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gryvonAs I may have mentioned, I've developed a bit of a love for Scrivener. I was talking about it a bit on Twitter, and it was requested that I do a post on how I use Scrivener. Now, I've only been using it for a little over a week so I'm sure there's more advanced things that could be done. (If you have any tips or tricks, I would love it if you'd share in the comments.) The corkboard and Project Tracker are my new bffs.
To start off here's a screen cap of my initial working setup:
This isn't how I've actually been working, but I took the screen cap over the weekend so it's a bit outdated. Now, I've got the inspector up on the far right (see the third screen cap, below) and I've been using the corkboard instead of the outline because of the color coding. But more on that later. First, a bit of explanation for those new to things:
The screen's divided into three sections - the binder, my working document, then anything else I happen to need open. Usually that's scene summaries in either outline or notecard format, usually as notecards (aka corkboard).
The Binder
The current screen show what I've got in progress for an XMFC space AU that I'm slowly working on. At the top of the binder (far left) there's the actual story, broken down into each part. Most aren't written but I've got an outline of what I'm going to do and thus bits for each. The icons are a bit small but the ones that look like pages (ex: Parts 1-3, 5-6, etc) are parts that have actual text started for them. The rest - the ones that look like notecards - are still in the idea stage. With the big bang I'm working on, I've got it set up so that they're color coded - blue for things that have the first draft done, green for things that are beta'd. Currently nothing's green, but I have this hope it'll get there soon.
Below the Manuscript section is all of my character profiles. I have a lot. More may be added. The characters are broken into individual folders based on which spaceship they're aligned with (and poor Moira's off on her own as she's only mentioned in the fic so far but might get used later).
Below that are the places, namely the spaceships. I've only got notes on one so far.
Below that is the Research folder which I use for any short notes or things I might want to reference later. The Blackbird's under there because at the time of the screencap, I hadn't made a full profile for it. On the big bang, I've got a note in there for the fic summary that I posted at sign up, about little background bits, and the word count I last stopped at cause I'm counting that and some other things for NaNoWriMo.
Finally, theres the Template Sheets which just get Duplicated for each individual profile, and the Trash below that.
The Document
I've got it customized to look like I'm used to Word looking. (There's a setting in the options to change the default text and all that.) I tried out character links, as you can see with the hyperlink over Charles's name. So far haven't found much use for them since I've got the profiles in the sidebar but I could see it being useful for really large documents with a lot of refrence notes.
The Outline
Each part is numbered based on the tentative order it will appear. I've got a quick synopsis of each. Yes the 'In which' adds a bit of unneccessary length to the synopsis bits but I like the look of it. (For the big bang summaries are more summary like and don't use that convention.) Spoilers are blacked out. Each bit has a label (for this, I'm just marking if it's posted or not) and a status. (Done, First Draft aka I just wrote this, Final Draft aka it's gone to beta but I haven't posted it yet.) There's other statuses and labels available but I haven't been using the for this. In the big bang I'm working on, I've got it set up to show labels and statuses on the cards (see below for what the cards look like, though for the big bang it's color coded with the statuses as watermarks across them).
Here's a view of what my character profiles look like:
Middle screen shows a basic character profile. I altered the default to add my own features based on the sci-fi setting, namely Race and Affiliation. I still have to go fill in the Background, Internal, and External conflict on a lot of people. So far I've just been filling in what's been mentioned so far and the few bits I know of what's going to come ahead. A lot of this fic has been flying by the seat of my pants so I'm not 100% on what's going to come in later parts.
On the right screen you've got a shot of all the named characters on the Brotherhood. Main characters - those who're likely gonna have a scene in their POV - are shown with a purple tag. Side characters have yellow tags. I've got red tags for the antagonists. I may break it down further but so far those are the only three I've needed. I've also got short bits about what that character's position is on each story. Ideally it'd also have a short goal or motivation on each, like Erik's does. (And Raven's but hers is blacked out.)
Here's a shot with the Project Tracker, which is a godsend for tracking my progress on the Big Bang I'm working on, and the label colors. In the binder on the left you can see what the color coding looks like - blue bits are done, white are started or empty. Characters are in red, though I may play with that coloring later. I wish I could show you want the notecards look like color coded but that'd involve a lot of blacking out text.
What I really love about Scrivener is how easy it is to skip around. I hit a lull when I was writing Tuesday (when the screen shot above was taken) and I didn't want to write any more full scenes so I just went in and filled in dialogue or little bits of some of the other scenes that were clear in my mind so that I'd have something to start on. It's been working out pretty well. I usually write pretty linearly, since Word is built to write linearly, but I'm kind liking being able to skip around. For example I had the first three scenes done before I realized I'd forgotten to include the usual flashback to kid Shawn so I stubbed that, skipped ahead a scene, then went back and filled in the flashback. And the really nice thing is, if something needs moved around, I just have to drag the card around in the corkboard and it's in a new spot. No messy cutting and pasting.
