This Friday I’m doing a webinar with the folks behind writing tool Scrivener. You can register and find the full details here — it’s free to attend and I’ll be talking about how I use Scrivener to write my serials, including Tales from the Triverse. I’ve said it before: I don’t think I’d be able to write and publish the way I do without using Scrivener.
So! Ahead of the webinar, let me know your burning questions about Scrivener, especially in the context of writing serials. I’ll cover as much as I can in the webinar, and if we run out of time I can follow-up in the newsletter.
Scrivener has a very generous demo version, and you can also get a very handy 20% off using the code SCRIVENERXSIMON for the rest of the week over on the Literature and Latte store.
(I’ve never had a discount code based on my name before. It’s a strange and unique feeling)
Hello Simon. I cannot attend Friday, unfortunately, but I used Scrivener to write a novel. I loved it until the end. I could never work the Compiler feature that puts all the chapters and scenes together in a single document. In the end I had to extract all 39 chapters into a Word document. Their "help" person was great but still it came out a mess. If they have a Q&A and want to address that, I'm all ears--though I'd only find out what they say if there is a recording or a summary of the webinar. Thanks, and I really like your site.
I registered for this last week from the interviewee’s Substack, lol. Can’t wait to see what you guys discuss. It’ll be interesting to see how L&L will approach writing serial fiction with Scrivener. I consider myself a Scrivener power user after using it for…10 years now—holy cow! 😇🐮 I didn’t realize it had been that long! So I can't think of any questions for now, but I’ll definitely post any that come to mind either here or on the actual webinar.
P.S. I highly recommend L&L’s blog as a great resource. They constantly have awesome tips, podcast episodes, and even webinars.
My main question—not quite Scrivener related although Scrivener helps me deal with it—is how to deal with "chapters" that are pure background. Not essential for the plot but fun and illuminating. Do I set up a different "track" for those that readers can decide to skip or just throw them in there as part of the sequence....
While you can import images, I've never tried to actually create a complex layout, as you'd need for a children's book. For that I'd likely switch to something like Affinity Publisher. Actual book interior layout requires a different set of tools.
I began using scrivener as I work on my current book draft, but got scared about storage and fled back to the safe waters of google docs (saved in multiple places)
How do you store your scrivener files? It feels overwhelming to me, and I have heard that sometimes they don’t play nice with cloud based systems.
1. Sync my writing to Google Drive, so that there's always an off-site cloud backup. This works fine as long as I close Scrivener at the end of a session and give it time to sync.
2. Manually backup to a portable hard drive, every couple of weeks.
3. Scrivener itself also automatically creates multiple backups to a separate location on the computer, so even if something weird happens with the cloud sync I still have a local backup of multiple versions.
FYI: I've used Scrivener with DropBox as they recommend for years and have never had a problem. But I don't think it plays well with other Cloud-based platforms.
Honestly, I would be very interested in this, but, at the time you have the webinar, I have an appointment to view a property with an estate agent, so, if there's a way for you to capture and upload to your YouTube channel, that would be great.
I already bought Scrivener. No coupon for me... Although I think I hit one of their sales.
Coupon or not, is recommend scrivener to everyone. Especially to any Mac user. I've used it since they first released it, and use it every day... though I probably only know how to use 20% of its features. Heh.
In the newer days, I made a living creating ebooks for famous writers as a sides gig, because scrivener formatting was superior to anything else or there at the time.
Hello Simon. I cannot attend Friday, unfortunately, but I used Scrivener to write a novel. I loved it until the end. I could never work the Compiler feature that puts all the chapters and scenes together in a single document. In the end I had to extract all 39 chapters into a Word document. Their "help" person was great but still it came out a mess. If they have a Q&A and want to address that, I'm all ears--though I'd only find out what they say if there is a recording or a summary of the webinar. Thanks, and I really like your site.
I registered for this last week from the interviewee’s Substack, lol. Can’t wait to see what you guys discuss. It’ll be interesting to see how L&L will approach writing serial fiction with Scrivener. I consider myself a Scrivener power user after using it for…10 years now—holy cow! 😇🐮 I didn’t realize it had been that long! So I can't think of any questions for now, but I’ll definitely post any that come to mind either here or on the actual webinar.
P.S. I highly recommend L&L’s blog as a great resource. They constantly have awesome tips, podcast episodes, and even webinars.
My main question—not quite Scrivener related although Scrivener helps me deal with it—is how to deal with "chapters" that are pure background. Not essential for the plot but fun and illuminating. Do I set up a different "track" for those that readers can decide to skip or just throw them in there as part of the sequence....
I mark some chapters as being 'bonus' chapters. They're not essential to read and are usually fun and/or silly. They're still in the 'Triverse' section, though on the index I do actually separate them out into a separate list as you can see here: https://open.substack.com/pub/simonkjones/p/how-to-read-tales-from-the-triverse?r=3rwg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
It's not so much a serials question, but I've never been able to figure out how to place images in the pages of Scivener, like for a children's book.
While you can import images, I've never tried to actually create a complex layout, as you'd need for a children's book. For that I'd likely switch to something like Affinity Publisher. Actual book interior layout requires a different set of tools.
I began using scrivener as I work on my current book draft, but got scared about storage and fled back to the safe waters of google docs (saved in multiple places)
How do you store your scrivener files? It feels overwhelming to me, and I have heard that sometimes they don’t play nice with cloud based systems.
I do couple of things:
1. Sync my writing to Google Drive, so that there's always an off-site cloud backup. This works fine as long as I close Scrivener at the end of a session and give it time to sync.
2. Manually backup to a portable hard drive, every couple of weeks.
3. Scrivener itself also automatically creates multiple backups to a separate location on the computer, so even if something weird happens with the cloud sync I still have a local backup of multiple versions.
That’s good to know. I may tread back into scrivener waters. Thanks!
FYI: I've used Scrivener with DropBox as they recommend for years and have never had a problem. But I don't think it plays well with other Cloud-based platforms.
Same. Always used DropBox as the primary back up, but I also have a real time cloud service for my work, which banks up my whole computer.
So at any given time I have 3-4 backups.
Thanks for the info!
Honestly, I would be very interested in this, but, at the time you have the webinar, I have an appointment to view a property with an estate agent, so, if there's a way for you to capture and upload to your YouTube channel, that would be great.
I already bought Scrivener. No coupon for me... Although I think I hit one of their sales.
Oh, hey,.. it's THE Mike. So cool 😎.
Coupon or not, is recommend scrivener to everyone. Especially to any Mac user. I've used it since they first released it, and use it every day... though I probably only know how to use 20% of its features. Heh.
In the newer days, I made a living creating ebooks for famous writers as a sides gig, because scrivener formatting was superior to anything else or there at the time.
... can you say "mortgage payment"?
FEATURE REQUEST: @substack Editing comments on mobile!
I used to use Scrivener in my NaNoWriMo days. I've switched laptops a few times since then. It may be time for me to get it again.
I'd like to see how the compiled document works with Atticus.