# Writers: Scrivener or Word or ?? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 2, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184 "2018-07-02T19:39:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/1 "2018-07-02T19:39:12Z")
I am finally writing seriously again. M previous long manuscripts have been done on Word, but I also have Scrivener. I think I’m at the point where I should commit to one type of software and plunge ahead (or not?). I like the idea of Scrivener quite a bit, but I’m just not as familiar with it. This is not really a good reason not to use it, which I realize. Any thoughts from other writers on the Board? What software do you use, and why? ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/2 "2018-07-02T20:34:29Z")
I use Scrivener. I know I am not using all the functions of the software, but it’s helping me keep my puzzle pieces organized. I have to make the time to watch the tutorial. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/3 "2018-07-02T21:08:46Z")
I use Word because it’s what came with my computer, and it works fine for my purposes. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/4 "2018-07-02T22:53:08Z")
**ivylass** that’s what is appealing, is the organization. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/5 "2018-07-02T22:54:30Z")
Kaypro. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/6 "2018-07-02T23:57:05Z")
Yay Kaypro. Wordstar or Perfect Writer? J/k I use Scrivener but I end up dumping the whole first draft into a Word file when I get to the end, and editing in Word from then on. Because Scrivener is not so good at preserving your previous drafts, when you have revised heavily and realized that the whole revision was one giant mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/7 "2018-07-03T00:33:49Z")
What is Scrivener? What advantages does it have over Word? ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/8 "2018-07-03T01:31:26Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Yay Kaypro. Wordstar or Perfect Writer? > > J/k I use Scrivener but I end up dumping the whole first draft into a Word file when I get to the end, and editing in Word from then on. Because Scrivener is not so good at preserving your previous drafts, when you have revised heavily and realized that the whole revision was one giant mistake. This is good to know. How about when you delete 2/3rds of it because it’s crap and you hate it utterly and then realize that it makes perfect sense if you just move that one bit and write 3 more chapters? In other words, I usually have a lot of drafts. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/9 "2018-07-03T01:36:44Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > What is Scrivener? What advantages does it have over Word? Word was never really set up to create long manuscripts, although it has grown into something that can. Scrivener was created to be something that can help you create a large project, from organizing your research materials, to outlines, to drafting. If you move a piece of your work around, it will move the associated pieces around too. I haven’t done a really long work with it yet, so I don’t know how well it works overall. I think it will really help keep my notes organized, but it sounds like I may end up doing fine tuning in Word. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/10 "2018-07-03T02:35:46Z")
Word. I don’t think Sciviner has any features I need. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/11 "2018-07-04T19:42:05Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > This is good to know. How about when you delete 2/3rds of it because it’s crap and you hate it utterly and then realize that it makes perfect sense if you just move that one bit and write 3 more chapters? > > In other words, I usually have a lot of drafts. What I do now is, I write each section and number it so I know which revision it is and so it will fall in line numerically so I can look on my directory and see it numerically. So Bookname01R3. That would be the first segment and the third revision. After that I write a brief description like “everybody goes home.” If this chapter is part of of something I think I want to delete, I will change the filename to xBookname01R3, but I don’t delete it yet! Scrivener saves the latest revision and it overwrites what was there before, so there’s no going back unless you consciously save it. I have tried moving sedtions I think I’m going to delete to the trash can and then not deleting it, and then rewriting it with the same name or chapter number. There’s not actually much difference but I like doing it in Word better. One thing I do really like about Scrivener is the corkboard. It looked like it would be excellent for organizing. I thought it would replace an actual, dusty corkboard I already had, but I didn’t use that corkboard very well and I didn’t use the Scrivener one very well either, because I am not an organized person. Scrivener is really good for writing scripts. Much better than Word. Not better than Final Draft but almost as good and a hell of a lot cheaper (and it will export to Final Draft and does this very nicely). I have to say that one thing I really miss from the Kaypro/Wordstar days was a spell check program called The Word. Best spellcheck ever, and one of the things you could do was very, very easily set up a global find and replace, for anything. Changed a character name from Becky to Peaches? Put it in there. Habitually misspell a whole bunch of words? Put them all in there. What I’m saying is, it could do any number of search and replace operations all at the same time, and it would save the file of commonly mistyped words so you could reuse it, and it would do this operation through every file you had. Although of course in those days “every file” would mean “everything that could fit on a 51/2 floppy” which was not all that many files. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/12 "2018-07-04T21:15:02Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Yay Kaypro. Wordstar or Perfect Writer? > … Wordstar everyday of the week! Duh!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/13 "2018-07-04T21:29:55Z")
Word. I use the Headings to organize chapters and sections, and I email myself a copy of the MS every night for version control. I own Scrivener, but I’ve found it butt-ugly and prone to not saving what I want it to save, as others have noted. For research, character sketches, etc, I just make another Word document and put all the stuff for one MS in the same folder. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/14 "2018-07-04T22:20:29Z")
I’m hearing Word. 🙂 Scrivener is so shiny. I’ll probably at least play with it, but I do draft a lot. it sounds like it won’t work for me. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/15 "2018-07-04T22:41:19Z")
An inexpensive notebook? (Or even an expensive one, but for drafts the paper need not be archival-quality.) IMHO once you’re at the point of typing things in, which could be from the very beginning for some people, it doesn’t much matter what you use, as long as your system continuously saves history so that nothing is lost if you want to undo or look at earlier revisions. The different capabilities of various software to format your text are irrelevant, because the editors and typesetters will do it using professional tools anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/16 "2018-07-04T22:54:07Z")
I use Word. I have Scrivener but I don’t like it. A lot of people swear by it, so it’s really a YMMV thing. ---
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-scrivener-or-word-or/817184/17 "2018-07-05T10:33:58Z")
I have used both. I like Word because I can save things in different bits, so I could be working on several different chapters/strands at once and have separate docs for this. I find Scrivener does this just as well but it takes a while to familiarise yourself with the way things are laid out and how it all works. After I’d worked through the tutorial, I transferred a previous WiP into Scrivener and played around with it, and after that I was much happier using it over Word.