How would you structure this project in the Binder?

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I’ve been using Scrivener (on Mac & iOS) for years, but now I’ve come to actually write a book, I have a conceptual Binder organisation question.

The book is the putting-together of 50-ish magazine articles I have written over the years. Each of these is a Scrivener document. At the moment, I’m working my way through them, categorising each with Labels/Status/Keywords and also brief summaries that are going into the Synopsis field.

I have four Parts to the book – I have set these up as Binder Folders, and there are number of Articles nested in each. So far so good. I’m using the Corkboard for the first time ever and it’s great for moving chapters around. I click on the Part folder and it shows me all the Articles and their synopses – I have all the information I need to make ordering decisions right there on the corkboard cards.

Once I’ve done this, I’m on to the next job, and that’s where I’d like your advice please.

Each article will be preceded with a Chapter title of its own and some introductory text (around 200 words) and I’m unsure whether to add each one of these as a separate Document in the Binder, or just type the extra (new) content at the top of the existing Articles. (And if I have them as separate documents… would I have them at sibling level, or have the articles nested beneath, to echo the actual book structure?)

Are there strengths/drawbacks of doing it either way? I’ve tried the following and noticed what happens:

Part 02

  • 1a. Chapter: Let’s learn about this (intro text)
  • 1b. Article: Exciting article (content)
  • 2a. Chapter: Now let’s move on (intro text)
  • 2b. Article: You won’t believe this (content)

Having this structure (all as siblings) means that when I click on Part 02 for the corkboard view, I see double for each chapter (I don’t really need to see any of the “a” version card content; all the interesting stuff is on the “b” versions). It also means if I want to move anything, I have to move two cards at once.

This next structure (Articles as children) is more in keeping with the actual book:

Part 02

  • 1a. Chapter: Let’s learn about this (intro text)
    • 1b. Article: Exciting article (content)
  • 2a. Chapter: Now let’s move on (intro text)
    • 2b. Article: You won’t believe this (content)

…but if I do this and click on Part 02 for corkboard view, I only see the “a” versions, which is pointless!

Is there a special Scrivener magic trick I can pull, that shows the nested (child) documents only, in Corkboard view, and would move both parent & child document if I moved just the child??*

If not, I’m resigned to using this structure:

Part 02

    1. Chapter: Let’s learn about this and Article: Exciting article
    1. Chapter: Now let’s move on and Article: You won’t believe this

…which gives the cleanest view in Corkboard when I click on Part 02, but leaves me feeling like I’m not really utilising the full functionality of Scrivener, somehow. The introductory text seems like it should be a separate document from the article… or am I just over-thinking this?!

How would you organise things, in this situation?

Thanks for any advice

Giles

*it occurs to me I could “hack” the Binder by having the Intro text nested underneath each Article, so that Corkboard view shows me my “b” Articles on top… but wouldn’t that come back to bite me later??

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I would type my introductionary text in the same document.
If later you need a different formatting for it at compile, you could then use a style for those introductions.

Typing them directly in the same document has, at this point, the advantage of keeping things neatly organized, without oversizing your binder.
You can later split those documents if needed (which likely won’t be needed). Splitting a document is a much lighter operation than merging documents (say you’d opt for the other way around, then later change your mind for whichever reason, technical or not).

. . . . . . .

Yes, it would. It is a bad idea. :wink:
The order in which the documents are in the binder is very important.

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I think @Vincent_Vincent has more experience than me in this (even though I’ve been using Scrivener much longer than him!) as in what I use it for, mostly working on translations, the Corkboard is irrelevant; I’ve only used it once, one of the few occasions when I took part in NiaD. If I do have to move things around, I do it in the Binder.

To me it is the Binder hierarchy that is all important, so I would create a

Part 1
    Chapter 1
        Article 1.a
        Article 1.b
        ⋮
    Chapter 2
        Article 2.a
        Article 2.b
        ⋮
Part 2
    Chapter 1
        Article 1.a
        Article 1.b
        ⋮
    Chapter 2
        Article 2.a
        Article 2.b
        ⋮

and put the Intro text in the Chapter document.

To me that is the structure I would want when the time comes to compile (which I would start testing as soon as I had a modicum in place). I would use the extra clicking through the hierarchy as an opportunity to reflect on my process, rather than seeing it as a burden. But then I’m long retired and time is not so much an issue!

:slight_smile:
Mark

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Another alternative would be to use the Outline view, rather than the Corkboard. That has the advantage of letting you see more than one outline level at once.

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Thank you! Simplest sounds to be best.

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That’s nice – I hadn’t thought of that.

But again, I think I’ll run up against all my most useful Synopsis data being hidden away on the Article 1.b card, if I use corkboard.

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The other way is to have the intro text in the chapter folder document, if just a few hundred words would be one page. Compile section layout could include numbered chapter title and underneath intro text. The chapter section layout should have both title and text boxes checked.

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You might spend a few minutes thinking about what you’re actually trying to do.

For instance, writing the introductory material is a separate task from figuring out the order of the articles. With the order established, is the Corkboard really the best tool for the next step?

Similarly, where do you want to put the introductory material? If it seems to you to naturally be part of the article document, then put it there. If it’s effectively an extended chapter heading, then put it in the chapter document. Scrivener doesn’t care.

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My natural impulse would be to put this kind of preamble text into the text body area of the containing Chapter folder itself, as per GoalieDad’s suggestion. That way it goes where the chapter goes, but it also doesn’t add to the binder structure. It would also not interfere with your corkboarding.

Of course, if you are still moving articles around within and between chapters, you ought not be writing the preamble text yet.

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