How to - Use Scrivener for Multiple Novels in a Single Project - (Scrivener)(Writing) (Author Tools)

A simple, but long, video where I show my process and organizational choices for writing in Scrivener with all of my series, novels and notes in a single Scrivener project. If you're on the fence about Scrivener, or still trying to decide which tool to use for your writing purposes, this is the video for you.
More about my work can be found here: ayrelon.com
#writing #scrivener3tutorial #author #howto #tipsandtricks #novels #fantasy #epicfantasy #stayorganized #whatshouldido #whatshouldyoudo

[@lornejeal]

I’m getting back into using Scrivener after a while away b/c navigating and managing my dissertation proposal was giving me some of the problems you mentioned regarding writing fiction. Thanks for the video! I took some useful advice from it for getting my writing under control. Cheers.

[@d.t.nelson8805]

One of the other great things about Scrivener is the ability to link all your notes/info directly to relevant scenes (this include character bio, loctions, history, magic systems, lore, etc) . Then you don't have to leave the scene to go to look up information, you can just open it in the side bar (for me it is on the right side of the screen) and you have both the notes AND your scene open at the same time. It is a great application. I choose to keep each series I work on in a different file, but all the novels in a series will be in that one file. It adaptability to each person's own way of organizing and working is what makes it what I believe to be the best writing application out there.

[@iltc9734]

Informative, helpful, very interesting, and, kind of soothing/calming. That might sound like an odd compliment, but at the moment I am going through a fairly horrendously stressful time period, and your video projects a certain calmness which I appreciate and am thankful for. Anyway; Great Video ! I will dive into Scrivener and give it a try

[@suzielhammond]

Loved this vid. It answwered lots of Q's . Thanks for making it and giving a hand up to others. I appreciate it

[@DGaryGrady]

I was looking for a Scrivener tutorial for a friend of mine and your was the best I found, and I learned something from it as well. II also really admire your attitude toward sharing knowledge. You have another new fan and subscriber here.

[@bujin5455]

30:00. Well it makes sense that Scrivener would be designed off of an IDE. Software developers have to deal with huge, complex, projects. Not only that, bugs in a book are irritating, bugs in a program break things. So software people have refined their tools to deal with very large writing projects in a competent sort of way. Especially since the people crafting the tool, are also using the tool. I guess you could say you're "biased," and perhaps I am as well from that stand point, but I think clearly the software world has a lot to say about managing complexity.

[@Pia-r9g]

thank you so much for your tutorial. Eye opener! I will give it a try. Thx again.

[@SusanCartersBooks]

Thank you for this. It has seriously reshaped how I’m using Scrivener for my new fantasy series. One thing I came across in another video that could be very helpful when using your templates: You can set a default template for subdocuments. I set the default template for my series as a novel. I set the default template for a novel as a chapter. I set the default template for a chapter as a scene. That way, instead of right-clicking and going to Add and choosing your template EVERY time, you can click on say, your novel, then click the add item button on the toolbar and it will add a chapter by default. You don’t have to specifically choose it each time. Then when you click on the chapter and click the add item button, it will add a scene. The way to set this up is to click on your Series in the Binder, click on Documents in the menu, mouse over Default Template for Subdocuments, then click on Novel. Then click on your Novel in the Binder, click on Documents in the menu, mouse over Default Template for Subdocuments, then click on Chapter. Then click on the Chapter for your Novel in the Binder, click on Documents in the menu, mouse over Default Template for Subdocuments, then click on Scene. You would have to set the default templates for chapters and scenes separately for short stories or novellas or other story types. I hope this makes sense. It should save a lot of time.

[@SusanCartersBooks]

@@r.l.parker.author You are totally welcome!

[@cryssiejohnson2984]

This is exactly the information I've been looking for, thank you!

[@corinadouglas1365]

Thank you! I recently found your post on this on Tiktok and jumped onto this video. This was an awesome video. I am a dark fantasy romance author and have Scrivener but haven't learned how to use the app properly and are definitely not using it to it's potential. You clarified what I knew and have given me the motivation to learn how to use it properly. I'm also keen to check out your book! Sounds awesome .

[@BookStuffWithIzzyK]

I totally came back to this and the set up video now that I broke down and bought it. Thank you, R.L. I am sure to pick your brain in the future. 😉

[@bujin5455]

I do wish that Scrivener allowed for regex search and replace, as well as intelligent entities. The idea with the latter, would be to allow you to define an entity, like a character, a place, or something, and each time you used it, it would link back to the definition for that entity (which itself would be viewable, and configurable). That way, anytime you updated that entity, it would update every place in your writing where this entity existed. Allowing you to refactor your story's names easier, and improve your ability to find each time a character was used. It would be nice if an entity had user defined attributes, like first name, last name, nick name, or whatever you wanted to create. Then the entity could be called with dot notion, like #mc.first, and it would be replaced with the main characters first name. (The triggering meta character would also be definable.) Of course I have no idea how broadly that feature would be used, but I'd sure enjoy it having it.

[@tampagirl7533]

I want to thank you for sharing your expertise and how you’ve learned to use this beautiful tool in a way that I didn’t know I could. I have already started working with it, but I did not realize that I could keep my entire series all together in one place And be able to refer back on a constant basis. I have been learning a lot about scrivener and it’s awesomeness. Thank you so much for going out of your way and being kind enough to share that with the rest of us you are very much appreciated and congratulations on your fantastic novels.🌸

[@angelc286]

Thank you for the video. I'm trying out the scrivener trial and the learning curve is a bit overwhelming. Hearing you talk about how it helped you get organized is what I want for my own stories. It helps to see the potential at the end of that tunnel.

