Writing Software

A Tale of Two Programs: Scrivener vs. Excel

Posted by Lora Maroney on December 9, 2011
Posted in: Writing, Writing Software. Tagged: , , , , , . 4 comments

Anyone who knows me for very long — either in person, on this blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter — knows that I am in love with a little program called Scrivener. I’ve done visual guides here and here, and I talk it up to anyone who even mentions writing software (and often people who don’t).

It’s by far the program I use most in my writing. The other one that I use — not for writing, but to track my progress and crunch some numbers — is Excel. Both of them have loads of functionality, and both of them do what I need them to do. The difference is that using Scrivener doesn’t actually feel like using a program — it feels like an extension of my brain. By comparison, using Excel feels sort of like the software equivalent of wrenching out all my teeth by hand, then trying to eat a sandwich by gluing molars to my fingers. (Gruesome? Maybe. But so is Excel.)

It could be because no one ever taught me how to use Excel, and maybe I’m just doing things the hard way — but guess what? No one taught me how to use Scrivener, either, and we get along just fine.

How I Use Scrivener: (A Review)

Without getting into huge details like the visual guides above, let’s just break it down quickly. I use Scrivener to plot, organize, and write my novels and short stories.

How much time does take to set up? Almost none. Scrivener is intuitive, if a little intimidating at first; once you realise that the program exists to be your willing slave, it’s smooth sailing. Before I can finish the thought that I want to do x or y, I’ve already found the feature — or Scrivener has done it for me without me realising. It’s incredible.

How I Use Excel (An Exercise in OCD)

I am obsessive-compulsive, and as I mentioned in another post, I like looking at numbers because it helps me justify what I’ve done.

How long does it take me to set up? Aaaargh I don’t even want to know. I couldn’t find any templates for word count tracking that lasted longer than one month, and they didn’t account for different projects, so it took me a stupid amount of time to come up with this. First I had to conceptualize what I wanted, and then I had to wrestle Excel to the ground to get it to do even half of what I wanted to do. The first night I stayed up until 3 am despite having a 6am wake up call the next morning, because my OCD wouldn’t let me sleep until I’d figured out the basic framework. It took another day to get the graphs, and I’m still finding stupid errors that I have to stop to fix.

The Difference:

I have never had to fight Scrivener for anything. Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ve ever managed anything beyond simple formulas in Excel without wanting to tear off my own arm and beat myself to death with it. I’d rather listen to 100 smarmy covers of “Let it Snow” non-stop for 6 hours (oh wait — that was today in Starbucks!) than work with Excel for any given length of time.

I know Scrivener looks scary, and tutorials are not the most exciting way to spend your time, but I highly, HIGHLY recommend it. It does what you’ve wanted every program ever to do, and in the meantime does things you never knew you wanted — in essence, it’s like the commercial for that toy you saw on TV as a kid that you never knew existed before, but now knew you desperately needed.

Because I like pictures and because I really can’t explain things without showing them, have some screenshots:

(Just a note: I am not, nor have I ever been, a shill for Literature & Latte (the company behind Scrivener). There is no affiliate program; I get nothing for doing this. I merely think that when  a product is good, then people should be enthusiastic about recommending it. There are fully-functional 30-day trial versions for Mac and Windows, which I cannot recommend highly enough.)

A Visual Guide to Scrivener Part II: The Nitty-Gritty

Posted by Lora Maroney on February 16, 2011
Posted in: Writing, Writing Software. Tagged: , , , , , , . 12 comments

I'm glad people found the previous post useful; for me, having someone show me works much better than trying to explain.  However, I have had a few questions about things I didn't cover. As the previous review was mostly an overview of the shiny Scrivener-only features, today I'll show some of the actual word processing.  

Too many times alternate word processors sacrifice features for simplicity (and sometimes amazingly, like Ommwriter, which knows what it does and does it well). Fortunately, Scrivener doesn't.  As far as word processing features are concerned, I've never wished for MS Word.

 

Formatting

Formatting is important, and people get tetchy if their favourite options aren't there.  Fortunately, Scrivener has oodles of them, and with the same shortcuts as you're used to, so you don't need to flail around wondering where the 'italics' option is.

Formatting Options
The basic formatting options are there.  This isn't such a big deal for me in the planning stages, but definitely when it comes to the actual writing — this year's NaNoWriMo novel involved telepathy, which I denoted with the use of italics.  Having to go back and put those in later would have been a huge pain in the carpal tunnel.

 

View Options 

The more technical options; smart quotes, em-dashes, margins, paragraphing, all that.  This is just for the document you're editing, mind; this doesn't affect the compiling later.

 

Spell-checking

I turn this off when I'm doing writing spurts, because the red squigglies distract me, but I turn it back on once I've finished. Spell-check is essential for some people and completely unnecessary for others, but it's nice to have the option.

