Metadata - The editor's friend! Metadata becomes essential at the editing stage but, for many writers, after Compile, Metadata is the Scrivener feature which is powerful and yet - for some - daunting. I think that's because there are so many options to consider! Let's do it ...
Today's guest is Kay Kukoyi. You've met Kay before: she was my guest in January 2017 and then again in June 2017. Kay is a huge fan of Scrivener and has used it for several books now: Don’t Hire a Software Developer Until You Read this Book Develop Your Idea! Don’t Buy Software For Your Small Business Until You Read This Book And now Kay Kukoyi has published her fourth book: Entrepreneurial Espresso. I'm most honoured to feature in...
For those of you eager to get started, NaNoWriMo doors are now open. Time to sign up! Registered for NaNoWriMo before? If you have registered before, there should be an email invitation in your Inbox. Click on the Announce your 2017 NaNoWriMo novel now button. And this is where you'll land - except it'll be your novel page, not mine! New to NaNoWriMo? Go to www.nanowrimo.org and sign up. Once you’ve registered, buddy up with me. My...
Outlining is best done using the Corkboard in Scrivener Each to their own, but, when I start writing a novel, I like using Scrivener from the outset, for the outlining stage. I know other writers who start on paper and, only when they can see the whole plot, do they start setting up the structure, electronically. And there are other software tools, too. But for me, it's Scrivener from start to finish! One scene...
Anna K Payne My guest today is the author of the newly published Planted Flowers Bible Study Workbook. When did you first start using Scrivener? In 2010, I published the first of my devotional books to CreateSpace using a Word template. It was the worst experience of my life. There had to be an easier way! Then I discovered Scrivener after participating in NaNoWriMo in 2011. Its Compile function promised to make it easy...
Create your world with a Setting Sketch for each location In the same way, as a scriptwriter sets the scene for a film, a novelist needs to invent a world for the cast of characters to inhabit. The choice for each setting within the world of your novel is entirely yours. You could stick close to home using familiar locations. Distant lands could give you the excuse to travel for research purposes. ...
Today's guest is Tad Frizzell, author of Letters to a Perfectionist, released on Kindle this week. Having always been a perfectionist myself, Tad's 22 letters provide much food for thought and - at the time of writing this blogpost - there are 20+ reviewers on Amazon who agree with me: this is a must-read book. When did you start writing, Tad? I have been scribbling out poems all my life, along with some...
Time for casting! One of the fun parts of writing a new novel is casting your characters: giving them names, deciding their hopes and dreams, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Everyone needs a secret, and only you will decide what it is and if and when the other characters might discover it. Casting time: Setting up a new character sketch To set up a new character sketch, right click on the Characters folder and select Add /...
Managing the Scrivener workspace boils down to deciding what you want to see while you are working on your manuscript. The Scrivener workspace The basic workspace can be separated into three panes: The Binder on the left The Editing pane in the centre The Inspector on the right What appears within the Editing pane? The choice is Scrivenings (as shown above), or Corkboard, or Outliner. Which one you see is determined by your selection of the...
Let’s start at the very beginning: setting up a new project file on Scrivener and deciding what our novel is about. Setting up a new project file In this one file, everything that you need to write your NaNo2017 novel can be collected ahead of 1 November. You won’t write a single word of your manuscript until NaNo2017 officially starts, but you’ll have everything at your fingertips when the whistle blows at...
