shopify analytics ecommerce tracking
Walsh and Bolton Twitter Unconference Advertise Facebook Book Zazzle Search

Winning NaNoWriMo with Scrivener

By 10 Comments

title image

Whether you’re plotting in advance or completely winging it, Scrivener can help you win National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

Here are some of my favorite features to help you hit 50K in November, or whatever your writing goal is, any month of the year.

Handling Ideas, or the Lack Thereof

When you’re writing for speed, you can’t afford to be slowed down by ideas for future scenes, or get stuck trying to conjure the perfect piece of dialog. Nor do you have time for additional research.

Instead, make a note and get back to writing. Scrivener offers several options for leaving notes.

Annotations and Comments: These are notes you can leave at a particular point in your text, which makes them great for reminders about fixing a bad description, looking up precise medical details for an injury, or anything else that’s spot-specific.

screenshot of annotation and comment

Document Notes: Think of these like a sticky note you can slap on the scene. They’re best for general thoughts about the overall scene (e.g., research needed, ideas for changes in a character’s scene goal, ideas for where to take the scene if you’re plotting it right before writing).

screenshot of document notes and synopsis

Documents: For manuscript-level notes and ideas, you might instead create a document to jot down things as they occur to you. I also like the idea of having a Change Log document for notes on scenes I’ve already written, so I’m not tempted to fix them when I should be writing new material.

Another use for documents is to create one when you have an idea for a future scene, and use it as a placeholder. You can enter a brief description of what you think will happen in the Synopsis card, or maybe quickly write out the conversation or piece of action that came to you before you forget. When you get to that point in the manuscript, the scene will already be waiting.

screenshot of binder

Synopsis: For those who plot—either the whole book in advance, or each scene immediately before you write it—the Synopsis (see image in Document Notes section) is a great place to keep a reminder of what’s supposed to happen, in case you forget. If you don’t plot at all, you can add a short description of what happened after you write the scene, to help you keep track as your story builds.

The Corkboard lets you view the synopsis cards storyboard-style. If this is your thing, I recommend not grouping your documents into folders until you’re done using the Corkboard to view, plot, and reorder your story.

screenshot of the corkboard

Blocking Out Distractions

Scrivener’s Composition Mode (called Full Screen Mode in Windows) is the next-best thing to noise-canceling headphones. It hides everything but the document you’re working on, and even allows you to customize the background color or image. I like to [Read more…]

+6

16.67 Ways to Juice Your Daily NaNoWriMo Word Count

By

The best thing and the worst thing about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is the relentlessness of your daily word count goal. You don’t have to write 1667 words a day, of course, but if you want to get to 50,000 words by the end of the month, you need to hit that average. Some days that’s tough. Some days it feels well-nigh impossible. So here are 16.67 ways to juice your creative energies and string together some sentences – maybe even a scene – to get you closer to your inevitable … [Read more...]

Five Reasons Not to do NaNoWriMo

By

We're three days into November. Or, as many of think about it, three days into National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Cathy wrote a great post yesterday about trusting your gut during NaNoWriMo. Today I thought I'd write a post about the reasons you shouldn't do NaNoWriMo at all. Now, to be clear, I secretly love NaNo. I've done it sporadically over the last couple of decades, and I absolutely love the concept of it. I just think that if you're doing NaNoWriMo for the wrong reasons, it … [Read more...]

How NaNoWriMo Helps Creativity Soar

By

I’m 10,000 feet in the air. I’m in an airplane. I hate to fly, but I’m not paying much attention to that. I’m much more consumed with what’s waiting on my laptop. Why? Because NaNoWriMo. I have over 10,000 words to write in the next five days. Disclaimer: There are strong feelings on both sides about NaNoWriMo. I say that because I’d like you to keep reading regardless of how you feel about it. This post is about writing constraints and creativity and about how sometimes creativity can … [Read more...]

How Not To NaNoWriMo

By

I’m not a huge fan of rules about writing. I don’t write every day, for starters. I neither write what I know nor do I not write what I don’t know. So there are very few blanket pronouncements I would make about writing, and I would never tell people not to do NaNoWriMo, attempting to knock out the better part of a novel in just one month. But I will say this: I’ve done it a few times, and sometimes it turns out really well, and sometimes it’s a spectacular crash-and-burn failure, and the … [Read more...]

