Trying Scrivener

Everyone. I feel like such a hypocrite. After writing an entire blog about my writing style (check it out here) and writing everything longhand, I’ve started a free trial of Scrivener.

I love it.

I’ve heard writers rave about this software and one night when my hand was cramping from my pen and paper, I decided to start a free trial. Keep in mind the trial is 30 days of use, so if you use it every other day, it’ll last for two months.

I’m absolutely loving the organization of it. Check out how I organized mine above. I don’t want to share pictures of my actual notes and draft, but here’s my “dashboard” Everything is sorted in a “binder” on the left. The right panel will changes based on what tab you are on. I use mine for scene summaries, notes, and goals. There is a research tab for you to compile all of your notes and a characters tab so you can remember key details of each and work on their development. You can set word count goals and track all of your edits easily. My favorite feature is the “corkboard” which I’ve titled “Storyboard”. I brainstorm key events and plot points and can arrange and rearrange them into a storyboard. This is much easier to do on this software than carrying around my index cards and taking up an entire table storyboarding.

I don’t think this will be useful to me outside of novel writing, so it’s definitely still drafting blogs longhand for me (example, this blog was drafted longhand). I’ll definitely update when my trial is up and tell you about my writing progress and if I’ll be purchasing Scrivener!