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Testimonials for Scrivener
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“Scrivener is where I live. I'm planning the next novel, two screenplays and a couple of short stories with it and it's amazing how fluid the software makes the process. I genuinely think this is the biggest software advance for writers since the word processor.”
- Michael Marshall Smith, best-selling author of Spares, Only Forward and The Straw Men.
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“The last few years have seen the appearance of several OS X applications designed for the use of writers. Many of these applications are very good - but every one is in some way lacking. I've tried them all, and none has been more than a temporary home; a good place to stay until something better came along. And guess what - it finally did. SCRIVENER incorporates and improves the best aspects of its progenitors and, in doing so, exceeds them all. As a writer's application, Scrivener is damn near perfect; it means outlines, treatments and then first drafts can be put together in the same application.”
- Neil Cross long-listed for the 2004 Booker Prize for his novel Always the Sun and screenwriter for the acclaimed BBC1 show Spooks.
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“Just a note to say that I love using Scrivener. I only use some of the features but it's fantastic for keeping track of characters and events in novels. I love the synopsis cards and being able to keep research in one place. Even though I tend to write in chapters, I also love the ability to move sections of the novel around and the split screen view. Snapshot is also great for trying new ideas while keeping old work together. I'm sure I could get more out of it but it's given me a lot already. It was a great purchase and worth every cent.”
- Sheila O'Flanagan best-selling author of The Perfect Man, Someone Special, Bad Behaviour, Anyone But Him, How Will I Know? and Isobel's Wedding, amongst many others.
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“I'm in love! With Scrivener. He - sorry, it - has totally changed my life.
I was first introduced to Scrivener in an e-mail from my long-suffering Brother. I ignored him - sorry, it - completely. As if a piece of crummy software is going to make any difference to my creativity! I pressed delete.
Fortunately, I got a second chance. A writer friend of mine re-introduced me to Scrivener ("Haven't we met?" "No, I don't think so." "I remember! Your brother introduced us! And you totally snubbed me! But fortunately I don't bear a grudge, and you can have me for a 30-day free trial, and then for life for a single payment of around £34." If only all relationships were so straightforward.)
And now it's love. Proper head over heels. Scrivener is amazing. He's - sorry, it's - everything I could dream of in a word processor. Where to even begin? Everything about him - sorry, it - is incredible. Intuitive. Adaptive. User friendly in ways I couldn't ever have imagined from my mispent youth with other computer programmes. I never knew I could feel this way about anything I could download legally. I don't want to nauseate you. I don't want you tutting "get a study". But I've never known multiple functions like this before... Truly, he's - sorry, it's - made me into a whole new writer.”
- Marie Phillips, author of Gods Behaving Badly.
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“Thank you for the excellent and extraordinary work you've done on Scrivener; anyone can write a sodding book but it takes cojones to produce a writer's toolbench like this. Having played with it for a couple of weeks, it's now up and running in anger. Score so far: 1 film outline, 1 chapter of the new book, 2 radio scripts, 1 piece for the Observer, 2 Independent on Sunday op-eds, 3 lectures, and on it goes... Scrivener fills the gap between wild promiscuous note-taking (DevonThink), mapping connections and lines of argument (Tinderbox) and producing the final draft (Mellel). My workflow is now complete. Scrivener has done something unforgiveable: removed my last excuse for idling.”
- Michael Bywater, journalist and author of Big Babies: Or, Why Can't We Just Grow Up? and Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost and Where Did It Go?.
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“I've been trying so-called 'writers' software' for more than twenty years and always stumbling back to Word. Until Scrivener. Good software is like good writing, invisible to the user. The focus, simplicity and clarity is astonishing, and the absence of hype and jargon just as welcome too. The more I use it, the more I realise it can replace every other application I've adopted over the years for writing books that are often lengthy and involve substantial amounts of detailed research.
The seventh book in the Nic Costa series will be delivered from within Scrivener, and the eighth will begin as an outline there too. Finally a true word processor for authors has arrived.”
- David Hewson, author of the best-selling Nic Costa series of novels including The Seventh Sacrament and The Lizard's Bite and former technology columnist for the Sunday Times.
