I’m really trying to use Scrivener as much as possible rather than turning to Notion or Trello, and this is where I’m stuck. I’d appreciate any ideas!
If I have multiple scene-level tasks, how can I keep track of them? I’ve seen some hacks across other threads. Custom metadata works well if you have one single to do item per scene, but I don’t want a volume of separate custom metadata fields just for various quantities of tasks.
I’ve tried docs of bulleted lists and striking them through, but it’s so messy formatting-wise, I find the friction distracting.
I’ve also toyed around with creating a to do folder with every line being an individual task. I know you can bookmark scenes from there, but at the end of the day, I just really want a list of checkable task boxes directly on the scene itself.
I’m including screenshots of both Trello and Notion. Both 100% serve my purpose. But it sounds absolutely miserable to recreate my entire scene list, and then try to manually keep it in sync as I revise. Any ideas?
Comments? They have the advantage of tying directly to the relevant text. They don’t come with a checkable box, though you can use a checkbox character from the Mac’s Symbols pane.
If you want a single list for the whole scene, you could use the Document Notes, also with the checkbox symbol.
You can make lists of all kinds of list and drag the list to Project (or Document) Bookmarks.
I’ve set up shortcut keys to make checkboxes, using AutoHotKey (there must be a Mac alternative), so pressing Ctrl+. makes an empty checkbox and Ctrl+.. makes a ticked checkbox.
The lists are indented with the First Line Indent set to 0 cm and the Left Indent at 0.5 cm, which allows for inserting the checkbox, tabbing and keeping the narrative flush left.
The threads serve as the basis for Inline Annotations, so I’m able to access the exact spot of each recurrence of a thread, using Project Search for a particular thread. Project search returns each document in the Binder listing, and if a thread occurs more than once in a document, then pressing F3 on S3 for Win, takes me to the next hit in that particular document.
Once set up, finding everything is muscle memory/second nature.
You can build Chapter and Scene templates with word targets and Scene notes in the Inspector notes built in. These templates could be customized per novel even, but cannot add tables inside inspector notes. Example below.
Or again use a template where every scene has an attached file like in your example above, when finished with check list discard, or copy and paste few remaining tasks into inspector notes.
My needs are perhaps simpler than yours, but I just use inline annotation to mark or annotate where things need to be done. Sometimes this is as simple as making a chunk of text into inline annotation text – indicating I need to rework that text. Other times the inline text is some note I am writing to myself of something that needs to be addressed in that area.
Inline annotations are easy to make and unmake, they can be located in situ, and have the virtue of showing up very well in a body of text. It feels very freeform what you can do with them. (I have never liked the crampy post-it note metaphor that you get with inspector or Word comments.) You can easily include or exclude inline annotations from compiled output.
Although most of what I’ve had to say on this topic has already been amply covered above, here are some links that go into further detail on my theories and processes:
A roundup of links with regards to tagging text. While that topic is general, marking todos could be seen as a sub-topic in the larger umbrella topic of tagging text, there are basic techniques higher up the chain that can benefit more precise usages.
On whether checklists are obsolete. This, and in particular the section on “embedded todos”, dips into some thought on whether a program like Scrivener makes separate checklisting a bit obsolete, in the same way that it might make a spreadsheet for tracking plot points a bit obsolete. Perhaps it is a bridge too far, but I do feel it is food for thought, especially given how I have noticed in my own work that while I still heavily use checklists, my use of them for organising writing projects themselves has markedly declined since Scrivener 3 came out. The origins of that change started long before Scrivener even existed, but its capabilities allowed much of what I envisioned in my first primitive attempts to become a practical reality.
Building a revision tracking or ticketing system in Scrivener. This real-world demonstration of a technique I use heavily kind of goes beyond the notion of a typical “todo list”, and deeper into the above rumination on whether discrete and separated checklists are the right tool for the job in the first place.
Thank you for this! I’m trying to wrap my head around your Threads. I’ve read about the concept of tagging, but did you manually create this “threads” list? Do you use the list to copy terms to then search your binder?
Thank you for this roundup! I’d read some of it (particularly the Reddit one) searching before I made this post. There are obviously numerous options, but I’m still a little disappointed that something so simple has to turn into something complex—this is in my opinion, when I consider actually implementing any of the options in these threads. Even if it doesn’t seem complex to others, which is great, it’s not naturally how I want to work and I have to decide if friction for a new system is worth keeping it all in Scrivener.
