{"id":1239,"date":"2010-06-28T21:09:11","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T02:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/poetponders\/?p=1239"},"modified":"2023-11-26T12:56:42","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T18:56:42","slug":"why-i-use-scrivener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/2010\/06\/28\/why-i-use-scrivener\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Use Scrivener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love Scrivener, a writing application from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.literatureandlatte.com\/\">Literature &amp; Latte.<\/a> How much do I love Scrivener? I wrote the following in Scrivener:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My <b>doctoral dissertation<\/b> for the Dept. of Writing Studies at the Univ. of Minnesota,<\/li>\n<li>Drafts of three feature-length screenplays, one of which I started in another (&#8220;screenplay&#8221;) application and migrated to Scrivener after much pain and suffering,<\/li>\n<li>Drafts of two novels, which began in Word but needed to be restructured, and<\/li>\n<li>Content for the Tameri main website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Scrivener shines when dealing with long documents. It is an application that seems to anticipate how I work, which is rather impressive considering how many writing applications make that claim. Others bluntly proclaim you must change your ways and learn the applications&#8217; supposedly better approach to writing.<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned in a previous post, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/?p=40\">I (Sometimes) Miss WordPerfect for DOS<\/a>, I seem to be most productive with as few distractions as possible. Distractions come in several forms.<\/p>\n<p><b>Wandering eyes, drifting focus.<\/b> Scrivener&#8217;s full-screen editing mode means you see the current document and nothing else; you don&#8217;t even see the Mac desktop. Nothing comes between you and your text.<\/p>\n<p><b>Formatting just because you can.<\/b> Most word processors now double as a layout and design applications. The problem is that you can waste a lot of time playing with layout features that manuscripts don&#8217;t require. Manuscripts are in standardized formats, so there is no reason to experiment with text formatting.<\/p>\n<p><b>Swapping programs to find information.<\/b> The moment I open a second, third, or fourth program to retrieve research, I&#8217;m tempted to explore for hours. Scrivener uses a folder metaphor, allowing you to store research with your writing project. You can place documents and images in the <i>Research<\/i> folder. You can also create subfolders to sort your research. Everything in one place is a good approach for me.<\/p>\n<p>My three great distractions are not a problem in Scrivener. When I&#8217;m using Scrivener, I am more focused on my writing than in any other application. I even use Scrivener for first drafts of stage and film scripts, which I still refine in Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter. Yes, Scrivener can help automatically format a screenplay, at least all the major formatting issues.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-726\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Scrivener-02.png?resize=1792%2C1076&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1792\" height=\"1076\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The standard Scrivener view shows the <i>Binder<\/i> (folders), current <i>Scrivenings<\/i> (text being edited), and an information panel. Folders and the text within them can be rearranged via drag-and-drop or via keyboard. I move things frequently, using the Binder as an outline.<\/p>\n<p>I create folders in the Binder for chapters and sometimes for sections of chapters. These folders go within the Draft or Manuscript folder. When a manuscript is <i>compiled<\/i>, Scrivener includes only selected folders and text. The way I write, I sometimes include only some sections and not others to read and consider. Like many writers, I often compose variations of a scene and then read the manuscript to gain a sense of the flow.<\/p>\n<p>The information panel on the right includes space for a synopsis, color-coded category labels, status indicators, and any notes. Honestly, I&#8217;m a bit lazy and only label those parts of a work I need to return to and review later. If something is marked, I know I&#8217;m not content with it.<\/p>\n<p>Within the Research folder, in addition to text notes, you can place Web pages, PDFs, images, and even multimedia content. I like to create a folder for rough outlining and thoughts within the Research folder. I have not stored media files; I&#8217;d end up watching videos or listening to audio instead of working. I know writers who would use the Research folder to its full potential, but I&#8217;m admittedly not one of them.<\/p>\n<p><b>Brief Tangent:<\/b> I outline using OmniOutliner Pro from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omnigroup.com\/\">The Omni Group.<\/a> Again, this is a single-purpose application that doesn&#8217;t try to be a word processor or text editor. It is the best outlining application I have found. Microsoft Word has improved a lot for outlining, and the <i>Notebook View<\/i> is useful, but I still prefer OmniOutliner.<\/p>\n<p>The appearance of text on screen during the editing process <b><i>is independent of printing<\/i><\/b>. While you can preserve any manual text formatting when you print or export a manuscript (called <i>Compile Manuscript<\/i> in Scrivener), I prefer to edit my writing in 14-point Optima, single-spaced, with gaps between paragraphs. Even with a large font, I magnify the text to 150% because I have poor vision.<\/p>\n<p><b>Full-Screen Nirvana.<\/b> The full-screen mode of Scrivener is even better than WordPerfect for DOS was. It epitomizes what a clean, uncluttered interface should be. Scrivener&#8217;s full-screen mode is elegant, with both a type-writer like mode to type at the center of the screen and traditional cursor positioning. I wish more programs offered clutter-free edit modes.<\/p>\n<p>Every writer has a unique approach to writing and editing. I love the full-screen mode and the Binder&#8217;s folder view. I don&#8217;t use the <i>Corkboard<\/i> of Scrivener often, but I know there are writers who love the index card metaphor. A lot of writing applications include visual index cards. The cards in Scrivener display the title of a text chunk and the synopsis.<\/p>\n<p>Though not pictured, I do glance at the <i>Outline View<\/i>. I would prefer something a tad more like OmniOutliner or a few more columns. If I could display word and page counts, that would be helpful.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>29-Jun-2010 Update:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Tech support was kind enough to explain how to add the\u00a0<i>Word Count\u00a0<\/i> column in\u00a0<i>Outline View.\u00a0<\/i> I was right-clicking on the grid, which displays column choices in many programs. You need to find the ellipsis (\u2026) in the right corner of the panel and click there for a column list. Not intuitive, but adds the column I needed. They also promise a new\u00a0<i>Outline View\u00a0<\/i> in the next release.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Compiling a Manuscript.<\/b> After you compose the text of a manuscript, you then <i>Compile<\/i> the draft into a (ideally) properly formatted standard manuscript.<\/p>\n<p>I export articles and stories as Word document files and scripts as Final Draft 8 XML files. The reality is that Word and Final Draft are the dominant standards, and Scrivener handles these well. I have yet to have a serious problem opening compiled manuscripts in either major application, though a few minor quirks with Final Draft aren&#8217;t unusual.<\/p>\n<p>You can download a 30-day trial edition of Scrivener from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.literatureandlatte.com\/\">Literature and Latte<\/a> site. I only needed a few days to know it was the editor I wanted. The $39.95 is also among the best prices I have paid for any application.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love Scrivener, a writing application from Literature &amp; Latte. How much do I love Scrivener? I wrote the following in Scrivener: My doctoral dissertation&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/2010\/06\/28\/why-i-use-scrivener\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why I Use Scrivener<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":20,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,10],"tags":[131,398,482,499,595,607],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","category-writing","tag-creative-writing","tag-outlining","tag-scrivener","tag-software","tag-wordperfect","tag-writing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/FB_Banner_Pen_Mac.png?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfiw78-jZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/csw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}