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“Scrivener has revolutionised the way I approach writing. I think in visuals - I use mind maps and diagrams to jot down ideas - and Scrivener allows me to utilise the fluidity of this, but in an organised digital environment. There's an on-screen cork board to see all the index cards created, so I can check my chapter/page headings - and synopsis of each - at a glance; in seconds, I can easily navigate through thousands of words, and to any position in the text, by simply scrolling through the menu bar; I can drag any chapter/page and place it elsewhere in the draft; and I can insert quick thoughts and concepts into my drafts with just one click. By offering a non-linear writing platform, Scrivener gives writers the ability to approach their work in a spontaneous, flexible, innovative way - which enables a more creative result. Of the five authors I've recommended Scrivener to, all are now converts to it, and, like me, will never go back to using Word to write with. Scrivener is worth every penny: quite simply, it's the best writers tool there is.”
- Zoe Margolis, best-selling author of Girl with a One Track Mind.
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“I never do this, but I really just wanted to write with an unsolicited testimonial.
I run a large medical research group in advanced imaging sciences. I recently started using Scrivener and it has completely transformed the way that I work. It is without any doubt the best tool I have ever used for the compilation of large review articles. Increasingly I am using it for project management as a kind of self-contained intelligent box file.”
- Alan Jackson PhD MB.ChB (Hons), FRCR, FRCP, FBIR, is the Professor of Radiology at University of Manchester and has published many medical research papers.
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“I've been using Scrivener from the the very beginning. Before it was even a paid app. And as soon as the paid version was available in beta, I was one of the first to jump on board. First of all, I couldn't believe how cheap such a great app was and remains to be. I was more than happy to send in my payment.
I have used Scrivener on every one of my novels and I've found that not only is it great for writing each draft, its perfect during the editing process when I'm working with my publisher. I simply import the version that I receive from my editor, split into scene or chapter cards with the "split at selection" feature, then I can mix, match, and move around the text in whatever fashion the editor wants me to rearrange my novel.
It was invaluable for my latest release because not only did I have to do standard editing and clean up of the feel and flow of the novel, but I had to introduce a completely new throughline and weave it into the existing manuscript. Using the index cards, I wrote a synopsis of all scenes old and new and moved them around at will until I had the story "just right". Then I brought it all together into a new draft, exported and submitted it.
BTW the novel received a 4 out of 5 star rating from the premier romance writer/reader magazine in the world, Romantic Times. I couldn't have accomplished this without Scrivener.
I also use Scrivener when I go to writer's conferences, using index cards for individual lectures and sessions. As a result, other authors see me using the software and always ask about it. They love it. One author, a Windows XP user, went out and bought a Mac just so that she could buy Scrivener!
I've been a Scrivener disciple from the very beginning and will continue to be. Great Job!”
- Elaine Sims, is a multi-published author of romantic suspense, whose latest novel is Checks and Balances.
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“Scrivener has made such an incredible difference to the way that I work that I wouldn't be without it anymore. Most of my work is factual, and planning out chapters, sections, and keeping all my notes, attachments and references with the manuscript is a godsend. For freelance work it's even better: One file per customer, so I have everything I've ever written for, say T3 Magazine (t3.com) in one place. Much easier than having a thousand individual Word documents kicking about in myriad folders!”
- Haje Jan Kamps provides commercial writing and ghost-writing projects, delivering everything from snappy news articles to full-length books. Clients include T3 Magazine, Fast Car Magazine and Digital Camera Magazine.
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“I use Scrivener with great pleasure for all my writing: journalism and books, fiction and non-fiction. It lets me work the way I want, keeping my research and notes close by and visible, or out of my way, and enables me to play around with structure easily. The interface and overall concept is elegant and flexible. It offers me multiple ways of seeing my work, but when I need to, I can just write without distraction. Not just useful, but a real pleasure.”
- Jenny Diski, author of Apology for the Woman Writing, Only Human and Rainforest.
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“My greatest ally as a script writer isn't the pen or word processor - it's the corkboard. A mental playground to organize my thoughts. For years I've been searching for the digital equivalent - a place in the computer where I can structure a script, or pin up the logline for a potential TV series, or keep an inspiring image. In the real world, those snippets and index cards often end up buried somewhere, forgotten. With Scrivener, I can keep them tacked to my virtual corkboard forever, waiting for the day when I happily rediscover them... Scrivener has so many useful features, there's almost too many to list. The full screen mode can't be beat for blocking out the distractions of the internet and e-mail - if only it could unplug my ethernet cable to keep me from goofing off. I've tried other writing programs for the Mac, but none of them really fit my style. If I had the brains and the patience, Scrivener is the program I would've written for myself. Try it, you'll be hooked.”