I’ve also tried to avoid creating spreadsheets, but I had to cave and go back to Sheets instead of using outline. The formulas for calculating percentages are essential as I’m revising and looking at beats. Sure, I can manually add final numbers as Scrivener metadata, but I’d still have to create the calculations in the first place. I also always want to merge cells (like for Act I, rather than adding a label of “Act 1” to each individual scene). I also can easily see two separate lists side by side. I know I could hack it in Scrivener, but it’s never going to be so easy and straightforward. Two photo examples:
I also tried to avoid using Notion, and I just can’t. The Kanban setup is so easy. Again, I’m sure I COULD hack it in Scrivener somehow, but it’s not going to be the same.
I find Notion’s togglable headings literally invaluable for keeping all information together while being able to easily open and close them with one click.
I don’t actually expect you to do anything with this response. I know you can’t magically change Scrivener and surely don’t want to turn it into either Sheets or Notion. I just have to resign myself to staying in multiple tools if I want to work how I most naturally want to work.
Scrivener is so much more feature-rich than every single other writing tool and I love it for that—I just don’t see a straightforward, frictionless way to make it my ONLY software, so I think I need to divorce that dream.
To be fair I guess, I am definitely not one of those that tries to reduce my entire universe down to one program. I’m all for building systems into software where it makes sense to, yes—but also building bridge workflows between software because that’s what makes computers so great. For someone who is a whiz at using spreadsheet software like yourself, Scrivener’s little outliner just isn’t going to suffice. For someone like myself, that mainly just plonks static data into a grid and maybe puts in an =SUM(X#&H) here and there, the basics Scrivener provides are more than enough.
I doubt there is any one answer for whether combining tools is right or not, even with just one person, depending on the type of thing.
And likewise, what is frictionless to one might not be that to another. For me, the method I use with annotations is the very definition of that since it is no more difficult than typing in some italic text. I’m not switching context, or stopping what I’m doing even. Writing down my thoughts on what I’m writing, as I write, occupies the same forward momentum of the cursor. Frictionless.
But I get it, it doesn’t work for everyone. I tried the Kanban thing for a while (I mentioned one of the ones I tried in one of those posts), but as much as the model visually appeals to me, it always felt way too clicky.
I find Notion’s togglable headings literally invaluable for keeping all information together while being able to easily open and close them with one click.
On that one I maybe don’t understand, though. Isn’t that how the binder works?
Yes. I create a Threads list manually—it’s a Scrivener document. I have a shortcut to create either an empty checkbox or a ticked checkbox for my list.
The document is dragged to Project Bookmarks. Clicking on it, the Preview shows up in the pane below and is fully editable. I keep it in Project Bookmarks because I have the inspector open all the time. My Scrivener Editor is scaled to be roughly similar to using Page Width in Word, though it’s not WYSIWYG, but a comfortable experience. The Binder and Inspector are much smaller text, though nonetheless readable. I don’t do side by side editing, preferring to use two screens.
Anyway, let’s select a topic: #Byleman**’s Hidden Eyes.** Wherever it is referenced in the manuscript, I create an inline annotation on the fly. If the tag is new, I add it to Project Bookmarks Preview Window (the Threads list). If it exists, I pull it from the list and paste it into an Inline Annotation at the beginning of a paragraph related to the topic and highlight the specific text in purple, which is actually a Context style I setup.
Using Project Search, throws back all the instance I have marked. Pressing F3 takes me to the next hit if there’s more than one tag that’s the same in a document. I copy an item from the Threads list and paste it into the search box. My search box is generally set to All Words. See the sample search result below.
Tip: If using Grammarly or some such, place a hashtag at the end of your inline annotation, else that text editing engine interferes with the sentence following an inline annotation.
Tip 2: Use a keyboard shortcut to create the inline annotation box, the hashtag and return the cursor to the beginning of the box. Then Paste and Match Style into the inline annotation box. Plain Paste pushes the text of whatever is pasted before the inline annotation box.
My approach to writing is to let the ideas flow as they come and threads have saved me many a time from conflicting narratives on the same subject matter.
