Especially since you can stitch the split documents together using Scrivenings given the illusion of one document without dealing with the lag. Same as word’s limitation. If you had the novel broken up into ten different documents and jumped between them to view the manuscript, would argue that is a horrible pain in the ass. Windows works best for novels as a single file, while Scrivener works best as a series of small chunks of text.
Unfortunately, when I did write a book using many smaller documents in Scrivenings view, I constantly had to deal with this Windows-only bug, which I found really disruptive.
Also, if I’ve structured a project like that, I want to be in Scrivenings view 100% of the time, but pretty frequently I would find that because of something else I’d done, Scrivener had reverted to showing me single-document view. Of course, at that point I can just click in the binder to return to Scrivenings view (then wait for it to load, then navigate back to wherever I was…) and no doubt others would dismiss this as a “minor inconvenience”, but to me it’s a completely unnecessary bit of friction when I’m in the flow of writing. (Unless perhaps there’s some technical solution to this that I don’t know about?)
After some further testing, I’m finding that splitting the 100,000 edited manuscript into three documents reduces, but does not eliminate, the lag when browsing comments.
OK, having researched this further, I’ve learned for the first time of the existence of “Go to Enclosing Group”. This definitely palliates the hassle of getting in and out of Scrivenings mode, and would make me more open to dividing up a manuscript, if it weren’t for the aforementioned “jumping” bug, which still rules it out for me.
I’m wondering why you are using Scrivener, given you’re not exploiting its features and instead being frustrated due to not using those features. Just curious. What value-add is it giving your preferred work process?
1 Like
As I said above, the combination of the Binder as file organiser (not as book structurer) and the mostly-seamless multi-pane view. Those are both extremely useful to me, and if there exists another program that combines them, I’m not aware of it (and also it’s most likely some kind of $15-a-month subscription package -– I may have complaints about Scrivener for Windows but value for money as of 2026 is not one of them.)
Well, the Binder is designed as and intended to be a “book structurer” which from where I sit by not using it as such is the root cause of your friction.
1 Like
Color me skeptical at the idea that someone “needs” to load an entire 100,000 word manuscript in one chunk “most” of the time. I’m having trouble visualizing a writing or editing process that doesn’t operate at the chapter or scene level. In my experience, even diehard Word users are likely to either have a document for each chapter or make heavy use of Word’s Outline mode when dealing with book-length manuscripts.
4 Likes
This is why I think it’s worthwhile drawing attention to these issues. I’m sure Scrivener sincerely reflects its makers’ conception of how writers operate, it’s just that their conception may be a bit narrow. I’ve published several books, a lot of my closest friends are other novelists, I’ve taught creative writing a few times -– nobody has ever mentioned using a different Word document for each chapter! (Except in the sense that Scrivener itself simulates this, and then there’s a famous Don DeLillo story of using a different index card for each paragraph.) Plus all you have to do is Google something like “novel one document per chapter” or “novel one long document” and you will find dozens of people on blogs and messageboards talking about using a single document, so it’s surprising to me that you find the very notion so hard to believe. My guess based on my own experience -– which of course is partial, just like yours -– would be that “one long document” is not just pretty widespread but an overwhelming majority of professional fiction writers who don’t Scrivener, but I don’t have numbers to prove that. The point is, there’s a wide world out there, and it would be wonderful if Scrivener took a bit more account of that.
It’s actually the other way around. Once you discover Scrivener, the approach used by the alleged majority becomes non-sensical.
2 Likes
When a thread gets to this point, I always feel like it’s worth mentioning that Scrivener exists because its creator didn’t like the way Word handled things. “Be more like Word” is not usually a winning position.
3 Likes
You mean he didn’t like the way that Word is capable of handling long documents of the kind novelists get from their editors, so he was motivated to create a program that couldn’t do that?
It seems there are some things that you like about Scrivener and some things that you do not like. In my experience, Scrivener excels in the preparation and first submission of that project (my work is academic rather than novels).
There are ways to re import .doc/.docx files back into Scrivener and it appears that you have some understanding of those. The said, many authors do the revision work elsewhere (and there are numerous messages here and elsewhere saying that those final publication and revision steps are better done outside Scrivener). I have done it both ways.
If your focus is on the post submission phase of your work, then you may be better off finding a process that works for you-which may or may not be in Scrivener. For me, a profoundly important aspect of Scrivener is being able to use it in a way that can be shaped to your own needs, often by using other tools for specific aspects.
All the best with developing your preferred approach.
1 Like
He didn’t like the idea of trying to manage 100,000 words in a single file.
The “feedback from editor” complaint is a red herring in at least three ways:
- There’s no requirement that you bring the manuscript back into Scrivener at all. If it’s easier for you to manage editor comments in a single large Word file, then just do that.
- If you do want to bring the document back into Scrivener, you can use the Documents → Split command or the Import and Split command to break it up into chunks. Even doing it manually, you’ve already spent more time posting in this thread than it would take.
- There’s a third option, which is to embed Document Links in the output file. If your editor can be trusted to leave those alone, then you can just click the link in Word to take you to the corresponding Scrivener document.
5 Likes
I’m working on a master thesis, and I can tell u that I have the same problem, which I mentioned here couple of times, since the first beta of Scrivener 3 was released.
That problem didn’t exist in Scrivener 2. It was introduced in Scrivener 3. The same file is well handled without lag by Scrivener 2, but with the annoying lag by Scrivener 3.