Hi, I’ve just downloaded Scrivener to my PC and gone through the tutorial. I’ve tried to import my 100-page Word doc manuscript as a new project in the novel template. But I’m finding that it only partially loads in the “Manuscript” level folder, maybe the first 30 pages, and simultaneously loads completely as a subfolder of the Manuscript folder. Not sure what I’m doing wrong or how to fix this so the the “Manuscript” top-level folder is the complete document.
I wondered if I could just move the subfolder left and make it the main document, but the Manuscript folder icon looks different and more comprehensive. I’m worried that I’m going to lose functionality if I don’t work from that Manuscript folder as the base folder.
I’m attaching a photo–the “Beck” folder is where my manuscript has loaded completely. “Manuscript” stops at about page 30 of the document.
Yes, you want to write and import your writings into the folder named “Manuscript” (which by the way is a name set in the template, you can click on it and change it yourself if you want), the true underlying feature is the Draft folder, which you’ll find lots of documentation on in the user manual, and should have seen mention of in the tutorial). The Draft is where you put together material that will be exported as a single document when you are done writing, at its most basic level. In the tutorial, all of the parts and steps were stored as folders and files within that tutorial project’s Draft.
Now I’m not sure what you are referring to as the imported document coming in as a subfolder. Do you mean that “Chapter” folder in there? If so, that was already there, that’s merely an example of how to use this template in its default settings: divide your work into folders by chapter, and write individual scenes within that chapter as a series of files in each folder.
The idea is to convert the currently hidden internal structure of that “BEck” file into whatever amount of outline structure you need as a writer to efficiently work with it, by splitting up the file into pieces. The Documents/Split/ submenu contains some useful commands for doing that. Once finished with that, you should have a visualisation of the internal structure of your manuscript in the Binder sidebar, all nested in that Draft folder. For some people that may be 40-ish short chapter files, for others it might be 25 chapter folders with two to four scenes each (which is of course how this template demonstrates working), for others it might be four part folders each with ten or so chapters and several hundred section and subsection documents.
Thank you for this helpful response. I ended up switching to the blank template, rather than using one of the novel templates, and that seemed to work. I now have my manuscript in a Draft folder and have gone on to subdivide it into many scenes. I think I’m ready to work now!
Excellent, sounds good. The blank starter is just fine, it’s what we used to make all of the templates after all. The templates are a quick start for those that like working the way they are set up (or close to it). Have fun!
