Last week, I submitted my first paid feature article written entirely on Scrivener. I was amazed at how easy it was to organize my notes, then turn them into an article. I created an outline using the cork board and created word targets for every topic I wanted to deal with, as well as a project character target. I used the spilt editors to check my notes in one editor while writing in the other, and finally went into scrivenings mode to revise and move some things even more using the binder.
Certainly, Scrivener will not make me a better writer, but it helped me a lot to make my crazy deadline. (Perhaps all deadlines are crazy, but still.)
The only part when I ran into a bit of a hassle was when I selected templates. All of the Non-ficition templates are basically for academic or scholar papers. I ended up using the Chicago Style template and tweaked it a lot to get it to do what I wanted. I’m wondering if there are some non-fiction templates somewhere that would be a better fit for magazine articles, since I’m about to start a new one.
I’ve been trolling these forums for a couple of years now, and haven’t seen anyone post any such template. But it’s pretty easy to make one yourself.
First, open your previous article project and use “File->Backup to” and tick the .zip checkbox to make a backup of your work, just in case.
Now, use “File->Save as” to create a copy to work in.
Finally, delete anything specific to your article, and put in place-holder text to remind yourself of how to use any given document or folder. You can also just put those notes in the “Document Notes” to keep them out of the way.
Once you have tweaked everything to your liking, including Compile settings (which can be saved separately so you can have settings specific to a given client/publisher), go to “File->Save As Template”.
Now when you go to write a new article, you have your own custom template, ready to work in. Neat, huh?
Edit: One last thing, in case it wasn’t clear; you can then delete the copy you made to create your template; the template itself is stored in a special place when you use Save As Template.