I've been using Scrivener for eight years now through roughly ten books, and I honestly can't imagine going without it at this point. Just being able to jump between chapters at a glance within one document was an immediate game-changer. Then you add in the other features and it just rockets past any other writing program or word processor.
Thank you for the deep dive. Insightful and fascinating to see the layers of your process. I know it’s not a writing tool per se, but I’m just starting to play with Notion to see if I can create a writing system in there with research, notes, main writing, etc. we’ll see.
Thanks for this, Scrivener looks really useful. I've just started posting my own serial: https://shadowgamebooks.substack.com/. Novella one (60k words, 30 chapters) is already written and I've started drafted novella two and have a plan for three but it's definitely getting trickier to keep everything aligned in my head when I'm navigating between a pile of documents and folders
I very much appreciate this post and hope to further support your work. Too much of online writing and publishing is the big guns blazing and rattling their collecting tins, often successfully but does that make it actually worth while in the long run?! Possibly not...thanks very much for the (much needed) encouragement.
I’m not quite ready for a big project yet, but will give Scrivener a look when (if!) I am.
I started a small attempt at a serial — short episodes ~1000 words long and less than 10 in total, I expect. Making it up as I go along… and definitely learning the importance of at least a *bit* of advance planning!
Wow! There's a lot of info here! I had never heard of Scrivener before I heard of you, Simon, and quite coincidentally, I've been using a similar tool for many years to structure and organize my own story. It's called yWriter. I think I'm using version 7 or something. It's freeware I believe, and probably a little less advanced and user friendly than your Scrivener, but still really an amazing too for keeping everything organized and ordered. Even though I'm not working there as much these days, I wouldn't be able to do what I do now without the outline I put so many hours into. Thanks for sharing so much of your process.
Good to see your process, Simon. I've used Scrivener since 2018. Substack could disappear in a puff of smoke tomorrow and everything I'd ever written would remain safe and still available from within the tool.
A question:
I try to use Plottr for plotting, but generally end up Mindmapping timelines and plot/character arcs on paper. Do you use any graphical plotting methods?
Another question:
I'd like to write serial fiction but I tend to write novel scenes out of order, almost as the whim takes me or if a, character is talking to me more that week. I also edit as I go. How do you maintain the pre/in/post-production cycle discipline to push completed scenes out in their correct order?
It seems like 3 months serialising is too long to be called “new”. I turned to Scrivener to streamline a chaotic book (scenes coming in out of order). I am in awe of how you write as you go. The first scene in the current WIP was one of the last scenes I wrote. I write and edit the book and then serialise it, but I set up the hooks and cliffhangers as I write (approximately, because I do write the first draft by hand) The word counts and the Characters section in Scrivener are a godsend. One of the first big edits I’ll have to do is describe a character that isn’t described in book 1 and in book 2 she’s a little more important. Simon, do you copy and paste into Substack for your episodes, or do you compile/export?
This was massively helpful! Thank you Simon for the amazing info and even more links to look into.
Thank you also everyone for the serialized fiction to checkout! I just started serializing fiction. It’s so great to be a part of such a supportive writer community.
Brilliant and generous post, Simon. I've used Scrivener for early drafts of my first novel in progress, which is not a serial. And to help me I viewed a number of Scrivener demos, which were paced too fast for this admittedly slow learner and overly general. I much appreciate your the specificity of your presentation and the transparency of your serialization process. I'm still generating ideas how to launch my Substack and don't know yet whether I would plunge into serialization. But I will be referring back to this post however I approach my writing. All the best, Lou.
Love, love, LOVE this post! Total Scrivener fanatic here as well and love seeing “writer’s process” articles in general. The editing section alone is worth a “like”! Thanks for taking the time, Simon.
P.S. I actually got up and fixed a cuppa joe when you suggested it and enjoyed sipping mine when you did in the audio version ☕️
I am new to Substack this year, but I'm 19 episodes into "The Jester," a serialized young adult fantasy mystery. Come by to take a gander. (I also use Scrivener! Thanks for the tutorial! :) )
Um, pretty sure the point of the aborted post would have cycled around to something like, "Boy, with my rambling brain, I really should jump into Scrivner and use its tools to binder up several dozen support documents."
Oh, the screenshot when you had your folder structure on the left, notes on the right, and full text in the middle? You forgot to censor the spoiler.
Random observation on writing in general. I suppose world building and lore is, in many ways, one of the most important parts in process - especially for sci-fi/fantasy. Why?
