My project consists of 4 POV’s and diffrent timelines. What I would like to understand is how to automate if I want to create seperators between POV’s and timelines.
For example:
POV A
Scenetext
(Here I want for example — as a seperator)
POV B
Scenetext
Another example:
POV A
Scenetext
(Here I want for example a year (1997) as a seperator)
POV A Backstory or flashback
Scenetext
Anyone know how to do these diffrent types of seperators?
/Marcus
Use collections for each pov. Could assign keywords to each pov the search for that keyword and save search as collection, this will create a dynamic search, so every time click collection will search for keyword/ pov and add to collection. When compile in third panel can compile manuscript OR click drop down and pick a collection/ pov to compile
Would that work if I want to compile the entire manuscript to one file?
Some of my pov’s have that jump between present and past where I would like 1997 as a seperator. But the same pov might have a 2001 as a seperator somewhere else. Would that work? If so, how?
Use placeholders and put those dates/years in a custom metadata.
(Although frankly, if it was me I’d go for simplicity, and in this case would just format those years as a header right in the document itself.)
Ok, I think I understand how to do that. You mean scenes as placeholders? I dont get how you get that metadata to show between scenes tho?
With the other approach I wonder if that wouldnt create alot of problems unless I do it in all scenes? What I mean is that if I use a generic seperator between POVs (—) and set that to be included between scenes and then do as you suggest, wouldnt scrivener then add both the first seperator and those years as headers?
/Marcus
Or use*** as separator and title scenes by year and when compile set up to include scene title even if nothing more than a year
A placeholder is a tag that you insert somewhere in your project and that gets replaced by another segment of your project at compile.
So using one ( <$custom:…> in this case), you could put the years in a custom metadata field, and have this replaced at compile.
There is a complete list of possible placeholders under the help menu.
Not if you properly use section types and section layouts. I recommend that you read about those two in the manual. They are a key feature of Scrivener.
But of course, a simple project always being a better project, you’ll want to plan their use before hand, and use them as efficiently as possible. Meaning you’ll want to keep their variations count as low as possible.
A good advice: spend a few hours compiling a dummy project. Try everything. That way you’ll know what you can or cannot do, and how (even if only roughly), and will therefor better know how to build your project in that perspective.
Read the manual and take notes along the way. And most of all don’t fool yourself – better avoid ending up overwhelmed -, compile is a big chunk to learn and master.
Take it slow, repeat profusely.
*POV A* — folder
*Scenetext*
*Scenetext*
*POV B* — folder
*Scenetext*
*POV A* — folder
*Scenetext*
*Backstory or flashback* — (with section type: Flashback)
*Scenetext*
I would arrange my binder like this — with a containing folder for every time the pov changes. These might in fact correspond to your chapter breaks.
The Separators section in your Compile settings has easy ways to tell Scriv what separator to use between sections (docs) within these folders, and what separator to use when it hits a folder in the sequence. Good so far.
The only thing that is left is the year-dated separator that yu want. The first thing you would need to do is in project setting define a section type for this type of flashback doc (call it, Flashback, say), and then make sure you assign any flashback docs to the Flashback section type.
Now, since each flashback sequence will be topped by a year that is specific to the content of the doc, using a Separators setting is not especially apt to achieve what you want — since there is no general, machinable rule here. But you coukd specify a separator that alerted you that you needed to put the year there after compile. Or, as I think someone suggested, if you used the year number to name your flashback file, you could specify a separator that was a placeholder for the title of the document. (At my iPad, so can’t check this, so I hope I am not just dreaming up such a placeholder. Such things have been known to happen. I tell myself every morning, ‘Now, gr, don’t go to the forum on your ipad, the typing is slow and, driven by lack of immediate access, you will start making things up.’)
That is where the placeholder for custom metadata should go. The metadata being the year desired as header.
Ah yes, thanks. That slipped by me.
It would be interesting to see what happens when you leave the metadata field empty.
Perhaps, if the compiler, in this case, just ignores the placeholder (instead of inserting an empty line), there is no need to make that an extra section type/layout. (?)
I expect you’d get a return, which might still be okay. Curious to know how it does handle it.
But still I don’t think dropping the special section type for flashbacks would work, would it? Since presumably the OP wants (what is usual) to have a certain separator inserted between regular adjacent sections, not just nothing. So, section type assignments still are needed to help Scriv pick out when the sequence is moving between regular type and flashback type as opposed to moving between regular type and regular type.
Well, I’d say that if the user whishes to use a single section layout, the metadata field would become “header” and not only “year”.
In other words, all headers (or separator) for documents of that type would have to be taken alike from metadata.
To what extent it’d make it simpler to handle the question (or perhaps even more complicated), at this moment I don’t know… (Life is so full of surprises… One can almost always count on that little detail he didn’t think of to derail everything…)
I’m not 100% what you want. One of these?
For A and C you define a section type and format for each of your 4 POVs and set both the “before” separator to your desired tag and the “between” separator to “***”.
For B and D there are multiple solutions:
You can define a section type and format for each of your 4 POVs and set both the “before” and “between” separator to your desired tag.
Or you only use one section type and format and put your desired tag into a custom metadata field for each section (more work for just 4 types to use, this is more appropriate when you have many more tags) and then set both the “before” and “between” separator to have your custom metadata field as value.
E works nearly the same as B/D, but you do it for the Chapter Heading section types and put the tag (or metadata inserter) directly into the header format (like the word “Chapter” that’s already in there).
F works like A/C, but you do not set the “before” separator, only the “between” one.
G combines E and F.
HenryL,
If I may: I think you missed the main challenge tha OP is confronting and that is that sometimes the next doc in a series of docs in a chapter is a flashback/backstory and needs a different kind of separator (a year designation) in front of it. None of your variants shows or addresses that particular challenge.
