I just jumped ship today from StoryMill (gurk!) to Scrivener. I knew I had made a giant mistake when I bought StoryMill a couple of weeks back and was told by the developer that they won’t be adding support for footnotes or manuscript formatting, among many other things.
I’ve got a writing project that has loads of research to keep track of and sort out. Stuff like StoryMill ain’t going to cut the mustard. I also need an application which has wider range of uses, hence my switch to Scrivener. I also can’t believe that Scrivener is cheaper than StoryMill given it’s feature set.
I should have spent more time with the Scrivener demo when I was trying to decide what to buy. Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to start writing that I made my software choice rather willy-nilly.
Welcome to the forums, and thank you for buying Scrivener (and for switching!). I hope Scrivener lives up to your expectations. If you have any questions, just let me know. And “jumping ship” is a phrase that will be appreciated around here, given that some of the users seem to consider themselves pirates (sea-faring ones), though I have no idea why…
Captain, I must respectfully look at you in disbelief sir. As a colonial I expect that your British pride may be causing you to disassociate yourself from those, shall we say … disreputable, members of the crew who look to you for leadership. Given the dependance most, if not all, here have developed on your most excellently maintained ship it is only natural that the afore mentioned “disreputable ones” would strive for the romantic ideal of a Robin Hood-esque piratical life as we sail the seas of literature, thought, and expression of ideas.
That or we are just crazy.
You pick.
Jon, welcome aboard. Captain KB, First Mate DMJ (of the shadowy nature) run the ship. The and the true ruler of all (look for her clones) keeps a few of us in line. Most folks here are very helpful. But there are a few, the +3 (-1), that you should be warned of. Harmless really, unless they start posting things in the forums. Off topicing, random tirades into the not so clear workings of why they think KB is a captain, general reprobates when it comes to refraining from nonsense are the hallmarks of their presence.
As KB said, any questions posted are answered pretty quick. There are a few techno wizards around, as well as a plethora of authors (that last one is a surprise right?). Many answers can be found by searching the forums. Let us know if you need any help at all.
Thanks everyone for your warm welcome! I am enjoying Scrivener indeed! I just transferred my WIP over from StoryMill and got myself set up. That was a bit tiring but the switch is worth it! It is definitely up to my expectations! I look forward to finally getting rolling on my ‘masterpiece’. 8)
I would like to hear what you didn’t like in StoryMill. I had a look on the demo version when it came out and was quite confused - but maybe for other reasons, who knows? And I didn’t actually work with it, which makes very often a huge difference in how we see things.
On it’s surface, it’s not bad. However, It’s seems to have a steepish learning curve and I found the structure too rigid as it’s designed only for writing fiction. I found the different parts such as ‘research’ a bit clunky to work with, as well. For example, with that feature, you could only copy/past links into it. You still had to go into your research folder, find the topic, open it, and then click the link which would then open your browser.
Also, trying to change the order of the folders on the left side was weird. You couldn’t just drag them around like you can in Scrivener. You had to open yet another function in the split-pane to do that.
Also, the timeline feature only applied to scenes and has a 50-year limit. You needed to layer timelines on top of each other if you needed more years.
Lastly, it doesn’t include manuscript formatting, doesn’t support headers or footnotes and I noticed that it doesn’t handle importing text very well as far as layout goes. I had to manually restructure any text I dropped into it from Word or emails ( I would jot out bits of stuff for chapters while I’m at work and then email it to myself for later).
Mostly my trouble with it was the mechanics and layout. Scrivener is much more intuitive IMHO.
I jumped ship from MarinerWrite to StoryMill and then to Scrivener. The number one decision maker was printing the manuscript. Next was Scrivener’s software window. I can see all the tools I need for writing my manuscript in one place. And number three was Scrivener’s easy to use interface.
I’ve used Story Mill for the past 3 months. Kept trying to adapt to it, but I found it really hindering my writing style and wasting my time. I recently purchased Scrivener and it’s like salt and pepper. If it were a woman, I would lick her cheek, but since it’s not, I just lick my Mac screen and tell it
'Thank You".
Thanks both for choosing Scrivener, and for the kind words! I hope Scrivener continues to meet your needs. Always great to hear from happy users - although I do hope you clean that screen, slowhand.