The parameters of the world very much affect how I build out characters. The world obviously affects plot, either by establishing limitations on what can be done (as an obvious example, I can't have smartphones in a fantasy world with roughly bronze age tech... But I CAN have the brilliant madperson with a complex mechanical "computer" of some kind), or by suggesting something I wouldn't have devised without the parameters of the world. What can I do with with the bronze age mechanical "computer?" I dunno, maybe the inventor pretends to be magical, but is really using science and math beyond their contemporaries. Ye Olde Trope about taking advantage of the eclipse only they have predicted... *Yawn* Or maybe the inventor has crunched all the numbers relating to births/deaths/harvests and is playing oracle, predicting surplus for the year to come. Better than the eclipse thing. Still not THAT good - but whattya want when I'm pulling something out of my nose while drafting a Substack response?
That said, yeah, the world building can be a trap if you're doing an entire supercontinent of Pangaea in multiple time periods, before and after not only the Cataclysm which literally *not telling you* and *still not telling you* not to mention climate change. Hey, if your starting point ALSO incorporates the science of Earth 350 million years ago... I've been putting this bastard together for a decade+. That said, doing the science research and knowing that, not only does cotton or flax not exist, the entire ORDER those plants belong to doesn't exist... Well, it gets you wondering what clothes are made from. Basically, you get animal skins, woven stalk fiber (no reeds, either), human hair (not much in the way of mammals), and silk (Yay, spiders and worms!). Flowers don't exist yet, either. Neither do fruits. Thus anything someone might use for dye or paint is animal or mineral based... Which means you pretty much don't have purple as an option. Why would this be important? European cultures oft used purple as the color of royalty. Purple pigment/dye was expensive, and rare. With no purple we've lost a statistical symbol, plus the economic activity of those who would supply the purple. Means the rich people gotta claim another color for themselves. No fruits? Affects diet. All of this flows into culture. Culture affects character. Character affects story which modifies plot.
So I'm a lore geek.
That said, other things in planning have much simpler world building. Nothing wrong with the tried and true "pastiches of historical cultures." Good enough for, well, everyone else? Good enough for me.
*Interruption to help wife make dinner*
Hah! I've lost the plot of this post, which is probably already long and rambling. I COULD read what I've written and try to remember if I was building to a point, or just hit the "post" button.
I've been using Scrivener for eight years now through roughly ten books, and I honestly can't imagine going without it at this point. Just being able to jump between chapters at a glance within one document was an immediate game-changer. Then you add in the other features and it just rockets past any other writing program or word processor.
Thank you for the deep dive. Insightful and fascinating to see the layers of your process. I know it’s not a writing tool per se, but I’m just starting to play with Notion to see if I can create a writing system in there with research, notes, main writing, etc. we’ll see.
Thanks for this, Scrivener looks really useful. I've just started posting my own serial: https://shadowgamebooks.substack.com/. Novella one (60k words, 30 chapters) is already written and I've started drafted novella two and have a plan for three but it's definitely getting trickier to keep everything aligned in my head when I'm navigating between a pile of documents and folders
I very much appreciate this post and hope to further support your work. Too much of online writing and publishing is the big guns blazing and rattling their collecting tins, often successfully but does that make it actually worth while in the long run?! Possibly not...thanks very much for the (much needed) encouragement.
I’m not quite ready for a big project yet, but will give Scrivener a look when (if!) I am.
I started a small attempt at a serial — short episodes ~1000 words long and less than 10 in total, I expect. Making it up as I go along… and definitely learning the importance of at least a *bit* of advance planning!
https://fictionalaether.substack.com/p/where-do-you-see-yourself-in-ten
Wow! There's a lot of info here! I had never heard of Scrivener before I heard of you, Simon, and quite coincidentally, I've been using a similar tool for many years to structure and organize my own story. It's called yWriter. I think I'm using version 7 or something. It's freeware I believe, and probably a little less advanced and user friendly than your Scrivener, but still really an amazing too for keeping everything organized and ordered. Even though I'm not working there as much these days, I wouldn't be able to do what I do now without the outline I put so many hours into. Thanks for sharing so much of your process.
Good to see your process, Simon. I've used Scrivener since 2018. Substack could disappear in a puff of smoke tomorrow and everything I'd ever written would remain safe and still available from within the tool.
A question:
I try to use Plottr for plotting, but generally end up Mindmapping timelines and plot/character arcs on paper. Do you use any graphical plotting methods?
Another question:
I'd like to write serial fiction but I tend to write novel scenes out of order, almost as the whim takes me or if a, character is talking to me more that week. I also edit as I go. How do you maintain the pre/in/post-production cycle discipline to push completed scenes out in their correct order?
