Questions on compiling a novel

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I’m compiling a novel - a children’s book, and have a couple of questions, if people would be so kind.

First, there’s a prologue and then 15 chapters and an epilogue. I’ve split the text up into 17 accordingly, and put the resulting scenes into one folder titled ‘Prologue’, another titled ‘Epilogue’, and 15, each of which is titled ‘Chapter’.

The chapters and prologue have names - should I replace the name ‘Chapter’ on the 15 Chapter folders with the titles of the 16 chapters, or should I title the scenes inside the folders in this way?

And when I come to compile, how do I tell Scrivener to ignore the Prologue folder when numbering the chapters? I know that must be in the Formatting part of the Compile dialogue, but those nested folders and levels in the Compile dialogue are still a bit of a mystery to me.

Finally, this isn’t my book; I’m compiling it for a friend. How do I take my name and details out of the metadata?

Edit: finally, finally, is there any very practical and obvious and short video tutorial on how to use the Compile menu? I’m sorry to keep asking questions, but I haven’t been able to find any tutorial that can teach me the logic (in terms of books, chapters and scenes) of how this works.

2

Take a look at literatureandlatte.com/videos.php There are three videos on the subject of compiling books.

It’s my oppinion that you should definitely use the names of your documents (or folders) as titles, letting Scrivener grab those and put them in the output; this allows you to change the font and alignment in one place, and tweak it without having to go to every single document and modify titles that you had added to the text.

For getting rid of the “Chapter 1” problem with your prologue, take a look here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20601&start=0 If you have any questions, or organized the binder without folders, the principal is the same (prologue in folder if chapters are not or vice-versa).

3

No, tried this and it’s not working for me, presumably because I really don’t understand all these levels and folders and columns and rows, their purpose and function.

You wrote, in the thread you sent me to:

I dragged the prologue ‘scene’ out of its folder and renamed it ‘Prologue: blah de blah’, and did the same for the epilogue.

Then I went to Compile/Formatting, and did this (hope putting in a screenshot works here):

Screen Shot 2012-11-27 at 16.52.52.png
Screen Shot 2012-11-27 at 16.52.52.png660×579 96.2 KB

and then clicked on ‘Section Layout’ and got rid of the ‘Chapter %£@%’ stuff, as here:

Screen Shot 2012-11-27 at 16.53.20.png

but when I compiled the book, it said “Chapter 1: Prologue” and so on.

It also still says I wrote it - the metadata is grabbing my name from the Mac, and I don’t know how to stop it.

4

If you did that while the Level 1+ FOLDER was selected, but your prologue and epilogues are just files at “Level 1+” (The icon looks like the third one down in the screen shot of the Formatting compile section), then you were modifying the wrong item. Check out the videos on Compile before you go any further; I think they’ll explain the “levels” and the types of binder documents they correspond to better than I can here.

As for the metadata, check out the Meta-Data section of the compile dialogue. Updating that will take care of the dynamic stuff, but there may be places where it was filled in when you created the project. The Title page in the Front Matter folder for instance, may have your name & address data entered; you’ll have to manually change anything you find like that.

5

Thanks Robert, I’ll look at those videos again and see if I understand them any better this time.

The Metadata in the Compile dialogue shows my details, but it’s greyed out and I can’t change it.

6

The grey metatdata is just what will be used if you don’t type anything else in there. Try entering the author’s name and other information “on top” of yours to see what I mean.

7

As for the levels, maybe I can help a little.

In your Draft folder (it may be named Manuscript, but I’ll use Draft for brevity*), you probably have folders for each chapter, with documents in them that contain the actual text of the chapters. Then you have your prelude that is just a bare file with text in it. If you click on the triangles next to each chapter folder it will expand or collapse that folder, hiding it’s contents.

Collapse everything inside your Draft folder that has one of those triangles next to it: What you see after you’ve done that is at “Level 1” You should recognize the icons from the compile Formatting section here. If you expand a chapter folder, the document there is going to be a “Level 2” document (it will be slightly indented from the folder to help visualize it’s “level”). If you also had folders inside your chapter folders, they’d be “Level 2” folders. You can also stack documents, creating additional levels that way.

