I began evaluating Scrivener a few months ago, and intended to post a review of it much sooner than this. Apologies for the wait, but at least I’ve now had a long time to use the software.

Firstly, a caveat. Scrivener has far more features than I have used, so this will only be a very brief skim over the ones I know. You can do a lot more with it than I’ve tried.

Scrivener is primarily a Mac application. There’s mention on their website of a Microsoft Windows version, but it seems to be a beta version, rather than a “real” one. I haven’t attempted to evaluate it, so can’t comment on how similar it is to the Mac version. The website, for anyone interested in finding out more, is: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/index.php

I guess most of us use Microsoft Word for our writing. It’s a well-established, easily available package, which does more than is generally needed for most forms of creative writing. It has a few drawbacks, though:

- Unless you know your way around it quite well, you can easily waste a lot of time just getting it to format your text the way you want it.

- It isn’t very good at organising lots of different kinds of information for a writing project. You end up using multiple Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, notes on bits of paper, plus numerous other formats for recording everything you need.

- For me, at least, the new ribbon bar that Microsoft introduced with Word 2007 has made the software a lot more time-consuming and annoying to use. I used to know exactly where everything was, or at least could guess fairly quickly. Now, if I use Word 2007, I find myself wasting 15 minutes every time I want a feature that I don't use very often, hunting around the ribbon bar and its various popup menus.

Scrivener takes a completely different approach to Word, but one which is very logical. It has word processing features, and they are fairly similar to Word’s, so are easy to get used to. However, it’s primary focus is around the organisation of all of the parts of a writing project. The most important feature is that you don’t have to waste time worrying about formatting your text. You just type, and Scrivener looks after the business of formatting your manuscript from what you type. More about this later.

The thing that you create with Scrivener is called a project. It isn’t just a single document, but a collection of documents, the organisation of which is down to you, the writer.

When you start Scrivener for the first time, you are presented with a window headed “Project Templates”. This offers you a collection of templates from which you can create a new project. The templates are collected into categories which seem to cover most kinds of creative writing: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Scriptwriting, Poetry & Lyrics, and Miscellaneous. There is also a Blank category, which offers you a blank template, and a Getting Started category, from which you can access an Interactive Tutorial and the Scrivener User Manual. I’ve used bits of the user manual, but haven’t looked at the tutorial. Mostly, I’ve just followed my nose to find the features I need (this is called the Software Developer’s approach - suck it and see).

You can create your own templates and add them to the Project Templates collections. This is useful if you have a particular way of organising your projects, or if you need to tweak one of the standard templates to make it suit your needs better.

The Project Templates window also allows you to open projects you’ve recently worked on, or open an existing file. You can also set one of the templates as the default.

Once you create a project from a template, the main Scrivener window opens. This is divided into a number of sections:
- Along the top, there are icons to access various features.
- Down the left-hand side is a thing called the Binder. This is a bit like a collection of folders for organising the different parts of the project. More about this later.
- In the middle is a panel whose contents vary depending on what’s selected in the Binder.
- Down the right-hand side are a series of 3 panels. The top one shows a synopsis of any document that is currently selected. The next one shows either general meta-data or custom meta-data about the current document. The last panel shows either notes about the current document, or project notes.

The Binder:
This organises the project into a set of folders, each containing a different category of information. With the template that I’ve been using (which is a slightly customised variant of the Novel template from the Fiction category), I have the following folders in the binder:
- Manuscript - this is a standard folder in which you put the documents that you want to form the manuscript, such as a title page and the chapters.
- Characters - in which you can store notes about the characters in the story
- Places - in which you can store notes about places that feature in the story
- Front Matter - this is a new folder that is now present in the standard Novel template since I upgraded the software to the latest version a while ago. I don’t know what it’s for, as it isn’t in the template that I customised for myself.
- Research - in which you can keep research notes
- Template sheets - which contains templates for a variety of document types. The two that were in the standard Novel template were called “Character Sketch” and “Setting Sketch”. I created three more of my own: Era (for notes about a novel’s timeframe), Scene (for individual scenes), and Voice Notes (for notes about voice).
- Trash - where any deleted documents go
- Scenes - in which I can keep a separate document for each scene. This is a folder that I added to customise the Novel template for my own purposes
- Other notes - which I also added to customise the template, and which I use for anything that doesn’t fit in one of the other folders.

The Manuscript folder has a special purpose. Scrivener generates the manuscript by “compiling” it from the set of documents which are in the Manuscript folder. You put the scenes for each chapter into a set of separate folders under Manuscript (e.g. Chapter1, Chapter2, etc.), and Scrivener then builds the manuscript by stitching all of these documents together into a single document.

(Incidentally, this is the one point about Scrivener which I found slightly irritating. It always formats the manuscript as Courier 12pt, and as far as I’ve been able to determine it isn’t possible to change this. You can change the fonts that you see on the screen while editing, but apparently not the one that gets sent to the printer when you compile the mss.)

