Editing - you either love it, loathe it or just see it as part of the process.
I've looked before at the issues surrounding editing before (eg #Tips48 for an outline of the basic process; #Tips72 for help chopping the wordcount), but for these posts, I want to share a few of the tips and tricks I've picked up over the years.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a couple of posts about how to use descriptive section titles to help you navigate your document, either in Word (or similar) (#Tips124) or Scrivener (#Tips125). Today I thought I'd share some of the information I include in my descriptive titles.

The purpose of a descriptive section title is to help you quickly navigate to a specific part of your manuscript so that you can edit it, without having to search. Whether you work in Word, and your manuscript is a single document, or in Scrivener, and your project is made of dozens of smaller documents, it can be a real chore finding the bit of your project that you want to add to, delete from or modify.
I therefore add a brief description (just a couple of lines) that tells me what happens in that section. By using styles I can use the navigation pane in Word to jump directly to that section. When the book is finished, it's easy to delete all these section titles. Or, I can simply redact them so they don't spoil the upcoming scene for my beta readers. (See Tips 124 and 125 for how to do this).

My descriptive titles contain a number of pieces of key information.
First, I give each section a unique identifier; typically something like S1001, S1002 etc. These numbers aren't sequential in my document (as I write out of sequence), but you may choose to assign one that is more reflective of the section's position in the story, or perhaps group related scenes together. If I want to add another document that sits between S1001 and S1002, I usually append a letter eg S1001a.
The purpose is to give a very quick way to jump to a section. Eg, when editing a paper draft, I might make a note to 'change the name of the garage in S2003b'. All I have to do is search for 'S2003b'.
I then write a line or two that says what is going to happen in that scene. Eg S1001: Warren called to crime scene, or S3002: Warren discovers name of killer (no reveal yet). This will appear at the beginning of the scene, and since I have applied a heading style, can be clicked in the navigation pane. In Scrivener, I also make sure to use this in the document title, so that it appears in the Binder.

But there is more information that you can add. I find it useful to include the date that the action is taking place. This means that I keep track of timings more easily, and is really helpful if I move scenes around in a story. If I move a scene two days earlier, for example, I can easily spot unchanged dates within the text when editing - eg a phone call now takes place on a Monday, rather than a Wednesday, so I need to change the line "The victim's brother phoned six days after the murder" to "The victim's brother phoned four days after the murder".

In Scrivener, you can include a custom metadata tag. All my documents have the custom metadata fields 'Story_date' and 'Day_Number'. By including (<$custom:Story_Date>) Day (<$custom:Day_Number>) in the descriptive section title, when I compile the output document it will include the date and the day number. Custom metadata is easily changed within the Outliner if you move things around.
Thus a typical section title might look like.
S1003: Warren visits murder scene (Tu 05/11/22) Day (3).
In Scrivener it would look like S1003: Warren visits murder scene (<$custom:Story_Date>) Day (<$custom:Day_Number>), changing to the above when compiled.

One last suggestion. If you switch between Word and Scrivener - for example, you write your document originally in Scrivener, compile and export it to Word, then do edits in Word before importing it back into Scrivener for major changes - your individual documents will be merged into one long document.
You can avoid this by adding an abnormal character in front of the title. Eg ~¬S1003: Warren Visits Murder Scene. When you import your Word document back into Scrivener, choose Import and Split and tell it to split the document using the abnormal character (I add a couple of abnormal characters, so I can do this repeatedly). Hey presto, you get all your subdocuments back!

Do you use descriptive section titles? Do you include additional information to help you navigate your document easily?
Feel free to comment below or on social media.
Until next time.
Paul

In last week's blog #Tips124, I discussed how to use the style function to navigate your document in Word (or similar word processing packages).
This week, I want to extend that to the specialist writing package Scrivener (visit #Tips80 for my first impressions of using Scrivener).
Now the first thing that regular users of Scrivener are going to say, is "You don't need to use styles to navigate Scrivener, that's the whole point of it!" That's correct, so let me clarify. I am going to look at how to retain styles when exporting to MS Word. Then you can easily navigate your manuscript in Word when you are working with an editor who doesn't use Scrivener.

