Yes, I'd been talking about it, and I finally did it. I think the thing that pushed me over the edge was taking my four separate Microsoft Word files containing my novel, and trying to make them into one big file so I could send it to friends. Simple cut and paste led to weird font shifts, and lots of extra work, and I thought to myself, "I'm not in mid-process any more. I have time to figure out a new program."
I had heard about Scrivener from my friend Jamie Todd Rubin, and I started in on my tutorial last night. First impression? I think it's going to be awesome for me. I'm a big outliner and organizer, and this program lets you do all kinds of labeling that will be fantastic, like marking whose point of view different chapters are in, etc.
I will let you all know how things look as I continue on through the process. I'm hoping to move all my writing over to this program so I have one "home base."
So far, it's looking really cool.
I look forward for your update. I keep hearing great things about scrivener, but I'm still rather skeptical. At the moment I'm rather fond of google doc's cloud which instantly saves and can be accessed whenever I want without having to transfer documents.
ReplyDeleteI've used as a beta tester and was very impressed. I think you'll be pretty happy with it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Let us know how it goes. I might consider it myself.
ReplyDeleteJai
Awesome! I hope you love Scrivener just as much as I do (which is a lot)
ReplyDeleteSo far, so good! There are a few little details I haven't figured out, like how to set the quotes so they don't "get smart." But in all other respects, it makes the files much easier to work with!
DeleteI've used Scrivener for about a year now and I'm very happy with it. It's easy to move scenes around (just did that myself in a big way), and you can keep your story research, including web links or pages, in the same place. The only thing I'd like it to have is a Timeline feature. Then it would be awesome.
ReplyDeleteScrivener also will compile specified files into one doc when you need the whole shebang. And there's a function to "compile for Kindle," tho I have yet to try it, so I can't comment on that.
Good luck!