Scrivener for iOS: Scribbling on the road

Or in a field if you like…

Okay, first a disclaimer: I’ve been a Scrivener user since day one (that must be going on about ten years now), and I’m also one of those people who didn’t believe you could write a whole book on a tablet, much less a mobile phone. So, skeptical me promised the developer  I’d give it a damn good try…

This is where I was when I finished Novel Number 4, the last two chapters written on my mobile phone.

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If you’re going to walk and write, keep one eye out for the river bank

So it’s fair to say I’m something of a convert.

Scrivener for iOS should probably be called the Messiah Release: millions waited for it, and as time soldiered on it seemed less likely that it would ever arrive. But Literature and Latte battled on making missteps and hitting setbacks until their developer – who said he wasn’t go to write it himself – decided to write it himself. A surprisingly short year or so later, the beta arrived, and straight off the bat, I can tell you it was well worth the wait.

I got my notification, and taking great care to ignore all the warnings and instructions, I downloaded it and cracked on. Getting my work in progress on to iOS was pretty easy: Scrivener uses Dropbox to store its files (it can’t use iCloud – more on that later), so it’s simply a case of copying your stuff to a Dropbox folder and then syncing across to iOS. Unsurprisingly, things didn’t look quite right; everything was there: the manuscript, my research notes, character bios, photographs, story plans – but the fonts weren’t right. I got straight on to the developer who pointed out the spot in the manual where it explains how to sync fonts into Scrivener. Two minutes later, I had a project that looked eerily like the one I have running on MacOSX.

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A little dialogue practise.

Every so often I like to have a go at a short script. I don’t have any great desire to be a script writer, but I think working in different forms improves your writing overall (which is why I sometimes subject people to my attempts at poetry).

Script writing requires precision, brevity and, obviously, good dialogue.  The writer needs to get the plot and characterisations across using just speech and short passages of action, so it’s a good exercise in cutting out the needless fluff.

I began writing Foetal Peter while working on The Quisling Orchid.  As well as providing the warm-up exercises, it also helped with honing the erotic prose, something I wasn’t all that familiar with when I started out.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it 🙂

Foetal Peter