Month: March 2017

Untangle Your Fingers & Try Scrivener’s Auto-Complete List

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool. I write about it weekly with tips and usage ideas. To read more of my posts click the Scrivener tag or category at the end of the page.

Scrivener LogoI love using tools in real life. I have all kinds having been raised to do a variety of fix-it jobs around the house. It’s great to find that Scrivener has a variety of tools that can be used to assist us writers and make us more efficient.

One of these features is the Auto-Complete List. This can be used to make typing faster by adding words that you commonly use in a specific project. This allows you to add custom words to a list that are automatically completed so that you proceed with fewer typos and less typing.

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Before discussing the tool further, let’s first turn it on and get a feel for using it this simple – but powerful – tool. Click on Project and choose Auto-Complete List from the menu (that’s CTRL + Shift + 4 for those who like using keyboard commands as I sometimes do).

Scriv Auto_Complete Menu

The Auto-Complete List will be turned on so that it can be managed.

Scriv Auto_Complete Window

To add click the + button and type in your common word. Make sure that it’s correct and hit enter. The minus button allows you to remove a word for any reason, misspelled or otherwise. Since this is a feature located on the Project menu then this list is available only for the project in which you are working.

As indicated above, the Auto-Complete List is both simple and powerful. It’s very easy to add words that you commonly use to avoid completely typing them repeatedly in your project. It also reduces the number of misspelled words that you’ll need to correct later as well as backspacing so much. Fewer words to complete typing means less effort. That’s what makes the Auto-Complete List so powerful.

However, I can see one caveat to this tool – too many words that are alike. Just think if you add lots of words that begin with the same letter sequence you may find you have to stop too much to choose which word fits. In this case, the tool will reduce your efficiency. For this reason, avoid adding too many words, especially words that are spelled similarly.

As a fantasy writer, I see this tool being very helpful with the use of lots of unique names common to a story or book. Since these are unique words I can spend a lot of time trying to make sure I’ve spelled them correctly. With the Auto-Complete List I can start typing these names so they complete without risking misspellings and reducing my editing time later. Of course, the same holds true for any words that are specialized to a writing project in any genre, fiction or non-fiction.

I haven’t used the Auto-Complete List at all. But I plan to use heavily in the coming month while I complete a rough draft of An Arrow Against the Wind and maybe one or two short stories – as well as for my blogs, newsletters, etc.

Have you used the Auto-Complete List in Scrivener? If so, have you found it helpful?

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.

To find out more about The Bow of Destiny, click over to one of these online retailers:

the-bow-of-destiny-by-p-h-solomon

Amazon

  BarnesandNoble      Smashwords

ibooksdownload      Kobo

IMG_4154-EditAbout the Author

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.

Sign-up to receive my free ebooks today.

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Just as a note: I now have a marketing affiliation with Scrivener. For support questions, pricing, licensing and other concerns please contact the vendor. As such a buy ad for Scrivener appears on the sidebar. I’ve started this program　since I like the product so much and want to offer readers the chance to obtain this software. I’m not required to write about Scrivener to be an affiliate; I just like it that much. You can also find my FTC statement on this site’s sidebar.

 

Scrivener Tips Pt. 6: Using Project Stats

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool. I write about it weekly with tips and usage ideas. To read more of my posts click the Scrivener tag or category at the end of the page.

Frustration stress and writers blockThe Conundrum

My book, The Bow of Destiny, has been with an editor for a structural edit. I’ve received the manuscript back with a list of changes to address. But I need to make some regular decisions on where to make additions and how.

One of the beauties of Scrivener is that I can use the Binder to easily find places where specific changes should be made. I’m using this feature heavily as I revise The Bow of Destiny for its next round of editing.

However, one of the first things which I found to be a quandary was where to add a particular, short scene. I knew I could add it to the end of chapter 9 or the beginning of chapter 10 without any effect on continuity. However, I didn’t know which to choose as the best.

The Answer

Then it occurred to me: which one is longer? This would likely be a determining factor since I didn’t want to make one chapter inordinately long. That’s where another feature of Scrivener came into play.

To determine the length of each chapter I clicked onto each folder and obtained the project statistics. The comparison allowed me to quickly decide on the end of chapter 9 as the place to add the scene. I created a new document container and wrote the scene without hesitation.

How-to

If you need to make such quick determinations about pieces of a project you can do so easily just like I did using Scrivener. While in the section of your project in question, click on Project and then on Project Stastics:

Scirvener Tip ProjMenu 2_16

What’s displayed in the following is a window that indicates the totals for the whole project and then for the specific selection. For my purposes, I looked at the selection statistics for each chapter, comparing the number of words and pages and found chapter 9 to be the shorter of the two and my choice was easily made.

ScrivTipProjStats

With Scrivener, the question at hand was easily answered so that I didn’t waste time on it. I finished my scene addition in less than forty-five minutes – and in the process got the idea for this tip. Once again, Scrivener has proved to be invaluable as a writing tool.

What decisions hold you up while editing? What are your favorite features to use in Scrivener? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.

To find out more about The Bow of Destiny, click over to one of these online retailers:

the-bow-of-destiny-by-p-h-solomon

Amazon

  BarnesandNoble      Smashwords

ibooksdownload      Kobo

IMG_4154-EditAbout the Author

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.

Sign-up to receive my free ebooks today.

080916_1940_AWildNightR3.jpg

 

Just as a note: I am not affliated with Scrivener in any official capacity. For support questions, pricing and other concerns please contact the vendor.

 

What’s Your Preference?

Here’s the latest post on Story Empire today. I’d like to get into SFWA when I can. Good post about writing affiliation and membership. Thanks, Mae!

Story Empire

Hello, SE Friends. Mae here today, ready to talk support and organizations. As authors when we sit down and peck away at the keyboard, it’s a solitary process. If you’re like me, you have a cat poking in every so often and strolling across your keyboard or curling up on your desk. Or maybe you have a playful pup dropping a toy at your feet and demanding attention. And of course, there are interruptions from kids and spouses, but for the most part, when we sit down to create it’s us and our characters.

Woman typing on laptop and sitting on floor with fluffy cat

That’s all well and good during the creation process, but what about learning, marketing, and brainstorming with other authors? That’s where we all need support organizations and those special author friends who make up our inner circle. In this article I thought I’d take a look at some of the backbone of support authors rely upon.

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