![]() This was possible without Scrivener, but Scrivener helped me see it. With the time-proved framework of The Hero’s Journey embedded into Scrivener as my guide, I stopped floundering at the somewhat abstract idea of a novel and began planning plot points, character arcs, action and reaction with vigor. Scrivener makes it incredibly easy to rearrange, reorganize and relabel at any point in the writing process. Those aren’t decisions you have to make, though, until much later in the process. Other times, the files became stand-alone chapters on their own. Sometimes those individual files were scenes that eventually merged into larger chapters. Using this method, each sub-sub-heading was a folder that contained one or more writing files. I embraced the method and reorganized a second time, this time deleting my chapter headings and arranging the whole project by Act, Block and Scene with each scene containing a separate file for setup, conflict and resolution. My most significant breakthrough happened when I found a blog post by a woman that illustrated one of numerous ways writers can use Scrivener to organize a novel into small parts you can wrap your head around, the basis for my system to accomplishing any tough task. Now, a few years later, I’ve just signed a contract for my first novel, and there’s no question Scrivener helped make that happen. Within a couple weeks I paid the $44.99 license fee and forged on without ever looking back. I transferred my project into Scrivener and started learning the app’s basic features. I looked at Scrivener’s website and was smitten with their tagline: “See the Woods and the Trees.”īecause Scrivener has a free 30-day trial I had nothing to lose. I scoured the Internet and found an article like this one that gushed about Scrivener’s diverse and powerful capabilities. Microsoft Word made the task onerous I wasn’t able to see enough of the project to diagnose and fix problems. ![]() After taking a break for a few months, I sat down to continue working and realized the story needed significant reorganization to solve structural flaws. ![]() I wrote a 250-page guidebook to kayaking and rafting the rivers and lakes of Idaho, but the simple fact is that there are better tools for the job than Microsoft Word.Ībout five years ago I started writing long-form fiction in Word and quickly realized its limitations when my draft went beyond about 10,000 words. ![]() I wrote news stories, feature stories, poetry and notes. I used to write everything using standard word processing software. (Click here to download a free 30-day trial of Scrivener from the app’s developer, Literature and Latte.) My introduction to Scrivener From outlining to formatting a finished manuscript, Scrivener does everything a writer needs to plan, research write, edit and organize (or reorganize) a book. Others have a favorite desk or chair, or a notes app that stores ideas across digital platforms.įor me, that favorite tool is Scrivener, a word processor that puts your research at your fingertips and breaks big projects into digestible parts. For some it’s a ragged notebook full of brainstorms and sketches. Like a carpenter with a favorite speed square, writers have favorite tools. ![]()
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