Scrivener Saturday: The Freeform Corkboard

I’m a bit off since I took Wednesday off, so this post is a Belated Scrivener Saturday.

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Scrivener Saturday: The Research Folder

This post deals less with the techy side of the program, but how I organize my research so that it is at my fingertips all the time. This way I don’t have to be flipping back and forth through my files,Evernote, or my bookmarked pages on my browser.

As you can see–click on the image, it will open to another window and it will be larger–I like to play around with my icons. I tint the folders and I change the look of the icons. In a previous post, I showed how to change the icons, but I’ll save you the trouble to find that post and show you again:

To change the icon, point your curser on a folder and right-click; go to Change Icon. From the list choose whichever icon suits your need.

I’ve chosen numerous icons to distinguish each folder to avoid confusion. The conversation bubble folder has my elevator pitch; the clapper board holds my unused scenes. The picture icon folder has all the details of my characters; and the map folder has all the locales where Julius takes place.

I’ve added three more folders and that’s from the research I’ve culled from the internet and other places. I selected the book icons for Marx and Russell Kirk. For any news articles about the financial crisis I selected the bar graph.

I also have a number of To Do tasks in the research folder and you can see I’ve selected the check mark icon. This file includes the templates for the synopsis in various formats, i.e., four page summary, two page, one paragraph, and so on, as well character synopsis.

The remaining two folders are from Scrivener’s template, which provides template sheets for a character and setting sketch; the sample output includes samples of how a manuscript is formatted for a novel, paperback, and e-book.

Scrivener allows you to import web pages, text files, photos and even videos within the binder. I’ve imported photographs of how my characters look like and numerous photos of where certain scenes take place. An important thing to note is that Scrivener makes a copy of the file. Your original file is still in its folder that you saved within your files and the copy or photo remains untouched.

To import from the Internet, select Research. From the File Menu, select Web Page.  In the address box, type in the URL. In the Title box, type the subject of your research. Click okay.

The imported page appears in the research folder with a Web icon. Click on it to view it in the editor pane. If the page is updated, you won’t see any changes, but the hyperlinks work.

Let’s say I want to import a photo from my Macbook Pro’s Finder files. Once again, go to File Menu, select Import, but this time choose Files. A window will drop down showing your finder’s files, select any file you want and then hit Import.

In this case, I selected a photo and as you can see in the editor pane that I’ve typed notes about this specific photograph and its part in the story.

On the corkboard it looks like this along with the index cards that summarize the setting sketch:

For articles that come from the web, I prefer to turn them into PDFs instead of having the web pages. It’s easier to manipulate, especially if articles from newspapers run over to more than one page. When I’m referring to these articles, I use Scrivener’s nifty split screen feature, but I’ll leave that for next week’s lesson.

So that’s how I organize my research using Scrivener. Feel free to share how you organize your own research.

I’m in the process of reworking my novel and one of the key changes I’ve made is a switch to multiple points of view. Originally the story was told in the first-person with only one point of view. Now, I’ve switched it to the third person with at least four viewpoints. The switching back and forth can get confusing and the best way to keep track of these  is to color code the text or chapter icons in the binder.

But before we get into the process of changing colors and making the binder look like a rainbow, let’s get into the variety of icons you see in the binder for this specific project: Julius Rewrite. As you can see, I’ve already customized this a bit, but I’ll take you through the process. In the binder I have the following:

• A manuscript icon that includes several folders with files in them.
• A research icon with more folders
• Trash can

You’ll notice that the chapter folders are tinted orange, which is the color I use for chapters, and the files in each folder are also tinted, which signifies whose point of view I’m writing. For Chapter 1, I’ve written the same chapter but in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. The tinted turquoise file appears to be the one I am favoring. But what about the others–do I trash them or do I tuck them away in another folder?