For ease of use when writing in Scrivener I start a new page for each new scene. This allows me to then easily move scenes around. (I add chapter and section breaks last, once I am satisfied the story is in a logical order.)
In the image below, you can see that I have added some descriptive text for the first scene in bold red text.

Editing - you either love it, loathe it or just see it as part of the process.
I've looked at the issues surrounding editing before (eg #Tips48 for an outline of the basic process; #Tips72 for help chopping the wordcount), but for these posts, I want to share a few of the tips and tricks I've picked up over the years.
Today's #TuesdayTip looks at how the use of styles can help you navigate your manuscript, and keep track of where you are. I will be focusing on MS Word, but the principles are broadly applicable to other word processing packages. I will be writing another blog post extending this to Scrivener and how you can import it into Word.
First of all, what are styles?
Styles are, in their simplest form, a way to apply pre-determined formatting to a piece of text with a single click of the mouse. Imagine you have a piece of text. Word applies a default set of formats to it when you open a blank document. You can then choose a different font, the font size, and modifications such as whether or not the text is BOLD, Underlined, italicised, or a different colour. Delve a little deeper into the paragraph settings and you can decide how the text is aligned, spaced, or add bullet points etc.
This is all well and good, but it may take you several clicks to get the text just the way you want it. And it can be time-consuming if you have to do that each time you start a new document. And what if you have several different types of text within a single document, for example a title, or you prefer to format quoted text differently from the main text?
This is where styles come in useful. Word has a series of different styles built-in, that you can select from the style gallery. All you need to do is select the text you want, and apply a style by clicking on it in the style gallery.

So how does a style help you navigate a manuscript?
Well styles have a hierarchy and this affects whether they appear in the left hand Navigation Pane. You can think of this as rather like a bookmark that can help you navigate the document by jumping to a section.
In the image below, you can see that I have written two chunks of text, with two titles separating them. The Navigation Pane is currently empty, with just some text from MS explaining what the pane is for.

In the next image, I have highlighted the two titles and applied the style Heading 1. Not only do they now look different, they are also listed in the Navigation Pane. If I want to jump around my document, I can easily do so by clicking the link in the navigation pane.

This is a great way to insert chapter breaks. You can easily jump from chapter to chapter by clicking on the relevant chapter in the Navigation Pane.
But this only scratches the surface of what styles can do.
I use them to navigate between scenes. When I start to write a new scene, I like to put a title with a couple of lines of descriptive text. This reminds me what happens in that scene. By applying a style to that text, I can navigate my document by going directly to that scene; useful if I have no idea which chapter something actually occurs in.
Top Tip: Choose a different style than the one that you applied to your chapter heading.

You can see in this next image that not only does my descriptive text appear different in the document to both the chapter and the main text, it is also indented slightly on the Navigation Pane.

Finishing up.
Now obviously, at some point you are going to want to share this document with beta readers, and eventually publish. The last thing you want is to leave those spoilers in.

First of all, removing that descriptive text is easy. If you right click the style in the gallery, you will get a simple context menu. If you choose "Select All", then it will highlight all instances of that style in one go. Hit delete and it is gone.
(Another advantage of "Select All" is that it does a word count for the selected text. So if you are over your word count, you can see how many of those extra words are descriptive text that you will be deleting before publishing.)

But don't jump the gun and delete these useful navigation tools too soon. You may want to use them when doing later edits. Furthermore, deleting them changes the pagination. For example. when I send the manuscript to my beta readers or other editors, they often give me feedback in the form of "There is a typo on the third line of page 26." However, if you have deleted the descriptive text, then the page numbers for the text may have shifted.
So instead, before sending to my beta readers or editors, I leave the descriptive text in place and redact it so the spacing stays the same, but spoilers are hidden and I can still navigate the document.
To do this, simply right click the style again and choose "Modify".
Now you can change the formatting of the style.
I turn the font to black (not automatic) and from the borders option select black for the fill option. It's not pretty, but it hides the spoilers and I can easily reverse it if I choose to do so.

