How do I create video scripts from multiple documents?

Hello,

I’m new to Scrivener–so new I’m just checking it out to see if it will help me (full transparency!)

I have a project. My client is giving me many documents (some word and some Google). Some of the documents are random copies of marketing emails he sent. Some of them are actual e-books, compiled into a finished format.

My job is to go through the content, chop it into “lessons” and create mini video scripts from the content.

I have read the documentation from Scrivener and frankly, I’m really overwhelmed. I can’t see how all the pieces fit together and I was hoping someone could help me see how to get started.

  1. If I import my documents into Scrivener, would I make each separate document into a separate folder? Then do I split each “lesson” within the document into a file?

  2. Once I have all the cut pieces, do I create a “Master folder” where organize and collate all the lessons?

My apologies from the get-go. I know this is basic. From what I’ve seen, Scrivener has some great functions but I can’t figure out how they all work together.

Thank you.

First, start with the Interactive Tutorial. It will save you days of frustration and also give you a good working vocabulary for asking questions on the forum. You can work on it in short spurts, and then reopen it later when your head’s not spinning.

Second, you need to figure out how to get all of your source material into a standard word processing format. e-books won’t open inside of Scrivener (they’ll import, but the text won’t be available to the program directly). Good formats to put them into include ".doc " (MS Word) or “.rtf” (Rich Text format).

Then, in the research folder, create a sub-folder for each big source, or kind of source if there are a lot of small bits. Now, take the ORIGINAL files (if possible), and the converted .doc or .rtf versions of those documents, and drag them into their places in the research folder. That way, you always have all of the original material in your project, should you need to see it in it’s pristine format. If you can’t convert some formats, then you’ll have to copy and paste them into new documents you create in the binder.

You may find that the formatting is a mess at this point, with a plethora of fonts and indent settings that make everything together look like a kind of ransom note. Select as many of the converted documents as you can in the research folder, and then go to Documents->Convert->Formatting to Default Style to clean that up. It will preserve italics and bold, but will not keep any indents, including block quotes by default, so beware of that.

Once you have your converted version imported, you can split them up into useful chucks (the book, for instance, might be sub-divided into chapters if you think that’ll be more convenient.

Then, and only then, are you ready to start dragging these converted duplicates of the original source materials into the draft folder, as you begin incorporating them into your video script. Keeping the source material that you add to the script separate from your own writing might be convenient, but at that point, it’s entirely up to the requirements of the project you are working on. If you are using small excerpts, you might chop up a chapter into smaller chunks, or just copy & paste small passages as quotes.

There are a wealth of features that you might find useful. If you keep the source material separate, then you can, for instance, use Keywords, or References, or create [[Scrivener Links]] to the original material that you are using, which may come in handy during editing.

By going through the Interactive Tutorial while you’re pondering how to organize this project, you will almost definitely stumble upon features that can be bent to your needs.

Good luck!

Oh My Word, Robert. This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much.

This is exactly what I needed. I went through the tutorial and it was great for teaching about the functions but your advice about where to put stuff and what steps to take for my particular situation is exactly where I was stuck.

I can’t thank you enough. I’m going to follow your directions exactly and see how I can start this project.

Have a great evening.