Scrivener is, pretty obviously, intended to be a soup to nuts (nuts? no one eats nuts for dessert!) writing tool. Clearly the Outliner and Corkboard are intended to be brainstorming and first draft tools. But I’m getting the impressions no one has actually admitted to using it for that purpose.
I tried very hard to use Scrivener for first draft, then turned to index cards, then back to hand writing in notebooks with fountain pens. But the pain of transcribing so much content (I’m in my second draft and have re-written nearly all of it, again with fountain pens.) leads me to try again to work on the keyboard. Am I doomed to fail at that?
I do all my writing using Scrivener. Long since stopped using simplistic word processors such as Microsoft Word, which went long ago as I do not participate in the Microsoft hegemony, OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, or Apple Pages. Although keep the last two around for the rare cases of having to deal with documents in formats that Scrivener cannot handle.
About the only pieces of writing that I do not use it for are short responses like this. But again when a reply addresses complex issues or multiple comments I compose them in Scrivener to make a cogent and coherent argument. As this has lengthened it too might need to continue being drafted in Scrivener.
As to handwriting I have commented elsewhere here that using a stylus on paper is impractial for me. The friction of the marking medium on the surface slows me down and in consequence fires my dyslexia which in turn causes me to leave out unimportant words such as not. Being able to touch type and look at the screen not my fingers results in better lexical capture. (And I have used the onscreen keyboard on my iPad to touch type too.) Althougth the proximity of fingers to the screen on both my laptop and iPad will occasionally result intrusion of my second language which has no tense system and therefore verbs go unconjugated.
No way would I contemplate or consider ever transcribing material — my own or anyone else for the matter. The recent inclusion of reasonable OCR capabilities within iOS/iPadOS/macOS for grabbing text from graphics is a boon to quoting academic sources. (Yes, I use Scrivner for academic purposes too.)
I am something of a heretic with Scrivener though as I have never subscribed to the index card metaphor so no Outliner or Corkboard! The Binder is sufficient for me through the use of short snappy titles for the documents there. Restructing parts of my manuscript is a simple drag-and-drop within the Binder. When I am unsure of the exact nature of restructing required I use Collections within the Binder window to play with alternative narrative orders.
Thanks for your extensive and cogent reply. Could you say a bit more about the type of writing you are doing in Scrivener? Fiction, non-fiction, scholarly or all of the above?
As you specifically asked about novel writing that was the primary focus of my reply. But I have used Scrivener for non-fiction and scholarly work too.And have a Project where I record ideas but fiction and non-fiction; should one or more coalesce then I drag-and-drop into a new Project where work continues. The ideas Project is also where I work on complex response to social media.
Well, I have slivered almonds on my pie sometimes…
I usually work as a “shortster” - meaning I will sometimes plot ahead, but mostly just write and then figure it all out later in the editing phase.
Done there, been that, still doing it. Like @reepicheep, I do most of my writing using Scrivener. I’ve been moving most of my work writing to Scrivener as well, but still use MS Word and LibreOffice on a semi-regular basis. That said, I find I don’t plan out my work before I start it. Maybe I should…
I do fiction novels when I have the time and non-fiction Historical stuff less now than I used to. Planning the Historical stuff does help me remember what I want to say and comes in handy when I stray down a rabbit hole. But having it available, even if I don’t always use it, is a godsend. That is one of the selling points (for me) of Scrivener. Probably one of the best pieces of advise that I had given to me ages ago was, just write. Use whatever to record what you want to say, just do it. Not using everything of a particular program isn’t failure. Not writing is the failure.
I have used Plottr which can import into scrivener and use scapple as well . My sci-fi project built on worldbuilding project and collected loose ideas to formulate rough draft then started new clean project to write/ dictate novel and refer back to worldbuilding template certainly could use corkboard to build out scenes to build story as well
You can learn to be creative at the keyboard, if you want to. Humans are at the top of the food chain because we are built to adapt. (And we have opposable thumbs.)
Maybe try the way I do it:
I make a new document in Scrivener, and I type a brain dump. Everything I’m thinking about the scene, the chapter – whatever is on my mind. While I’m typing, new ideas will pop into my head, and I jot them down, separated by a blank line before and after. No care taken about chronology, just get it down and build momentum.
When you are finished (as Bradbury said) channeling an avalanche through your house, go get a hot cup of java and sit back down. Now go through the entire document, and use the Documents>Split>With Selection As Title to separate each idea into its own document. Put them all in a folder, and view it as a Corkboard.
Start organizing them into folders that make sense to you. When you have them grouped into folders, examine the cards in each folder and consider Merging some of them together because they belong as a single thought.
Now start working on the documents to devlop the ideas a bit further.
There will come a point where you want to start writing actual pages. I use a split view, and put my brainstormed document on the left (sometimes Scrivenings View) and my manuscript document on the right, and I start typing.
If this doesn’t work for you, I suggest hiring a typist to transcribe your written notes, or look into dictation software, because you can read faster than you can type.
I have written fiction (and would write non-fiction) exclusively in Scrivener since researching and purchasing the program a little over a year ago.
For me, the luxury of being able to have separate scenes/chapters displayable on the same screen as the main window, and also having many choices about displaying whatever chapters I want on the screen at the same time, has been a point of no-return. It is so nice to not have to have several Word windows open, and to figure out where they are stored.