So, that's Scrivener. It's been out on the Mac, just hit Windows beta which is why I'm just now trying it. $40 for the full version, with a 50% off coupon if you finish NaNo (I'm trying...) or 20% off just for participating.
To start off here's a screen cap of my initial working setup:
This isn't how I've actually been working, but I took the screen cap over the weekend so it's a bit outdated. Now, I've got the inspector up on the far right (see the third screen cap, below) and I've been using the corkboard instead of the outline because of the color coding. But more on that later. First, a bit of explanation for those new to things:
The screen's divided into three sections - the binder, my working document, then anything else I happen to need open. Usually that's scene summaries in either outline or notecard format, usually as notecards (aka corkboard).
The Binder
The current screen show what I've got in progress for an XMFC space AU that I'm slowly working on. At the top of the binder (far left) there's the actual story, broken down into each part. Most aren't written but I've got an outline of what I'm going to do and thus bits for each. The icons are a bit small but the ones that look like pages (ex: Parts 1-3, 5-6, etc) are parts that have actual text started for them. The rest - the ones that look like notecards - are still in the idea stage. With the big bang I'm working on, I've got it set up so that they're color coded - blue for things that have the first draft done, green for things that are beta'd. Currently nothing's green, but I have this hope it'll get there soon.
Below the Manuscript section is all of my character profiles. I have a lot. More may be added. The characters are broken into individual folders based on which spaceship they're aligned with (and poor Moira's off on her own as she's only mentioned in the fic so far but might get used later).
Below that are the places, namely the spaceships. I've only got notes on one so far.
Below that is the Research folder which I use for any short notes or things I might want to reference later. The Blackbird's under there because at the time of the screencap, I hadn't made a full profile for it. On the big bang, I've got a note in there for the fic summary that I posted at sign up, about little background bits, and the word count I last stopped at cause I'm counting that and some other things for NaNoWriMo.
Finally, theres the Template Sheets which just get Duplicated for each individual profile, and the Trash below that.
The Document
I've got it customized to look like I'm used to Word looking. (There's a setting in the options to change the default text and all that.) I tried out character links, as you can see with the hyperlink over Charles's name. So far haven't found much use for them since I've got the profiles in the sidebar but I could see it being useful for really large documents with a lot of refrence notes.
The Outline
Each part is numbered based on the tentative order it will appear. I've got a quick synopsis of each. Yes the 'In which' adds a bit of unneccessary length to the synopsis bits but I like the look of it. (For the big bang summaries are more summary like and don't use that convention.) Spoilers are blacked out. Each bit has a label (for this, I'm just marking if it's posted or not) and a status. (Done, First Draft aka I just wrote this, Final Draft aka it's gone to beta but I haven't posted it yet.) There's other statuses and labels available but I haven't been using the for this. In the big bang I'm working on, I've got it set up to show labels and statuses on the cards (see below for what the cards look like, though for the big bang it's color coded with the statuses as watermarks across them).
Here's a view of what my character profiles look like:
Middle screen shows a basic character profile. I altered the default to add my own features based on the sci-fi setting, namely Race and Affiliation. I still have to go fill in the Background, Internal, and External conflict on a lot of people. So far I've just been filling in what's been mentioned so far and the few bits I know of what's going to come ahead. A lot of this fic has been flying by the seat of my pants so I'm not 100% on what's going to come in later parts.
On the right screen you've got a shot of all the named characters on the Brotherhood. Main characters - those who're likely gonna have a scene in their POV - are shown with a purple tag. Side characters have yellow tags. I've got red tags for the antagonists. I may break it down further but so far those are the only three I've needed. I've also got short bits about what that character's position is on each story. Ideally it'd also have a short goal or motivation on each, like Erik's does. (And Raven's but hers is blacked out.)
Here's a shot with the Project Tracker, which is a godsend for tracking my progress on the Big Bang I'm working on, and the label colors. In the binder on the left you can see what the color coding looks like - blue bits are done, white are started or empty. Characters are in red, though I may play with that coloring later. I wish I could show you want the notecards look like color coded but that'd involve a lot of blacking out text.
What I really love about Scrivener is how easy it is to skip around. I hit a lull when I was writing Tuesday (when the screen shot above was taken) and I didn't want to write any more full scenes so I just went in and filled in dialogue or little bits of some of the other scenes that were clear in my mind so that I'd have something to start on. It's been working out pretty well. I usually write pretty linearly, since Word is built to write linearly, but I'm kind liking being able to skip around. For example I had the first three scenes done before I realized I'd forgotten to include the usual flashback to kid Shawn so I stubbed that, skipped ahead a scene, then went back and filled in the flashback. And the really nice thing is, if something needs moved around, I just have to drag the card around in the corkboard and it's in a new spot. No messy cutting and pasting.
So, that's Scrivener. It's been out on the Mac, just hit Windows beta which is why I'm just now trying it. $40 for the full version, with a 50% off coupon if you finish NaNo (I'm trying...) or 20% off just for participating.