Spellcheck Options
If you like having in-line corrections, that's an option!  If you hate them but still want to run spell-check manually, that's okay, too!  You can check spelling on its own or spelling and grammar together.

 

Spellcheck Languages
Something I really, really like is the ability to change languages in spell-check mode.  I'd assumed it only matched the default language, but after a question (thanks, JB!), I did a quick check and found that you can have it be any number of languages.  This I'll find extremely useful when I'm submitting something for publication in the United States and will need to de-Canadianize my spellings for that particular document.

 

Document Viewing

Just a few more notes about what things actually look like when you're actually writing:

 

Wrap View
If you're leery about just writing into a white void, you can turn on "Wrap Mode", which creates artificial pages the same way MS Word does.  In the settings you can customize the width, page size, etc. of wrap mode so it looks the way you want.  It also gives you the word/character counts for the section you're in, and what pages.  

 

Full Screen
I love fullscreen mode.  I use it when I'm writing a scene and don't want to be distracted by other windows, particularly when participating in a word war during NaNoWriMo.  This is just my setup, of course; I chose colours that would be easy on the eyes when writing in the dark (so as not to disturb sleeping roommates with my screen brightness, for example).

Full screen mode is entirely customizable in options.  Opacity of background, font size, font colour, etc.  There are also a few options available right from the screen, if you mouse over to the bottom:

 

Screen shot 2011-02-16 at Feb 16, 9.44.56 AM
 
 
Depending on your browser width, that may or may not be legible, so I'll give a rundown: text size, paper position (left, centre, right), paper width/height, keywords, word/character count, and background opacity.  The tiny window is the 'inspector', which gives you the option of looking at the scene's synopsis, notes for the section, notes for the overall document, etc.  Good if you use the synopsis section to outline your scene and want to check what you need to cover without leaving fullscreen mode.

 

Exporting

Of course, this is only helpful for the actual writing.  What about when you're done and want to share?  Whether it's printing off an easy-to-read  version for longhand copyediting, or putting it into ePub format to read on your eReader (both of which I do regularly), printing off an official manuscript format to send to publishers/agents/editors, or meticulously designing a version to print yourself at CreateSpace or Lulu, the "Compile" options have something for you.

 

Export Options

I could probably do an entire post just on the "compile" feature, but it's pretty hard to try to cover everything without knowing what sort of thing people want.  The options change depending on your format; there are table of content options for ebooks, for example, and image embedding for web pages.  You can choose which sections to include, whether to include your notes or comments, and all sorts of fiddly options.   Unfortunately the best way to look at this one is to play around with it yourself.

I've used "compile" to make a plain text document for uploading to the NaNoWriMo word-count servers, an ePub version for iPod Touch to give to one of my beta readers who wanted a portable version he could read on the train, a manuscript-format version to print out and edit by hand, and a mock-up of my CreateSpace proof that I plan on getting in June.

The ePub format isn't yet available in the Windows version, and to be honest I haven't played around with the compile features in Windows overmuch, so you'll have to take this section with a grain of salt. But at the very least, if you want to export your multiple chunks of story into one long document, you can definitely do that.

 

Extra Features (Mac-only)

There's one more feature I want to highlight, though users of the Windows beta will have to wait until the full version that brings 2.0 functionality.  For those on Macs running 2.0, though, you have another interesting option that's extremely useful for revisions, when it's time to check for continuity:

 

Quick View Comparisons
 
This is the "QuickRef" option.  Select any scene in the sidebar, click the "quickref" button, and a mini window of the scene shows up, giving you not only the text of the entire scene, but the word/character count and custom labels (like POV or dates for me).  You can even search for text within the mini-windows.

I find this extremely useful when I'm doing my continuity checks, or in stories where I have the same event viewed by two different narrators.  I can make sure I haven't made any mistakes between scenes without having to tab or scroll or keep multiple windows open.

 

Hope this helps answer a few more questions.  If anyone has any more, feel free to ask!  I get no money or incentives from the Literature & Latte people for doing this; my motivation is just a genuine love of the software.

http://literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Cliches: Scrivener in Action

Posted by Lora Maroney on February 15, 2011
Posted in: Editing, Writing, Writing Software. Tagged: , , , , , . 16 comments

I love Scrivener for new projects; nothing helps me outline, keep track of things, and have my entire manuscript in one, easy to reference place like Literature & Latte’s brainchild.  Unfortunately, it’s a little intimidating if you don’t know how to use it, so I decided to show a few of my Scrivener projects to give people a visual idea.

The Sidebar

I start here because it’s one of the most important visual cues in Scrivener. It lets me navigate anywhere, without struggling to find where I need to be.

