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How I Use Scrivener for Life Story Writing: a few helpful tips
I made the change from Mac Pages to Scrivener over the past year or two, and now Scrivener is my go-to for creating all my life story books. I'm constantly learning new things it can do, but here are the essentials that make it an indispensable part of my workflow.
1) Split-screen editor.
The Editor is where you do your writing, the main window where your draft appears. And since we as life story writers are basing the narrative on what our storyteller has shared with us, it's a huge help to view the raw material (transcript, old letters, etc) side-by-side with the draft.
2) The Binder.
This is where you see all of your documents and folders, where you create new ones, and where you go to move sections of the book in a snap. You can use it as an ersatz-outline, dragging and dropping elements until you find the perfect structure.
3) Labels.
On its own, the binder is a powerful visual tool; add colored labels, and you'll never get lost in your writing again. Listen to the podcast to see how I use just a couple of labels to signal what's been finished and what still needs work.
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Need some visuals to go with the podcast? Take a look at my sample project below.
In the screenshot below, the Editor (middle pane) shows the transcript form May 1, 2018 (the name of the document appearing in the Editor is at the top of the Editor pane). As I go through the transcript, I highlight the pieces that have been moved into the raw material folder, where I have folders and documents that will roughly correspond to sections of the draft. The raw material folder is an interim resting place for the storyteller's words: transcript > raw material > draft. By parcelling out the bits and pieces discussed in the interview, I can begin to put them in the order they will appear in the book. That means if a storyteller revisits a memory that we've already discussed, I have an easy way of finding where it belongs. As I copy and paste the chunks of transcript into the raw material, I highlight it in yellow on the transcript. Once the entire document is highlighted, I label it with my custom yellow "Done" label. Now when I look at the Binder, I can see which transcripts need to be added to the raw material and which are already done.
In the screenshot below, I can see that one of my transcripts has been completely added to the raw material (i.e. I don't need to work through it anymore), and three still need to be added.
The following image shows the folders and documents of my raw material. I will add more as I learn more about the storyteller's life. I continue using the same color-coded labels that show which raw material has been written up in the draft and which still needs to be worked in.
In this final screenshot, the transcript of a phone conversation appears in the Editor pane. Some of it is highlighted (showing that it's been added to the raw material folder), some of it hasn't. Because I still have work to do on it, the label is purple—"needs to be added."
To split the Editor pane vertically:
- Go to "View" > "Layout" > "Split Vertically"
- Click the rectangular icon on the far right top of the Editor pane
I hope this has helped you with organizing your own life story projects. Until next time, go out and save someone's story.
Thank you for doing this. I have downloaded the trial and it is perfect for my family history writing as well as my course work. Your enthusiasm got me excited about finally starting my book project. I love being organized and this is my kind of fun. Your descriptions are excellent and I appreciate the screencasts. I thoroughly enjoy all of your podcasts as I ponder the possibility of becoming a personal historian.
Hi Amy, I have to say, I LOVE your podcast! I am coming up to retirement in a couple of years and am just finishing up an associates degree in family history research. While taking my business course I had to decide on a field within genealogy that I would base a future business on and that is when I came upon your podcast. If I were to start a business this is definitely the one for me! I am not sure if I want to start a business or volunteer my services. I still have a year to decide. Anyway, I was fascinated by your podcast on Scrivener and have downloaded it to try for 30 days. I am going to start a family history book on my grandparents and it looks like a perfect way to stay organized. I have a question. When looking at your example, I am wondering what the difference is between raw material and research folders? Or between draft and raw material. I am trying to make my own template. It looks like you based yours off of the non-fiction template. Thanks again. This is so interesting to me!
Peggy, thanks for the kind words, and I’m glad the Scrivener episode was helpful. It’s something I LOVE playing with and teaching about–mostly because it’s made such a difference in my life story work.
To answer your questions:
The research folder is anything and everything I collect that supports the story, whether it’s old documents from the storyteller, reading material, online research, etc. It’s usually a big collection of varied stuff and never looks the same from client to client.
The transcript/interviews folder is where I keep all the transcripts of the interviews I do with the storyteller. I used to just work through the transcripts, dropping the bits and pieces directly into the draft, but that process is laborious, especially once the draft gets big and you’re searching for sections you’ve already worked on. That’s why I adopted the intermediate step of using a “raw material” folder. I’ll use the example I talked about in the podcast (I think?)–a client who took a motorbike trip across Europe and Africa as a young man.
My source material:
transcripts of our interviews
letters he wrote home during this period
his journal entries
his dad’s journal entries
I went through each of the source materials and copy and pasted each piece of information into its proper section in the raw material folder (creating the sections as I went along). For instance, anything I found in the source materials about his time in Greece went into the “Greece” document in the raw material folder. I used a timeline (something I always create for a project) to figure out where the various sections belong in a book. In the end, the structure of the book (the draft) roughly mirrors the sections in the raw material folder (but with better titles!).
This method has been helpful even for stories where there’s no source material beyond the transcripts. Again, it’s just a much easier way of keeping track of what goes where.
Also, I haven’t found the Scrivener templates very helpful; sometimes I’ll start with a blank, other times with non-fiction. I’ve also created one of my own, but it seems I’m still constantly tweaking it.
I hope this has helped!