How to Use Scrivener (2024) | *Simple* Tutorial for Overwhelmed Fiction Writers
Рет қаралды 35,152
Күн бұрынIn this tutorial, I will teach you how to use Scrivener to become a better, faster fiction writer. Scrivener is truly life-changing writing software - I never could have gotten my book deal without it!
And make sure to grab your free Scrivener Cheat Sheet!
www.laurenkaywrites.com/scriv...
TIMESTAMPS:
3:52: Backing Up to the Cloud
4:40: Setting Up Scenes, Chapters, and Acts
6:19: Switching Between Drafting, Notecard, and Outline View
6:55 Adding a Synopsis to Each Scene
7:29 Changing the Default Format
8:34 Using Notes
9:08 Scene Snapshots
9:48 Color Coded Binder
12:03 Adding Icons to Your Scenes
12:36 Project Targets
12:59 Writing History
13:11 Adding Characters as Keywords
14:08 Name Generator
15:08 View 2 Pages at Once
15:43 Compile Your Manuscript
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NICE TO MEET YOU!
I'm just getting started on KZfaq (so excited to be here!) - but if you're looking for more writing advice and insider tea, check out my videos on:
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The Insider's Guide to Literary Agents: The Top 3 Ways To Stand Out (+ The Top 3 Mistakes To Avoid!):
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FREE RESOURCES
Scrivener Cheat Sheet
www.laurenkaywrites.com/scriv...
10-Step Guide to Landing an Agent:
www.laurenkaywrites.com/10-st...
Writer Toolkit: (Includes my favorite craft books and links to my Miro outlining template template and an amazing writer Discord community)
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HOW TO LAND AN AGENT
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MORE WRITING TIPS!
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⟡ Email: lauren@laurenkaywrites.com
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
Oh wow - overwhelmed by all of the people this has helped! Make sure to grab my free Cheat Sheet: www.laurenkaywrites.com/scrivener with all of these tips so that you have that handy whenever you need it! I also created a blog post that covers everything I go over in this video to make the information more accessible; you can view that here: www.laurenkaywrites.com/blog/how-to-use-scrivener-a-tutorial-for-fiction-writers . Happy writing and scrivening, friends!
@kelvingoliday9245 6 ай бұрын
Thank you so much for not assuming that we know where to begin.
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
You're so welcome! I never like to assume -- anyone can start their journey at any place. :-)
@tAiLoR95 3 ай бұрын
I've had this program for years and didn't know it had a built in name generator! Thank you!
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
Pretty cool, right?! :)
@sistersidney_ 3 ай бұрын
this totally revolutionized scrivener for me! i've tried it twice over the last few years and never got into it but this is amazing. thank you!
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
I'm so glad!
@j.n.johnson8217 Ай бұрын
I have been using Scrivener for years and this was incredibly helpful. thank you!!
@stephenzeoli8117 5 ай бұрын
I am fairly familiar with Scrivener, but I really appreciate your practical take on how to use it. Thank you.
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
This means so much to hear; thank you Stephen!
@FrankMinogue Ай бұрын
I finished he first draft of my trilogy the hard way. I think I am going to work with Scrivener for the second book. This looks really great. Thank you!!
@ReadLoveListen 2 ай бұрын
This was extremely helpful and the first tutorial that I feel helped me to actually set up scrivener for writing versus a template that confuses me later on.
@DanaesDialogue 3 ай бұрын
thank you so much for this. You really helped me out. I've been using Scrivener for a while but you taught me so much and made a lot of things easier for me.
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
I'm so glad!
@annie20alpha 4 ай бұрын
Hi Launren thank you for the informative tutorial. Loved the fact that you are helping others get their stories out into the world :)
@laurenkaywrites 4 ай бұрын
You're so welcome!
@jessicafurniss9382 6 ай бұрын
Thank you so much for this comprehensive video! It helped me so much!
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
I'm so glad!!
@wronghandlane9665 5 ай бұрын
Very helpful! Finally going to try it out, thank you!
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
So good to hear!
@YESCHEFDADDY 3 күн бұрын
THANK YOU... This was awesome! You are a tutorial master.
@amyelizabeth4058 20 күн бұрын
I had no idea there was a name generator feature! Sooo cool. thank you for this.
@DayvinityDave 7 күн бұрын
Thank you so much for this video! The biggest draw back to this software was the learning curve. You really saved me hours. Thank you!