[@bretebey]

This was stellar! I'm 50k words into my first book and I'm not excited about Word for numerous reasons. Downloaded Scrivener last week. This video was the last convincing I needed. Also, when you talked about your thought process, I felt as if I was listening to myself.

[@r.l.parker.author]

Awesome. :) glad I could help

[@gumbo3063]

Just discovered your channel. Impressive. I am a long-time user of Scrivener. Back then it was about thirty-something bucks. Took a long time to learn but I feel more comfortable with it now. I use it for journaling. I have all three flavors but tends to use MacOS platform the most. L&L is a small software house so upgrades and new features are slow in coming. But their forum and blog is very useful and if you don't piss them off they are a community of friendly, helpful developers and users. Just don't ask them about iCloud. When i have more time I will revisit your site and channel. Thanks for your time. Joel

[@milanpintar]

loved your review, i just bought your book, im an old Terry Brooks Shanara fan.

[@DanSme1]

Sold! Organization tools is what I need. I’ll sit down and write online/WordPress, etc, in OneNote, or Word and it’s an entire mess of a vast array of technical and academic subject/thoughts. How to organize these fragments into books is my challenge…and TIME IS RUNNING OUT. I’m 74 and have been writing for 54 years.

[@jdaleske2]

Thank you. I had not yet learned about collections. Will have to give that a try. Regarding video eduting, DaVinci Resolve can be used at no cost and quite functional. I got the paid version mainly to have it use the GPU to speed rendering.

[@DGaryGrady]

Agree on DaVinci Resolve. In fact, for editing and titling KZbin videos the Cuts tab is all you really need, and you can learn it in about 15 minutes. iMovie will work as well, come for free with a Mac, and might be a tiny bit easier for a complete beginner. But I'd go ahead and jump into Resolve since you never outgrow it.

[@littleraven1600]

You were a answer to my prayers Lmao...Thank you for your time showing your set up process. I have researched all possible writing avenues also and keep coming back to Scrivener being the best choice to write my world. I have to have organization or I will not be able to pull this off. The Universe consists of different realms and right now looks to be 22 books. Why oh why 🤦‍♀️. Anyhow, let the challenge begin. Thank you again. Are you using the Scrivener 3 Mac version or Windows version. I don't have a Mac but trying to decide if I should go ahead and get one? I also grabbed your book and just started it. Excited to read it. Thanks so much.

[@littleraven1600]

@@r.l.parker.author Yes it is...thank you for answering my question. I will continue moving forward with that.

[@zenkittystudiowithdarklily1110]

thanks, just starting scrivener after writing 13 novels on word. i agree, a huge doc that you have to scroll thru to find stuff is frustrating. thanks for opening up this app for me and the possibilities for a series file. great video. i learned a lot. biggest issues i have at present is importing works in progress. i do it, but then i have to break the long file imported into sections, or individual folders. any insight on how to do this easily?

[@rogberube6422]

Really helpful. Very good overview. Thanks for sharing.

[@wekkankq6704]

I just discovered your channel, and your presentation here is highly informative. Thank you, and it is much appreciated. Your setup is very intriguing as I, too, would like to create several stories within a shared world featuring a multitude of different protagonists co-habiting this world. It never occurred to me to create a single project, ala a world bible, and then use that single project to contain all the separate books within. I hope you will share more on how you set up Scrivener (which I have been a user for a short while) to accomplish this. Perhaps templates that could be shared or suggestions on organizing. Be well. Thank you again, kind sir.

[@virginialmills]

Yes, This is awesome to show Scrivener's abilities, but I'm new to Scrivener and I need to know "How To Do" each of those steps of organization that you are able to do. I have the same need for organization that you have and would very much like to create these organizational designation! Working on my first book and getting this thing formatted is kinda making me a little nuts right now! LOL 😂 😂

[@simonpert2485]

Thanks for the video, really useful, just about to start using Scrivener for my new book so this was a great resource tool.

[@oldguyinstanton]

Good video. I'm always open to looking at new software. Right now, though, I'm using Word for my novel, and -- as I'm now approaching 160,000 words -- I'm starting to notice that lag that you mention. As for forgetting names, I'm old fashioned, and like Dramatis Personae, with thumbnail descriptions. I bookmark and hyperlink the names to "first mention" in the book. I also like Tables of Contents with titled chapters. I did the same bookmarking and hyperlinking there, to help me get around the document.

[@stevemoore3376]

thank you, good info

[@itechnwrite]

Starts explanation at about 6:10

[@magnus_lundgren]

I'm guessing you have already noticed that ProWritingAid and Scrivener has a stronger integration now. However, I have still not really figured out how to set the style guide in ProWritingAid, so I get a bit too many "this can be simplified" markings in Scrivener, as currently seems to expect business writing and I'm typing on a novel.

[@jamesgossweiler1349]

I've been writing my first novel on MS Word. However, I think it's time to upgrade to programming that includes organizational functions.

[@stevevogel8840]

I have spent the last 33 years studying human suffering and how to end it. I have PTSD and had a stroke that was caused by medical treatment. Thank You for your thoughts.

[@IntrovertWriter]

I assume this is for scrivener 3? Correct?

[@kenbridgeman8590]

Question for all scrivener users… how can I have/insert a scene separator like ‘****’ inside a chapter. Have not been able to figure that out.

[@r.l.parker.author]

It's in the compile settings.

[@lovelightshine2329]

Confused...It shows I watched this video and "liked" it as well as another comment on here...but it doesn't show my comment. Do you have a Scrivener Template for this set up?

[@lovelightshine2329]

@@r.l.parker.author Awesome, looking forward to it. Could you put instructions for dummies in the "notes" section? (Newbie)

[@timpenner7858]

Clearly we're all watching this because we use Scrivener and thinking about what you suggest is possible, multiple works in the same Scrivener project. Thirty-eight minutes is way WAY too long.