How to Use Scrivener (2024) | *Simple* Tutorial for Overwhelmed Fiction Writers
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- In this tutorial, I will teach you how to use Scrivener to become a better, faster fiction writer. Scrivener is truly life-changing writing software - I never could have gotten my book deal without it!
And make sure to grab your free Scrivener Cheat Sheet!
www.laurenkaywrites.com/scriv...
TIMESTAMPS:
3:52: Backing Up to the Cloud
4:40: Setting Up Scenes, Chapters, and Acts
6:19: Switching Between Drafting, Notecard, and Outline View
6:55 Adding a Synopsis to Each Scene
7:29 Changing the Default Format
8:34 Using Notes
9:08 Scene Snapshots
9:48 Color Coded Binder
12:03 Adding Icons to Your Scenes
12:36 Project Targets
12:59 Writing History
13:11 Adding Characters as Keywords
14:08 Name Generator
15:08 View 2 Pages at Once
15:43 Compile Your Manuscript
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NICE TO MEET YOU!
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Oh wow - overwhelmed by all of the people this has helped! Make sure to grab my free Cheat Sheet: www.laurenkaywrites.com/scrivener with all of these tips so that you have that handy whenever you need it! I also created a blog post that covers everything I go over in this video to make the information more accessible; you can view that here: www.laurenkaywrites.com/blog/how-to-use-scrivener-a-tutorial-for-fiction-writers . Happy writing and scrivening, friends!
Thank you so much for not assuming that we know where to begin.
You're so welcome! I never like to assume -- anyone can start their journey at any place. :-)
I've had this program for years and didn't know it had a built in name generator! Thank you!
Pretty cool, right?! :)
this totally revolutionized scrivener for me! i've tried it twice over the last few years and never got into it but this is amazing. thank you!
I'm so glad!
Thank you so much for this helpful vid! Now I feel like I can go into the program more confidently!
Very good short tutorial. Only just started to look at using the software. I use an iMac/iPad combo, so I personally save to a folder on iCloud. Then I can open it on my iPad from the same iCloud Drive. A side effect of this is that it renumbers the project name -1 -2 which might be good or bad I guess.
This was extremely helpful and the first tutorial that I feel helped me to actually set up scrivener for writing versus a template that confuses me later on.
Hi Launren thank you for the informative tutorial. Loved the fact that you are helping others get their stories out into the world :)
You're so welcome!
thank you so much for this. You really helped me out. I've been using Scrivener for a while but you taught me so much and made a lot of things easier for me.
I'm so glad!
That was SO helpful, thank you! I'll definitely have to re-watch this several times to absorb all that info, but you've made it way less intimidating, haha!
I'm so glad!!
THANK YOU... This was awesome! You are a tutorial master.
I am fairly familiar with Scrivener, but I really appreciate your practical take on how to use it. Thank you.
This means so much to hear; thank you Stephen!
Thank you so much for this comprehensive video! It helped me so much!
I'm so glad!!
Very helpful! Finally going to try it out, thank you!
So good to hear!
This was so helpful!! Thank you for making awesome content! 😄
You're so welcome!
Thank you so much for this video! The biggest draw back to this software was the learning curve. You really saved me hours. Thank you!
So glad it helped! :)
That was a big help. Thanks!
You're so welcome!
I've been using Scrivener for about five or six years now, but there's always something to learn from how someone else uses it. I might have to steal that concept of color coding the perspective character. Sounds useful for finding specific scenes later when I want to make sure details match up.
I never export for print. Instead, I export as .docx for a final read through and print from there. The habit dates back to a much older version where the print formatting was a bit off, but I've made use of the process, so I still do it.
Wow, I'm learning something too. Honestly, just shows what a versatile platform it is! I definitely recommend you give the color-coding a try, I'm a very visual person so it helped me a lot.
Thank you for providing such valuable and informative content for someone like me who is new to this.
You're so welcome!
This is brilliant, thank you!! I'm trying to figure out if I should buy a licence. I'm sold! Thank you. Some great tips here.
You're so welcome!
I have been using Scrivener for years and this was incredibly helpful. thank you!!
Yay!!
It was quite interesting to watch this video. I came here because even though I have used Scrivener version 3.x for quite a long time, I have not used it often in the last two years and I wanted to see a how-to of Scrivener basics as a refresher. This means I'm quite the amateur writer (smile.) I think you present really well in this video. The videography is excellent. I wish you had organized this video into discrete sections, so I can go straight to the sections I think are useful to me. Also, I'm deaf (I can't hear) so I use the automatic closed caption feature of RUclips for a transcription of what you are saying. You move a little quickly with screen shots as you discuss features. I have to watch the caption text to get your commentary and then turn my attention to the screen shot you are showing. It is a little hard for me to do, but that is just me. I can replay the video. Scrivener does automatically save your work: it does this every 2 seconds by default. I've never lost a Scrivener project and I have bunches of them, including a couple of recent projects I've begun working on. A little research into how Scrivener automatically saves your work helps. Literature & Latte, the vendor, has a blog entry on saving Scrivener projects that is well worth reading. Thank you for this video.
