Super quick Scrivener guide
I bought Scrivener a while ago, and it took me months before I really tried experimenting with it. It was overwhelming. It has so many features and so many cool things about it. But, I wanted to give a quickstart guide today in order to push people to try it.
Keep in mind the following guide is super short and meant to just get you started (which is extremely important during camp nanowrimo!). I will make more in-depth guides if people like this one. Okay, here goes:
Step 01: So you’ve bought Scrivener?
I’ll assume that the software is installed and ready to go. You launch it, and….you get this:
If you’re anything like me, that’s already overwhelming. But, it’s actually not too bad. The Interactive tutorial gives some good ideas, so I’d check that out too. But, for the sake of simplicity, let’s ignore everything here, and go with “Blank”.
Now, give a name to your project under “save as” and save it in a safe place.
The blank template is much more accessible than the other templates (which are still useful, and I’ll come back to them). You have some buttons here and there, and one huge blank page in front of you.
Imagine this like any other writing software you’ve used. You have the same text format tools as you’d expect. You can literally type your entire novel here. But, that’s not why you’re using Scrivener, right?
This is where it gets real cool. Let’s take a look at the left bar:
See the arrow pointing down next to “Draft”? There’s a reason to it! Think of this as a file cabinet. You have folders and papers in there. But, unlike real life, you can keep adding as many folders as you want in a hierarchy tree.
In order to add a folder, click little folder-shaped icon with the “+” on the bottom left.
With that you’ve got a folder and a text file (which you create by clicking the page with a + next to the left of the folder). And you can add as many of these as you want and organize them however you want!
Yup you can even put a “page” inside a “page” as if it were a folder. But, let’s go ahead and wrap this up!
As I said, every single one of the files on the left can be typed on. That means you can use the folders as a way to organize scenes, chapters, or even entire story arcs! Here’s what my last project looked like!
It’s time to go over the most important feature in Scrivener. See how I’ve put everything under “Draft”? Think about that as your core manuscript. Everything under this “file” is included in the final product when you’re ready to print or send to your publisher. In order to do this, click “compile.”
There’s a lot of options here, but let’s keep it simple. Click on the list menu under format, and choose the one you would like to use. I recommend using the “standard manuscript format” for now. Scrivener is pretty smart. When you use this format, folders become chapters, and the pages inside become scenes. Test the feature out. It has a lot of options.
NOTE: do not title the folders “chapter 1” and so forth. Scrivener already adds chapter numbers to each section. Title your folders after the chapters as I have done. Scene names generally do not get titles on the “compiled” form (if you use novel).
There’s a lot more to scrivener. If you look at my example, I changed the colors of the folders to indicate revision status. I also have a couple more folders outside of the “draft” section (first draft, second draft, and so on). You can do so much more. Scrivener has spellcheck, name generators, word count goals, and soooooo much more. However, I hope that with this brief guide you’ll at least start writing. That’s what matters anyway! :D
Note: thank you @azukimochiii for looking over it! :D