I can look at my entire manuscript at a glance. Each chapter represented by an index notecard. I create a folder for each chapter (color coded with a green tag for “chapter”).Įach chapter is then displayed on the right in its own folder, and it’s also displayed on the cork board. I like to set my entire writing project on the corkboard view. For those who remember, it’s like having a piece of paper in a typewriter and nothing more you can do with, but write. You can adjust the settings of “full composition mode” to your liking. To really focus on writing, you can select the “full composition mode” which will darkened your entire computer monitor and increase the writing space so you can focus on just writing. You can select different fonts, align/indent paragraphs, all of that stuff and more. It has the similar features, for example, spell/grammar check. If you know how to use MS Word, then you will be familiar with the writing editor. The writing editor is where you can just write your book. How I use Scrivener to Write Fiction Thrillers (Click on the images to enlarge them) I also recommend you watch the official Scrivener Video Tutorials. You can click here for more advanced Scrivener books. But there might be features I never use, and that’s okay. There are still features that I don’t use and I learn about more features from other folks, videos, and websites, and I incorporate them into my process. My second go-round, I just focused on writing and starting adding features as I saw fit. I ended up quitting and not touching the software for over a year. The first time I fired up Scrivener, I saw all its bells and whistles, and I became overwhelmed trying to figure out how to use them all. Trust me, you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, you’ll end up frustrated and you might not end up appreciating how it can help you. The biggest mistake new Scrivener users can make is to try to master all its robust features from the get-go. I’m not a Scrivener expert nor am I uber techie with software, I’m just a writer that likes Scrivener. So I’m going to show you my favorite features of Scrivener with screenshots from the actual manuscript for my upcoming book “She’s Gone”.Ī quick caveat. There are a few “Scrivener reviews” online, but I haven’t seen one that actually shows you the software in action with an actual manuscript, not just a dummy Scrivener file for screenshot purposes. I feel compelled to spread the word amongst my fellow writers. My love for the software has turned me into a self-appointed Scrivener evangelist. I attribute a lot of that success to Scrivener. I’ve now finished my second manuscript, and I’m currently writing my third book. I have since published my first fiction book, The Asset, which is an Amazon Best Seller in the Espionage and Political Thriller lists. It’s not very novelist friendly, especially, if like me, you don’t write linearly from A to B, to C. I tried to write a novel with Word and Open Office and the manuscript always got away from me, and I abandoned it. Trying to do all that with MS Word or Open Office can make an already daunting process, even more stressful. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft. To quote from their website: Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. You more than likely have a lot of research notes, documents, outlines, which you need to organize so you can write your book. Writing 80,000 some words can be a daunting task. It all started with a Scrivener blank page, the end result was my first published novel, “ The Asset “. As I write my new fiction book, I’ll record a Scrivener tutorial so you can see Scrivener used in real life (writing an actual novel) versus just a demo.
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