Sidebar 1 - Outline   This is an example of a story outline.  Each section is collapsible if need be.  I have my story divided into parts, chapters, and scenes; each folder is a part or chapter, and each individual page is a scene.  I’ve labeled each scene with a basic overview of what happens, so I can know at a glance where I need to be.

The colours of each scene or chapter indicate (in this particular document) the Point of View of each scene.  You can edit this to be anything you want, of course, but for me, it helps see which characters I haven’t dealt with in a while.

 

 

Sidebar 2 - Other Features The sidebar also has other features.  I’ve added a “Notes to Self” section (self-explanatory) and the “Graveyard” (for scenes I don’t think I’m going to use anymore but don’t want to delete just yet).  Scrivener also comes equipped with character and setting templates, and a section for research (more details on that later).

 

 

 

 

Sidebar 3 - Research Here’s an example of the “Research” sidebar fully expanded. I’ve organized them into different categories (isn’t science fiction fun?).  This gives me a good overview without having to click on anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 Planning

This is, possibly, one of the strongest stages for Scrivener.  Group mode, which resembles a corkboard, lets you put one scene or event per index card, and shuffle them around manually as suits your plot.  If the order of events changes, all you have to do is drag the card to its new spot.  Here are some examples:

Planning - Corkboard Mode
In this example (yes, it’s an extensive lawyer procedural for Gordon Korman fanfiction; don’t judge me!), I use corkboard mode to figure out which scenes go where. I’ve dragged them around several times.  At a glance, I can see what goes where, and which scenes I need to work out in more detail.

Planning - Outline Mode
Here’s the same information in Outline Mode. Outline Mode offers a bit more detail for each (you can see what the colours represent — in my case, Point of View, which is entirely customizable), but less at-a-glance.

Planning - Corkboard Mode II
Here’s a different story in Group Mode; this time, instead of ‘planning’, ‘researching’, etc., I’ve set dates.  I’m tracking a character’s backstory, so I want to know what happens when.  Again, I can immediately see what I know lots about, and which events are vague.

Planning - Outline Mode II
Same story, outline mode. In this case, with such a long time frame, outline mode is more efficient.

Research

Do you like to research obsessively? Do you keep tabs or bookmarks in your browser that you wish you didn’t have to keep flipping over to?  Scrivener allows you to import websites or other documents (PDFs, docs, etc.) directly into your workspace!

Resarch - Saved WebPages
This is a direct import of a webpage.  Everything appears as it would in my browser.  (Note: if the page has ads, so will your import. That’s the only downside.)

Research - PDF Import
This is a direct import of a PDF file I downloaded. Afterward, I could safely delete the original PDF.

Research - Text Import
Of course, PDFs and webpages can’t be edited, so you can also copy-paste the information into a new research file.  Formatting is preserved.

The Writing Itself

And of course, the meat.  What I love about Scrivener (and what I didn’t realize when I first started using it) is that it’s not just for planning; you can keep your whole document there.

Section Overview - Outline Mode
Outline Mode gives an excellent overview of the story.  Titles, POV, word count, synopses, it’s all there!

Chapter Overview - Corkboard Mode
Just like in the planning stage, I can also look at each scene in a chapter on the corkboard, with its synopsis.  If for some reason I decide I want scene X to occur after scene Y, I just move the index cards — and the scenes will be rearranged in the overall text document. No messy copy-and-pasting.

Scene - View Mode
And here is an actual scene!  At a glance I have the actual text, the synopsis on the right, and any meta-data I entered, like whose POV it is (or, in the other document, on what date this occurs).

It’s of note that while each scene or chapter is its own section, you can also use “Full View” to see the entire thing, unbroken, just like in Microsoft Word or your software of choice.

Extra Features:

Because Scrivener is customizable, I’ve added a “notes” section, which gives me a good, at-a-glance look at what I need to look out for as I’m writing.

Notes - Corkboard View
Because these don’t need to be in any particular order, I’ve used “freestyle mode” for this one.

Final Notes:

Basically, Scrivener is what you make of it.  There are other features, like keywords, that I haven’t used yet, but plan to — you can tag scenes with characters, plot elements, themes, whatever you like, so you can quick-reference them later.  You can have scenes tagged with POV, dates, thematic elements, or anything — it’s all customizable.   You can add comments or highlights during revisions, or mark scenes as “first revision”, “second draft”, “final”, etc.

And in the end, you can export the file — with or without your notes — into whatever format you desire.

I love Scrivener. Once you decide what you want to do with it, the software works for you, not the other way around.  I use it differently for each project I have, and it’s fantastic.  If you’re convinced, go here and get it: http://literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php  If you’re not convinced, go anyway and look at their testimonials.  Watch the tutorial video.  Give it a shot!

Most importantly, happy writing!

***EDIT***

See Part II for some of the inner workings when you’re actually writing!