Hi, I’m brand new to Scrivener and would like to begin to use it for Short Story writing. I would like to set up correctly in the first place so would value tips on how to begin. Thanks heaps.
Hi
Scrivener includes a template for short stories, which might be a useful starting point.
File > New Project > Fiction > Short Story
[attachment=0]shortstory.png[/attachment]
If you haven’t already seen them, the videos listed on the page below might also help you shape your plans.
literatureandlatte.com/video … fsbackdrop
Best
Briar Kit
Hi, BirdieH,
One thing that is worth bearing in mind is that Scrivener projects are very capacious: a single project can handily hold a very great deal of text (in a great many document) without becoming unwieldy. And one of the beauties of Scrivener is that it can hold things together for you that should be together.
Since short story is a short form, I would suggest that you start with a single project which you use as a repository of all your emerging short story ideas – with a subfolder in the Binder for each story. If a short story is long enough and complex enough or will have a lot of dedicated research material associated with it, then you might at a certain point in development like to drag its folder into a new project dedicated to that story. But I find that for the most part short stories live very happily in the one project and I am happy working on them there. Typically I will move the story folder of any ones I am currently working on into a special WORKING folder at the top of my otherwise alphabetical list of story folders.
You could adapt the Short Story template to this purpose easily enough, by (most simply), creating a Story Library folder at the same (top) level in the Binder as the Short Story (aka Draft) folder.
Best,
gr
Thank you so very much to everyone who has responded to my question re setting up for short story writing. I will begin to have a play with Scrivener now and put to practice all you have recommended.
Your advice has come at a very crucial time and I am grateful for your generosity.
"Since short story is a short form, I would suggest that you start with a single project which you use as a repository of all your emerging short story ideas – with a subfolder in the Binder for each story. "
Would this be the recommended way to create a series of short stories, since another thread offering a “book of short stories” template had a link that was characterized as incompatible with my current Scrivener?
Anyone have a newer template for this purpose?
Unsurprisingly, this sounds right and sensible to me. That is what I do. It would seem even more advisable if the series of stories you have in mind are genuinely a series of stories rather than just several stories.
For me each story idea has its dedicated folder and these live together in a master folder I keep down in the Research folder or in a dedicated top-level folder. (The Draft folder is reserved for what I want to compile, so the subfolder of text Docs which is my active story will at some point be dragged up into the Draft folder for compiling.) In my case, the short stories are not related as in a series.
If you post a link to the thread post in question, someone can probably open it for you and thus convert it to a newer format that works for you.
download/file.php?id=13784 – I’ve downloaded and unzipped. Unable to open, but perhaps this file only works for Mac version of Scrivener? Any help appreciated 
https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/new-template-for-a-book-of-short-stories/20019/1
(This is the Scrivener forum I referenced)
Did you download the original one, or the version converted to version 3 that AmberV provided later in the thread (see New template for a book of short stories - #8 by AmberV )?
Thanks, Devin, yes I did download from Amber’s post. A reply on the original forum thread suggests it is a Mac 3 version file, and I need to download windows 3 beta in order to utilize it. I’ll check into that. Appreciate your response on this.