Scrivener vs World Anvil

[Orpheus]

@OwenKelly

He wasn’t suggesting you should eat anything. Nor was he waving red flags.

@SirPixel

Exactly. I have no problem having a genuine conversation based on personally held perspectives in order to understand the ways and reasons why a particular person finds value in something else. And that’s because the values which we personally find in the tools that we use and enjoy are directly derived from our own intrinsic goals and dispositions. But I’m not about to entertain or respond to name-calling and derisive banter (banter which has already been lobbed my way). People are always going to find areas that they disagree on, it’s unavoidable. But that doesn’t mean discussion should devolve into ad hominem attacks or slights.

I also didn’t take him as “pimping someone else’s software”. He mentioned World Anvil, which he said he found better for his uses. I had never heard of it. I went to look at it when I had a spare ten minutes. I thought it looked extraordinarily interesting for someone else but not for me.

And not for most novelists either.

It seems to be for people who want to create massively complex worlds. They might be setting out to write a novel sequence like Dune. They might be setting out to create a long term D&D game (I knew some people who played the same D&D game every Friday for 11 years - and documented it all. This would have been perfect for them.) They might be trying to document every single aspect of the Star Trek universe in order to write fan fiction. This seems a verty niche market (but what do I know) - but for people who are, or want to be, inhabiting that niche then this seems like the perfect software.

I am glad to know about it, even though I will almost certainly have neither the need nor the inclination to use it. It is nothing like a competitor to Scrivener for 99% of Scrivener users. It is not, for example, like that online app that people mention here from time to time which might be construed as a potential competitor.

So I am not sure why anyone finds this problematic. We learned something. I like learning things. Thank you for showing it to me. I don’t think I will find it relevant.

That seems like a reasonable response to me.

If he just wanted to inform Scrivener users of an interesting application he could have just mentioned it on the Software and Development forum. “Hey, here is an interesting software that you may find useful, take a look.” Like I recently did for Milanote Milanote

Instead he was trying to push the application by telling us it was better than what we are already using and going into great detail like a … salesman.

I found his whole approach off putting. Seemed very fake and thinking we were so dumb as to believe his story that he had been lurking for years etc.

And then when I point out that World Anvil’s FAQ itself says that it is not remotely similar to Scrivener he tries to backpedal. He stepped on a landmine and tried to blame World Anvil for not knowing what they were about. It was very strange.

[pigfender]

I thought that SirPixel’s post was very helpful. I’d never heard of World Anvil and the only things I know about it are from his post, but I actually learnt enough from the stated pros and cons to learn that it wouldn’t be for me, mainly because I don’t see the items SirPixel listed as Scrivener cons to be disadvantages, nor the WA pros to be advantages.

In particular, for my personal lifestyle / personality, I find the idea of web-based software unappealing. I have complete control over whether I have my devices with me or not, but have only some control over whether I have internet connectivity with me, and even less control over that access’s speed / reliability. It’s much easier for me to just always have my laptop with me than it is to worry about connectivity if there’s any chance I’ll want to do any kind of writing, and in all other times I have the iOS version on me perfectly synced for reference (so, you can absolutely access your files on your phone or iPad via the Scrivener app).

I’d also say that Scrivener is fantastic for collaboration – assuming you know how to collaborate effectively and don’t just mean having someone remotely watch you type so they can heckle and/or interupt. I’ve overseen and co-authored 10 and a half books (each with between 24 and 80 different authors) over the past ten years, using both the Mac and Windows versions of Scrivener, so know a bit of what I’m talking about here.

I’d also say that Scrivener is amazing value for money! I actually won my original Scriv licence in a competion, but it sounds like over the time period I’ve been using Scrivener, using World Anvil would have cost me over $1,050! That’s over 20 times what Scrivener would have cost me if I’d not been lucky enough to win a copy (and would keep going up!) , or over 40 times if you’ve got something like a NaNoWriMo winner’s discount code!

