ink.dragons

For me, the best thing to do is to persuade my brain that I'm not actually working, that I'm doing stuff that doesn't matter. Look, I'm not even typing. I'm just scribbling down some ideas. With a pencil! And now I'm typing up notes.

hm if you say so

Scrivener is a writer’s best friend. 

It’s a word processing software created with unruly, complicated novels in mind. However, some writers stay away because its many features can be seem overwhelming at first. If you want to use Scrivener, but haven’t taken the plunge yet. Or if you already use Scrivener, but haven’t explored its many features, check out my three part guide to writing a novel with Scrivener, from planning to editing and all of the key smashing in-between. 

1. Planning with Scrivener

Scrivener comes with tools dedicated to outlining, researching, and brainstorming your manuscript. The first part of this series details everything you can do in Scrivener before setting that first line down in ink (or pixels.) 

2. Drafting with Scrivener 

The second part in this series covers the actual “writing” part of writing. It covers multiple composition modes (even making your screen mimic Microsoft Word!), writing in split screen, word targets, and more. 

3. Editing with Scrivener

The third part of this series gives advice on exporting your writing into a standard manuscript format, saving each version of your work as you go along, and the best tools for revising your manuscript. 

Download a free 30-day trial of Scrivener at its official site. 

I forgot how utterly amazing this software is, so I’m re-blogging my three Scrivener guides! 

The four features that are killing it for me right now are:

A separate text file for each chapter. The organization make it so easy to move around my manuscript, so that doing things like going back to certain chapters to find information I need isn’t an utter nightmare. Equally important, I try to make sure my chapters are between 1,500 and 2,500 words for consistency. Having a separate text file makes it easy to see how far away I am from that mark. Which brings me to feature two.

Targets! I can set manuscript targets, session targets, and chapter targets. This means I can tell Scrivener I want my novel to be 40,000 words long, my chapter to be 2,000 words long, and that I’d like to write 1,500 words today. I can even say I want to finish my book by August 1st, and it’ll tell me how much I need to write each day to meet it–adjusting automatically if I go over/under my daily goal. It’s motivational too, pushing me forward because I’m never far away from hitting a goal. 

Statistics! Scrivener goes above and beyond for manuscript statistics. I click one button and it tells me how many words there are in my book, how long the paragraphs and sentences are on average, how many chapters there are, the longest and shortest chapters, how many pages the document would be as a paperback, and even how long it would take to read!!!! I. Love. It. 

Facial scars

Obvious disability or deformity due to being ~Evil~

Hooked noses (COME ON, FOLKS)

“Ugliness” versus picture perfect heroes

Cartoonishly evil when the audience is for older readers and adults

Death = Redemption (ugh)

Death = Justice (double ugh)

Serial Killers are always criminal masterminds

Be kind. Be brave. Be unstoppable. 💜💜💜

I am obsessed with the Rosewood Chronicles by Connie Glynn and the audiobooks read by her are amazing. I have to admit, I originally bought it as something I could listen to while I fell asleep because I didn't think I would like it as much as I did so it wouldn't matter if I missed much but WOW! I was hooked from the first chapter and every time I thought, ok I know where this is going, it changed and showed it wasn't predictable.

Because she who must not be named has temporarily ruined Hogwarts houses for me, I'm now going with Rosewood houses, and I'm Ivy!

If you think it would be cool to give your character a unicorn as a pet DO IT even if they live in a city or magic doesn’t exist. Why?  Because maybe you will find as you write that instead of a real unicorn, they have a unicorn keychain that is their good luck charm or that they own a horse that lives on their grandparent’s farm or that their best friend is obsessed with unicorns.  But you might have never discovered those things if you didn’t start writing out the farfetched idea. 

–Make her death be her decision, not because of some spur-of-the-moment reaction or emotional bond with a man, but because she’s thought it through and has deemed this path to be the one she wishes to follow (it can EVEN BE for a man, but there’s a lot to be said for a woman shoving the Hero down the passageway so that he can survive while she fights off an army alone, as opposed to leaping in front of a bullet or a sword for him)

–Make her death be the logical endpoint for her journey as a character; she argued “I don’t want to watch people hurt, I want to fight”, she dies as a warrior. She chooses to go to medical school and fight diseases, she dies exposing herself to a disease so others can study her. She’s spent her life running away from danger, she finally chooses to face death readily and willingly. 

–Focus on her lady friends and their reactions, the men who didn’t have romantic interests or a need to protect her, the ones who relied upon her who now need to face the world alone, without her teachings or protection. Be careful not to make her death the trigger for their development, but rather, make it clear what her absence is going to do. If she had her finger stuck in a dam to keep the water from pouring in, what happens now that she’s gone? Does someone else stand there? Do people evacuate the city? What are the consequences of her absence beyond emotional trauma and revenge?

–Just kill her. Have her die like a soldier. One bullet, one explosion, she’s dead, the heroes move on because there’s nothing else to do, they deal with something else. Minimal drama. Minimal angst. Turn the eyes from “Boohoo she’s dead” to “We need to keep moving” as fast as possible. 

–Make sure you’ve clarified all of her attachments outside of her love interests, and her goals, focus on her feelings, acknowledge the relationships she’s built with other people to make her absence more noticeable, and to gain a full perspective on what happens when she’s gone.