My PC died a painful death in mid-April, and when I replaced it, I surprised myself by choosing a MacBook Pro. I’ve never been particularly interested in Apple products (don’t own an iPhone, iPod, or iPad), but this little laptop threw a spell over me and I was powerless to resist. (“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” Sorry. The Next Generation reference was just too tempting.) Anyway, once I figured out how to work with my Mac, I downloaded the trial version of Scrivener.
Best. Decision. EVER!
That writing program is amazing and well worth the switch in operating systems just to have access to it. I watched all the tutorial videos, joined the forum so I could ask stupid questions, and started learning how to use Scrivener. As of now, I am a fully paid owner and wouldn’t dream of returning to Word or any other word processing program. Seriously. I love this software!
The middle grade novel I’m wrapping up has twin protagonists (literally, the main characters are boy / girl twins). I’m alternating chapters in each POV. I just finished a Twin A chapter; before I started the Twin B chapter, I took a minute to jot down a few lines on the notecard for Twin A’s next chapter. Just a few thoughts to get me moving in the right direction when I get there. *Yay* A built-in tickler system!
Also, I have separate folders for each chapter that are color coded by POV character. This lets me see at a glance that I’m alternating properly. AND if I decide I’ve got a scene out of place, all I have to do is drag the notecard to the proper folder…notecards and text move together!
I’m not sure I’m making any sense, but I love this program! Love the built-in flexibility…love having all my research in the same program…love having the ability to split my sc
reen so that my outline is always visible…love being able to manipulate my screen so that I have the exact information I need at my fingertips. Oh, did I mention that it saves automatically every few seconds? Nice!
Okay. I’m sure all of that was clear as mud, but the important thing is that I can’t imagine writing without Scrivener! If you own a Mac, do yourself a favor and check it out.
(No, this is not a paid advertisement *lol* Just an overabundance of enthusiasm.)
Try a little Mac, never look back. Scrivener’s a great program.
Too true!
I recently downloaded the free trial and even though I have just barely begun to use it, I know I’m going to purchase Scrivener when my free trial is up. I only wish I had been using this program since the beginning with my novel. I’m actually deep into a second round of revisions and it’s probably a horrible time to adopt a new program like this, but I had felt like I was drowning in binders of research and notes and various Word files that I was switching between for my revisions. I really thought I was going mad at times with the crappy organizational systems I’d set up for myself. Scrivener is helping with that a little bit and I think the more I use it the better it will get. The best part to me (so far) is that I have all my chapters right there in my binder, but in separate files, so it’s really easy for me to jump around as I’m revising different pieces. No scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to find that one paragraph to remind myself what I wrote and then scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to go back to where I was.
You’ll love it, Jen!
One of the things that took me a while to discover was how easy it is to pull an entire, single file novel into Scrivener, and then split it into workable scenes or chapters. All you have to do is place your cursor at the transition point, then click “Documents” – “Split” – “At selection” Voila! A new file.
Happy revising!
Ohhh, another Scrivener lover here! But I didn’t know that last bit about splitting a single file. Yay, good to know!
Excellent! Glad to help, Anne.
Hi Debbie, it’s one of your fellow agency mates. 🙂 Thanks for the review on Scrivener. It sounds awesome. I’d love to try something other than Word for a change.
*waves to Jenny* Always glad to see an agency mate…especially one with sparkly new contract! Congratulations!!!!