Thank you so much for your comment, Robert! I actually just created a blog post to make this information more accessible; you can view that here: www.laurenkaywrites.com/blog/how-to-use-scrivener-a-tutorial-for-fiction-writers . And then I'm sure you already know this, but you can adjust the speed of the RUclips video to make it faster or slower. And finally, there are timestamps for each section in the description so that you can jump to the sections that apply to you. I hope this helps; happy writing!
@@laurenkaywrites Thank you so much, Lauren, for responding. I really appreciate it. I brought up your blog post on my phone and it is indeed helpful to me. I can work with Scrivener on my Mac and review your blog post on my phone, which is very convenient to do. I didn't know that that the speed of RUclips video is adjustable --- that is something new for me. I shall have to experiment with it. Yes, your description for this video has a nice list of timestamps which I didn't see at first. I was thinking of something related to that: a RUclips feature called video chapters. I found a support article here: support.google.com/youtube/answer/9884579?hl=en .... I want to thank you again for this video, and also your blog post. I'll certainly be referencing your blog post as I use Scrivener.
I have Scrivener and it's super useful to write on the laptop around and then have everything updated on the main computer, but I definitely need to know more of it. Hope this guide will help
I finished he first draft of my trilogy the hard way. I think I am going to work with Scrivener for the second book. This looks really great. Thank you!!
Hope you enjoy it!
Great tutorial! ❤
Excellent job. Thank you!
Thanks for watching!
Great software. I have been unable to find a good how to get started video. Until now. Many thanks! Sub'd!
Awesome! And thanks for the sub :)
Wow, great presentation! Very helpful and informative, thanks.
I am just switching from Pages to Scrivener (after decades using Word).
I'm looking forward to drafting my next novel in Scrivener, but kind of dreading importing and formatting the five novels I've finished.
I've also used MS Word for several decades, even at a publishing house where I used to work. I've got 4 novels in various stages and am looking forward to moving over to Scrivener so I can more easily move chapters around and also for the daily word count tracker for accountability. It looks like my final export would be need to be to Attiticus since I am on a PC not a Mac (otherwise I'd use Vellum to format final book)
Mastering an application comes with using it. This tutorial is an overview of how Lauren likes to use Scrivener. It may or may not suit you, but it gives a starting point rather than contemplating a blank page and not really wanting to read how to do it.
Depending on how you write and how you want to manage your work, you will refine your utilization of Scrivener along the way.
Note that it is possible to tailor Google Docs to a "poor boy" facsimile of Scrivener, if you really can't justify purchasing Scrivener.
I had no idea there was a name generator feature! Sooo cool. thank you for this.
Right?! And you're welcome!!
Thank you so much for your help! Is there a way to restore a deleted sentence, like in Word?
This was really helpful, thanks
Glad to hear!
God, I've spent so much time organizing my Google Doc by adding subtitles and changing the font color to make it structured by POV and progress. 😂
I love Scrivener 3.0 and I cannot imagine why anyone would use other software.
Hi
I used to use " write it now " software for novelist. It's no longer available, but most of the features presented here were automatically done for you with write it now. I'm now having to learn scrivener, a product I consider inferior in every respect. 😢 Write it now was so much better because it was so more intuitive. A terrible lose for would be novelist 🥴.
It was very informative, but I wish you could slow down a bit. This has taught me a lot, so thank you. Great Job, Teach.
Thanks for this video :)
Glad it was helpful!
I love scrivener, but when it comes to formating, its not at all easy, especially if the format you want is Chapter > Scene > Part rather than Part > Chapter > Scene. It's easy enough to drag everything into the right place, but then you basically have to change every configuration and do a custom compiler format to get it printed. Compared to Google docs though is awesome. I basically use scrivener to keep everything organized. If you have any advice for where to keep outlines, that would be appreciated.
I’ve lost my work on scrivener three times and because of this I’ve decided to save my work on multiple platforms to prevent it happening again.
That sounds so stressful! I always keep back-ups of my projects!
Me too, I've been burnt too many times because of technical hiccups.
Does the backup is not working?? 😢 us it a bug??
Let me know if the forums gave you an answer to prevent this?
I always backup the scrivener folder in local and clod
I love Scrivener and use it all the time! BUT I also back-up in several ways-not taking any chances!
@@aprilsmithswe I now use word instead. And keep Scrivener for plotting and idea dumping, scenes.