The Time It Costs to Write

By

The most common question I'm asked about my books is, "How long did it take you to write them?" The second most common question: "What is your writing routine like?" I usually hesitate to answer either of these questions because I suspect they're another way for a writer to compare him or herself to others, which is never helpful. Sure, there are probably tips and insights to be gleaned from learning that it took me nearly seven years and countless revisions and rewrites to finish my first … [Read more...]

4 Ways to Make Notes in Scrivener

By

Do you write sticky notes for revision ideas? Or maybe you add words in caps or use TK to mark spots that need fixed or require additional research. No matter what type of note you want to leave for yourself, Scrivener has an option that makes it easy to mark up your text and find your comments easily when you’re ready to deal with them. Annotations and comments allow you to leave notes at the exact spot that needs attention. Document and project notes give you a broader scope. And, you … [Read more...]

Do You Know What You’re Capable Of?

By

When I first started running more than 20 years ago, I was slow and couldn’t last for more than 5 or 10 minutes without taking walk breaks. I more or less kept at the same pattern (and same trail) day after day, not expecting much of myself. I didn’t feel like a runner, but I had the strange idea I should try anyway. One day I completed the little trail loop without stopping to walk. It crossed my mind: What if I tried going around a second time? I did, without needing to walk. I felt a bit … [Read more...]

Another !@#$% NaNoWriMo Article

By

Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody. Do you really want to do this to yourself again? Don’t you deserve a break? Are you really doing National Novel Writing Month again? Think of how much you could get done if, instead of spending the time hunched over your laptop trying to find the perfect synonym for “car,” you took up another hobby? Or … [Read more...]

Between a Blog and a Hard News Cycle

By

How Do You Know If You Can Say No to NaNo? The Internet has mutated reasonable people into wannabe writers...We are blind to the harsh truth-light-radiating facts such as ‘half of self-published authors earn less than $500’, facts written about in newspapers by professional writers. That's Tom Mitchell (@tommycm on Twitter) writing an essay at Medium, War on #amwriting. I must thank my colleague in London, Sheila Bounford, for reminding me of it. It could have been lost in the Bavarian Ether: … [Read more...]

Pre-Writing: Discovering Your Character’s Secrets

By

I know a lot of you out there are gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and while you’re not allowed to begin your story until November 1, you are allowed to do pre-writing on your project, and frankly, I think pre-writing is highly undervalued, so I thought I’d talk about it this month. The reason I’m a big believer in pre-writing is because until I have a glimmer of understanding of my character’s emotional landscape and internal settings, I don’t know what sorts of story events will challenge them. I … [Read more...]

Frog Marching the Muse: Eighteen Tips to Get Words on the Page

By

Two days ago, I turned in a manuscript that I truly feared I would never finish. That has never happened to me before, and to have it happen when the final installment in a trilogy was DUE NOW, was as potentially disastrous as it was unacceptable. Keep in mind that I am one of those people who does not subscribe to the belief that you must write every day; for me, forced writing does not always equal useable writing and can often times derail the story. I also believe that sometimes fallow … [Read more...]

Comic: NaNoIdMoAdMo

By

In case you're curious, I'm participating in PiBoIdMo and am also a NaNoWriMo Rebel. Do YOU participate in writing challenges? Why or why not? If don't have time for 50k this month, you want an ongoing writing challenge with some built-in flexibility, I've set up a 250, 500 and 1000 Words A Day Challenge for writers (also on Facebook). Whatever challenge you do take, don't get so caught up in the social fun and forget to WRITE. p.s. I mention NaNoEdMo in the comic, but it's actually a … [Read more...]

How to find your way to writing success? PLAY!

By

Last weekend, I attended a conference for long-time published writers, where a host of industry insiders offered their insights on the changing face of publishing. Because of the NINC standards (only authors with two books or more published can join) and the desire to keep the discussion vibrant and flowing, I can’t share many details, but I can share the general spirit. When asked what authors should be doing now, to deal with the wild changes in our business, the insiders said, over and … [Read more...]