Scrivenings

Based on the actual draft starting somewhere in early April, I'm averaging 10K words a month. At that rate I actually would have the first draft done before the end of the year.

That's NaNoWriMo pacing.

Is even slightly better than that. I've hashed out a lot of deep plot and character issues over these early chapters, and I have hope and a not-unjustified expectation of getting faster. Also I'm doing a lot of editing as I go -- very much against NaNoWriMo tradition -- and it will take mostly clean-up passes to get it into final shape.



But today's essay is about Scrivener IOS.

I've written several scenes from scratch, and done some editing, with nothing but iPhone and -- the almost indispensable -- iClever keyboard. It works...well enough. All of my complaints are basically due to limitations of the iPhone, especially, the limited screen real estate.

Oh, and to my current working methods, which leverage parts of Scrivener which do not emulate well in the IOS version.

So. Basic typing is good. One immediate and wonderful enhancement over using the built-in notes function is pinch-zoom. Basic hotkey functions work. And you are within the Scrivener file structure, meaning instead of typing into one long document, you are typing into something of controllable length which is nested (and can be nested indefinitely) into a hierarchy of chapters and scenes and projects. You can also flip back and forth between certain related documents with a single key press.

I wouldn't want to work without the external keyboard, however. Too much screen real estate is lost otherwise.



But as for the more powerful edit functions: well, first, selection is a pain on IOS. So selecting a block of text to paste it elsewhere is better left for the main computer. Split screen doesn't seem to be functioning, either, and that hurts in two ways; one is being able to cut and paste between documents so as to, for instance, save a previous draft to the cut file. The other is being able to leave a window open with the research data.

The iPhone version also lacks corkboard view. And, because of how IOS handles files (and memory issues) it can't do Scrivening mode. This is the ability to seamlessly string together separate documents into a single continuous read. If I was splitting files at the scene level this would be more painful. As it is, though, it is easy enough to tab through consecutive files. Oh, and there also doesn't appear to be the ability to move files around in the hierarchy, not on IOS. So to have this ability to arrange and re-arrange you need to duck back to the main computer again.

Fortunately synchronization is easy and smooth.

A last edit function I miss on the IOS version is hotkey text color. Let me get to that in context of my current work flow, though. First I set up a file structure with named folders for research, draft, and general planning -- the later has theme, outline, elevator pitch, and side discussions I want to keep intact instead of spread out among other folders.

Within the draft folder I have, currently, a five-book structure. Each "book" folder contains three sets of files; a set of drafts by chapter, notes pertaining specifically to each chapter, and catch files for deleted material. As I write the first draft of a chapter I plan the basic structure within that chapter's notes file, then flip between that and research files in the lower part of the split-screen with the draft on top.

When I go back for editing, I add the cuts file to the split. Usually, though, I start by reading through and using colored text to mark potential deletions (red), potential insertions (green) and line notes (blue). Then when I do the actual edit the deletions get saved in the cuts file (in case I change my mind later, or hope to move that cut material to a different scene), the line notes get cut entirely, and the insertions, when properly expanded and integrated, are converted to standard black text.

And obviously none of this process works on IOS.

I could probably come up with alternate ways of working. I used to jumble notes and cuts at the bottom of chapters during construction and editing, and delineate line notes with ///. This would work on IOS, but would get annoying when you can see such a smaller slice of text to begin with, and have more work to scroll to the end of a file.



So, yes. If planned around the functionality that is in the IOS version, I could write a novel entirely on the iPhone. But as it is, I'm happier to be able to do certain kinds of work there and leave the heavy lifting for a full computer.