This is just a basic outline of how to use styles. Over the years, I've tweaked my method so it fulfils my own particular needs. I also use my own custom style rather than one of the built-in styles.
I hope this was useful. Do you have any useful tips like this?
If so, please feel free to comment here or on social media. If you are a writer with your own tip to share, then please don't be shy about emailing me on [email protected], I'm always looking for guest bloggers.
Until next time,
Paul

Three weeks ago, I finally bit the bullet, took the plunge, threw caution to the wind (insert cliché of choice) and installed Scrivener.
For those unfamiliar with this piece of specialist software, Scrivener is a writing package sold by Literature and Latte that is raved about by writers, both professional and amateur. In addition to being a word processor, Scrivener has a number of really useful features that make organising the writing process easier. For example it acts as a binder for all the notes and research etc used in your project, and has a virtual corkboard that allows you to easily reorder scenes within your book.
Despite the glowing testimonies of friends, I held off installing it for a couple of years for purely pragmatic reasons. First, I have already been writing my DCI Warren Jones series for several years. I have  cobbled together a somewhat clunky, but effective, system using MS Word, MS OneNote (for my research and ideas) and MS Excel (for my timelines etc). Whilst I was keen to improve my method (for example, Word is a pain if you write out of sequence), the system worked, and I didn't think switching mid-project would be sensible.
The second is that version 3 for Windows was repeatedly delayed. Scrivener was originally written for MacOS. Version 2 for the Mac was ported to Windows (and confusingly called V1). Version 3 for Mac was released a couple of years ago. There are big improvements in V3, and so I didn't fancy installing the available Windows version, and then having to upgrade and relearn everything for V3 (they decided to skip the label V2 for Windows). But more importantly, I'm a proud Windows user and I'm buggered if I'm playing second-fiddle to Mac users. 🤣. The software is also available for iOS (I know writers who use it exclusively on an iPad), although it doesn't look as though it will be coming to Android anytime soon, which is a shame.
Installation and Setup:
Installing the software is a doddle and a cheap, single licence (which will last for the lifetime of the product) can be used on multiple machines (although you'll need separate Windows/MacOS/iOS licences if you want to mix and match). I was pleased to see that it works very happily on my portable "writing laptop". That has just 2Gb of RAM, a basic processor and a tiny hard drive. As long as the machine has a minimum 1024x768 screen resolution it works fine.
The software automatically creates backups and autosaves on close. I simply saved the Scrivener working folder to my Cloud account, so that it is more secure.
Important tip: You can only have a Scrivener project open on one machine at a time - which is sensible, it stops versions of the same file getting corrupted. Therefore, when closing a project on one computer, give your computer a few moments to synchronise to the cloud before switching it off. Then, when switching on a different computer, again, make sure that everything has synced before opening Scrivener to stop it clashing. From what I can tell, as soon as you open a Scrivener file on one machine, it makes a temporary lock file that blocks any other machine trying to open it. When you close, that file is deleted - hence the need to wait for your cloud account to sync.
A rather nifty function allows you to save your preferred layout for that machine or setup. I have a layout saved for when my laptop is plugged into my large screen and a different one for when I'm working on my little laptop - it saves having to resize windows etc.
Things I Like About Scrivener.
A project is simply a set of related text files. This means that whether you are writing a single document, have a separate document for each chapter, or separate documents for each section/scene, you are catered for.
Reorganising Sections Is A Doddle.
If, like me, you write out of sequence, then Scrivener allows you to easily reorder your scenes. You can do this either by dragging and dropping on a virtual corkboard (as if you have a board on the wall with each page pinned to it). This comes with a number of different ways to visualise the layout, including on a series of parallel lines, which allows you to see a visual representation of your book - for example, looking at pacing, is chapter one really busy, but chapter two very empty?
There is also a linear 'outliner' that allows you to reorganise sections by visualising the metadata or keywords etc.
Another useful feature, is the ability to group documents in  folder. I often write subplots consisting of several sections, that will then need to be threaded throughout the story. Having them all together in one folder - from which they can be easily dragged out of - makes life very easy.
You Can Add MetaData To Each Document.
Metadata is information that essentially adds tags to each document that isn't included in the final draft, and is invisible to the reader. Scrivener allows a wide-range of different types of information, ranging from keywords, links, pictures, dates and custom labels (which can be different colours). You can also define your own metadata. I have added some custom labels to mine (eg "To Write"). You can also write notes, and even a synopsis for the document. This is great for organising and searching your project, as well as sketching out what a document will contain (for example a list of things that need to be revealed in an interview or dialogue ideas). I have added characters as keywords, so I can see at a glance if there is a clash, where a character appears in two different scenes that take place simultaneously.
Word Count Function and Daily/Project Targets.
Each section you write will have its own wordcount. However, Scrivener also tracks the total number of words in the full manuscript. It also has a deadline function and you can set daily targets, or a total project target. This is really useful. I generally aim for about 120,000 words. I have set myself a rather ambitious target of completing a first draft by the end of the year. I've told Scrivener that I will write Monday to Friday. Scrivener has calculated how many words I need to write each day to hit 120K by December 31st and will update this if I have written more or less on a particular day. You can easily see how many words you've written that day, and there is something especially satisfying when the notification to tell you that you've hit today's target pops up on the screen!
Writing Tools.
Scrivener has a rather nifty name generator that is very customisable, and it will also open highlighted words in Wikipedia or Google with a single click. It also supports comment and review functionality, similar to Word.
Keep Your Research To Hand.
You can import a wide-range of research documents into your project, so that you can easily access what you need. For example, I have imported some PDF maps and reference documents; no need to go hunting around my hard drive for where I saved the damn things!
You Can Make Templates.
If you simply add a blank document, Scrivener defaults to a strange font I've never heard of. I found the best thing to do is create a series of template documents that are formatted how I want. I have a basic section with my preferred font, line spacing etc, and a number of more specialised ones, such as page or section breaks (I have three asterisks separating sections) plus New Day and Title pages. The advantage of this, is that you can give these new sections their own default labels, which makes organising them on the corkboard easy.

