Scrivener vs Docs

Google Docs is free, and collaborative. I own a Microsoft 365 license, which gives me the latest version of Word. There are also several open source, free word processing programs available. Not to mention the various competitors for Scrivener, specifically targeted towards authors. So, why did I choose Scrivener?

The answer to that is multi-faceted. My reasoning won’t be a fit for every other author out there, but perhaps it will shed some light on what Scrivener has to offer. If you’re trying to decide what program to use, this article should provide valuable insight from someone who is using Scrivener to its extreme.

Before I begin: No, I am not sponsored and have zero contact with Literature & Latte or any of their staff. I am just passionate about my work, and the tools I’m using to produce it.

Working Offline

I live “out in the boonies”. Our house is surrounded by farmland, and our roads are car-and-a-half wide with no lines or street lights. They twist and wind through forest and farmland, making it challenging for broadband companies to provide us with service. Therefore, we have no broadband service.

Anything I do online is over cellular data. This means that I need to be able to work offline rather regularly. That alone knocks several Scrivener competitors off the list, because they are browser-based and online only. That’s not a concern for most people, and I get that. However, being forced to work online only bears risk you might not realize.

What happens if you’re working in your browser, happily writing away, and your internet service goes down? Are you comfortable losing what you’ve written? Do you trust the system you’re working through to recover?

I’ve been in I.T. since 1992, and I’ve been writing software since 1986. I don’t trust other peoples’ programming to rescue me from that scenario. I trust myself. So, I prefer to work locally, using a system that can function just fine without an internet connection. Even if I didn’t have bandwidth issues where I live, I’d be using Scrivener for that simple fact alone.

Keeping My Work in One Place

Like many modern authors, I started out using Google Docs. What happens when your work gets large, though? You split your work into several docs, usually by chapter. So now you’ve got your work in several docs, and the list keeps growing. The more you write, the more docs you end up with.

To make matters worse, you’ve probably got a pile of notes. If you keep those electronically as well, then you’ve got even more docs to dive through. Next thing you know, you have multiple tabs open in several browser windows, flipping back and forth frantically every time you write a scene.

Need to change something in Chapter One based on a decision you just made in Chapter Three? Well, better start flipping through docs & tabs. Which tab was Chapter One open in? Which doc had the notes you need, and is that open in a tab?

What if you want to change the name of a character? Find and replace to the rescue, right? Across how many documents, in how many places?

I’m working on three epic fantasy series simultaneously. The first is five novels, the second and third are three each. Each series also includes a volume of the Ayrelon Compendium, each of which includes a series of short stories. That’s a lot of writing, and even more notes. I’ve got characters that span all eleven novels. Others appear sporadically across several of them.

I also have to keep track of world details such as: societal structures, races, creatures, characters, timeline and more.

I do it all inside a single project in Scrivener. One place for everything, all well organized. No need for multiple browser windows, or an ever-increasing pile of open tabs.

If I want to re-name a character, I don’t have to hunt down every document that character exists in. I can do a simple, easy project find and replace and swap that character’s name in every scene, chapter, synopsis and note across my entire saga… all at once.

Organization

I have a very analytical, organized mind. For many years, I put off writing because the sheer madness of organizing all of my notes and world-building details prohibited me from making any progress. Every time I tried to write, I opened up a chapter’s document and immediately got lost in the details, sifting through piles of notes on both paper and in Google Drive.

I once tried to format my notes into a wiki in a failed attempt to get control of it all. Nothing worked for me. Nothing helped… until I found Scrivener.

Now I can organize literally everything involved in my writing efforts in a single place, inside the same program I’m using to write. I have folders for each series, folders inside those for each novel, folders inside those novels for each chapter. I have folders for each Ayrelon Compendium, inside each are folders for Characters, Settings, Races, Short Stories, Notes and Events. Inside the Characters folders are folders for Protagonists, Antagonists, Neutral Characters, Mentioned Characters, etc.

I create a Collection for everything I want to export, and then add whatever I want to that collection, in whatever order I want them in. I don’t export the project itself. Ever. This allows me to work on several books all at once inside the same project without conflicts, and without hassle.

Writing by Scenes, Not Chapters

The final thing that sets Scrivener apart from working with many of its competitors, though some do include this feature, is writing by Scene not Chapter. This has completely changed the way I think about my work, and approach my writing process. When I start a book, or a chapter, I can drop in empty scene files, write a synopsis for each, fill in custom meta-data to control my timeline, drag them around, etc.

I have moved entire scenes across chapters to improve flow, by simply dragging them. No need to open multiple docs and copy-paste to move things around. And the cork-board view makes everything so much simpler, in that regard.

Would I Recommend Scrivener?

Absolutely, 100%, yes. It’s cheap, it works offline, you can sync the folder it saves to with Google Drive, Dropbox, One-Drive, or any other online storage system (this is accomplished on your computer, not inside Scrivener). It lets you organize everything all in one place, however you like it.

I will publish more articles in the near future with tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way.

Happy writing!