Scrivener [Paid] 2013-09-14

I suppose. These ideas would all go in under the story project you're working on, though. I've never used the note feature in Scrivener in that way.

I guess you could set up your entire writing career as a single project, and each story would be a subproject. That way, you could write notes that don't apply to any specific story. I've never done that either though - I don't know if there'd be any pitfalls.

 

OK, I have become sold on Scrivener. However, I'm not using it altogether as intended. I only seem to become enthusiastic about tools when I find ways to use them Not As Intended.

I broke down and started using Dropbox, so that my Scrivener stuff could be everywhere, especially on my phone. I configured Scrivener's default font/size/etc. to look just like I'm writing in bbEdit. That's normal. Ish.

I have a "Habit" Scrivener project full of bits and pieces of all kinds of writing. The main body of Shuteye, Tulips and Butter, and Coriolis Effect, plus a bunch of fiction scraps, plus a bunch of random writings, plus the recent Highly Flavored Fiction project, are all in there.

I have a "briefcase" Scrivener project that holds information about all my hobbies and stuff. Recipes. Farm facts. Sewing facts. Soon I'll be moving other lists in there.

Basically, I'm using it as a nice interface for bunches of text files. That's less normal.

 

Thanks for the information Minstrel, really helpful. I'm starting to become more and more sold on it, maybe I should look into the 30 day trial when I have a solid plot I want to work hard on, get the most out of it in that month

 

The trial is not like an ordinary trial that gives you 30 days from the day you activate it, whether you use it or not. Scrivener's trial only counts the days you actually use the program, so if you only use Scriv one day a week it will last for 30 weeks.

 

Oh wow, that sounds pretty amazing. I'm really going to have to give this a go soon! Thank you so much for the information

 

And it's a 100% fully functional trial. Nothing greyed-out. Every feature of the program is totally available to you.

 

Unlike the pharmaceutical world, I am sure the developers would be delighted to know of your off-label use.

 

Count me in. I've been toying with the idea of going to Scrivener since I started Rosa's Secret, and maintained two large notebooks, an entire drawer of downloaded materials, a large flip chart with a 500-year timeline and an EXCEL spreadsheet that served as both a chapter outline and a means to track the ages of each generation. Now that I'm getting into crime fiction, which I've discovered almost has to be written in non-linear fashion, I've decided it's time. So, I have just purchased it. Looks like a bit of a steep learning curve, but at my age that's a good thing. Need to keep the ol' grey matter exercised. And it's nice to know I can turn to so many friends here if I really get mired in poo.

 

First tip from Wreybies:

Just a suggestion, once you've gone through the tutorial, use the Novel (with parts) template to start. It's got all the toys already set up in the binder, and if you don't use them, then Scrivener just ignores that those toys are there. It's easier (imo) to ignore the things you're just not going to use than decide later that you do want them and try to add them into a bare-bones binder.

 

I saw this free Scrivener webinar advertised on Twitter and thought someone might find it useful: https://productcreationlive.clickfunnels.com/lsf-webinar-registration-214926661?affiliate_id=729255

It does sound very sales-y so I'm sure they're going to try to sell you something during/after the webinar, but the actual class is free.

 

Thanks, @Wreybies. I found the tutorial to be pretty straightforward. I've actually started off with importing my WIP, and since it doesn't have "parts" with chapters within those parts, I figured that "novel with parts" didn't pertain. I tend to be a "poke and prod" kind of guy when it comes to new software.

 

With the recent news about the popular Ulysses writing software platform changing their payment scheme to a subscription model (not very popular with end users), I became concerned with the prospect of Scrivener doing the same at some point. Many platforms are switching to this model, some with more success than others. The ubiquity of MS Office pretty much guaranteed that its users would have no choice but to accept whatever terms Microsoft decrees to its slaves... sorry, I mean, users... but other platforms don't have this kind of stranglehold on the digital public.

A search for this concern with Scrivener brought up the following:



Any of you who frequent the Literature & Latte forum (Scrivener's home forum) will know KB as one of the developers.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/15/scrivener-writing-app-ios-dark-mode/

Of course, this is not presented as any sort of guarantee, promise, binding oath, blood oath, sacrament, or any other sort of binding contract. This is simply what I found. 2017, the year of caveats longer than the actual statement.

 

Surprising that Literature&Latte can be sustaining themselves, if you happen to believe some of their competitors .

 

Well, apparently they are, despite the reports of "Fake News" from the Giant Overlords™. I'm actually surprised at the move on the part of Ulysses. For those whose writing goals are more to the digital, online spectrum, I know that the popularity of Ulysses is to them what Scrivener is to creators of the more traditional novel. I don't know how owning Ulysses worked in the past, but for Scrivener, there was the initial $45 purchase and since then (I've been with them since the very beginning in 2007-ish because MS Word on a Mac sucks donkey schlong) there have been two major overhauls that incurred a renewal fee of $25. There have been umpteen free updates in between the two that had a cost.

 

Thanks for the update, @Wreybies. I'm already hooked on Scrivener.

 

Trial period is 30 days, so may want to jump right in or wait until ready to use it before downloading.

 

Or... Once a year for 30 years!

 

When in compose mode, do you keep the screen black? Do you keep the writing space in the center or left or right? How have you adjusted the width of the writing space / how many words +/- do you have fitting on each line across the page?

I'm using centered and I have about 10 words across the page. Curious how others are using the compose feature.

 

I assume that "Compose" is what is called "Fullscreen" in the Windows version. This is what my setup looks like:

Spoiler

I like to have the background completely opaque (so there is nothing in the background to distract me), but not completely black. I also prefer to have the "paper" slightly grey or beige to reduce the contrasts a bit.
I think it's something like 10-15 words per line.

 

I'm not sure on Mac if I can change the color of the paper, but i'm about to find out in a few minutes...

 

Yes, you can. Main menu: Scrivener-Preferences-Compose. There's a list of customizable colors. One of them is "Paper".

Also, if you are in Composition/Fullscreen mode, there's a tool bar that pops up when you move the mouse all the way to the bottom. In it, you can change the transparency of the background outside of the Paper (make your desktop partly visible, colored by the color you have selected in the preference tab. But you can also select a special backdrop for the composition mode (in the View menu). That backdrop will always appear as is. If you do that, in the pop-up toolbar the transparency slider now controls the transparency of the paper.

It's very cool, but I'm not sure if I ever use that. I just use the backdrop with a very dark color, maybe with a bit of transparency to give a hint of structure.

ETA: You can also adjust the colors, including the one of the 'paper', in normal mode. It's under Preferences-Appearance. Similar to the Composition mode prefs, there's a section of customizable colors – which seems to include about all elements of the UI. For the 'paper', it's under "Editor" in the left pane, then "text background" in the right. I prefer to have my paper/text background in off-white/beige/sepia.

 

Can Scrivener be used on multiple platforms, and, if so, does anyone do that? How do you find that?

 

You can use it on MacOS and Windows. I haven’t used the Windows version since I got a MacBook some time ago. It generally lags slightly behind the Mac version. There was also a community-maintained Linux version available with the blessing of the Scrivener developers (they linked to it from their own forums), but it has been a few years since I tried that one. If the project is still going it will be on their forums.