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  • Anyone use Scrivener? or other writing programs?
  • mrsgrips
    Free Member

    Wondering if anyone does and how they feel about it? Or perhaps any other writing organisational programs?

    spacemonkey
    Full Member

    Yep, I actually bought a MBP last year just so I could use Scriv.

    Very good piece of sw – does loads of things which is IMO both good and bad. The good; provided you have the time and the inclination, you can organise your material pretty much however you want. The bad; if you have a lot of material then you may well get fed up with the time and effort it takes to manage it and wish you hadn’t bothered trying to be clever and resourceful in the first place.

    Gave it a good run out for 3-4 months but found I wasn’t taking enough advantage of the Scriv-specific features. Tried loads of other sw (Mac and Win) but couldn’t find anything as capable. Reverted back to using Mind Manager 8 (Win) for organising everything, and just using Scriv to write the book.

    Then got irritated by using Mac and Win … so ended up using Word and MM8 (both Win) and putting the whole Mac/Scriv thing to one side.

    A Win version has since made it to beta (is buggy for some) even though this was never the author’s original plan SOB. Have tried this but it’s not as slick as the Mac version.

    Hence I’m still with Word and MM8.

    Having said that, it does depend on what you’re writing, the resources you need, the way you organise/structure, etc.

    Very solid piece of kit though and fairly well supported – download the trial and have a go.

    mrsgrips
    Free Member

    Yeah, I’d need to use the beta and found even the tutorial on that to be a bit…vague.
    I was thinking it might help me organise as I’m not a chronological writer and tend to write ‘chunks’ of stories which I know the relative place in the storyline, but do not have specific places until more of the story is finished.
    I also do a lot of side research and exploring side ideas which never really are a part of the story but form the back-up information/history of the story. So I tend to have a lot of papers and various bits of ‘hard copy’ which I flick through when I need to remind myself or want to clarify where I was going.
    I did wonder about the program maybe bogging down the process (of writing) rather than helping me be able to do things more efficiently.
    Suppose the only way I’ll find out is if I plow through the tutorial and see how I get on…

    dunsapie
    Free Member

    You may find this of interest. http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/. Further info on writing from her main site here http://www.harrietsmart.com/?page_id=13.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    So I tend to have a lot of papers

    She does you know 🙂

    spacemonkey
    Full Member

    mrsgrips, which version are you using; Win or Mac? I only ask because I really started getting into the former a week or so ago (after a long lay off from any writing). Then I tried out 2.0 on the Mac – and IMO that absolutely blows all other versions away.

    Loads of cool new features, particularly if you’re a visual person (which I am) and like to be able to drag n drop content around (colour-coded, labelled, tagged etc).

    Win version currently only has some of the new Mac features + it doesn’t look nearly as “shiny” 🙂

    The missus is now getting into it too, which means she’s commandeered my MBP 🙁 so I’ve just had to fork out for a Mini so I can pick it up again. Well impressed.

    EDIT: The integrated tutorial is probably the best way to figure out what’s possible and how best it can work for you.

    spacemonkey
    Full Member

    I did wonder about the program maybe bogging down the process (of writing) rather than helping me be able to do things more efficiently.

    “If you want to be a writer … then you have to write.”, so said someone semi-famous a while back.

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