Hey guys! The non-linear text editor I’d bought a few years ago has completely stalled in development, with nothing approaching a Universal version, so I was looking around for a new editor and was surprised at the amoung of innovative writing software being written nowadays. I’m evaluating a few but Scrivener seems to top the list so far.
Just a general question on what you guys thing, though: I mostly write comic strips and comic books, so I don’t really write large blocks of prose text, but I do need to keep track of a lot of notes on characters and locations and story outlining, plus write snippets of dialog and notes for page layouts.
It looks like Scrivener’s way of collecting and organizing notes and references could be adapted to do that kind of work, but … anyone have thoughts? or done anything similar with writing that’s not specifically a novel or short story … how’s that worked out for you?
I’m thinking you will love Scrivener. I’m a non-fiction writer, and it has saved my bacon.
There are a couple of comic and illustrated book writers on the forum. One who is very
active is Antony Johnston antonyjohnston.com/. I’m sure he’ll have a lot
of useful things to say. The forum itself is also very active an extremely useful. People
are very generous about sharing their experiences.
Scrivener is now my primary scripting tool for comics. Once I’ve finished the pen and paper stage of outlining and note making, I use Scriv to plot, plan, outline and write the script. So far I’ve written about 250pp of comics in Scriv, including two issues of WASTELAND and an entire graphic novel.
Depending on the project, I either export the Scriv draft directly, or I import into Final Draft first. Either way, I make a PDF to send to the editor.
The main reason I still keep FD around is for the revisions-marking features, which for some projects is vital. In those cases, the FD version becomes the active version, and I leave Scriv behind. But for the vast majority of my writing I’m now all-Scriv, all the time.
I went thru the tutorial, which was mighty useful … I’ll have to start putting together a skeleton of a story idea and see how it starts to come together as a project.
Don’t forget to look at the templates on this site (at the top of this thread) and in Scrivener itself under TEXT>SCRIPTWRITING>COMIC BOOK. You will find Antony’s excellent template in both places.
I’m using Scrivener 1.11, so perhaps things have changed since the info above was given. When I look under TEXT>SCRIPTWRITING, I only get one template option: SCREENPLAY. Is the COMIC BOOK template no longer available?
I did look at Anthony’s page, but the only template available seems to be for Final Draft, unless I missed something.
Thanks for any suggestions!
I’m working on outlining and writing a graphic novel in Scrivener. I LOVE Scrivener! I’ve used it to outline a nonfiction and fiction book, and I’m using it for my general To Do and general admin list now as well.
Yes, things have changed a little since this thread started - the comic book template is now part of Scrivener (which is why there’s no longer a direct download for it on my website). It should be available to you when you create a new project.
The comic book scripting format uses the same method as the screenplay format, just with different presets and style names. If you’re already in a project, you can change the scripting style by going Text -> Scriptwriting -> Comic Book, as LL says. You might be missing it because the screenplay formats available are listed right at the bottom of that menu panel, under a divider.
If they’re not there at all, then I’m not sure what’s up, sorry.
Thanks for the reply, Antony. The Comic template link doesn’t appear in my menu, unfortunately. I’ll trudge on ahead without it, but thanks for trying.
Hmmm. I wonder if you might have to install the Extras, from the install DMG, in order to have access to it? Hopefully Keith or Amber will be along in a moment to explain what we’re both missing
I found the same thing. Try looking under user/library/applicationsupport/scrivener. As you probably know the templates are in scriptformats. When I looked in there the comic one wasn’t there. I finally found it in the _old folder in that column. If you have _old, check to see if its there in that scriptformats folder. If it is just move it to the current scriptformats folder and it should show up in Scrivener under Text/Scriptwriting. It worked for me.
I found the same thing. Try looking under user/library/applicationsupport/scrivener. As you probably know the templates are in scriptformats. When I looked in there the comic one wasn’t there. I finally found it in the _old folder in that column. If you have _old, check to see if its there in that scriptformats folder. If it is just move it to the current scriptformats folder and it should show up in Scrivener under Text/Scriptwriting. It worked for me.
JRP: Thanks so much for this info! Sadly, it doesn’t look as I have an _old folder and can’t seem to find the comic template anywhere. Thanks for trying, tho.
I downloaded your file into my Scrivener templates folder but when I go to look at it, it’s an MPEG-1 Video file (184 k). It also doesn’t appear when I look at my templates from insider Scrivener, and when I try opening the file by just doubleclicking on it, I get a “this file could not be opened. it is not a movie file” error.
It sounds like your Mac has got the document id types mixed up somehow. It should just be a “blank” type, i.e. not set to open in any specific application (double clicking should say it couldn’t open, because it doesn’t know what application it should be opened with. It certainly shouldn’t think it’s a movie file!).
Did you try relaunching Scrivener before trying to open it as a template? That’s the only thing I can think of :\
Try this file instead. Place it in user/library/applicationsupport/scrivener/ScriptFormats
Relaunch Scrivener and it should show up in your text/scriptwriting menu at top.
Let me know if this works for you.
JRP: This time it came through as an OmniOutliner file. I tried restarting Scrivener but it still doesn’t pick up the Comic template. Thanks so much for all your efforts, but the problem seems to be on my end (since it clearly works for everyone else) so please don’t worry about it. I’ve already started writing the script, so it would be probably be a hassle to switch over at this point anyway. But THANK YOU for trying!
Antony: Yes, I did see that link but was especially excited about your Getting Things Written post, which I hadn’t seen until Lord Lightning pointed it out. Thanks for your help!
I can attest that switching over an existing script, to any program, is a pain in the arse. So yes, stick with whatever you’re doing for the moment. Use Scriv when you have the chance to start afresh on a job. (And hopefully by then you’ll have this problem sorted…)