It seems like 3 months serialising is too long to be called “new”. I turned to Scrivener to streamline a chaotic book (scenes coming in out of order). I am in awe of how you write as you go. The first scene in the current WIP was one of the last scenes I wrote. I write and edit the book and then serialise it, but I set up the hooks and cliffhangers as I write (approximately, because I do write the first draft by hand) The word counts and the Characters section in Scrivener are a godsend. One of the first big edits I’ll have to do is describe a character that isn’t described in book 1 and in book 2 she’s a little more important. Simon, do you copy and paste into Substack for your episodes, or do you compile/export?
This was massively helpful! Thank you Simon for the amazing info and even more links to look into.
Thank you also everyone for the serialized fiction to checkout! I just started serializing fiction. It’s so great to be a part of such a supportive writer community.
https://amirose.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
Brilliant and generous post, Simon. I've used Scrivener for early drafts of my first novel in progress, which is not a serial. And to help me I viewed a number of Scrivener demos, which were paced too fast for this admittedly slow learner and overly general. I much appreciate your the specificity of your presentation and the transparency of your serialization process. I'm still generating ideas how to launch my Substack and don't know yet whether I would plunge into serialization. But I will be referring back to this post however I approach my writing. All the best, Lou.
Love, love, LOVE this post! Total Scrivener fanatic here as well and love seeing “writer’s process” articles in general. The editing section alone is worth a “like”! Thanks for taking the time, Simon.
P.S. I actually got up and fixed a cuppa joe when you suggested it and enjoyed sipping mine when you did in the audio version ☕️
LOVE Scrivener!
I am new to Substack this year, but I'm 19 episodes into "The Jester," a serialized young adult fantasy mystery. Come by to take a gander. (I also use Scrivener! Thanks for the tutorial! :) )
Great stuff, appreciate you sharing your Scrivener structure and process, gave me some good ideas to use. Thank you for sharing this.
Um, pretty sure the point of the aborted post would have cycled around to something like, "Boy, with my rambling brain, I really should jump into Scrivner and use its tools to binder up several dozen support documents."
Good chat. Much to think on.
Oh, the screenshot when you had your folder structure on the left, notes on the right, and full text in the middle? You forgot to censor the spoiler.
Random observation on writing in general. I suppose world building and lore is, in many ways, one of the most important parts in process - especially for sci-fi/fantasy. Why?
The parameters of the world very much affect how I build out characters. The world obviously affects plot, either by establishing limitations on what can be done (as an obvious example, I can't have smartphones in a fantasy world with roughly bronze age tech... But I CAN have the brilliant madperson with a complex mechanical "computer" of some kind), or by suggesting something I wouldn't have devised without the parameters of the world. What can I do with with the bronze age mechanical "computer?" I dunno, maybe the inventor pretends to be magical, but is really using science and math beyond their contemporaries. Ye Olde Trope about taking advantage of the eclipse only they have predicted... *Yawn* Or maybe the inventor has crunched all the numbers relating to births/deaths/harvests and is playing oracle, predicting surplus for the year to come. Better than the eclipse thing. Still not THAT good - but whattya want when I'm pulling something out of my nose while drafting a Substack response?
That said, yeah, the world building can be a trap if you're doing an entire supercontinent of Pangaea in multiple time periods, before and after not only the Cataclysm which literally *not telling you* and *still not telling you* not to mention climate change. Hey, if your starting point ALSO incorporates the science of Earth 350 million years ago... I've been putting this bastard together for a decade+. That said, doing the science research and knowing that, not only does cotton or flax not exist, the entire ORDER those plants belong to doesn't exist... Well, it gets you wondering what clothes are made from. Basically, you get animal skins, woven stalk fiber (no reeds, either), human hair (not much in the way of mammals), and silk (Yay, spiders and worms!). Flowers don't exist yet, either. Neither do fruits. Thus anything someone might use for dye or paint is animal or mineral based... Which means you pretty much don't have purple as an option. Why would this be important? European cultures oft used purple as the color of royalty. Purple pigment/dye was expensive, and rare. With no purple we've lost a statistical symbol, plus the economic activity of those who would supply the purple. Means the rich people gotta claim another color for themselves. No fruits? Affects diet. All of this flows into culture. Culture affects character. Character affects story which modifies plot.
So I'm a lore geek.
That said, other things in planning have much simpler world building. Nothing wrong with the tried and true "pastiches of historical cultures." Good enough for, well, everyone else? Good enough for me.
*Interruption to help wife make dinner*
Hah! I've lost the plot of this post, which is probably already long and rambling. I COULD read what I've written and try to remember if I was building to a point, or just hit the "post" button.