Considering how many changes I’ve made and how often I go back and forth. It’s probably a good idea to keep them in a new folder and call that “Unused Scenes.” To create a new folder, click the blank area below trash can which will deselect any highlighted folders. At the bottom of the binder click the icon that looks like a folder with the + sign. Drag the new folder into the research area, above Major Characters, and label it as “Unused Scenes.” So now it looks like this:

Let’s say you want to change this blue folder into a different icon:

• Right click on the folder and select Change Icon (or go to the bottom of the binder and click on the gear icon).
• From the menu of icons offered select whichever one catches your eye. I chose the clapper icon. This is how it now looks:

To tint the icons, you need to  fiddle around with the meta-data settings.  Right click on the folder’s label you want to tint. From the list select Label and choose the appropriate one.

If you don’t have any labels, you can go to Edit and set them up. Once you hit edit, the meta-data settings window will open (click on the image to see a larger version). To make a label, click on the + icon at the bottom on the Meta-Data Settings page. A colored box will appear and next to it an empty field to type in the label name. To change the color of the box, double click on that and the box of crayons will open up to select a new color. Close the box of crayons and the Meta-Data Settings.

To tint the icons, right click the folder you want to tint. From the list choose Label and you’ll see all your new labels. For this example, I am tinting Chapter 4 Orange and the file a reddish brown which is the appointed color for Douglas’s POV. And now my binder looks like this:

Give it a go and if you have any questions, just leave a comment and I will reply. Next week, we’ll cover in more detail Meta-Data.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been playing around with two mind mapping programs recently and the one I seem to favor isSimpleMind (also available for Windows. Price $30.99 for Mac version). What I like about the program is the fast learning curve and it is easy to use. Yet the best feature of using both programs is the ability to export it to Scrivener.

I won’t get into all the features of SimpleMind, but below is an example of what the map looks like when I was working out Jake’s character traits. Note: To see larger versions of the images, click on each one. It will open up in a different window.

Once I had the map complete, I saved the map as a PDF on my desktop as well as an OPML file. From Scrivener, I imported both to my current Julius project (go to File=>Import=>Files). As you can see, the OPML files–once imported–appear in the binder as RTF files. Here, I’ll be able to go into further detail to flesh out Jake’s personality as well as his inner and outer conflicts.

Mind mapping is an interesting way to outline especially if you’re very visual and tend to like word association. Once I have all the different characters’ traits down, I’ll start with chapter outlines using mind maps and see how well they work with plotting.

Do you use mind maps? How detailed do you make your mind maps and have you found them useful as an outlining tool?  

There have been several posts concerning formatting on Literature and Latte’s Scrivener for Windows forum. Several people commented about margins, fonts, and line spacing not saving. Again, a reminder, this is still in beta and the bugs are still in the process of getting zapped.

But some folks who have taken upon themselves to play around with the software, and who are not Lit & Lat employees, have provided a lot of feedback on how to get your margins to stay put.

I have to comment that for some reason all the betas have not given me any problem at all with the exception of margins. During one of my many rounds of revisions for Julius, I had to fix the margins a number of times and each fix never saved. I finally had enough and wrote a note on the forum and one of the members said to move the top ruler marker to where I wanted to set it and that would solve the problem. Lo and behold, it did.

The current 1.55 Beta now has line spacing and it works pretty much the same as it does on Word, but what if the document you imported is completely screwed up.  How can you fix it? The fastest way is to hit Ctrl+A that will highlight everything. Move the top ruler mark to set your margins, and in the formatting toolbar choose the font you like and the point size.

But the line spacing is still screwed up? Here’s the secret to fix that: click on the line space tab then click on “Other Spacing.” You’ll have to fool with it to find the parameters that you want to set, but once you’ve determined how you want it (I like 1.5 line spacing), your line spacing will be set and it will be saved.

You’ll have to do this for every document that you import, but if you create a new text file, all your formatting parameters will be set and saved.

Another way to go about it is to use the menu bar. Go to Edit, click on it, from there go to Options and click on that.

Scroll through until you reach editor and from there set your margins, fonts, point size and line spacing, again you can go into Other Spacing and type in your parameters.

