There’s a Windows version and a Mac version, and it’s inexpensive compared to something like Microsoft Office, so everyone can use it. What is it? In a few short words, it’s index cards meets a word processor. I won’t go into too much detail about the ‘what’ because this post is about some of the things I’ve discovered in using it.
Word of warning, I’ve never used the tutorial, because that’s not how I learn software. So some of you may already know these things, but they’ve been so very helpful to me. Word of warning, I’m using the Windows version, so if you have the Mac version, some of the commands will be a little different, but the concept will be the same.
Repeated Words
This is something you can’t do easily in MS Word (though in a couple of days I’ll tell you how to use it with something that’s unique to Word). In Scrivener, the left menu is a tree-view hierarchy of the pieces of your story. I keep all my parts under a main folder called ‘Manuscript’, and I let things like outline, character sheets, etc, sit at the same level.
Highlight all of the index cards in your left column that contain story. The easiest way to do this is to click on the top card, hold down ‘Shift’ and click on the bottom card. This will select those two sections and every section in between. Update: You also need to click the parent in your binder, the folder all the text files are in, or the main text file, and then click in the main window where your work is.- Click on ‘Project’->’Text Statistics’
- A new window will open with some basic word count statistics. This is kind of cool, but nothing special. What’s important here is the link at the bottom that says ‘Word Frequency’. Click that.
- The window will expand and show you every single word used in your story, and how many times you’ve used it.
If you know you have repeated words, but don’t know what they all are, this will tell you. I scroll through this list, and avoid pronouns, character names, things like that. But I look out for ‘weak’ verbs: started, began, took, things like that. I also look for adjectives or overused descriptive verbs: whispered, long, brushed, big, short, brown.
For me, I make a list and save it in a separate text document. It takes some time to sift through the entire Scrivener list, but it’s a big help in catching crutch words.
Name Generator
I just discoverd this recently, and I think it’s the niftiest thing ever, because I hate coming up with last names:
- Click on ‘Tools’->’Writing Tools’->’Name Generator’
- The tool will generate a list of first and last names for you. You can specify country of origin, how many names you want, if you want male, female, or both kinds of names, what letter you want themto start or end with, how many last names you want to get for each name…
- The other tabs and buttons also have things like a name dictionary to give you definitions, a way to import your own list of names, and a ways to save the names you’ve generated
What kind of nifty things have you discovered in Scrivener that make writing easier?
During the entire month of April, I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. The alphabet will be my motivation, though the content of the posts will be very similar to what regular readers are used to. Check out the link for more amazing bloggers, and enjoy April!
“Text Statistics” is greyed out in the menu… you’re selecting text files in the Binder, right?
I don’t have Scrivener, but I constantly keep hearing about how great it is. One of these days, I’m going to get it for myself.
I just recently got into Scrivener, so I’m still learning all of its tricks. This “repeated words” function is pretty cool. 🙂
oooo
I didn’t know about any of the fancy features and I use the program. lol
Thanks for the tips, the name generator especially will be really useful!
I must be doing something wrong. Text Statistics is grayed unless I select the text itself, not the card in the left hierarchy. I can’t manage to do it with more than one card at a time. 🙁
Margot
Inklings @ margothovley.com
Love Scrivener! Just learned about the Name Generator yesterday . . . and checked it out. Very cool! Still learning — don’t use tutorials either. I’m a hands on learner. 🙂
Scrivener makes me wish I owned a Mac.
Peggy, there is a version for Windows too!
Just reading this now but I never realised you could see the word usage in Scrivener, for each word! Thanks for sharing this tip! 😀 Been using it for about 2 years now and can’t imagine writing without it. I just work much better being able to move things around and see them all laid out this way. Such a great piece of software!
(PLUS, the folks behind Scrivener are from very close to where I went to uni in Cornwall, which makes me even happier to support them 🙂