Please help. I have 200 Characters across the story world I created. How do I simultaneously turn them into Keywords or Custom Metadata List? I don’t want to go adding Character names one by one into custom metadata. I would rather sync it with my Characters folder which has all the files named after individual Characters.
I need to do the same for the Cities and Weapons too.
Thanks in advance.
Hi.
If you have files with all of your characters’ name for file-name, you could display the content of that folder. (In your OS file explorer.)
Select all and copy.
In Scrivener, paste in a blank document.
Select all, Edit>Remove link.
You now have a list.
It is not perfect, but you could now select (double or triple click) + drag them one by one in the keywords panel of that document, thus creating keywords out of them.
Should take you no more than a few minutes. (Adjust the width of the inspector so that it is right next to your list in the editor – less mouse traveling.)
Creating labels (200+ ?) would be a bad idea, in my opinion. That’s way too many.
Plus, you’d be depriving yourself of a useful feature, when keywords would get you the same result, even better. You can assign multiple keywords to a document, but only a single label.
Thanks for the reply. Is it possible to link the Custom Metadata or Keywords to the folders with files for Characters, Cities and Weapons respectively, so that they are automatically updated with out manual copy-pasting?
Not a feature, no.
. . . . . . .
What is your ultimate objective?
The advantage of keywords is you can search per character, or several characters to pinpoint scenes they are in. Or choose character and weapon to see where bob was using a sword. Yes will take time to do, which is why I do it as a go. A keyword for every new character often add sex (m,f, and number for age if pertinent, or is a political group etc.)
If still writing can add as go or add as edit.
I use comments (can have up to 16 custom colors) to highlight key points in a scene (a new character, weapon) foreshadowing points, red herring, etc so when in scene key info is highlighted. (Easy to remove comments when compile)
This is where keyword search comes in.
Here’s an example:
Say you have keywords for:
Allocating keywords is a cinch once you’ve created your lists. All you do is drag the keyword from your keyword list to the keyword metadata area for the specific folder or file you’re working on. This is why @GoalieDad suggested it’s best to do this on the fly, while who, where, and what are still fresh in your mind.
If you’re looking for scenes in which unique combinations appear, invoke the keyword popup, click on the keywords you’re looking for, click on the magnifying glass at the base of the keyword popup, and select Search Keywords Only. The Binder will then list all the documents in which only the combination is found, for example: Pete, Timbuktu, Carving Knife.
You could also save the results as Search Collections, though that really would be a serious effort if you have 200 characters, 20 cities and 50 weapon types.
As Revo Tilior said, I am finishing a first draft of a fantasy down to last two to three scenes, but for each scene as I write, I assign the characters in it and even add characters as they appear in a Scene. I use comments to highlight key information, or new things introduced in every scene and then use a snapshot to have the first draft form saved so when come back and edit and change things, the original version is saved. If you have a character list, you can copy the names as you create keywords and use folders to organize groups, and do the same for weapons and locations. Yes will take a coupla hours to assign the keywords, but please believe me you will thank yourself. It really helps when checking for consistency in a complex story and if you need to know where the weapon has been used a keyword search gives you the answer in seconds. This is less painful if do as you go.
Thanks @GoalieDad @RevoTiLlor
