I’m trying to make the most of keywords and labels in Scrivener to organize my writing. I understand that labels are great for visualizing structure in the Corkboard’s Thread View, but I’m curious about the best ways to use both labelsand keywords together for more complex projects, such as tracking subplots, themes, or character arcs.
If anyone knows of any tutorials, documents, or has personal tips on how to combine keywords and labels effectively in novels, I’d really appreciate it!
I love Keywords and have several articles on their use on my author (unpublished) website and info on custom metadata. I have not added an article on labels, but often use for pov’s to get a sense how many scenes they appear in at a glance at the binder.
Here is the first in my Keyword series. If helpful sign up on website and will be adding more. (Look at my Collection series as well as keywords and collections work well together.)
Thank you very much! Of course, I’m familiar with your website—I just reread the article on keywords and noticed details I had forgotten. It’s incredibly detailed.
A small addition: Mixing metadata can have advantages. But there are also disadvantages. For example with searches. If you want to see all documents that have a certain label and certain keywords, you can, but it’s not that easy. If, on the other hand, you only use keywords, searching for them is much easier.
In short, the color of a label is a valuable visual indicator. However, it can be worth using this “color” as a keyword to make it easier to search for it.
Hello, first of all, I’m a novelist who mainly writes long works that go over at least six books per piece and often over ten. Inevitably, there are many characters and often have complex story structures, so above all, it’s useful to include “characters in the scene” in the keywords.
I deal with the viewpoint, location, and quirks of scenes in other areas of custom metadata. However, if I were to write a piece that only covers a few characters in the story, but changes in time zones become critical (such as time traveling genre…), I would deal with characters in other areas of custom metadata and assign “time zones” to keywords that can allocate color chips. That’s because doing so is the most intuitive way to get the most important information.
Labels are more prominent than keywords, so I enjoy using them for “evaluation of each scene.” For example, when I’m writing a draft, I’ll assign a red color if I need to be careful because I think it will have a big impact on other scenes, and a green color if I’m satisfied with a little bit of modification. I’m often pressed for deadlines. If I do this, I can quickly figure out where to focus more when I’m busy just by looking at the binder’s color.
If I do this, I can quickly figure out where to focus more when I’m busy just by looking at the binder’s color.