How Green Was My Bar

Scrivener Wish List
1

Hi there

Well I suspect I may be alone here but I guess my ideal word count window would show 3 things:

  1. Overall count for the draft.
  2. Overall result for the session (how many words it grew or shrank by).
  3. How many new words I wrote in a given session.

My system (and using it I have published two books, in New Zealand, Australia, the US and the UK, with Jonathon Cape and Warner Books, as well as being translated into Italian and French self promotion ends) requires that I write 1,000 new words a day. It doesn’t require that the draft grow by 1,000, only that I write 1,000, independently of how much I delete.

As David Hewson says, the total word count may be rising or falling, but what matters is that the work is alive and developing. (Hope that’s an acceptable paraphrase). For me, that means ensuring that no matter what happens to the overall word count, I’m generating new material every day, in addition to whatever editing or deleting I do.

In my view, the current system actually works against the spirit of David’s post, because if the session count compulsorily takes deletions into account, I’m being psychologically penalised for deleting more than I write on a given day. If the total draft count shrinks, my bar won’t go green, whether I wrote a thousand new words or not. I’ll end the day staring at a partially full bar, or even one in negative numbers. Eeek. I don’t LIKE that.

And if I do want to track changes in overall word count (which yes, of course, I do) I already have the draft total indicator for that job anyway.

What it boils down to is this: Writing long form fiction is all about breaking a long term goal down into small achievable goals. Even on the days I delete more than I write, I want to achieve that short term goal and see visual confirmation of it: I’d still like to be able to make the indicator bar go green and get that green inner glow of satisfaction!

I do have a workaround - put all my big deletions in a separate scene until the end of the session, then bin 'em. But ideally I’d have it as above.

thanks for listening!

William

2

Hi,

Although I understand your point, there are no plans for this I’m afraid, as I said in the tech support forum. It would be difficult from a technical support point of view, for a start. The word count just tracks what you type, which obviously includes deleting words. But suppose you type “I have the the” and then remove one of the “the’s”, or any other number of typos - if you’re like me and make a fair few typos, you could end up with the word count telling you that you have written 1,000 words when you actually have created only 500 new words. Scrivener’s word count isn’t smart enough to know what you want to count and what you don’t want to count. To implement your suggestion, Scrivener would somehow need to know which text it was allowed to subtract from the word count (typos, sentences you type and delete on the day in question) and which it wasn’t (anything else) - but it can’t know these things.

One solution is type your thousand words into a single document, and set a 1,000 word count for the individual document (rather than using session targets for this purpose). Once you’ve hit 1,000 words in that document, you know you’ve made your target for the day.

All the best,
Keith

3

Thanks Keith - I see what you mean about the technical difficulties. Thanks for your patience with me about this - I’m happy enough with things as they are. Scrivener is a great programme!

cheers
w

4

No problem, and many thanks for your kind words. I’ve added it to my list of things to think about more when I get time, because I absolutely understand what you mean about the psychological effect, it’s just the technical aspect of how the word count works that is the problem.
All the best,
Keith

5

Actually your suggestion of starting each day’s session in a new section is a very good one. Easy to track new word count and it can be effortlessly merged with the body of the draft at the end of the day’s work. Psychologically it appeals too - keeps the editing and composing modes separate.

w

6

Great - I’m glad that was useful, at least!
All the best,
Keith