Scrivener: The Best Writing Software, Full Stop.
As Christmas descends upon us, a couple of people have asked me if there is anything specific that I want. This year, I have a very unusual answer.
Software.
But only if that software is Scrivener.
It’s the best writing software, full stop.
I’ve been a writer for basically my entire life, and in that time, I’ve used basically every possible method you can think of to get my thoughts into words on a page. Long-hand writing on legal pads, index cards, typed pages, word processors, early HTML pages, wiki’s, LaTeX, and of course, blogs.
Writing is, to me, basically a matter of taking the emotions in my head and using a painfully suboptimal system to get them onto the page. Whatever that system is, and I’ve tried everything out there, it’s painfully suboptimal– and most of them are just horribly horribly wrong. Never have I found anything that excites me.
Until I found Scrivener.
Have you ever known a person who you hated when you first met them, but who later became your best, or at least a good, friend. Have you known a person who caused you to question everything you said– pissing you off and driving you crazy– but whom you suddenly realized has really good reasons for questioning, and helps you grow more than anyone you ever met.
Scrivener is the software equivalent of that person.
When I first fired up the trial version of this software, I wasn’t sure it would be useful at all. It seemed like little more than another sub-standard outlining program with a bare-bones word processor attached. Boy, was I wrong.
I kept trying to use it the way I’d use any application, and it kept fighting me and making me re-think how I could do something to work around it’s stupid limitations. Then, suddenly, I realized that it was suggesting that I re-think the entire processes, and re-think it for the better.
What started as a “why won’t this stupid program do the most basic things” fight became “wow, I never thought I could do it this much better way” success.
Research
Other word processors amount to, basically, the electronic equivalent of a blank piece of paper. There may be some rudimentary outlining possible, but the fundamental principal of most of them is that you have a blank piece of paper in front of you and you start writing on it.
This is my fundamental problem with every word processor in existence, because it seems that no-one other than Jack Kerouac actually sat down and banged out an entire document from start to finish. I’ve never wanted a big, blank piece of paper. I wanted index cards that I could move around, then pages I could move around, then sections I could move around. Not with copy and paste, but with contextual replacement. No-one has ever created this, so usually I’m stuck working with paper until things are pretty much set, and only then using a word processor.
The first thing to notice about Scrivener is that it is designed explicitly for this type of writing, and because of that, it allows you to have those index cards that turn into pages that turn into sections. In fact, it not only allows it, it’s a fundamental design of the program. Wow. More than that, it has a research storage function built in. You can pull in text, web pages, audio and video, and organize them in a special research area. More than that, you can view/edit this research even while you’re writing.
This means that you no longer have to have your research in a separate folder on your harddrive, and go back and forth, breaking your workflow. You write, look over to the research in the same application, and the write some more.
Outlining
Scrivener’s outlining is amazing. You can create index cards with short synopses of anything. Characters, chapters, scenes. These index cards can then be viewed on a corkboard or as an outline. Create a card for chapter 1 and then another for chapter 2. Edit them, add scenes to chapter 1, and they are there on the corkboard. Then go and edit the text for those scenes in the word processing interface, and the index cards are automatically updated.
What this means is that your entire document is, at the same time, research, an outline, and a draft. More than that, going from viewing it as an outline to viewing it as a draft is done by merely clicking a button.
This is a crucial difference from many other software applications. Previously, I’d build up an outline, and then slowly fill that it. The problem is that, as I fill in the outline, the outline is essentially destroyed as it becomes a document. I start with something easily viewable, and end up with a document I have to scroll through to find sections.
With Scrivener, the outline is always there. As I right, I can always go back and view the “outline view” of the document either as an outline or on the corkboard. And, best of all, if I move an outline element around on the corkboard, all of the actual text for that element is moved.
This is a special “geez, why the hell did no-one ever think of this before”-type of brilliant.
Keywords and Views
Two of the greatest functional aspects of Scrivener are the ability to have keywords, and the ability to view disjointed sections of a document. My current project is a novel, written in the viewpoints of two sisters, with each chapter switching from one viewpoint to the other. These two tools are invaluable for this project.
Keywords allow me to quickly pull up sections of my document that are tagged. You can use this tagging for a lot of different things, but I find it most useful to tag based on characters and scenes. This allows me to easily pull up all the scenes that a given character is in, or pull up all the characters that are in a given scene.
Then, having used keywords to pull up a character, I can view all the sections of the story that character is in as a single document. With a story that goes back and forth between two viewpoints in each chapter, this is an amazing ability. In other software, I’d have to read one chapter in one viewpoint, then skip the next chapter (in the other viewpoint) and scroll down to the third chapter, which switches back to the first viewpoint. This is a lot of scrolling around just to make sure that the character’s continuity is intact.
With Scrivener, I can pull up my keyword for one sister, view all her scenes, and read them in order as if they were written that way. The other viewpoint chapters can simply be left out of the view until I need them. You can view any parts of your story, in any order, while leaving other parts out. Again, this is a special type of brilliant.
Coda
Scrivener is honestly the first software application that I’ve been excited about in as long as I can remember, and I can’t really say enough about it. I could probably write an entire series about it, but that would just waste everyone’s time. What I suggest is that you go download it and take advantage of the 30 day trial– a trial that is not 30 consecutive days, but 30 days in which you use the software.1 I’ve used 5 of my 30 days so far, and that was enough to have me convinced that it’s the greatest writing software, full stop.2
It all amounts to me, for the first time in my life, finding a software application that is worthy of me telling Santa about. Hopefully, I’ve been a good enough little boy this year.
- Ensuring that you won’t escape the trial without being completely hooked on it! [↩]
- There is a bit of a learning curve, but there are a lot of video tutorials, that show how to use it. Also, the recent Mac Power Users podcast includes an hour-long discussion of the software’s benefits, going much more into depth than I do. [↩]
I’m John Metta, writer, hydrologist, programmer, Irish flute and banjo player, cyclist, brewer, and a digger of all things tech, and all around friendly guy. Nestled snugly in the Columbia River Gorge in a town called Hood River, I survey the world as my own personal playground. Connect with me 
All I can do is agree with you. I don't even use it in the way you do; I document our work processes in it, but because it's non-linear, I can continue to tweak and update notes and instructions long after the first run of things is done. What you haven't mentioned is the bliss of full-screen view. When you really get going and find that, you'll see the distractions melt away, and your thoughts make it to the screen in record time.
I almost didn't read this post….I thought, OMG….more software computer talk….it is too much for my little brain to handle, "but because" (gotta love saying but because…anyway) your writing is always so engaging
I kept reading….CRIMONY!! Now, I have a new thing to add to my Christmas list…..alas, I can take advantage of the 30 day thingy u mentioned….and wait for my birthday. YaY! (and, yeah, do you get any bennies for plugging!)
Jumpin' Jiminy….just realized its for a Mac….I guess I need more votes on my Barona sweater to win my Mac…
I agree with you infinitely, until the universe bends back over and becomes…the universe again.
Thanks for a great excellent post. I found Scrivener via a bunch of MIT kids who moved to Hollywood. MIT+Hollywood = the most intense people ever. And they all told me they wrote their dissertations on Scrivener. I was eating lunch with them at SXSW at the time, and promptly took out my laptop and installed the software. I sat there entering content into it for the next 7 hours, barely taking a moment to move locations, get coffee, use the restroom, etc. I made them follow me and edit their own writing. And it was awesome. Scrivener FTW a million times over.