Scrivener: A flexible and powerful tool for writers

Ever since I first dreamed of being a novelist and sitting down to write my first novel in a spiral-bound notebook (never finished it, but I wish I could be that young again), I never gave much thought to the basic tools of writing. If I had a computer, I used a word processor. If I didn’t have access to a computer, I wrote everything out longhand.

Now that I’m all grown up, my tool of choice is usually my trusty Macbook. I use OpenOffice as my word processor of choice because I’m such a huge fan of open source software. And I’ve never given this much thought, until recently.

I’ve heard about various writing programs designed specifically for writers. They are like word processing programs, only on steroids. There are programs out there for fiction writers that will actually guide you step-by-step through creating an outline, writing a detailed character sketch and they even help you develop the plot and write the story until you have the finished product.

That seemed kind of like cheating to me. But there are many variations of these fiction writing programs, and I think I found one that I’m impressed enough with, I’m going to give it a try.

The program is called Scrivener, and it is a powerful writing tool. At the same time, it is flexible enough to be adapted to any type of writing (not just fiction).  I like it because it lets you organize your notes and drafts any way you want. So you can move things around and see how your story works with different scenes in different places (for example). The program also lets you ’split’ the screen, so you can work on your draft while also being able to see your notes – eliminating the need to jump back and forth between the two.

Another interesting part of Scrivener is that you don’t write one long continuous manuscript. For example, if you are writing a novel, you’d write each chapter in a separate folder, which lets you move things around. And when you are finished, Scrivener will format your work into a standard manuscript format that can be printed off and/or exported to a traditional word processing program.

I’m still not doing this program justice. The Scrivener website has an excellent introductory video that really shows you what this program can do, and why it is so powerful for all writers. You can also try out the program free for 30 days. That is 30 days of using the program, not 30 days from when you first download it. So if I used Scrivener only one day a week, it’d take 30 weeks for my ‘trial version’ to expire. After that, if you are happy with Scrivener, you can buy it for a modest $39.95.

One caveat though: Scrivener is only available for Mac users. So all of you who use Windows need to jump on the Mac bandwagon.

I’m gonna give Scrivener a shot for my 30-day free trial and see how I like it. If it works out, I’ll definitely plunk down the $39.95 to keep it, and I’ll try to write a more detailed review here.

Do you use Scrivener, or a similar writing program? If so, which one and how has it improved your writing? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Note: Despite my glowing comments about Scrivener, I have not been compensated for this post, or for anything written in this post about Scrivener. The opinions expressed here are mine alone.

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