Writing a Novel with Scrivener [Kindle Edition]

David Hewson explains that this is NOT a Scrivener Manual. As he points out, the Scrivener Manual is excellent. However, whereas the Scrivener Manual tells you how to do something, David Hewson's book explains reasons as to why an author may want to do something in Scrivener. In this book, David reveals how Scrivener helps him with his creative process, from starting a book by writing a few scenes, and being able to cut, join, or re-arrange them later, to jotting down scenes that he needs to write as the ideas come to him, but at the time of writing he does not know where exactly in his book they will go, right through to the end process of editing, formatting and getting the finished book into Microsoft Word format for a publisher or agent, or eBook format.

David uses some of his novels as examples, which helps to explain how Scrivener can be used by an author. This can be particularly useful if you haven't played around with the software yet.

I already have Scrivener and have been using it for a few months now. My own personal tip to anyone getting hold of a copy of the software for the first time is to start by importing an existing manuscript into the software and playing around with your text that way. (You don't have to do this, but I found it a great way to explore and try out many of Scrivener's features. It enabled me to get a far better understanding of my novel, it's structure (and its weaknesses) and has helped me to edit it into a much more superior document.)

If you don't have a manuscript to import into Scrivener, David's book is a great way of getting a better understanding in your own mind about how Scrivener can help with the authoring process. I've picked up several tips from this book and I was really pleased to see David explaining the benefits and drawbacks of using Scrivener and the Dropbox service (a different product entirely, but an immensely useful one for writers).

If you're thinking about whether Scrivener is worth the (very modest) investment, or have just purchased it and wondered whether it was the right step, then I would recommend Hewson's guide. It's an author telling other authors how he finds the software useful. And he should know - he's written several novels with it!

"In this book, David Hewson says the wisest of things: "How do you write a novel? I can't tell you. Everyone works differently. The secret, if there is such a thing, is to cherry-pick the working habits of others then complement them with your own."

Let's cut to the chase. If you're an author, you should at least give Scrivener a fair try. In my opinion, it is by far and away the best long-form writing tool there is, bar none. I use is every day with my copywriting work and have also written a novel using it, The Well (and am at work on my next). Scrivener is a powerful beast which approaches word processing in a fundamentally different - and fundamentally better - way than linear word processors.

So let's say you are an author who uses Scrivener, or one who's considering it: you really should read this book.

Scrivener comes with a lot of excellent help files and even videos. So why on Earth would we need `another manual'?

This book is not another manual. It's despatches from the front line - how someone who writes for a living uses Scrivener to do so. Not only is David a successful author, he's also a long-time Scrivener user. What he does in this book is to blend together his experiences as a writer with those as a software user. The end result is a highly focused guide to what David has found works best for him, when writing with Scrivener. He makes no bones about the fact that Scrivener may well (and in many cases does) provide other ways of doing some of the same things - but what's explained here is how one writer as learned a tool and then honed its use into the most efficient for him. He's also right in saying that since this works for him, much of this will work for most others, too.

I've used Scrivener for over two years. I'd call myself very familiar with it. But I found more than half a dozen tips within this book so fundamentally useful to my own writing process that I'll be using them every day I use Scrivener - and, by using them, saving myself a lot of time and a lot of hassle.

When I attended art college, a lot of our time was spent studying the masters. Not to imitate or copy, but to learn from them; to stand on their shoulders. That's what this book is - learning how to use a great writing tool, from a great writer.

This is an excellent book which does exactly what it says on the tin.
I've been using Scrivener for several years, and have written my last few novels with it, so I'm already a fanatical Scrivener advocate. Though I didn't learn too much I hadn't already worked out for myself about the basics of the program, I found his concise instructions to be most helpful in reinforcing my understanding of why it's such a brilliant piece of software.
The final section, on e-book publishing with Scrivener, was in itself well worth the modest cost of the book. Thanks, David!