This is one of the best $59 I've ever spent! Scrivener is a software used for writing books and papers. It's got some templates preloaded, but you can make your own. What makes this software stand out, as opposed to using something like Microsoft Word, is the Corkboard. This one feature basically creates an outline for you on the fly. Basically, you have little index cards that you can type Scenes into. When I first started using this, I kept these Scenes limited to a couple of sentences. Just enough to give my memory some help. But, as it turns out, you can write your entire scene in each card. There are a number of advantages for writing using this technique, most obviously, you can easily rearrange the order of your scenes.
But there's a hidden gem here. As a writer, you'll typically have a scene in your mind that excites you. It's your initial spark, why you want to write the damn story in first place, right? Writing in Scenes like this allows you to just start writing! No "Chapter One", blank screen, intimidating blinking cursor of doom glaring back at you. You can just jump right into the action beat. And who cares it it's messy? You're not going to have to worry about FINDING your scene in a wall of text, like in a standard Word Document. You can write transition scenes, organize them by dragging them around, and Scrivener will mend everything together for export in one continuous document for you!
There's a lot of other tools that are built in to Scrivener as well. I briefly mentioned the Outline function, but you can also store research notes, images, complete web pages right inside of Scrivener! There's templates to create your list of characters, and you can modify the templates to ask for the information that you'll actually use. There's tons of other features that I know I'm forgetting-- like the word counters. If you're brain is wired to run on Dopamine hits by watching a progress bar fill up, you can set a word count (or character count) for each scene and watch the bar fill up as you reach your goal. Granted, it's taking me some time to iron out the kinks on my own writing style to figure out what goal I should stick to, but it's kind of fun to explore.
However, with all these great features, this software only works for Windows and Mac/iPhone/tablets. There currently is no Android version. Maybe version 4 will change this.
One thing that I will mention that sold me on the purchase is company, Literature & Latte, offers a 30-day free trial. This is NOT 30 calendar days. This is 30 days of use. Huge difference. Like if I use it on a Saturday, and then come back on Wednesday, that's only two days of usage. And it's only $59 for a one-time purchase. All the upgrades (of version 3, the current version) are included. That's a pretty good price point, especially since this software stays on your PC/desktop and not on some Cloud somewhere.
But there's a hidden gem here. As a writer, you'll typically have a scene in your mind that excites you. It's your initial spark, why you want to write the damn story in first place, right? Writing in Scenes like this allows you to just start writing! No "Chapter One", blank screen, intimidating blinking cursor of doom glaring back at you. You can just jump right into the action beat. And who cares it it's messy? You're not going to have to worry about FINDING your scene in a wall of text, like in a standard Word Document. You can write transition scenes, organize them by dragging them around, and Scrivener will mend everything together for export in one continuous document for you!
There's a lot of other tools that are built in to Scrivener as well. I briefly mentioned the Outline function, but you can also store research notes, images, complete web pages right inside of Scrivener! There's templates to create your list of characters, and you can modify the templates to ask for the information that you'll actually use. There's tons of other features that I know I'm forgetting-- like the word counters. If you're brain is wired to run on Dopamine hits by watching a progress bar fill up, you can set a word count (or character count) for each scene and watch the bar fill up as you reach your goal. Granted, it's taking me some time to iron out the kinks on my own writing style to figure out what goal I should stick to, but it's kind of fun to explore.
However, with all these great features, this software only works for Windows and Mac/iPhone/tablets. There currently is no Android version. Maybe version 4 will change this.
One thing that I will mention that sold me on the purchase is company, Literature & Latte, offers a 30-day free trial. This is NOT 30 calendar days. This is 30 days of use. Huge difference. Like if I use it on a Saturday, and then come back on Wednesday, that's only two days of usage. And it's only $59 for a one-time purchase. All the upgrades (of version 3, the current version) are included. That's a pretty good price point, especially since this software stays on your PC/desktop and not on some Cloud somewhere.