In the compile Formatting section you’ll see that you have a “Level 1+” folder line; that means that any folder at level 1 or higher will share the same formatting options. In your case, your chapter folders are very likely the only folders you have in the Draft, and they’re probably all just at “Level 1”. The files inside those folders are “Level 2” text files. The formatting applied to them is represented in the last line of the Formatting compile options where you see the icon for a text document with the name “Level 2+”. Your prologue should be affected by the “level 1” text file settings.

If the + is throwing you, just know that you can stack documents on other documents as deep as you want. Any of them that are 2 or more “levels” deep will share the same formatting, unless you create a new set of options (I doubt you would want to). All of this stuff is to allow people to create complex binder structures that actually mean various things, like academic or technical papers that have “section 1, sub-section 2, sub-sub-section 7” kinds of organization. Novels and other kinds of fiction books rarely need that kind of complex organization, but Scrivener allows you to get as crazy as you like with these levels of organization–that’s why the compile dialogue is as complex as it is; you gain flexibility at the cost of complexity.

I hope that’s somewhat illuminating. Sorry if I just further confused things.

8

D’oh! So used to greyed-out meaning inaccessible it never occurred to me to try to type into it! I suppose there’s no way for it to be given another colour in future Scrivener iterations?

Meanwhile, yes, the Prologue and Epilogue are at the same level as the Chapter folders (see screenshot). But I can’t see how to get the chapter numbers not to start at the prologue.

Screen Shot 2012-11-28 at 09.54.39.png

I’ve tried moving the ‘Prologue’ file to the right and left to change its level. It won’t move to the right without being inside another folder besides the Manuscript folder; it will move to the left, but then zips down to the end of the file list, above the ‘Epilogue’ file, which isn’t a lot of use. If I use ctrl-cmd and the up arrow to move it up, it simply moves to the right again at the top; ditto if I drag it.
Screen Shot 2012-11-28 at 09.54.39.png

9

Oh, wait a minute… should I move the chapter folders one click to the right so they’ll all be Level 2? Er, maybe not?

Hmm, watching the second LiteratureAndLatte compile video now (having looked at the first one and this one by a user youtube.com/watch?v=Ibybm0W9 … e=youtu.be already) - but it seems to be for an earlier form of Scrivener; for instance, it says to choose Novel in the compile settings, but I cain’t find no stinkin’ Novel, only Paperback Novel or Paperback Novel with Parts (or E-book). When I choose E-book (which seems the logical one to choose) it gets rid of all those levels in the Formatting section on the left and only has a folder called Level 1+, a kind of double-document thingy called Level 1+ and a document called Level 1+.

Screen Shot 2012-11-28 at 11.41.20.png
Screen Shot 2012-11-28 at 11.41.20.png646×506 70.5 KB

Incidentally, I’ve got rid of it adding my name, agent, etc in the ebook, but only by putting the Front Matter Manuscript file in the trash and then emptying the trash. Just putting it in the trash didn’t convince it.

10

The double-document thing is if you “stack” one document on another. Essentially, even folders are nothing but a regular document with a special icon; they can even have their own text. As an experiment, create to documents in your research folder. Drag one on top of the other. You’ll now have a “stack” of documents that acts pretty similarly to a folder with documents in it. Hope that helps.

When you select different options from the drop down (like Standard Manuscript or Paperback Novel), it sets things up to come out like those kinds of things. Standard Manuscript format is double-spaced with 1 inch margins, chapter titles and numbers, and so-forth; whereas Paperback Novel format is single-spaced, narrower margins, etc… They’re presets of compile settings to get you close to what you may need for a particular kind of output (submission for an agent vs. self-publication in these examples), but they’re only starting points, and once you switch to one, you lose any customization to that project’s compile settings that you may have made. In this case, that may be a good thing.

The e-book Format As: setting is probably a good start. So select that again, and try the following:
In the Formatting section, click on the “Level 1+” single-document icon (the 3rd one). Click on the button that has a plus sign and two horizontal lines (just to the right of the “Options…” button), this will create another line, a copy of the “Level 1+” line named “Level 2+”.

Check the “Title” check-box on the Level 1 line.

Now at the bottom of the Compile dialogue, select whatever output format you want (Word compatible, PDF, epub, etc…) and try the compile.

That should get you pretty close to what you are trying to accomplish.