Hit “Apply” and you’re set!

Coming up meta-data…

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The Scratch Pad

It’s been several weeks that I’ve actually have had anytime to do a Scrivener Saturday, but I put off the tutorial because I wanted to wait for the latest iteration of the Beta version so I could play around with some features. My plan was to write about the outliner mode, but a feature popped out at me that I love and want to share with you today.

I read the forums everyday and for the most part, many of the bugs people have written about I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing them. When I see a topic that’s of interest, I check out what the problem is then open my version of Scrivener and see if I have the same bug. About 98 percent of the time I don’t, which is good for two reasons. One, I seem to have a system that tolerates the Beta versions; and two, I learn about other features within the program.

The feature I discovered recently was the “Scratch Pad.” At first I thought it was a little redundant because of the document and project notes that’s in the Inspector section, but it wasn’t after I read the forum post that I understood the the overall function.

The purpose is that if you’re working away on another project and you suddenly get an inspiration you can jot it down. The beauty of the scratch pad is that it stays open all the time. So if I’m not in Scrivener, but fiddling around with an email or a thread on Facebook, that Scratch Pad is always in the background in an unobtrusive manner—a ghostlike image. Once I click on the apparition, it opens and I can type my quick thought. Now the folks at Literature &Latte did an even better one with the Scratch Pad, they added a little feature that you can send the text into your project. Just click on the button that says “Send to Project” and you can copy the notes to either the document the section you want it in or in research. You also have the option to select just a section of the note and send it to your project.

Where do you find this dandy feature? Just go to the menu bar to Window and you’ll see “Scratch Pad”. Or you can type in the shortcut, “Ctrl+/” And there you have it!

What does it look like?

And how does the ghost like feature look like in another program?

No more lost thoughts, no more writing on napkins or the back of envelopes, or on Post-its that fall off or get lost. Just keep the Scratch Pad open and jot away!

Next week it’s all about formatting!

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The Corkboard

The day has come that we all learn about the corkboard. Once again, let me remind you that I’m currently working on a beta version and it’s still a little buggy, but I’ll show you the very essentials and what I’ve done with the corkboard for The Wilde Solution.

This how my workspace looks with The Wilde Solution. You’ll notice in the binder that I have chapter files in the draft section, my character and location templates in research as well as some web pages I’ve imported. Since I have the first chapter highlighted this is what you see when I have the corkboard icon selected. Where are the index cards? Because I write whole chapters and not individual scenes, there are no cards, but we’ll get to those shortly.

When I hit the Inspector (blue circle with the letter “I”) I open up a section that shows a synopsis,general and document notes.

Click on Synopsis and what you’ll discover is an index card. Like so:

The index card is typically blank, but if you want to want to write a summary of the chapter, double click on it and type in your chapter summary, or if you want the first sentence of the chapter click on the small box on the extreme right and it will automatically type in the first sentence.

Next, hit the the “General” tab and you see that you have the option to label the draft, give it a status, plus know when it was created and/or modified.As well as three options: Included in draft, page before, and compile as-is (we’ll get to those another time.)

For the labels you have choices and since these are chapters I labeled them as such and color coded it the chapter with a pink tack, it’s status is first draft, and again there are choices, like revision, final, complete or you can edit it choose something else.

I deselected the Inspector, clicked on chapters in my binder and you can see on the cork board all the chapters pinned to the board.

The beauty of the corkboard is that I can reorder the chapters and move them around. When you reorder them, they’re also changed in the binder. This is ideal if you write actually break down the chapters into scenes and decide that one scene works best in another chapter.

Cards can be changed in the way they look, size, font, and how far spaced they are. To do this, click on the box box in the extreme right (it has four tiny squares) and you’ll see a pop up box with Corkboard Tools:

You can make your adjustment here or you can go to to edit>>>options>>>corkboard and fiddle around the appearance, type face and so forth.

That’s it for today. Next week, we’ll get into the outliner mode. Off to do some writing!

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Scrivener Basics