@laurenkaywrites 6 күн бұрын
So glad it helped! :)
@p6x2 Ай бұрын
Mastering an application comes with using it. This tutorial is an overview of how Lauren likes to use Scrivener. It may or may not suit you, but it gives a starting point rather than contemplating a blank page and not really wanting to read how to do it. Depending on how you write and how you want to manage your work, you will refine your utilization of Scrivener along the way. Note that it is possible to tailor Google Docs to a "poor boy" facsimile of Scrivener, if you really can't justify purchasing Scrivener.
@MediaAttorney 6 ай бұрын
That was a big help. Thanks!
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
You're so welcome!
@LifeLessonsFromBooks 3 ай бұрын
This is brilliant, thank you!! I'm trying to figure out if I should buy a licence. I'm sold! Thank you. Some great tips here.
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
You're so welcome!
@michaelburke4048 6 ай бұрын
I've been using Scrivener for about five or six years now, but there's always something to learn from how someone else uses it. I might have to steal that concept of color coding the perspective character. Sounds useful for finding specific scenes later when I want to make sure details match up. I never export for print. Instead, I export as .docx for a final read through and print from there. The habit dates back to a much older version where the print formatting was a bit off, but I've made use of the process, so I still do it.
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
Wow, I'm learning something too. Honestly, just shows what a versatile platform it is! I definitely recommend you give the color-coding a try, I'm a very visual person so it helped me a lot.
@elainayezzi 3 ай бұрын
This was so helpful!! Thank you for making awesome content! 😄
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
You're so welcome!
@frankspencer7504 5 ай бұрын
Thank you for providing such valuable and informative content for someone like me who is new to this.
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
You're so welcome!
@_astrog137 5 күн бұрын
Great tutorial! ❤
@robertcochran7103 5 ай бұрын
It was quite interesting to watch this video. I came here because even though I have used Scrivener version 3.x for quite a long time, I have not used it often in the last two years and I wanted to see a how-to of Scrivener basics as a refresher. This means I'm quite the amateur writer (smile.) I think you present really well in this video. The videography is excellent. I wish you had organized this video into discrete sections, so I can go straight to the sections I think are useful to me. Also, I'm deaf (I can't hear) so I use the automatic closed caption feature of KZfaq for a transcription of what you are saying. You move a little quickly with screen shots as you discuss features. I have to watch the caption text to get your commentary and then turn my attention to the screen shot you are showing. It is a little hard for me to do, but that is just me. I can replay the video. Scrivener does automatically save your work: it does this every 2 seconds by default. I've never lost a Scrivener project and I have bunches of them, including a couple of recent projects I've begun working on. A little research into how Scrivener automatically saves your work helps. Literature & Latte, the vendor, has a blog entry on saving Scrivener projects that is well worth reading. Thank you for this video.
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
Thank you so much for your comment, Robert! I actually just created a blog post to make this information more accessible; you can view that here: www.laurenkaywrites.com/blog/how-to-use-scrivener-a-tutorial-for-fiction-writers . And then I'm sure you already know this, but you can adjust the speed of the KZfaq video to make it faster or slower. And finally, there are timestamps for each section in the description so that you can jump to the sections that apply to you. I hope this helps; happy writing!
@robertcochran7103 5 ай бұрын
@@laurenkaywrites Thank you so much, Lauren, for responding. I really appreciate it. I brought up your blog post on my phone and it is indeed helpful to me. I can work with Scrivener on my Mac and review your blog post on my phone, which is very convenient to do. I didn't know that that the speed of KZfaq video is adjustable --- that is something new for me. I shall have to experiment with it. Yes, your description for this video has a nice list of timestamps which I didn't see at first. I was thinking of something related to that: a KZfaq feature called video chapters. I found a support article here: support.google.com/youtube/answer/9884579?hl=en .... I want to thank you again for this video, and also your blog post. I'll certainly be referencing your blog post as I use Scrivener.
@BuryTheLeft 6 ай бұрын
Excellent job. Thank you!
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
Thanks for watching!
@UnLugubreEquivoco Ай бұрын
I have Scrivener and it's super useful to write on the laptop around and then have everything updated on the main computer, but I definitely need to know more of it. Hope this guide will help
@metalplaygrounds 3 ай бұрын
Great software. I have been unable to find a good how to get started video. Until now. Many thanks! Sub'd!
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
Awesome! And thanks for the sub :)
@Desertphile Ай бұрын
I love Scrivener 3.0 and I cannot imagine why anyone would use other software.
