The binder is also great for the “pantser” (who writes by the seat of her pants and doesn’t have a precise map) because you can organize the material as you go along. You can map out your project right there in the binder, through folders and pages, moving things around on the corkboard or directly in the binder. This is ideal for the “plotter” (someone who meticulously outlines their project before and during the writing process). And then just as quickly get back to the section I was working on. I can easily check my outline, click into another chapter, or go foraging in my research folders. I find it incredibly helpful to have the binder right there on the screen at all times while I am composing. For all parts of your project - even your research. The Scrivener binder serves as a table of contents for your project. This is the binder! It has folders and everything! A Binder in Your Pocket But what I needed was the Scrivener binder - that virtual, more flexible version of my magical dissertation binder. I searched for an app to replace Scrivener for my iPad and found Index Card, which is a very descent app and did a lot for me (I love moving virtual index cards around). However, to my disappointment (and to the detriment of the story brewing on my old laptop), Scrivener only existed for computer. (I did all my Invisible Order work on a desktop-yep, still got one of those.)
I wasn’t in a position to buy a new laptop but did get an iPad mini for my creative projects. Six months later my computer let me know that it wanted to retire.
I first started using Scrivener a couple of years ago on my aging laptop for NaNoWriMo. It is all the pieces of your writing project in one place, arranged in whatever hierarchy you need, with an outline/table of contents called a “binder” and virtual corkboard for all the pieces you are working with. This, my friends, is what the Scrivener app on your computer can do. My dissertation would certainly have taken less time (and been that much more brilliant…). With just one drag of the mouse (see image to the left). In other words, move an index card and that whole section moves to a new location in your draft. This is me moving a card on my Scrivener corkboard - and moving that part of my blog post to a new position in the master document. What if I’d had a huge virtual dining room table for my plethora of index cards so that I could easily move them around and rearrange the contents of my project directly in the master document - sans cutting and pasting. I won’t even get into the copying, cutting, and pasting between Word docs to move paragraphs to another chapter. What if I had been able to have that magical binder with all its subsections neatly labeled on my computer screen, each item just a click or two away… I recently found a diskette (you know, that little square thing we used to anxiously slide into computers to save our hard work) with hundreds of pages of notes - copiously highlighted in different colors to label which part of my dissertation they applied to.Īt one point, I also printed out a lot of those highlighted notes and put them in a binder with equally well color-coded stick-it notes so that I could quickly flip to what I needed when composing on my computer. Somewhere in storage there might still be a plastic box of index cards that meticulously outlined multiple chapters and their subsections (and sub-subsections…). I still feel vaguely dizzy when I remember the multiple organizational systems I devised for my dissertation. (To learn more about the Scrivener story and the people who built it and continue to improve it, check out .) Life before Scrivener Keith Blount, the creator, forged Scrivener while writing his dissertation - he felt there had to be a better way to compose on a computer, and so he coded a better way for all writers. So what is Scrivener? It’s an app developed by a writer for writers.
If you already know Scrivener, you can skip down to “ Life before Scrivener for iOS.” Otherwise, read on…
SCRIVENER FOR IOS FOR MAC
This blog post is about the long-awaited iOS version of many writers’ favorite writing tool - Scrivener has existed for Mac and Windows for several years. We are talking the power of Scrivener in your back pocket. And to share everything that you do between your devices - computer included - through Dropbox. New Scrivener for iOS allows you to organize your thoughts, research, and write on your iPad and on your iPhone. If you are a writer, has taken steps to ensure that you never have an excuse not to write again.
0 kommentar(er)
