a good, clean, well-behaved Word file with no hidden nasty surprises.

Ah - that's what I was wondering. Would probably be worth my while, then. Thanks!

Jay wrote: "The advice is generic as Smashwords deals with conversion to all formats. I convert my files to mobi to upload to Amazon so that I'm happy with how it behaves on my Kindle. I also use CreateSpace. ..."

You can upload as a mobi file? I didn't know that!

Yeah, the conversion process is ever so quick...!

I've downloaded it (Coker's book). You forgot to mention that it's FREE!

Thanks Jay.

K.A. The smashwords book is a great resource esp for free. I think you can use it for formatting for any site, apart from the few smashwords specific things in your front matter. Although I was shocked that people need to be told to indent paras rather than spacing or tabbing!

Kathryn wrote: "Thanks Jay.

K.A. The smashwords book is a great resource esp for free. I think you can use it for formatting for any site, apart from the few smashwords specific things in your front matter. Alt..."

I think it's worth saying cos we have lots of nasty habits!!

I've not had chance to read them, but his books with marketing tips are also free.

The formatting one should be read by anyone, writer or not, who uses Word on a regular basis. It helps understand what the nasty little beastie is trying to do to us, and more importantly how to force our will on it.

I have just found this discussion and am fascinated by the nostalgia expressed towards the beginning. You sweet things. My first computer had a cast iron framed teletext printer, a black and white TV and a cassette tape machine as a memory. It was awful! Writing a letter took hours. Thank god for my zillion mega whatever brain sitting in front of me doing everything except give me inspiration.