- Mike Sussman, Writer-Producer, Star Trek: Voyager, Enterprise, Threshold.
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“I love Scrivener. It breaks the mass of information and draft text I need to do a 100,000 word novel into pieces that make sense in storytelling instead of following a rigid, non-intuitive outline. One scene per file means one index card per scene with the crucial information on it so I can work deep in a scene in detail and then with one click see that scene in the context of the entire book. I've got my reference photos in the column by the scene at all times, no clicking around on my desktop to find them, and my URLs are there, too, if I need to go back and check my sources. I can move scenes around, double check to make sure I'm distributing my point-of-views evenly, check on the word counts of my acts... it marries the flexibility I need to stay creative with the organization I need to save time and see the book as a whole. It's simply the best software ever for writing a novel. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
- Jennifer Crusie is a best-selling and award-winning romantic novelist. Her novels include Bet Me and Sizzle.
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“Scrivener is the biggest leap forward in writing software since the venerable days of WordPerfect, and believe me, I've tried them all. It adapts to my workflow, rather than imposing one on me, which is vital for working on multiple books in different formats. Scrivener has become my primary writing tool for both comics and prose, and unlike certain other writing programs I actually look forward to working in it all day. My productivity is up, my blood pressure is down, and my credit card didn't even blink. I look back and wonder how I ever worked without it.”
- Comics writer and novelist Antony Johnston, author of Wasteland, the Alex Rider graphic novels and Stealing Life.
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“While there are dozens of reasons to buy a Mac, if you're a novelist, you only need one. Scrivener. I use it every day, and it's the only thing that's had such a positive impact on my writing - making my work both easier and more fun - since I went from the typewriter to a computer back in 1986. The notecarding feature alone is worth the price of admission. But then, so are ten or fifteen other features I could name.”
- Holly Lisle, author of The Secret Texts and Talyn.
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“When I wrote the first edition of Genetics for Dummies, I created a massive document that I called my "metajournal." It was the holding place for everything about my writing process from obsessing over page counts and deadlines to annotating my literature cited. By the time I was asked to revise the book for its second edition, I had discovered Scrivener. Gone were the days of scrolling back and forth, scrambling around trying to remember what text went where, and juggling multiple files for text and citations and journaling.
Using Scrivener, all my materials reside in a single location. Citations imported from the web or pdf documents are annotated in the document notes section. Keywords make everything easy to relocate. Synopses can be cut and pasted straight from the abstract of the scientific paper or re-written to suit my own tastes. The split screen allows me to reference citations and my text draft simultaneously. With the backup feature, there's never a worry about losing something.
All in all, Scrivener delivers outstanding value and makes even the most complex writing projects easy to manage. It's a must-have for any serious writer.”
- Tara Rodden Robinson, author of Genetics for Dummies.
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“Scrivener is a Swiss Army Knife for novelists. It's not just a word processor, or an outliner, or a note-keeper; it's all of the above, and more.”
- Charles Stross, author of Saturn's Children, Accelerando and Singularity Sky, and happy Scrivener.
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“What I really liked about Scrivener was that it helped you so much to concentrate on the job at hand, which is mainly writing. While other text processing tools make you fight with formatting much too early, due to the clear focus of Scrivener for writing it really helped to make my first book project a much easier task, than I had thought it might turn out to be. I especially liked the way you can blank out everything but the actual page you are writing on, the drag and drop of content pieces across chapters and the motivating word and page counts.”
- Frank Leistner, is the author of Mastering Organizational Knowledge Flow: How to Make Knowledge Sharing Work.
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“Scrivener played a HUGE part in writing my new book, organizing the text, art, and copy/content editing. Drawing Inspiration: Visual Artists At Work is a 400-page, good natured monster of a thing (185 contributors, 465 pieces of art, full-color). The manuscript was initially 620 pages and I essentially whittled off another 200 page book to make page count (a process streamlined by this great app). No way I could have knocked this out as "easily" or as efficiently without Scrivener (which I dearly love) - certainly THE best writing software purchase I ever made. But I won't qualify - Scrivener is simply a wonderful piece of kit. It seriously facilitated the production of DIVA - the most monumental project of my career. I look forward to 2.0.”