[SkylerT]

If someone was interested in creating a massive fantasy world, I can see how World Anvil would work out pretty well. I wouldn’t see it as necessarily a competitor to Scrivener but maybe a great companion to it for someone interested in such an endeavor. They even seem to allude to that in their FAQ when they basically say Scrivener is good for writing and organizing manuscripts and that World Anvil is more of a fantasy world database. While I am currently working on something else, I was once interested in building a fantasy world like this and may be again so thank you for sharing this.

I can really see this being useful for someone who is writing a high fantasy novel from scratch. Use the World Anvil software as like a wiki of sorts for your world and Scrivener to do all the actual writing keep the manuscript itself organized and abstracted away. Honestly sounds like a high fantasy writer’s dream software setup.

A bit of warning I have for anyone using online software for their creative work, even those that claim privacy - be careful. One thing about software like this is that all your work is stored on someone else’s servers and you take them at their word they won’t steal or lose your data. Ideally those services encrypt data at rest and in transit as a mere basic security rule but unfortunately many of them don’t. That is one of the great things about Scrivener. All your work is stored offline (unless you explicitly store it somewhere online) on YOUR computer where you are able to ensure its security.

[jwhitten]

@Orpheus

@OwenKelly

He wasn’t suggesting you should eat anything. Nor was he waving red flags.

@SirPixel

Exactly. I have no problem having a genuine conversation based on personally held perspectives in order to understand the ways and reasons why a particular person finds value in something else. And that’s because the values which we personally find in the tools that we use and enjoy are directly derived from our own intrinsic goals and dispositions. But I’m not about to entertain or respond to name-calling and derisive banter (banter which has already been lobbed my way). People are always going to find areas that they disagree on, it’s unavoidable. But that doesn’t mean discussion should devolve into ad hominem attacks or slights.

I also didn’t take him as “pimping someone else’s software”. He mentioned World Anvil, which he said he found better for his uses. I had never heard of it. I went to look at it when I had a spare ten minutes. I thought it looked extraordinarily interesting for someone else but not for me.

And not for most novelists either.

It seems to be for people who want to create massively complex worlds. They might be setting out to write a novel sequence like Dune. They might be setting out to create a long term D&D game (I knew some people who played the same D&D game every Friday for 11 years - and documented it all. This would have been perfect for them.) They might be trying to document every single aspect of the Star Trek universe in order to write fan fiction. This seems a verty niche market (but what do I know) - but for people who are, or want to be, inhabiting that niche then this seems like the perfect software.

I am glad to know about it, even though I will almost certainly have neither the need nor the inclination to use it. It is nothing like a competitor to Scrivener for 99% of Scrivener users. It is not, for example, like that online app that people mention here from time to time which might be construed as a potential competitor.

So I am not sure why anyone finds this problematic. We learned something. I like learning things. Thank you for showing it to me. I don’t think I will find it relevant.

That seems like a reasonable response to me.

If he just wanted to inform Scrivener users of an interesting application he could have just mentioned it on the Software and Development forum. “Hey, here is an interesting software that you may find useful, take a look.” Like I recently did for Milanote Milanote

Instead he was trying to push the application by telling us it was better than what we are already using and going into great detail like a … salesman.

I found his whole approach off putting. Seemed very fake and thinking we were so dumb as to believe his story that he had been lurking for years etc.

And then when I point out that World Anvil’s FAQ itself says that it is not remotely similar to Scrivener he tries to backpedal. He stepped on a landmine and tried to blame World Anvil for not knowing what they were about. It was very strange.

IMO, when I went to check out World Anvil a little while back, it was kind of confusing to understand what the “comfortable” pricing model would be for the “best-bang-for-the-buck” blend of features to price. Additionally, since the site is in so much flux, with so many items on the roadmap versus in the reality bucket of being things you can use-- I wasn’t sure what I would actually be getting.

That isn’t as much a “complaint” as it is a “lament”, meaning I’d like to know more / get a better understanding of whether World Anvil could be right for me, but felt like it was hard to get a straight view of what it is without investing more time & energy than I have into chasing it down.