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.
The same. I’ve been using it since late 2014 for everything: novels, blog posts, non-fiction, and now Substack. I recently acquired two PC laptops though and am experimenting with free tools similar to Scrivener; I’m not switching by any means, but I don’t feel the extra payment for a Windows version is necessary since I’m mainly a Mac guy and do most of my writing on my Macs.
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
Story detail is cumulative, so there always comes a point where I can't remember everything that I've put into a story! That's where being able to quickly search and reference and navigate through the project in Scrivener becomes really helpful.
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.
I met the creator/developer of yWriter years ago online during a NaNoWriMo event. Simon Haynes. Great guy and massively prolific writer. He wrote a great book on How to Write a Novel some years back, and it’s a great read.
Wow! That is so cool! It’s really a small world. I love yWriter, it’s an awesome program and I really couldn’t have finished writing my story without it.
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?
Yeah, even my 'Substack-first' content for the newsletter I have copies of in a Scrivener project file.
I don't tend to use graphical plotting methods, though I do often move to pen and paper to work through particularly tricky plot/character points. I did play with some visualisation stuff AFTER completing a project,, out of curiosity, but not during actual production. That was a lot of fun: https://simonkjones.substack.com/p/visualising-your-plot-threads?utm_source=publication-search
So, I'm very fortunate in that the way I prefer to write is very linear and start-to-finish. I begin with chapter 1 and go from there, which obviously suits publishing in serial format. For non-linear writers who prefer to jump around the manuscript and piece it together, I think the only solution is probably to write the whole thing up front. Or perhaps split the book into smaller chunks, like parts of a book of seasons of a show, and tackle it that way.
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?
I copy and paste from Scrivener into Substack, which requires adding all the formatting back in (mainly italics). I also insert simple graphics for scene breaks, but that's about it. The rest of the presentation is taken care of by duplicating the previous chapter.
Hmm. Must be a Windows thing. I copy/paste as well without—worrying about changing all the text to plain text, I might add—and all the bold, italics, headings, etc., come in just fine.
Yeah, there's a blocker somewhere. Works fine copying from other places, such as Google Docs. So it's either Chrome or Scrivener doing something (or Windows, as you say!). Still, it's another opportunity for last-minute checks and edits, so no worries.
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.
Coming here late, but found this as I’m planning my second serial. The first was written more like a traditional novel, so I found this while researching how other people approach it. I use Scrivener too and your posts on serialization are very informative.
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 ☕️
Ha, excellent! I'm never sure how 'clean' to make the audio versions (well, within my limited technical capacity), but in this case decided it was fun to leave in some slurps. :P
Thanks for reading, Eric. I, also lap up making-of stuff and always have since I was a kid, whether it's about movies, music, comics, novels or anything else. There's something immensely satisfying about seeing how another creative person's brain ticks. And sometimes there's a useful tip in there somewhere, too.
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."
The great thing about Scrivener is that you can have a rambling brain, but still be focused and structured. Scrivener is like a lens, taking all of your research and random thoughts and distilling it onto the page.
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.
It's incredible for long form projects! As you say, I can't imagine writing without it.
The same. I’ve been using it since late 2014 for everything: novels, blog posts, non-fiction, and now Substack. I recently acquired two PC laptops though and am experimenting with free tools similar to Scrivener; I’m not switching by any means, but I don’t feel the extra payment for a Windows version is necessary since I’m mainly a Mac guy and do most of my writing on my Macs.
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.
I'm glad to hear it was fascinating, rather than long and dull. I wasn't sure. :)
I've seen other writers mention Notion, so it does seem to be a widely used tool!
I was just going to comment that you could do most of this in Notion as well. Plus it's free.
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
Story detail is cumulative, so there always comes a point where I can't remember everything that I've put into a story! That's where being able to quickly search and reference and navigate through the project in Scrivener becomes really helpful.
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.
Thanks for reading!
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
Starting small is a good idea! My first serial was a very contained project, which was useful for figuring out how it all worked.
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.
I met the creator/developer of yWriter years ago online during a NaNoWriMo event. Simon Haynes. Great guy and massively prolific writer. He wrote a great book on How to Write a Novel some years back, and it’s a great read.
Wow! That is so cool! It’s really a small world. I love yWriter, it’s an awesome program and I really couldn’t have finished writing my story without it.
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?
Yeah, even my 'Substack-first' content for the newsletter I have copies of in a Scrivener project file.
I don't tend to use graphical plotting methods, though I do often move to pen and paper to work through particularly tricky plot/character points. I did play with some visualisation stuff AFTER completing a project,, out of curiosity, but not during actual production. That was a lot of fun: https://simonkjones.substack.com/p/visualising-your-plot-threads?utm_source=publication-search
So, I'm very fortunate in that the way I prefer to write is very linear and start-to-finish. I begin with chapter 1 and go from there, which obviously suits publishing in serial format. For non-linear writers who prefer to jump around the manuscript and piece it together, I think the only solution is probably to write the whole thing up front. Or perhaps split the book into smaller chunks, like parts of a book of seasons of a show, and tackle it that way.
That's some good additional iinfo & advice. Thank you!
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?
I copy and paste from Scrivener into Substack, which requires adding all the formatting back in (mainly italics). I also insert simple graphics for scene breaks, but that's about it. The rest of the presentation is taken care of by duplicating the previous chapter.
That I can do. It seems like I hardly italicise anyway. And I insert the scene break graphics already!
Hmm. Must be a Windows thing. I copy/paste as well without—worrying about changing all the text to plain text, I might add—and all the bold, italics, headings, etc., come in just fine.
Yeah, there's a blocker somewhere. Works fine copying from other places, such as Google Docs. So it's either Chrome or Scrivener doing something (or Windows, as you say!). Still, it's another opportunity for last-minute checks and edits, so no worries.
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
So, I just checked out your opening installment. Totally hooked me!
Thanks Susan! You just made my day 😊
I have a trip coming up and I just "bookmarked" your story to accompany me on my journey!
Coming here late, but found this as I’m planning my second serial. The first was written more like a traditional novel, so I found this while researching how other people approach it. I use Scrivener too and your posts on serialization are very informative.
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.
Happy to help! Serialising a story is enormous fun, though it isn't for everyone. You just need to find a way that makes it click for you. :)
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 ☕️
Ha, excellent! I'm never sure how 'clean' to make the audio versions (well, within my limited technical capacity), but in this case decided it was fun to leave in some slurps. :P
Thanks for reading, Eric. I, also lap up making-of stuff and always have since I was a kid, whether it's about movies, music, comics, novels or anything else. There's something immensely satisfying about seeing how another creative person's brain ticks. And sometimes there's a useful tip in there somewhere, too.
My problem is I tend to ramble, so I’d probably be better off to stick to the script.
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."
The great thing about Scrivener is that you can have a rambling brain, but still be focused and structured. Scrivener is like a lens, taking all of your research and random thoughts and distilling it onto the page.
I think I may have just mixed my metaphors.