Is Scrivener Right for You?

I looked at Scrivener for quite a long time before deciding to bite the bullet, and while the software does have some wonky annoyances, the pluses far outweigh the minuses for me.

You'll find lots of information online about the program with a quick Google search, so I recommend that you do your research and decide for yourself if the ~$60 usd is worth your investment. I'm not an affiliate, but even if I were, I wouldn't recommend Scrivener for every writer.

The home page contains a graphic reading "see the forest OR the trees," and that tagline sums up exactly what I like about the program.

The biggest personal challenge of writing a book is keeping everything straight and organized in my head, and Scrivener makes this task, if not a snap, much easier than would multiple folders and documents all over the place which is what I would otherwise have. The world is divided into people who organize by filing and people who organize by piling. I'm a filer, but that also means that my ordinary document files burst at the seams. That's the last thing I want in my manuscript creation.

"Blank page syndrome" can be crippling, and the screen, while not distractingly busy with shiny objects and squirrels, is not blank. It feels...populated, which spurs me on. I also appreciate that, when I'm working in Scrivener, it's clear that I'm working on my own creative writing; the screen doesn't look like any other screen I use for any other task, so it's a visual cue for my psyche that "I'm here to write."

Scrivener does provide templates if you need a place to start. For example, here's a screenshot of a new novel template which includes orienting instructions.

Three specific features that work for me:

Customization

No writer drafts in quite the same way as another writer. The software will be and do exactly what you need, not what someone thinks you need. Every other piece of software I've purchased for my writing and business isn't quite right for me in some way. I'm always Goldilocks, slightly porridge-dissatisfied. But Scrivener gives me many tools and allows me to use them (or not) exactly as I see fit. I can label everything with my own shorthand and nomenclature.

Drafts/folders

Each Scrivener folder contains space for segments, whether that's individual scenes or character sketches, notes, full chapters, or research. I'm working outside of straight chronology and move things around a lot. This includes timelines, outlines, to-be-writtens, and outside source material (you can just drag and drop everything from images to screenshots to full articles).

There's no limit to how many folders or sections you can have, or where you put them, or how you label them. I currently have three top level folders, three sub folders, four sub-sub folders, and forty-four individual segments. I can view them all at once or focus on one at a time, depending on my needs at the exact moment I'm writing, perfect for both developmental and line editing. This leads me to...

Visualization

You can look at each segment on its own, or you can look at the full draft all at once. (Word counts are shown for individual segments and the manuscript as a whole. You can also export/print segments or the whole draft easily.) When attempting to remember all the places I refer to a specific recurring image, for example, the search function will show me all those locations at once — great to root out both redundancies and too-little clarity.

In Word, I'd use "find" and get taken specifically to each occurrence, but that isn't helpful for big picture outlines, plotting, or pacing. For example, one of the earliest sections I wrote actually comes toward the end of time order (literal chronology). In it, my writing described a character in detail. When I initially started putting sections in book order, the character description came far too late for a reader's experience. The Scrivener search function quickly showed me all mentions of the character in the draft simultaneously, so I could order each in its optimal location.

One quick note to add. There's a process for setting Scrivener up to track your submissions. I haven't created this yet, but I will!

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