Scrivener Step 2: Setting up a New Project

by Mary Sutton / @mary_sutton73


Note: I am using Scrivener for Mac. If you are using Windows, please allow for differences.

So having completed the tutorial, I set up a new project. I decided to use something completely new and not convert something existing (you can import Word documents into Scrivener, but I'll save that for later).

Note: Something really cool - the Scrivener trial goes by 30 days of actual use, so if you use it every day, it's 30 days. If you use it every other day, your trial will expire in 60 days. That's nice.


Creating a  new project is dead simple: File > New Project. Once you've done that, you get to pick the template you want to use. Here is where it gets really cool.

You can do a "blank" project where you have to create everything. However, say you're writing a novel. Under the "Fiction" category, there is a novel template. That template contains a predefined cover page and will automatically number your chapters when you compiled the project. So if you decide to move Chapter 20 to Chapter 13, you don't have to renumber everything.

The "Fiction" category also contains templates for Novel (with sections) and Short Story. Each contain a title page (which you need to fill in - the file is in the Front Matter folder in the Binder).

Also included in this template is predefined output for manuscript submission (1" margins all around and 12pt Courier/Times New Roman font). As I pointed out yesterday, this is cool because if you prefer to work online using a sans-serif font as I do (e.g, Arial - my eyes have trouble focusing on serif fonts on a screen for long periods of time), you don't have to worry about making sure you've replaced all your fonts correctly before you prepare your manuscript for submission. Scrivener will do that for you.

In the Front Matter folder for the Novel template, you'll also see Paperback Novel and eBook. Each of these have template pages to complete that are unique to that output. For example, Paperback Novel has a copyright page and a dedication. Yes, there is an output specifically for eBook output, should you need it.

There are many other categories of templates including, Non-fiction, Poetry,  and Scriptwriting. I didn't explore them because I'm not writing those things, but I would imagine they come with their own standard outputs and associate front matter.

So my main task yesterday was writing some book treatments. Scrivener is not really a free-form text writer, so I wrote in Word. But while I was doing so I used another feature of Scrivener that I can tell is going to be useful: Character Sheets and Location Sheets.

These things are not included in output. Think of them as crib notes for the places and people you create. As I was writing my treatment and creating characters, I created Character Sheets in Scrivener. This is where the characters back story lives. The sheets include name, role in the story, physical description, personality, unique habits - all the things that you may use in your story. The character sheets also include two extremely important areas: Internal Conflicts and External Conflicts. This is awesome. Because if you can't fill in these areas, your character has a problem and maybe you need to put more thought into him. Because if a character doesn't have some conflict, he's not going to be very interesting, is he?

You can get as detailed as you need to be with these sheets, but I recommend putting at least a couple of things in each area. If you think of something else, you can go back and edit it. I did not create character sheets for everyone (for example, the nameless stable boy, or the maid that only gets one scene), but I did for my primary and major secondary characters. And don't fret. This is not a one time deal, so if you create a character when you're halfway through the book, you can create a character sheet for him. But they really make you think about your characters, so I highly recommend their use.

The second thing I did was Location sheets. These describe the places in your story (duh). But again, it makes you think. What is this location's role in the story? What characters will use this location? Are there unique features? What I really like is there's a place to describe the sights, sounds, and smells of the location. These are the things that will help you really bring your setting alive. What does a middle school smell like? You can say "the walls were bright yellow" or you can say, "the lights reflected off of the industrial-painted walls and the smell of heavy antiseptic cleaner and stale gym clothes filled the air." I bet the second description makes the place more alive (or I hope it does).

Again, you can get really specific or general. I created Location sheets for my major settings. I'm sure my characters will do things like ride down a road, but I didn't create a Location sheet for the road. I could, but frankly I think that's overkill.

You do not have to use Character or Location sheets, but I liked them. They really made me focus on why I was going to use specific things and made the story coalesce in my brain.

So now that my project was complete and sheets filled out, I was ready to start writing.

Update: I forgot something. Some writers aren't a slave to word count and don't care. But some like to use a general word count target. For example, say you're writing a short story and you know the target word count for submission is 6,000 words. Go to Project > Show Project Targets and you can both set your targets and see your progress (that's for later).