I loved computers from the first time I started to use them in the late 70s - being able to cut-and-paste, and to make copies of files (i.e., for multiple back ups) has been extremely useful for me - and I feel that Scrivener has crystallized many other very useful features.
However, I do sympathize with you, olonoff. I can imagine that, just as computers and Scrivener have enabled me to work in a way which I had been wanting to work for years, satisfying my preferences for a work method, hand-writing is your preferred method.
I hope you find a way of working that works for you, because I have found that not having a satisfactory and satisfying work process can impede my motivation and ability to write.
To the extent that I am actually productive writing fiction, I find it much more useful to write first drafts longhand. I’ve done plenty of business writing, and it doesn’t seem to matter that much. Fountain pens seem to help, too, although Pilot Jetstreams are okay.
I write narrative non-fiction (history of medicine) - and I write a lot of my best material long-hand in Europa notebooks with a Pilot Capless pen. It seems to be more frictionless, but that’s likely to be because I started with a keyboard later in life and my typing skills have never developed fluidity (i.e. I’m not a great typist). Because of this, when it comes to transcription to Scrivener of longer passages, I use the in-built Mac dictation. This is not only a whole lot quicker than my typing efforts, it also enables better self-editing as I can hear a lumpy piece of prose better when I try to speak it.
Any document over a couple of paragraphs — think the full screen mode here on Discourse — and I use Scrivener. Complex emails to draft papers and novels during NaNoWriMo seasons.
But even shorter texts can start in Scrivener; my latest homework for a language course was organised using the Binder yet it was only 20 sentences long. I wanted to get the narrative order correct.
So yes any and every document pretty much is in Scrivener. I long since gave up using a traditional word processors be they LibreOffice or Apple Pages (I don’t do Microsoft).
I like to scribble with pen and paper. Transcribing happens via dictating at the computer or the phone. Despite having excellent Italian pronunciation, not everything is transcribed correctly, but fixing the mistakes becomes part of this sort of first draft revision.
I agree on the correction of transcribed text being just a part of the first pass revision. But, I can’t dictate due to neurological issues. I’ve found that scanning a handwritten page with my iPhone is getting better and better at taking my written musings and converting them to editable text which I can then paste into Scrivener and beat on.
Some tips for anyone interested:
Practice handwriting! The more consistent my written letter forms are, the better Apple OCR does. If I can’t read my writing, OCR for sure will get it wrong.
Separate the words. I find that when I deliberately set words a bit farther apart than I would if, say, writing to a friend, OCR does better.
Double space your handwritten draft. Not just that they can’t touch, there needs to be no vertical overlap between my lowest descenders on one line and my highest ascenders on the next.
Limit slant. The closer to upright my letters are, the better the recognition.
Indent your paragraphs deeply. If I’m using ruled or gridded paper, the height of three lines is how wide my indent should be. Apple OCR will pick up the indents and transcribe the paragraphs correctly.
Get the paper with the faintest ruling that you can afford. Or use blank notebooks if you can keep your writing straight. I tried using Leuchtturm1917 dot grid notebooks, and OCR would pick up those faint gray dots and parse them into what it thought was punctuation. Hobonichi graph notebooks work very well.
For a long time, I did not use it. I had the subscription, but I just didn’t need all the planning tools. I was a non-planner type of writer for a long time. That was until I was in school for film. In film, you have to use plot structure.
P.S. This is why Stephan King’s books don’t translate to film well. He doesn’t like plotting. This is also why genre fiction makes the most successful film adaptations.
I was using Final Draft 12 for novels, films, and podcasts. Ultimately, I started a novel series and I needed something more robust to plan it out. I’m not a total fan of how the outline cards work. Final draft 12 had a better system with their beat board. What it lacks in outlining, it makes up for in everything else. I mean, the fact that I can customize how it looks is a plus. It puts me in the mood and I am more motivated than I was with Final Drafts white screen.
Because of my experience in both worlds, I know I want my series to also be adapted by film friends I trust. So now that I’m plotting, I’ll never use the final draft for novels. For film, yes.
The great thing about the ability to plan the world and characters in Scrivener is it becomes your pitch deck for a movie or film. I don’t have to spend months designing one anymore.
It’s based on his false assumptions about plots, but generally speaking, he doesn’t intend to plot. This means he does not entirely follow plot structures that need to be hit in a film that is a horror. This means the whole movie, not just the end.
His books meander, and include a lot of information and research (IT) which does not translate well.
He writes using the character’s inner thoughts, which can’t be seen on screen unless you use voice-over. In films, using voiceovers to explain the plot is generally considered lazy. In Stranger Than Fiction, this works because the narrator is a real character. But it is a very unique case.
The character development cannot be properly seen in a horror film as it can in a book due to the sheer length and slow pace.
In books, the monsters are terrifying. In the film, “It” is not scary. He’s just a clown with teeth. Pet Sematary isn’t scary at all. It is scary in the book only because of the tone and the character’s emotions. Take all of that away and you have rubber monsters.
I do all my writing using Scrivener. Long since stopped using simplistic word processors such as Microsoft Word, which went long ago as I do not participate in the Microsoft hegemony, 
Yes, part pantser, part plotter.