I'm working on my first draft of my first novel as a teen writer so I think I'll stick to docs. This seems good for if publishing is a goal in view (I would love to publish this book but if I do I don't think that will happen for a while!) I have a loose outline of my book and I am just strating from the beginning and writing it through (on Chapter 12 now). I have given thought to how my characters will change over time and sub-plots, however not so in depth that scriviner would be essential. I am just writing and seeing what happens! Perhaps I'll invest in it for later drafts.
I love your videos. Thank you 🙂
You are so welcome!
@@laurenkaywrites Thank you 😘
This is kind of a random question, but is there a way to have Scrivener put in specific chapter numbers? I'm part of a writing workshop, and so I submit a few chapters at a time, rather than all at once... and I was hoping to have it start the count from 43 to an epilogue, for example. Does anyone know if there's a way to do that?
Thank you for this video! Just getting into Scrivener. Also your eyebrows look fabulous.
So glad! And thank you!! :)
How did you open the synopsis bar
Thank you for this! I am switching to this software now.
Question. Do you feel like I would be wasting my time as a new author, trying to query a 273,000k epic fantasy book? It does have a natural split in the middle where it could be two books, but I have heard agents don't really want to have this many words in debut authors. What are your thoughts?
Hi! Glad you're giving it a try -- it's game-changing!
I would definitely say that 273K is too long to be comercially viable for 99.9% of publishers for debut authors. Sure, GoT was about that, maybe 20K more, but that's certainly the exception, not the rule. For max results, I'd look into either cutting it down or seeing if you can re-plot out the beat points and restructure into two novels.
@@laurenkaywrites thank you! That is what I was assuming, but just wanted to check it. The natural split at middle would make sense too. Thank you for your reply! Appreciate the help!
Hi, I am just getting started with Scrivener. This is a steep learning curve but your video helps a lot, so thank you! Thanks for the tip on setting Dropbox to save files for back up. However when I go to Dropbox and try to open the Srivener files, it says Scrivener is unsupported and it can't open the files. Just wondering if you have any advice on that. Thanks.
Hi! Try to pull up the files when you are in Scrivener (go to your dropbox and select the file) and make sure you're in the folder where they're saved, not the backup folder. Scrivener has amazing customer support, so reach out to them if that doesn't work!
What does "Novel with parts" mean?
Would you recommend Scrivener for not only screenwriting but making scripts for RUclips or do you think something like Notion would suffice?
Also, do you prefer Scrivener over Final Draft?
I use it for RUclips scripts as well! And sorry, haven't tried Final Draft so I'm not sure!
Would you recommend syncing using Google Drive or do you HAVE to use Dropbox to avoid problems?@@laurenkaywrites
I must say, I do like your videos.
I appreciate that!
I’m a bit lost at the Dropbox backup. I was hoping it would be on your cheat sheet but I don’t see it. Do you have it spelled out a bit more anywhere else?
Sorry for any confusion! If you are a Dropbox user, Dropbox will be a folder on your computer. So you just want to select that folder as the folder for your Scrivener projects. On Scrivener's end, there isn't anything you need to do there aside from select the folder (which is why it's not on my cheat sheet). So the main thing you need is a Dropbox subscription and to know where your Dropbox folder is located. Hope this helps!
Спасибо из Владивостока!
I love Scrivener. However, when I wrote my first book in 2019 I wrote the book in Word pad. Yes, WORDPAD. I didn't have money for MS Word so I just used Word Pad. I still use it sometimes 😅
How do I add the synopsis and notes? Its not on my scrivener
for anyone wondering: its the blue i symbol on the toolbar! lol
I am using Notion as well.
It's the best!
Scrivener isn't available in the play store of India. Is it only me?
I googled Scrivener and didn't see a website for it? Is it gone?
www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview :)
I don't understand you. Is your opening screen different from mine? Where in the world do you find a place where you can choose a template? I Can't even find the word "template" on the home screen. And the "help" button doesn't help. If you're going to start at the beginning, you gotta start at the beginning. Otherwise we're just as lost as we were before you started.
So sorry for any confusion, Serounian! This is the opening screen I see. I am using a Mac though. Perhaps you're using a different version or device?
💥💥💥💥
I wish scrivner was available for android
Same!!
3:30 starts the actual content
HI :) I've been following you on ig for awhile and you're helping me so much thank you ily
I'm so glad!
Hi Lauren! Could you do a video on story structure? :) I know there’s a lot of them on RUclips already, but I’d love to hear your takes on it and what you’ve learned about it so far 🤍
Update: I now have a mini course on story structure available here: www.laurenkaywrites.com/novel-outlining-workshop . Feel free to let me know if you have any other topics you'd like me to cover! I love hearing what content you'd enjoy the most. :)