More, now about the panel in the middle of the window. If you click on a folder in the Binder, the middle panel takes on the appearance of a corkboard (and Scrivener calls it exactly that). Any documents which are in the folder you selected then appear on the corkboard, as an array of index cards. Each one shows any synopsis and a title. The synopsis also appears in the top panel on the right-hand side of the window (the Synopsis panel). You can edit this synopsis either on the card itself, or in the Synopsis panel. If the document has any notes, these are shown in the bottom panel on the right-hand side of the screen. The middle right-hand panel then shows any meta-data about the document (e.g. the date when it was last modified, whether it should be included in the manuscript when you compile it, and some other bits of information).

You can change the layout of the corkboard. I have mine set to arrange the cards neatly in rows and columns, but you can tell it to arrange them freely, which means you can move them around much as you would if pinning cards to a corkboard. You can move the cards around by dragging them, even when the corkboard is laying them out in neat rows. You can also split the corkboard into two, and view one set of documents in the top half and another set in the bottom half.

If you don’t like the corkboard, you can choose to view the documents in the folder as a tabular list, showing the title and synopsis, and the documents’ meta-data.

If, instead of selecting a folder in the binder, you select one of the documents in that folder, the central panel becomes a text editor for that document. This is how you get to do the writing itself. The text is laid out automatically in paragraphs with indentation on the left-hand side, so you don’t have to think about typesetting it. You just type. If you want to add notes about the document, you do this in the Document Notes panel on the right-hand side of the window.

When I’m writing with Scrivener, I write individual scenes as separate documents in my Scenes folder. I can then move them around to change the order, edit scenes individually, add blank documents for scenes that I haven’t written yet, and so on. Once I’m happy with them, I can drag the documents into a suitable chapter set, under the Manuscript folder, and compile the manuscript from them.

Well, that’s a very brief overview of some of what Scrivener can do. I love it, and have switched to using it exclusively for creative writing projects. It’s a very good tool for organising all of the components of a writing project, and the editing features are easy to use.

<Added>

Update - you can now change the font of the compiled manuscript. There's a "Quick font override" option on the Compile dialogue box, which allows you to specify the font you want to use.

Alex, that's fantastically useful - thank you. Scrivener is one of the main reasons I'm sorely tempted to switch to a Mac.

I had a long browse on the Scrivener site a while ago, though, and it did seem to me that it would be difficult to take proper advantage of it if you don't have a wide, and preferably big, screen

- Front Matter - this is a new folder that is now present in the standard Novel template since I upgraded the software to the latest version a while ago. I don’t know what it’s for, as it isn’t in the template that I customised for myself.

Front Matter is everything in a book before the main text. Title page, copyright and CIP data etc., half-title page, dedication if it has its own, and I think contents pages count too. Maybe even epigraphs.

I'd imagine this is because of the e-book: suddenly your average bod writing a book might need to generate this stuff, and it's handy to have it in a separate file (in Word parlance!).

But seriously, many thanks. That's hugely useful.

Emma

Thanks Alex - this is really interesting.

I really don't understand the courier thing. It's such a commonly held "truth" on creative writing boards that courier is the standard, but that's just not true. In UK publishing anyway, the standard presentation is 12 point Times New Roman - I've never seen a MS presented any other way. Good to know it can be over-ridden!

Out of interest, what format does it save in if you want to send the MS out electronically? I guess Scrivener are not expecting all agents and editors to run scrivener?

I don't think you would need a particularly wide screen. I have one, but I never open the Scrivener window to its full width. I probably have it at the same width and overall proportions as a standard-width monitor. It makes very efficient use of screen space, helped in no small part by the Mac's incredibly clear text rendering (which is way better than Windows).

Alex, that's fantastically useful - thank you. Scrivener is one of the main reasons I'm sorely tempted to switch to a Mac.

You don't have to switch to anything :-)

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

I don't think it has the eBook stuff there yet, but everything else is a close match for the Mac version.

While there may be a lot of good reasons for switching to a Mac, 'no Scrivener' isn't one of them.

It's such a commonly held "truth" on creative writing boards that courier is the standard, but that's just not true. In UK publishing anyway, the standard presentation is 12 point Times New Roman -

I've come to the conclusion that it's because screenwriters do still have to use courier (presumably because they need to be able to calculate screentime based on pages, so it needs to be standard).

And, as so often, there's a lot of creative writing talk which doesn't bother to distinguish between different media, let alone different forms.

Dom, yes, I had a look at the Windows version, but it's several versions behind, and they say they're going to keep it that way. I can't remember which feature it doesn't have that later Mac versions do, which was just exactly what I need, but there was one...

And I'm dreadfully fussy - I want a screen where I can see a whole page of A4 at a workable, not just readable size - I always work in page formats, so the hard copy at my elbow and the image on the screen need to match. It's an important part of my sense of the pace and proportions of the piece. For a decade I've had a still-gorgeous ViewSonic 19" monitor which pivots to provide that, but the last time my PC misbehaved the drivers got screwed, and I've lost the disk and they're no longer downloadable from anywhere that I've found...

