Let’s talk Scrivener again. Or rather let’s talk writing, because they’re one and the same thing really. The single most attractive thing about Scrivener for me is that it sees books as they really are, a mosaic of scenes and ideas, not as a single great glob of text, as does a word processor such as Word.
What do I mean by this? Simple. When you write a book by Scrivener every scene, chapter, element, call it what you will, exists both as a separate document, with its own word count, time stamp and individual descriptions and synopsis, and as an integral component of the book as a whole. If I want to see when I last edited a scene I look at the date in the inspector sidebar. If I want to make a note pertaining to that piece of the story alone it goes there too. When I want to move around story elements I do them logically, by visually dragging them to new positions where I can see their context, not by cutting and pasting unseen amounts of text around the place which can be both messy and dangerous.
Equally, if I think the positioning is wrong I just drag the thing back or find a new home for it. Moving scenes around is something I highly recommend. It can change the pace and tenor of a story. It’s hard to do with conventional word processor cut and paste. With Scrivener it’s a doddle. Let me give you an example from the next Costa book to show you what I mean.
Here is the original opening of The Blue Demon (US City of Fear), a story set in the world of Italian politics, around the Quirinale hill. At the beginning of this version of the story a junior politician has been kidnapped by a scary and mysterious individual. It looks like this. Click for the full version
Scrivener users will recognise the binder on the left hand side of the screen. This is where scenes/chapters are listed. It’s perfect for outlining, and to keep things neat and tidy I divided this book into sections, represented here by folders. I’m a section kind of guy when it comes to most books. I like the rhythm they introduce to the kind of work I do. Not everyone will work this way though.
When I came to revise this book I wondered about this opening. It’s good and exciting but it’s linear too. So I decided to try an experiment. Why not start the book near the end? In other words take part of the climax and use that as the beginning, then flashing back into the main story, and picking up the thread at the climax.
Here is that climax in the original version.
Something serious is starting to happen here. What I want to do is split this chapter in two and move the top half to the beginning. Again, this is very easy with cut and paste but involves guesswork and those invisible words flying round the clipboard. In Scrivener it’s much more sensible. I put the cursor where I want to break the chapter and then hit Command-K. What I get is this.
See what’s happened? I now have two chapters instead of one, and the second has automatically been labelled Sordi attacked -1. I want something more memorable so I just rename it.
Then I drag it to the beginning of the story.
After that I need to write a few new introductory sentences to both the new chapter and the original. Basic tidying up stuff really to make sure everything runs together properly. Then I go back to the original beginning, which takes place three days before the climax, and write in a single italicised line…
Three days earlier…
And that’s it. Minimum of fuss, maximum of control. The book’s got a tighter, more exciting opening I hope. And everything is an absolute doddle to undo if I decide I don’t like it.
Now try doing that with Word.
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David,
Great article about Scrivener, one of my favorite programs.
I have a question for you, I also use statistics and project target a lot. How did you get it on the tool bar? I don’t see it when I click to customize the toolbar.
Cheers
Right click on the toolbar and then you get a selection of icons you can drag up there. I never use it actually – just Command T to show and hide.
How weird, I don’t have it:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2024254/scrivener-toolbar.png
And I am using the latest version: 1.53
Do you have anything different?
Oops – yes I am using a private beta. Sorry – it must be something that’s coming out for everyone else later. But I’m sure the stats are there just not the icon.
Oh yeah, it is in the view menu, I use a lot, just wanted an easier way to access it. Will wait for the release, thanks!
I came to your website from the recent newsletter KB sent out. Thanks for writing about Scrivener in your, well, writing … or, perhaps better, in your writing process. It's always nice to take a break from one's own work and compare notes, especially with highly productive and accomplished folks like yourself.
Just a quick question, or probably a nitpick, about terminology: wouldn't it be better to say that you are grouping chapters into parts? I think at some point in my life some version of document parsing got drilled into me — it may be my reading of eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction and nonfiction — that the hierarchy of books was volume – part – chapter – section.
It caught me a little bit in your post. To be clear, this mostly reflects my own current obsession as an American academic who is trying to write a nonfiction book that is more like trade nonfiction books than the typical scholarly monograph. The former, in the current era, tends to use loose chapters with strong sections while the latter is, as many readers will know, is strongly driven by chapters.
I don't think anyone uses 18th and 19th century terminology any more, certainly not in popular fiction. I doubt readers would know anything about volumes, parts, chapters, sections. There's not even general agreement out there any more about what chapters are. I think of my work as scenes divided into sections. I will write a bit more about this in the future but really there is no consensus on book divisions in fiction any more. Even about such things as whether to restart chapter/scene numbering in different sections/parts. Given that readers don't notice or care it doesn't seem terribly important.
You might want to raise that on the Scrivener forum because there's bound to be someone there with an opinion and some experience.
David,
Thank you for your comments about how you use Scrivener. I'm a college professor, a writing teacher too–but all nonfiction. Still, your idea about segmenting prose in chunks and then rearranging is something I never tried in Scrivener; I tried this technique in patching a report together from various committee members and, so far, it's worked marvelously. Have you ever tried writing a chapter from the back to the front, skipping sections that don't appear in the mind's eye immediately? I never tried it before Scrivener appeared, but now I find starting a draft wherever I feel strongest.
I want to check out your Nic Costa series when the semester noise dies down.
Yes I will write in a non-linear fashion from time to time. Will put something up here about it one day. It can be very useful. Can be dangerous too unless you're in control of the project.
I've recently discovered your blog (from the Scrivener newsletter) and have been enjoying it. Could you say something about handling changes late in the storywriting process?
I mean, if you had written scenes and chapters in Act 3, and had written a synopsis and found out that the story has to change drastically for the events to line up. Do you find it more useful to change the synopsis level first or the story level first?
Thanks so much for sharing your expertise here.
A synopsis is just a blueprint. What matters is the structure you build from it because that and that only is what the reader sees. If you find the flow of the story is taking you away from the synopsis then I'd run with it. Forcing events to comply with some prewritten structure is a way to get something that reads and feels mechanical.
You know that feeling? When you're reading something and thinking 'Oh he's behaving like that just because he has to in order to make the next scene work'? Characters and their response to events should drive a story, not some outline. In my way of working anyway – others will feel differently.
Glad you're enjoying the blog.
Wow–speedy (and reassuring) response! Thanks very much. Yes, I do know that feeling. It makes me want to close the book.
I was wondering about the mechanics of making the change–what do you do first once you've noticed that the story is going somewhere else? Does Scrivener help with this?
Regards,
Laurel
I don't write to a firm outline so I don't really have that experience I'm afraid. Will put up something about how I plan stories shortly since lots of people seem to be asking for it.
Thanks. I'll look forward to your post.
Laurel
wow – very interessting
I found your site from a Norwegian blog. I will continue reading your articles. Keep up the good work.