A couple of notes: Your prologue and epilogue are represented by the Level 1 single-document line in the Formatting section of the Compile dialogue. The chapter folders (like The Curse of the Kidds) is represented by the Level 1+ folder icon, and the files inside of the chapter folders are represented by the “Level 2+” single document icon. You probably don’t have any double-document (stacked) files in the project, so that icon in the Formatting section doesn’t apply to anything; Its presence is neither helpful nor harmful.

As for the title page, when you chose the kind of Scrivener template in the beginning, it grabbed your Contacts information and put in your name & address and some other stuff as if it was typed in by you, unlike the grey text that is dynamic, and will change as you update your contacts (say if you changed your name). So that’s why it didn’t update all of the title page when you set stuff in the Compile Meta-Data section; you’d have to hand-edit that.

11

Addendum: Front matter.

In the “Contents” section of the Compile dialogue, at the bottom there’s an “Add front matter” check-box and a drop-down to choose what folder to use. That was probably checked and pre-selected. If you move the front matter folder, Scrivener keeps track of it, and since sending something to Scrivener’s trash is just a move to another location, it kept up with that move. If you had un-checked that box, then the Front Matter would have gone away.

That’s why it was so persistent. If you want to eliminate front-matter, unchecking that box would do it.

12

Ah, excellent, thanks.

Still haven’t found any solution that works to the Chapter 1 = Prologue problem, though.

I’m now looking at the fourth of the videos on the literatureandlatte site (and my fifth video altogether) and have had no luck with this, or with really understanding the Formatting part of the Compile dialogue, which is unfortunately un-Mac-like and counterintuitive. (Ideally it would actually show your own project’s folders and subdocuments and allow you to include their text as wanted or not.)

This fourth video, on making a custom Compile set, is referring to a Page Setup section on the left of the Compile dialogue box. It’s not there in the dialogue box I’m looking at in my Scrivener; maybe the program’s changed? This, which offered me some hope, has information about starting the page numbers on the second page, if I understand it correctly, which I quite possibly don’t. I had hoped that it might also have something about starting the chapters after a prologue, but since there’s no Page Setup section in the ebook dialogue I’m trying to do…

13

Finally got rid of the ‘Chapter One’ bit on the Prologue: ticked “As Is” in the Contents part of the Compile dialogue; the chapters now start with Chapter One where it should be. However, as I’ve been wildly clicking into various of the levels to try and understand what they meant, I now have “Part one: Chapter one”, then “Part two: Chapter two”, and so on.
Also, the Prologue now doesn’t say ‘Prologue’ in the compiled ebook.
Of course, I can just put ‘Prologue:’ and the prologue title at the top of the page and feck around with the formatting, but then if I want to have the first word in small caps, say, I won’t be able to do that; it’ll just put ‘Prologue’ in small caps.
Also, also, also, I’ve got rid of the ‘Part two: Chapter two’ nonsense; however it now has the title of the chapter, and underneath that, ‘Chapter two’, instead of ‘Chapter two’, and under that the title of the chapter.
(It also appears that the Compile dialogue may possibly be a little buggy; I seem to be getting different results with the same settings when I go back and forth between them, though I’m not certain about this.)

14

Every time you choose something different in the Format As: drop-down, you reset the compile settings to a pre-determined (by the Scrivener folks) configuration. You must have, at some point, chosen Novel with Parts from the drop down.

If you followed my instructions (starting by choosing E-book from the Format As drop-down), then you’d have been pretty close to what you wanted, including haveing “CHAPTER ONE” on one line, and the title on the next line.

As for the “Page Setup” section… I think that may have been renamed to “Layout”… but here’s the thing. Everything you see changes based on the choices you made in the “Format As:” drop down and the “Compile For:” drop-down. For e-books, for instance, you don’t get page numbers in the document (epub can have pseudo-page numbers, mostly useful for big publishing houses that print dead-tree books too). So if you chose to compile for ePub, then you won’t see anything about page numbering, for instance.

Perhaps a step back from this issue would be helpful. What kind of general layout are you looking to create? A novel format, with single spacing, ready to print? A novel-formatted epub for use with a Nook? A double-spaced manuscript to submit to an agent or publisher for consideration? In other words, what are the “submission” guidelines that you are trying to accomplish here? What should it look like, and what kind of device should be able to read it (like a kindle or your/your friend’s printer, for instance). From any one of these beginnings, I or someone here could guide you through what you need to do, or at least point you to what you need to read to understand the process.

