#Using scapple to make a novel outline how to#
#Using scapple to make a novel outline pdf#
#Using scapple to make a novel outline manual#

It is a simple get-out-of-your-face word processor – use full screen mode to clear all distraction. To all the Scrivener ‘scowlers’ intimidated by the features – it’s really not that complicated. I am a proud affiliate for Scrivener and links in the post include my affiliate code. I guarantee it will make your writing life better and more fun.

#Using scapple to make a novel outline how to#

Coming MondayĬheck back on Monday, when I will explain how to overcome the “Scrivener learning curve” and put this amazing tool to work for you. Scrivener is the best software tool for writers I’ve ever seen, and I’m finally coming to understand, appreciate, and use its awesome power. That’s when I ran into a completely different-and much better-way to unleash the power of this program. I have found how to use the Research folder, and how Scrivener can be used to organize text more fluidly and functionally than any other program I’ve ever seen. I know there’s a huge depth of functionality in Scrivener, things I don’t even know I don’t know. But it seems like neither my comprehension nor my memory are getting better, and without a project in Scrivener, I was still a bit baffled. She knew the program well and spent 2 hours in a screen sharing session answering all my questions patiently and walking me through the program.

#Using scapple to make a novel outline manual#

When the manual failed, I found the wonderful Amber Starfire through BAIPA. I was amazed at the number of topics in the manual, and started to realize maybe there was more there than I could discern.

#Using scapple to make a novel outline pdf#

This one is a massive 540-page PDF that starts with a 3 page essay on the philosophy of the word processor. These days, we know how to use a lot of our software the first time we see it, and the touchscreen has emphasized that ease and familiarity.īut Scrivener was going to involve a new way of thinking. Look, I’ve learned a lot of software over the years, but I haven’t grown fonder of it. It was a time in which entrepreneurs came up with things like plastic and cardboard keyboard overlays to help the poor struggling user swap visual instructions every time they switched programs. They shared some conventions because of the underlying operating system, but each went its own way from there.Ĭonsequently, there was a lot of creativity, different metaphors for dealing with disks, directories, and files, but there was also a lot of chaos.

In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, everyone who developed a program to do a specific function, also had to design the entire user interface as well. I felt a little-within the confines of the very aesthetic System X conventions-like I was back in the early days of software development. Back in the 1990s?Īfter installing the program, I was baffled. In fact, back in August, 2011 even though I had never used the software, I had author Austin Briggs write a blog post about just how great Scrivener is for writers.Įventually I downloaded the program when I realized it cost $45, much less than I would have expected from all the talk. It must have been a couple of years ago that I started hearing about this program with the funny name: Scrivener from somebody called Literature and Latte.