So I’m now two weeks into my experimentation with the writing software suite, Scriveners. I’m just about to start actual prose composition for chapter one of Command and Control and discovering in the process just how much the tool can change the writer and his process.
Some writers start at the beginning, no outline, and write a novel in one go, front to back, feeling and discovering the characters and plots as they occur. That was never me. I am an outline. I cannot get serious about a project until I know the arc of the story, where it starts and where it ends.
Once I have an outline, my novels in the past were written in chapter sized segments. In my documents folder you’ll find a folder ‘Novels’, and in there a folder for each book and inside of each of those a folder for each chapter. I’m happily work on each chapter sequence, finish it, and then move on the next one, consulting with my outline as I progressed through the plot.
Scriveners encourages the writers to writ in segments, but leaves the author to determine just what sort of segments. When I started with I expected to write C&C in chapters, but that plan has been challenged.
Due to the ease of dealing with smaller elements by way of Scriveners, I have plotted out the first two chapters scenes by scenes. Instead of writing an entire chapter at a go and organically discovering the scenes as I write them, I am now planning my scenes and that has changed my approach to the writing them.
Seeing each scenes as a distinct document is forcing me to think more deeply on what is a scene, and what elements are required for this or that scene. My scenes, consequently feel stronger to me, with more dramatic punch and stronger narratives. I now have a much better idea of the conflict driven nature of my scenes and I hope this will make the book more tight and tense.
Of course, only my readers will let me know if I am achieving what I think I am, but there is no doubt that the software changes the writer.