8/15/2023 0 Comments Trial of the scrivener![]() This includes as default the item type, synopsis, assigned label and status, but can also include elements like word-count, creation date and progress bars. If we then move to the Outline View we can see those items represented in tabular form, with various attributes held against them. Rearranging your work is then simply a mater of dragging and dropping in the side-bar. How you structure these is up to you, but you can create folders and sub-folders, text files and sub-text files within that structure, allowing you to break up your work into chapters, scenes or whatever makes sense to you. This simple interface hides a great deal of functionality, preventing Scrivener from appearing daunting to the novice.Īs blocks of text are created in the tool they appear on the left in the outline. There is a button bar across the top with view and search options and a status bar at the bottom which controls the viewing scale and shows the word-count and target. The name of the item being edited is shown above the editing pane together with forward and back button so that you can skip back and forth between items like a browser. ![]() If you are serious about writing, you should check it out.The initial interface presented by Scrivener is relatively simple, showing a rich text editing window together with a structure pane to the left. Scrivener for Windows lags behind its Mac counterpart in version numbers and features, but the version I evaluated, 1.2, feels like a mature and powerful product. A simple template engine allows some control over the manuscript’s appearance, but Scrivener doesn’t try to be a full-fledged typesetting program. You can make it into a PDF document, an RTF file, an HTML webpage, and more. Once you are ready to share your manuscript, you can export it using Scrivener’s powerful compilation functionality. Neal Stephenson used Scrivener for his latest novel, REAMDE, and indeed, I recognized one of the names in the generator (Abdul-Ghaffar, “servant of the forgiver” in Arabic). It lets you pick an ethnicity for the first and last name (separately, so you can mix), pick which letter the name should start with, and even search by meaning. Scrivener includes a powerful name generator, making it easy to come up with good character names.Scrivener’s other writing aids include a flexible character name generator–not so useful for research papers, perhaps, but a boon for fiction writers. You can even save your searches for future use. You can then search for segments labeled with specific keywords (such as the name of a character), and read them in isolation using scrivenings mode. For even finer-grained categorization, Scrivener lets you assign arbitrary keywords out of a keyword hierarchy you define. You can also assign each segment a status label, such as First Draft, Revised Draft, etc. Scrivener also lets you label your segments with labels such as Scene, Idea, Character Notes, or anything else. Not very fast, but a good investment of time: When I was done, I felt like I could really start using Scrivener. The tutorial is well-written and thorough it took me about two hours to work through. Scrivener also ships with a friendly tutorial packaged as a Scrivener writing project that walks you step-by-step through the most important features. Rather than impose one “ideal” workflow for writing, provides an arsenal of research, planning, writing, and editing tools you can choose from. Scrivener’s work environment is rich, but many elements can be toggled off as needed.Scrivener recognizes that every author works differently. Mac favorite Scrivener ($40, thirty-day free trial) has a Windows version, recently out of beta, that helps writers compose major projects by breaking them down into manageable bits, organizing research material, and more. The creative process is often complex, and there is much background research, planning, shuffling and reshuffling of segments, editing and re-editing until the manuscript is done. Most authors don’t just run a word processor and bang them out, start to finish, ending up with a complete work. Books, research proposals, screenplays, and scripts, are all daunting, large-scale writing projects.
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