I know I write a lot about Scrivener… but this is one program I really believe in.
Let me differentiate between Final Draft and Scrivener.
Final Draft is what you should use to write screenplays. It’s Industry Standard.
Bottom line. No room for discussion.
Now Scrivener. My feelings for this program go way beyond just “Use Final Draft because its the Industry Standard.”
Scrivener is a program that I am extremely happy I bought. It took a couple of weeks, where I kept thinking, “This isn’t YWriter!”
Once I grasped that Ywriter wasn’t Scrivener, I was able to let go of preconceived notions.
Like Michael Hyatt, I have switched to writing EVERYTHING in Scrivener.
I used to use LibreOffice, MSWord, YWriter, Livewriter for blogging, etc.
Now it’s Scrivener. For everything.
I write my blog/website in Scrivener.
I write my Twitter posts in Scrivener.
I write my fiction and nonfiction in Scrivener.
The only thing I don’t write in Scrivener is movies and TV. Any Script work is always done in Final Draft for the reasons mentioned above.
I suppose I could do everything in Scrivener, but I feel it’s better to have it in Final Draft, just in case I run into a director, and he says, “well, Email me your FDX of the script, and I’ll take a look.”
I now have no worries about whether my script will format correctly. I’m using the industry standard. No worries.
The only real way to get to know Scrivener is to try using it for the 30 day trial. Go get it. Try all your writing in it for the next 30 days.
Scrivener benefits:
Full screen mode. I’m using that right now. It’s great. You can add a custom graphic to it to frame what you’re writing, or you can just fade it down to a transparent gray, or even black framing your writing page.
You can also expand or contract your writing page to give you the best focus. I usually use the full screen mode when I’m working on a longer screen – but sometimes I’m in too much of a hurry to get the scene written down so I just use the regular interface.
Corkboard. The Corkboard is Scrivener’s way of doing everything at least two different ways. You can use your binder to drag around scenes (I do that a lot) or you can go to your corkboards (there’s actually several!) and drag them away that way.
Or you can simply cut and paste scenes. You’re going to find Scrivener VERY flexible. How do you like to work? Scrivener is remarkably adaptable to different ways to do things. This helps to keep me from getting bored or frustrated with it.
Outliner. When you want to view the fine details of your project. You can create custom meta tags (very important). This way you know who’s in a scene, where it is, etc. The Outliner is the image at the top of the screen.
Word Counter. This has colored bar that grows and changes color as you type… it actually motivates you to type!
Scene Target: You can set a target word count per scene. It too has the colored scrollbar. You can tell at a glance from the Outliner what scenes have hit their targets.
Scrivenings Mode. This allows you to see one scene at a glance, a chapter in its whole, or even an entire book all at once.
Collections. If you create collections for every character in your book, and add each scene to the collections of the characters in it, then you’ll see at a glance if all your dialogue and actions conform entirely throughout the book for those characters! Good to know if you mention someone has a persistent cough, and then you forget about it!
Conclusion
Scrivener is highly customizable, very impressive and designed to make writers write and achieve goals quickly!
Do you use Scrivener to write? Talk about it below!