@user-vu8tl6jj4x 29 күн бұрын
Hi I used to use " write it now " software for novelist. It's no longer available, but most of the features presented here were automatically done for you with write it now. I'm now having to learn scrivener, a product I consider inferior in every respect. 😢 Write it now was so much better because it was so more intuitive. A terrible lose for would be novelist 🥴.
@armoniapush8281 4 ай бұрын
Thanks for this video :)
@laurenkaywrites 4 ай бұрын
Glad it was helpful!
@merisav4171 2 ай бұрын
This was really helpful, thanks
@laurenkaywrites 2 ай бұрын
Glad to hear!
@PaulRWorthington Ай бұрын
Wow, great presentation! Very helpful and informative, thanks. I am just switching from Pages to Scrivener (after decades using Word). I'm looking forward to drafting my next novel in Scrivener, but kind of dreading importing and formatting the five novels I've finished.
@brenttucker1756 22 күн бұрын
I've also used MS Word for several decades, even at a publishing house where I used to work. I've got 4 novels in various stages and am looking forward to moving over to Scrivener so I can more easily move chapters around and also for the daily word count tracker for accountability. It looks like my final export would be need to be to Attiticus since I am on a PC not a Mac (otherwise I'd use Vellum to format final book)
@alexandra_go 5 ай бұрын
God, I've spent so much time organizing my Google Doc by adding subtitles and changing the font color to make it structured by POV and progress. 😂
@H1GHLANDER100 Ай бұрын
It was very informative, but I wish you could slow down a bit. This has taught me a lot, so thank you. Great Job, Teach.
@Stoffel.D 4 ай бұрын
I love your videos. Thank you 🙂
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
You are so welcome!
@Stoffel.D 3 ай бұрын
@@laurenkaywrites Thank you 😘
@regevvino 2 ай бұрын
Thank you so much for your help! Is there a way to restore a deleted sentence, like in Word?
@as.31415 Ай бұрын
I'm working on my first draft of my first novel as a teen writer so I think I'll stick to docs. This seems good for if publishing is a goal in view (I would love to publish this book but if I do I don't think that will happen for a while!) I have a loose outline of my book and I am just strating from the beginning and writing it through (on Chapter 12 now). I have given thought to how my characters will change over time and sub-plots, however not so in depth that scriviner would be essential. I am just writing and seeing what happens! Perhaps I'll invest in it for later drafts.
@PostyshevsBureau 2 ай бұрын
Спасибо из Владивостока!
@Melleanah 6 ай бұрын
I’ve lost my work on scrivener three times and because of this I’ve decided to save my work on multiple platforms to prevent it happening again.
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
That sounds so stressful! I always keep back-ups of my projects!
@samanthaallard83 4 ай бұрын
Me too, I've been burnt too many times because of technical hiccups.
@SofiaVicares 23 күн бұрын
Does the backup is not working?? 😢 us it a bug?? Let me know if the forums gave you an answer to prevent this? I always backup the scrivener folder in local and clod
@aprilsmithswe 12 күн бұрын
I love Scrivener and use it all the time! BUT I also back-up in several ways-not taking any chances!
@Melleanah 11 күн бұрын
@@aprilsmithswe I now use word instead. And keep Scrivener for plotting and idea dumping, scenes.
@gypsydoodle719 Ай бұрын
Thank you so much for the Toolkit and cheat sheet. Unfortunately, my olld eyes can't make out the cheat sheet. Any tips on how to make it larger print? Thank you again, Lauren.
@Melogode 2 ай бұрын
I must say, I do like your videos.
@laurenkaywrites 2 ай бұрын
I appreciate that!
@armoniapush8281 4 ай бұрын
I am using Notion as well.
@laurenkaywrites 4 ай бұрын
It's the best!
@jarredagimudie3648 6 ай бұрын
Thank you for this! I am switching to this software now. Question. Do you feel like I would be wasting my time as a new author, trying to query a 273,000k epic fantasy book? It does have a natural split in the middle where it could be two books, but I have heard agents don't really want to have this many words in debut authors. What are your thoughts?
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
Hi! Glad you're giving it a try -- it's game-changing! I would definitely say that 273K is too long to be comercially viable for 99.9% of publishers for debut authors. Sure, GoT was about that, maybe 20K more, but that's certainly the exception, not the rule. For max results, I'd look into either cutting it down or seeing if you can re-plot out the beat points and restructure into two novels.