Plus I've still not found anything as useful and user-friendly as having printed-off notes at my elbow, while I have the MS up on screen. Any program which tries to replace that also needs to be on a screen which can have the virtual equivalent.

<trots off to dig in back pockets and old handbags, in case there's the price of a 27" iMac knocking around in there>

Emma

You need one of those triple screens they have on programmes like CSI where they can swoosh things from one screen to another with their hands.

As an aside, why are they always writing and projecting thigns on their glass office walls in CSI? It would make it very hard to read with people wandering around behind.

why are they always writing and projecting things on their glass office walls in CSI?

Because people reading ordinary screens makes crap telly?

I suspect that they're really longing for the old maps-plus-Wrens-with-pushy-things, of yr average WW2 film.

Emma

yes, tis true. Screens are not movie-friendly.

It's like the fact that all their crime scenes are processed by ladeez in heels and sharp suits, with swishy long hair draped all over the forensic evidence. Their only concession to modern foresics is a pair of latex gloves.

But then it might be hard to act the part of hot science chick while wearing full on protective garb.

Anyway sorry for the digression - back to Scrivener!

Out of interest, what format does it save in if you want to send the MS out electronically?

There's an option to generate the MS in PDF format. In any case, Mac OS always has a PDF option on the print dialog, which allows you to save the document that was going to be printed as a PDF.

Regarding the Windows version of Scrivener, the impression you get is very much that it's a case of, "Oh, well, if you insist, we'll make it Windows as well". As a software developer myself, and having both Windows and Mac OS development experience, I'd say it's no small task to develop an application for both platforms and then support both through all of the subsequent changes and fixes. In any case, with its inferior text rendering, would I really want to see all of those Scrivener window panels squashed into an equivalent Windows format? I don't think so. You'd hardly be able to read most of the text, or else you'd constantly be having to use scroll bars to see it.

As an aside, why are they always writing and projecting thigns on their glass office walls in CSI?

I've always suspected that had more to do with ensuring the audience can see what's happening, rather than any functional requirement.

In any case, when was the last time you saw a computer, or any other technology, realistically presented in a film or TV programme? Computers always have huge, flashing characters to tell you you haven't logged in successfully, the passwords are always so obvious that the detective can guess them in no more than 3 attempts, and "search" features are quite capable of being given an image and searching a database of known criminals to find an exact match. Similar things can be said for anyone with a technical qualification, in a film. A physicist always seems to know everything about medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and every other discipline that might be vaguely categorised as "scientific".

I've been using the windows betas of scrivener since April (they time limit each release) and think its great - especially for structuring and organising ms sections and notes. The full screen mode was great for when I was forced to type on my tiny 8.9" netbook screen.

The current windows beta expires 30th September and I think they're hoping to have the final release ready for then.

Yes, the power of Scrivener is in its ability to let you organise your thoughts, notes and writing in a manner of your choosing. It provides the basic framework within which you work, and accords special status to certain parts of the Binder, but it doesn't impose anything on you. It's a very well-designed tool for creative writing.

Thank you for posting this review up Alex. I had a mess around with Scrivener a year or so ago and couldn't make head nor tail of it, but I suspect that was rather down to my impatience/technical incompetence. I feel inspired to have another go after reading this.

It doesn't require a great deal of technical ability to use Scrivener. Not in the computer sense, anyway. It does take some experimenting (or, possibly, reading the manual) to discover how to do some things, but I found a lot of it quite intuitive. It's perhaps some of the terminology that takes getting used to. For example, what's meta-data? I queried this with them, as I felt it was too much of an IT-techie term, but they said no one had ever appeared to have a problem with the term. I'm also not sure that "compile" is the right term for turning a collection of scenes, chapters and front matter into a manuscript. Programmers "compile" software to make it run; you don't compile a manuscript. But maybe what Scrivener actually does at that point is close enough to the non-technical English meaning of the verb to make sense.

By the way, you can import certain kinds of document into Scrivener, and have it organise those documents in the binder. For example, I've imported PDFs and Excel files into one of my projects. They're handled slightly differently to the documents that you create in Scrivener. Instead of using the central panel to edit them, the software fires up the relevant application (e.g. OpenOffice for Excel documents, or Preview for PDFs) to view/edit them.

<Added>

What I mean about meta-data is that I queried the use of the term with them. I know what it means, but I wasn't sure most people would. I would have chosen a different term, myself.

I used Scrivener but ultimately chose StoryMill to write three of my most recent novels. To me, it wasn't that Scrivener was a bad tool, it was just the _wrong_ tool. I prefer more of a structured layout than free-flowing. StoryMill gives that to me much more than Scrivener. I also found the timeline view an extremely under-appreciated feature as it showed me certain views of my story I couldn't get by just reading it. All this said I really like the corkboard look on Scrivener, even though it is a little 2007. :-)

http://www.marinersoftware.com/products/storymill/

I guess the bottom line is use something that works for you!

Mark