Getting Started - An Introduction to Scrivener 3

hello I'm Keith Blount the creator of Scrivener in this video I'm going to show you how easy it is to use Scrivener for your writing and how it's useful for working on long documents first let's fire up Scribner and create a new project to create a new project go to file new project you'll see I'm presented with a window that allows me to choose from different project templates there are templates for novels scripts academic writing and more here I'm going to choose blank which will create an empty project without any template information now I choose worth save my project it's up to you where you keep your Scrivener projects so be sure to pick some where you'll remember once that's done scribblers main project window appears and I'm ready to start writing on the left here there's a list showing all the documents in the project we call this the binder because it acts like a ring binder you throw into it everything you need to get your writing done not just the writing itself but also research notes and anything else you want to refer to I can go ahead and start writing in the editor you can format your text however you want using the familiar tools in the format bar above the editor or by using the menus or keyboard shortcuts if you prefer writing on virtual pages you can switch to page view I like working with Patriot earned off there one of the key ideas behind Scrivener is that it's easier to work on a long text if you break it down into smaller more manageable chunks it's entirely up to you how large or small those chunks are you could divide your work up into chapters scenes paragraphs arguments or anything else here I've written one short section and I now want to create another to do so I click on the Add button and I get another blank document beneath whatever was selected in the binder I can add a title and now I'm ready to start typing out my new section actually you know what I've realized what this section would work better as two separate sections that's easy to fix I just put my cursor where I want to split it and go to documents split at selection not only that I've also realized that the section I split off would be more effective if it came first that's easy to fix to I just drag and drop it into place in the binder talking of the binder let's take a quick look at it note that every Scrivener project contains three folders that are always there you can add as many folders as you want and we'll get to that in a moment but these folders are special the draft folder is the most important this is where you create your actual manuscript or text all the different sections in this folder can be printed or exported as a single long document we'll see how soon supporting material that's not part of the manuscript you can place in the research folder you can put pretty much anything in here PDF files images notes anything you need to reference while working on your project in fact I have a couple of files but I know I'm going to need to refer to later so I think I'll bring those in there over in the finder I have a PDF file containing some information about a town I'll be writing about and a photo of one of a towns landmarks I'll just drag those into my research folder like so the Trash folder stores any documents that you have deleted from a project they stay there until you delete them permanently by choosing to empty the trash incidentally you can rename any of these three folders and the draft folder is titled manuscript in some of the project templates you can always recognize one from a special icons though to move between the sections of my project what I need to do is select the section in the binder to open it in the editor if I want to block out the rest of my screen while I write I can click on the full screen composition button once I finished I just hit escape to return to the main window okay I've written a few sections now my initial plan was that each of these sections would be a single short chapter but I've changed my mind I now think that for this book it would be better to have several sections in each chapter for this I'm going to arrange them into folders to create a new folder I just click on the add folder button the new folder will be created below whatever is selected in the binder I'll give it a name and drag it where I want now I'm going to track some sections inside it I'll do the same for my other sections you can structure your writing however you want even nesting folders inside folders I'm happy with the way this is organized though breaking things down into small sections is a great way of working on a long document but what if you want to work on a complete chapter or even the whole manuscript to get a feel for how it flows in Scrivener this is easy and we call it scribblings mode all I need to do is click on the draft folder in the binder and then change the editor to scribblings mode which is this icon in the toolbar now the editor shows me all the sections in my manuscript as though they were part of a single text I can show titles using view text editing show titles in scribblings I can type and edit my sections here just as I can when do you and them individually clicking on a folder shows the sections inside that folder wait I've just realized but there are some details I need to check but I don't have time right now for this I think I'll set up a little area in my project where I can make notes to myself I'll create a new folder and place it above the research folder I'll name it to do using documents change icon I'll give it a custom icon too so it's easy to pick out and now I'll add my note to it great now I can return to my writing happy that I won't forget to check these details later I now need to refer to some of that research I imported earlier this is simple I just click this button in the header bar to split the editor in two holding down option or alt when I click switches between a vertical and horizontal split to load my research I just click into the editor in which I want to show it and then I click on the research document in the binder alternatively I can just drag the research onto the header bar of the editor I want to load it in I can also load different text sections in the other editor so I can refer to other parts of my project as I write to close the split or click on the bottom header again I've now reached a point in my project where I've realized it would help to plan it out a little more for this I'm going to use Scrivener structural tools first I've got an idea for a section but I need to write later but I don't know exactly where it fits yet for this I'm going to create a new document in the draft but for now I'm going to leave a text blank instead I'm going to open the inspector by pressing on this blue disc icon and in the index card of a top here I'm going to write a short summary of what this section is going to be about that way I'll know what I need to write later I can use the notes area beneath the index card to jot down anything else I need to remember when I come to write this section I think I'll put this into an unplaced sections folder for now every document in a Scrivener project has a synopsis index card like this associated with it synopses can be used to work with a higher level overview of your manuscript to see what I mean let's look at some of the sections in the first folder now that the inspector is open I haven't added a synopsis for any of these sections because I wrote them without any planning if I want I can always add a synopsis after writing a section though I don't have to do this but it makes it easier to get an overview for example let's add a synopsis to this section now if I select my folder containing these sections and click on the corkboard icon in the toolbar the editor switches to corkboard mode in corkboard mode you can see the index cards that are associated with the sections inside the folder so on this index card you can see the synopsis I just typed out I haven't added any synopses for other sections and mis folder so the index cards for those just show the first lines of a text the cork board gives me a great overview of everything that's in this folder in this case it shows me a summary of my chapter I can edit the synopsis by double-clicking into the cards and I can rearrange four sections by dragging them around on a cork board looking at this overview I've realised that I need to add another section to fill in some details I can do this right in McCourt board by clicking the Add button this creates an index card that represents a new blank document inside the folder I'll add a synopsis of what I intend to be in this section which alright later when I'm ready to write it all I need to do is click on the section in the binder and I can see from an index card in the inspector what I need to write the cork board is one great way of working with an overview of your manuscript scriveners outliner is another if I click on the first folder again and this time click on the outliner icon in the toolbar the editor switches to outliner mode like the cork board the outliner shows me titles and synopses of a sections in my project I can view a lot more information in the outliner though and keep it simple if I click on a draft folder I now have an overview of my entire manuscript I can edit titles and synopses create stubs for new sections I need to write later create new folders and reorganize until I'm happy that my manuscript has the most effective structure and reading order whether you use these features to plan out your whole manuscript before you begin to write or as editing tools later in the process is entirely up to you well I've been working on this book for a while now as time I shared it with someone for this I use for compile feature this will take everything I've written them a draft folder and stitch it together into a single exported file or print out I can create all sorts of files including Word documents and ebooks but right now I'm just going to send it to a friend as a PDF file so she can give me some feedback I choose how I want the manuscript to look using these options on my left for sharing with my friend I'm going to choose the modern format now I just tell Scrivener how the parts of my manuscript should look I want groups to be shown as chapter titles and text sections to appear with breaks between them in your own projects you might have all sorts of different groups and text sections which all need formatting differently that's easily done but we won't get into that here now I just compile but I have a nicely formatted PDF file ready to share with my friend and that's really everything you need to know to make effective use of Scrivener I hope that this video has given you a good idea of how you can use Scribner with your own projects and that you're ready to get writing thanks for watching

Channel: scrivenerapp

Views: 162,770

Keywords: novel, writing, Scrivener

Id: Ethl7gu5Gzg

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2017