@jarredagimudie3648 6 ай бұрын
@@laurenkaywrites thank you! That is what I was assuming, but just wanted to check it. The natural split at middle would make sense too. Thank you for your reply! Appreciate the help!
@Bleargghhhh 2 ай бұрын
Thank you for this video! Just getting into Scrivener. Also your eyebrows look fabulous.
@laurenkaywrites 2 ай бұрын
So glad! And thank you!! :)
@SarahBalmond 6 күн бұрын
Hi, I am just getting started with Scrivener. This is a steep learning curve but your video helps a lot, so thank you! Thanks for the tip on setting Dropbox to save files for back up. However when I go to Dropbox and try to open the Srivener files, it says Scrivener is unsupported and it can't open the files. Just wondering if you have any advice on that. Thanks.
@laurenkaywrites 4 күн бұрын
Hi! Try to pull up the files when you are in Scrivener (go to your dropbox and select the file) and make sure you're in the folder where they're saved, not the backup folder. Scrivener has amazing customer support, so reach out to them if that doesn't work!
@DanteMishima 2 ай бұрын
How did you open the synopsis bar
@mr_red13 5 ай бұрын
Would you recommend Scrivener for not only screenwriting but making scripts for KZfaq or do you think something like Notion would suffice? Also, do you prefer Scrivener over Final Draft?
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
I use it for KZfaq scripts as well! And sorry, haven't tried Final Draft so I'm not sure!
@mr_red13 5 ай бұрын
Would you recommend syncing using Google Drive or do you HAVE to use Dropbox to avoid problems?@@laurenkaywrites
@Chronicle_MV 4 ай бұрын
What does "Novel with parts" mean?
@Melogode 2 ай бұрын
I love Scrivener. However, when I wrote my first book in 2019 I wrote the book in Word pad. Yes, WORDPAD. I didn't have money for MS Word so I just used Word Pad. I still use it sometimes 😅
@noahm2259 Ай бұрын
3:30 starts the actual content
@aiskelly 4 ай бұрын
I’m a bit lost at the Dropbox backup. I was hoping it would be on your cheat sheet but I don’t see it. Do you have it spelled out a bit more anywhere else?
@laurenkaywrites 4 ай бұрын
Sorry for any confusion! If you are a Dropbox user, Dropbox will be a folder on your computer. So you just want to select that folder as the folder for your Scrivener projects. On Scrivener's end, there isn't anything you need to do there aside from select the folder (which is why it's not on my cheat sheet). So the main thing you need is a Dropbox subscription and to know where your Dropbox folder is located. Hope this helps!
@noelkinz 3 ай бұрын
💥💥💥💥
@laurenkaywrites 3 ай бұрын
@user-bc8co4lz3b Күн бұрын
Is it possible to write with Apple Pencil?
@katiepaigeh12 13 күн бұрын
How do I add the synopsis and notes? Its not on my scrivener
@katiepaigeh12 13 күн бұрын
for anyone wondering: its the blue i symbol on the toolbar! lol
@Stuckathomemom 17 күн бұрын
I googled Scrivener and didn't see a website for it? Is it gone?
@laurenkaywrites 6 күн бұрын
www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview :)
@yamini_adari 24 күн бұрын
Scrivener isn't available in the play store of India. Is it only me?
@jennalangsmith4168 5 ай бұрын
I wish scrivner was available for android
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
Same!!
@serouniankeir8379 5 ай бұрын
I don't understand you. Is your opening screen different from mine? Where in the world do you find a place where you can choose a template? I Can't even find the word "template" on the home screen. And the "help" button doesn't help. If you're going to start at the beginning, you gotta start at the beginning. Otherwise we're just as lost as we were before you started.
@laurenkaywrites 5 ай бұрын
So sorry for any confusion, Serounian! This is the opening screen I see. I am using a Mac though. Perhaps you're using a different version or device?
@Sophia-jo8tv 2 ай бұрын
HI :) I've been following you on ig for awhile and you're helping me so much thank you ily
@laurenkaywrites 2 ай бұрын
I'm so glad!
@SaoirseS. 6 ай бұрын
Hi Lauren! Could you do a video on story structure? :) I know there’s a lot of them on KZfaq already, but I’d love to hear your takes on it and what you’ve learned about it so far 🤍
@laurenkaywrites 6 ай бұрын
Update: I now have a mini course on story structure available here: www.laurenkaywrites.com/novel-outlining-workshop . Feel free to let me know if you have any other topics you'd like me to cover! I love hearing what content you'd enjoy the most. :)
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