Oh, yay! I absolutely LOVE Scrivener—it keeps me so organized, and I couldn’t imagine writing without it now. I hope you love it!!
Monica Hay
2 months ago
I loved this! I have to ask: what are your favorite craft books? I ask everyone this LOL. I am married to Save the Cat but I am always happy to hear of other good books.
Oh my gosh, there are so many I love! I too adore Save the Cat, and Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is AMAZING. I also love Lisa Cron’s Story Genius—it’s a deep dive in figuring out your character’s internal conflicts, then creating a plot that flows directly from them. I can’t recommend it enough! Finally, Donald Maass’s The Emotional Craft of Fiction is great; it’s all about making the reader *feel*.
The Pomodoro Technique–I didn’t know there was a name for this method! I’ve been using it for years. SO helpful for creating a balanced work schedule as a work-from-home graphic designer.
I’ve also started leaning more on Office tools this year. Little things like setting reminders or having a couple calendars to toggle through for different aspects of my life help a lot!
I totally agree, it has done wonders for my productivity! And I’m very similar, I schedule my days out in my planner as well as calendar, and it helps a ton (I have a recurring reminder every day for lunch so I don’t end up sitting at my desk for the whole day!). It really does help!
This might be a weird question, but how do you get your mind into sprinting? I feel a lot of pressure when I am sprinting with other writers and don’t know what I’m doing. Any advice? How do you approach sprinting?
Yes, I totally understand that! I too have to get myself in the mindset for it. The way I do it is to set aside a few minutes before I sprint to figure out what it is that I’m actually working on that day. I’m an outliner, so I’ll go over my outline and figure out what scene I’m writing and what needs to happen. I’ll take a few notes along the way, like what I want the tone of the scene to be or what kind of emotion I’m hoping it will evoke, and that typically helps get me ready for sprints!
I’m not a super fast sprinter, so my word counts typically aren’t as high as the friends I sprint with, and that’s fine. We all work differently, so as long as you’re getting words on the page, it’s a win. Also, I don’t edit at all as I draft, which really helps in terms of moving forward. I just write whatever comes to me and tell myself I can fix it in revisions if needed!
Thanks for your Instagram video on how you use STC in Scrivener. I do this too and have been trying to find out how other people do it, but I’ve never seen anyone else talk about it! You have some great ideas that I’ll follow. Question – how do you manage scene-level beats, like “Theme Stated?” In the past I had my chapters set up like you do, where the various STC beats are folders and the number of chapters within each folder is roughly equivalent to how many chapters that beat should take. I ended up taking out shorter beats like “Theme Stated” but it’s better if everything is in there so I don’t miss anything. How do you manage this?
I’m so glad the video was helpful! Thanks so much for watching. I like to have everything included, so I still give scene-level beats like “theme stated” their own folder, but there’s only one chapter within that folder. Even if that chapter ends up being multiple scenes, I’m fine with that—I still know that the theme is stated somewhere in that chapter. Does that help?
So many great tools! I have a problem with organizing drafts and just got Scrivener to help with that.
Oh, yay! I absolutely LOVE Scrivener—it keeps me so organized, and I couldn’t imagine writing without it now. I hope you love it!!
I loved this! I have to ask: what are your favorite craft books? I ask everyone this LOL. I am married to Save the Cat but I am always happy to hear of other good books.
Oh my gosh, there are so many I love! I too adore Save the Cat, and Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is AMAZING. I also love Lisa Cron’s Story Genius—it’s a deep dive in figuring out your character’s internal conflicts, then creating a plot that flows directly from them. I can’t recommend it enough! Finally, Donald Maass’s The Emotional Craft of Fiction is great; it’s all about making the reader *feel*.
The Pomodoro Technique–I didn’t know there was a name for this method! I’ve been using it for years. SO helpful for creating a balanced work schedule as a work-from-home graphic designer.
I’ve also started leaning more on Office tools this year. Little things like setting reminders or having a couple calendars to toggle through for different aspects of my life help a lot!
I totally agree, it has done wonders for my productivity! And I’m very similar, I schedule my days out in my planner as well as calendar, and it helps a ton (I have a recurring reminder every day for lunch so I don’t end up sitting at my desk for the whole day!). It really does help!
LOL, yes. Missing lunch happens WAY too often for comfort. Setting reminders is a lifesaver… literally.
Haha exactly!
This might be a weird question, but how do you get your mind into sprinting? I feel a lot of pressure when I am sprinting with other writers and don’t know what I’m doing. Any advice? How do you approach sprinting?
Yes, I totally understand that! I too have to get myself in the mindset for it. The way I do it is to set aside a few minutes before I sprint to figure out what it is that I’m actually working on that day. I’m an outliner, so I’ll go over my outline and figure out what scene I’m writing and what needs to happen. I’ll take a few notes along the way, like what I want the tone of the scene to be or what kind of emotion I’m hoping it will evoke, and that typically helps get me ready for sprints!
I’m not a super fast sprinter, so my word counts typically aren’t as high as the friends I sprint with, and that’s fine. We all work differently, so as long as you’re getting words on the page, it’s a win. Also, I don’t edit at all as I draft, which really helps in terms of moving forward. I just write whatever comes to me and tell myself I can fix it in revisions if needed!
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks, Rachel!
Of course! I hope this helps!!
Thanks for your Instagram video on how you use STC in Scrivener. I do this too and have been trying to find out how other people do it, but I’ve never seen anyone else talk about it! You have some great ideas that I’ll follow. Question – how do you manage scene-level beats, like “Theme Stated?” In the past I had my chapters set up like you do, where the various STC beats are folders and the number of chapters within each folder is roughly equivalent to how many chapters that beat should take. I ended up taking out shorter beats like “Theme Stated” but it’s better if everything is in there so I don’t miss anything. How do you manage this?
I’m so glad the video was helpful! Thanks so much for watching. I like to have everything included, so I still give scene-level beats like “theme stated” their own folder, but there’s only one chapter within that folder. Even if that chapter ends up being multiple scenes, I’m fine with that—I still know that the theme is stated somewhere in that chapter. Does that help?
Yes, that makes complete sense. Thanks Rachel!