15

What, you mean if I change the Compile menu in the Novel with Parts form, for example, it infects the E-Book/Mobi form as well?

I did, but it wasn’t.

I understand this. There is a “Layout” section, but it doesn’t seem to have the same things the video talked about in the “Page Setup” section.

Kindle. It should be like this:

My Great Novel, By Joe Bloggs (hyperlink to his website)
(copyright page)
(dedication)
(contents list)
Prologue: It Starts Here
Chapter One: The Adventure
Chapter Two: What a Shock
Chapter Three: It Ends Here
Epilogue

(Incidentally, my friend writes: “The name Keith Blount, followed by ePubTest, appears on every page of the pdf you sent.”)

16

Not exactly. When you select Novel With Parts, it wipes out your Project’s compile settings (more or less), and replaces them with compile settings that will produce a published-book-like output, assuming you have level 1 folders that represent where each Part starts, and inside there, level 2 folders that represent Chapter starts, and inside them, the text documents that represent the scenes of that chapter. If you then select Standard Manuscript Format, it will forget all that and make different assumptions about the organization of your binder (typically, no Part folders, all level 1 document or folders are treated as chapters) and format of the document itself (double-spaced, 1" margins, Times New Roman 12 pt font).

Changing the Format As: dialogue resets most of your compile settings, though it usually leave things alone like what you do in the Contents pane.

Kindle. It should be like this:

My Great Novel, By Joe Bloggs (hyperlink to his website)
(copyright page)
(dedication)
(contents list)
Prologue: It Starts Here
Chapter One: The Adventure
Chapter Two: What a Shock
Chapter Three: It Ends Here
Epilogue
[/quote]
… More on this later

17

I threw this project together from the Novel template, made a few tweeks, and it seems to output things as it should. I’m using the latest Beta of Scrivener, so I hope that doesn’t throw any settings off for you, but it compiles to PDF pretty much as you want it to (Don’t have any kindle software to check a mobi output against).

Extract the attached zip, delete everything in the Manuscript folder and then drag in the contents of your manuscript folder to replace that. Edit the link in the Front Matter ebook folder and of course replace the stand-in text and cover image. Scrivener/kindlegen is supposed to generate a table of contents from what I understand, but if that doesn’t work, someone will have to fix that.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and you’ll have to edit the metadata to reflect the title/author and the like again.
JustAnEbook.zip (513 KB)

18

Robert, thank you very much. (By the way, last night, turned into a crazed creature like one of those elephants in zoos that end up just swinging their head from side to side to side to side, I also entered the request for a clearer Compile/Formatting thingy in the Wish List section, and a bunch of people have jumped in to help there.)

Now, before I do this, I have to clarify exactly what you’re telling me to do. You write: “Edit the link in the Front Matter ebook folder and of course replace the stand-in text and cover image.” What exactly are you talking about here. What link? What stand-in text? By the cover image, do you mean pull in my friend’s own Cover file? (Sorry not to understand, and thank you very very much for your help.)

19

It looks like Keith has taken you well in hand in the other wishlist thread, so you probably want to ignore this thread or risk further confusion, but to answer your questions…

There is a Front Matter folder at the same level as the Manuscript folder in my provided project, near the top of the binder. Inside it, there’s an “e-book” folder (I left everything expanded so you can see it).

In that folder is a dummy “My great Novel” cover image provided by the template I used. Trash that, drag in the real cover. Later, when you go to the compile settings, if you’ve chosen Kindle as your output type, there will be a Cover section; choose the real cover image from the drop-down list before you compile.

After that is a Title Page with a fake title, a fake author “Me”, and a link to google.com. Replace the title and author, formatting as you see fit. The link below that on the title page to google… just delete that, then go to Edit->Insert->Link and enter your friend’s website URL.

Following that, a Dedication page has the stand-in text “Your dedication here”. Replace those words with the real dedication.

Once you’ve untangled this whole compile thing, maybe this will make some more sense to you. Good luck. Once you have the time, I highly recommend either Gwen Hernandez’s book davidhewson.com/standalones/writ … scrivener/. Either of them should maybe shed some light on compiling and how it relates to the organization of your binder. Assuming the built-in tutorial (Help->Interactive Tutorial didn’t help).

20

Thank you very much, Robert. Keeping on going…