Limitations Of Scrivener.
No software is perfect. The word processor is a perfectly acceptable piece of software, but obviously it lacks the refinements of later versions of Word. It has a spellchecker that underlines miss-spelled words (and can be set to UK English), but I've yet to figure out how to easily upload my custom dictionary from Word. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the proprietary grammar checkers etc that Microsoft have spent millions of dollars developing. I've become somewhat reliant on these, over the years, which means that I will need to export the completed document to Word and do a big edit.
I have also had some small issues with page breaks. I think that's something I will either have to play with, or just fix in Word.
Unfortunately, it doesn't come with a thesaurus. Instead, it links out to the Thesaurus.com website. That site is US-based and it isn't as easy, or user-friendly as Shift-F7 in Word.
I have only had a brief play with exporting a completed document. Scrivener supports a wide-range of document types, including PDF, Word, RTF and open-source formats. However, there are a lot of options for when you "compile" your document. I had some very funny results when I tried. I suspect I'll need to spend some time fiddling to get what I want.
Some HotKeys are different to what you may be used to. I know many of the keyboard shortcuts in Word. However, Scrivener is very customisable, so I spent some time changing the shortcuts to what I am used to. It's my own copy, so it's not like it'll confuse anyone else.
I have also yet to find a timeline function. You can add dates and times to documents, so there are work arounds, but there's no simple way to plot out the order of events like I used to do in Excel. I may have to revert to that old method.

So, it's been three weeks or so, and thus far I'm pretty happy. The very well-written manual hints at lots of other functions that I may or may not find useful. I am a novelist, but it also caters for scriptwriters and those writing reference works.
I might write a follow-up to this in the future if I learn enough to justify a blog post.

What are your thoughts on Scrivener? Do you have any tips that you think are worth sharing?
As always comment here or on social media.
Happy writing!