Tomorrow: Day 3 - Writing My First Scene

Dangers of Character Love

by Mary Sutton / @mary_sutton73

I'm in love. Not just with my husband - with Trooper First Class Jim Duncan.

Don't worry, he's not a real person. He's a character - my character, my protagonist from a series of short stories. In my mind's eye, he looks a bit like a younger Mark Harmon.

I love Sally Castle too. She's another character, Duncan's sidekick. Or maybe a secondary protagonist. Not really sure what you want to call her. And, she looks a little like Angie Harmon, one of my favorite TV attorneys (maybe that says something about me and the name Harmon).

I've written a story about these two. Actually, I've written several. And they are giving me heartburn as a writer right now.

Recently, someone suggested that maybe I just need to "give up" on these characters and find some new ones. But I can't. See Jim and Sally are begging, no demanding, that I write their stories. I started a project for this fall fully intending to create some new characters. But I just couldn't get going on it. The voice was all wrong. And in my writer's ear, I heard Jim and Sally talking to me. In an outraged tone, they said, "Why are you trying to give away our story?"

(This is where you start thinking of calling the men in white coats. Unless you're a writer, in which case you completely understand.)

I gave Jim and Sally the story. It flew out of my fingers. It's still a shitty first draft, but it's a good story (I think). So is the one I'm working on - their first story. Even my editor said I've got something good here, with good characters. Jim Duncan is a hard-working, divorced man just trying to do a good job as a Pennsylvania State Trooper.

And there's the rub.

See, once you write from the POV of someone in law enforcement, you've gone into the genre of "police procedural." I so did not want to go into this genre. Procedurals are hard. You have to get the details right. It's a lot of research, a lot of work to make your character not only likable (which I've done according to the editor), but realistic. And thus the heartburn.

Yeah, I could walk away and tell Duncan that I just can't write his story. That I'm not good enough. That I don't want to be in his world. Some would say just take him out of that world, but I can't do that either. He'd be a fish out of water - and I can't do that to him.

And somehow, I think Jim and Sally would find a way to exact their revenge if I did.

Have you ever fallen in love with one of your characters?

Evolution of a Character

by Mary Sutton / @mary_sutton73

I've heard it said recently that character is king. Give a reader an engaging, likeable character (or characters) and he'll forgive you a few plot holes (not craters, but "oopsies"). One of the things that makes characters engaging is development. Your protagonist starts as one person and grows to become a richer, fuller person - hopefully. Flat characters are hard to love.

Very few fans of crime/mystery fiction have not read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic "Sherlock Holmes" stories (or at least heard of them). Many who have not read the stories, have seen movies with Basil Rathbone or the late, great Jeremy Brett (my personal favorite).

But as much as I love Brett's manic, quirky, arrogant, yet gentlemanly, portrayal of Holmes, I think he's being eclipsed in my mind by the new face of Sherlock: Benedict Cumberbatch. Why? Character development.

In the first episode of Holmes, he's really a jerk ("I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your homework."). There's little to like about this man. He's arrogant. He's rude. He dismisses everybody and everything as beneath his notice, including Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and Molly the lab tech. He's brilliant of course, but he takes that for granted. Anybody who doesn't measure up (and that's just about everybody) he dismisses (he does somehow take to Watson).

In short, he's a guy who I can admire as a genius, but wouldn't invite him to dinner in a million years.

Then in Season 2, there came the moment. Watson makes a comment about friends, and Holmes retorts, "I don't have any friends." Watson is clearly hurt and starts to pull away from their relationship. And Holmes misses him; it surprises him, I think, but that stings, to lose Watson. And later he says, "I told you the truth; I don't have friends. I have one." The message is clear: Holmes considers Watson his one friend. There's another moment where this goes further in the Season 2 finale, but if you haven't seen it I don't want to spoil it for you.

That, my friends, is character development. Holmes is still arrogant. But he's realized that these people, Watson in particular, matter to him. He's a little less isolated and a little more human.

That humanity is what makes characters appealing. Real people change and grow (or at least they should). If we want our characters to be people our readers would invite for dinner, we have to make them human. We have to develop them in a way that makes them change and grow.

What's the best example of character development you've read or seen?