Day One with Scrivener
Feb. 6th, 2014 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seren_ccdThe Tutorial
I did something today that I hardly ever do and am now kicking myself very hard for not doing it before: I followed along with the Tutorial that comes along with Scrivener. I usually skip over the tutorials with things because I generally feel that I can figure things out on my own. However, this is a very well-written and well-produced tutorial. I highly recommend starting with it before you do anything else.
Getting to Know You
I can already I can see that this may be the program for me. For one big reason: How I write.
I write in snippets, in moments that I manage to grab during the day – on my lunch break, when I’m covering the reception desk, on the bus, in the morning after my shower. I very rarely have the chance to devote a full afternoon to writing. I consider myself lucky if I get a whole hour. This is simply due to ~life~ and there’s not much I can do about it until, well, there’s a time when I can do something about it. So! I accumulate notes and sections of story. Most of the time – it’s linear, but there are bits missing and everything is written on its own MS Word doc. On the weekends, I then compile all the docs into one big doc by copying and pasting.
Scrivener does all that for me! It will bind all my individual docs in one folder that is easy to label and you can switch between the docs smoothly.
It lists the docs however you want to and then you can have sub-docs. This will work well for me due to the aforementioned sections.
Features That I’m Digging
Some initial features that I’m currently liking are the Index Cards, the Label and Status, the Notes and the References.
Index Cards - a way to put a synopsis of the document/section/chapter/etc in an easily accessible place. Imagine a paper with an index card on top telling you what’s in the paper. Again – this is good for me!
Label and Status - You can create distinctive labels and statuses of the documents that you can sort. Labels: eg Character, Chapters, Thoughts. Status: eg Finished, Missing sections, Draft.
Notes - There is a way to leave notes that will pop up in a third pane when viewing the doc which I’d probably use to leave myself reminders. Eg Add description of house, this is missing the hero’s reply to the heroine, etc.
References - This is a place to put in links. Links to anything! Websites, other docs on your hard drive, etc.
Scrivenings - This combines all the docs into one long document, however, the sections remain sections. This could be useful for me to see just where I’m up to and spot any missing pieces.
Corkboard - I like this as it will give an overview of the docs via their synopses. I just like the look of it, to be honest. I love bulletin boards. It will pin images, too.
Outliner – This is like the corkboard, however it’s more of an organised hierarchy of the docs. You can sort via Status, Label, Synopsis, Doc name, etc. Which is another way of seeing everything that you’ve done.
So far, I’m liking the feel of Scrivener, it’s smooth and clean and has a nice full-page function for writing that’s adjustable.
Up next – uploading all my docs and images associated with ‘Familiar Feeling’ and seeing how it looks!
I did something today that I hardly ever do and am now kicking myself very hard for not doing it before: I followed along with the Tutorial that comes along with Scrivener. I usually skip over the tutorials with things because I generally feel that I can figure things out on my own. However, this is a very well-written and well-produced tutorial. I highly recommend starting with it before you do anything else.
Getting to Know You
I can already I can see that this may be the program for me. For one big reason: How I write.
I write in snippets, in moments that I manage to grab during the day – on my lunch break, when I’m covering the reception desk, on the bus, in the morning after my shower. I very rarely have the chance to devote a full afternoon to writing. I consider myself lucky if I get a whole hour. This is simply due to ~life~ and there’s not much I can do about it until, well, there’s a time when I can do something about it. So! I accumulate notes and sections of story. Most of the time – it’s linear, but there are bits missing and everything is written on its own MS Word doc. On the weekends, I then compile all the docs into one big doc by copying and pasting.
Scrivener does all that for me! It will bind all my individual docs in one folder that is easy to label and you can switch between the docs smoothly.
It lists the docs however you want to and then you can have sub-docs. This will work well for me due to the aforementioned sections.
Features That I’m Digging
Some initial features that I’m currently liking are the Index Cards, the Label and Status, the Notes and the References.
Index Cards - a way to put a synopsis of the document/section/chapter/etc in an easily accessible place. Imagine a paper with an index card on top telling you what’s in the paper. Again – this is good for me!
Label and Status - You can create distinctive labels and statuses of the documents that you can sort. Labels: eg Character, Chapters, Thoughts. Status: eg Finished, Missing sections, Draft.
Notes - There is a way to leave notes that will pop up in a third pane when viewing the doc which I’d probably use to leave myself reminders. Eg Add description of house, this is missing the hero’s reply to the heroine, etc.
References - This is a place to put in links. Links to anything! Websites, other docs on your hard drive, etc.
Scrivenings - This combines all the docs into one long document, however, the sections remain sections. This could be useful for me to see just where I’m up to and spot any missing pieces.
Corkboard - I like this as it will give an overview of the docs via their synopses. I just like the look of it, to be honest. I love bulletin boards. It will pin images, too.
Outliner – This is like the corkboard, however it’s more of an organised hierarchy of the docs. You can sort via Status, Label, Synopsis, Doc name, etc. Which is another way of seeing everything that you’ve done.
So far, I’m liking the feel of Scrivener, it’s smooth and clean and has a nice full-page function for writing that’s adjustable.
Up next – uploading all my docs and images associated with ‘Familiar Feeling’ and seeing how it looks!
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Date: 2014-02-06 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-02-11 11:29 pm (UTC)(I really should look properly at the tutorial!!)