- Michael Fleishman, author, illustrator of Drawing Inspiration: Visual Artists At Work, teacher, Scrivener fan.
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“Scrivener is hands-down the best tool I've ever used for writing and organizing research. It's hard to pick my favorite aspect of it, because all of Scrivener is so useful and practical, but I have to say I absolutely love the distraction-free full screen effect. Thanks for making my writing life easier!”
- Andrea J. Buchanan, along with Miriam Peskowitz, is the author of The Daring Book For Girls along with the rest of the The Daring Series.
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“Being a total word processor slut, I've used and abused most Mac writing programs in my time. Over the course of 16 books, I've gone from the early versions of Write and Word 5.3 to more advanced, fully featured apps. Now I've abandoned them all in favour of Scrivener. From first firing it up, it was obvious that considerable thought and intelligence had gone into producing a program which works exactly the way I work. I was flattered to bits. When I begin a book, I used to buy a wallet file and all the research, drafts, notes and sketches would go in there, sorted by chapter. My latest book, Drawing Cartoons, was a complex project but instead of the wallet file, everything went into Scrivener. It worked like a dream. And I love the way you can use those parts of the program which are useful to you NOW and the rest just stays out of the way.”
- Colin Shelbourn, is the author of Drawing Cartoons.
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“I write technical books and articles as side work, which means I write when I can find the time to do it: I never write the book or article in a linear fashion from the beginning, but I prefer to take random notes on the topics of the various sections of the book, and expand them later.
Scrivener is way superior to a traditional word processors because it allows this workflow: taking notes and keeping them organized inside structure of the book. I struggled with Word to try and achieve the same result, but now that I found Scrivener I'm going back to a traditional writing software only when I've to fine-tune the styling of the text before I send it to my editors.
I think more technical writers should use it.”
- Simone Chiaretta, author of Beginning ASP.NET MVC 1.0.
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“Murder in the High Himalaya was a highly complex and detailed book to report combining history, front line reportage, investigative elements and interviews with hundreds of sources. In the early stages of the project it was easy to be overwhelmed with so much material. I scouted around for a way to manage all my research and was intrigued to come across Scrivener. I struggled with the program at first but Keith wrote back personally every time to my queries - which I found most impressive - as I'm heartily sick of being routed through to conference calling centers when I need immediate tech support. Quickly, the program became indispensible in writing Murder in the High Himalaya. I was able to drag and drop chapters, access research with the click of a button and cut material effortlessly. All this enabled me to focus on the narrative at hand which I believe made me so much more creative and industrious and, Murder in the High Himalaya, the best book it could be.”
- Jonathan Green is an award-winning journalist and author of Murder in the High Himalaya.
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“Scrivener is a writer's best friend. You can do everything in it: plan using index cards, keep your research in one place, structure as you will, and most importantly, write with no visual distraction on the screen. Genius.”
- Mischa Hiller, author of Sabra Zoo.
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“Scrivener is brilliant, one of the best reasons to own a Mac. I've written comic books, screenplays, and novels in it, and it's been invaluable in each format. The corkboard display makes breaking down a plot a breeze, and it helps keep me on track throughout the entire project.
Scrivener is that perfect sort of program. It's intuitive enough that you can just jump in and use it, but it's also wildly versatile and features plenty of power under the hood should you care to tinker with it. I wrote thirteen published novels in Word, and after writing my latest two in Scrivener, there's no way I'm going back!”
- Matt Forbeck, award-winning game designer and author of 15 novels, including Amortals and Vegas Knights.
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“Scrivener is the most amazing piece of software for a writer: it reminds you of the paradigm shift when you took that leap from typewriter to computer. You remember that you used to use the older tool, and how to still use it, but you can't ever look back. It's replaced all the other tools I used to employ to cobble together a workflow and has become the indispensable tool I use to write my books.”
- Tobias S. Buckell, NYT best-selling author of Halo: The Cole Protocol as well as Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin and Sly Mongoose.
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“Productivity, workflow, output, delivery, all up since I adopted Scrivener. Two stories in a collection of ghost stories (Ghost Stories from Down Under). Two feature film screenplays (Artemis Longfellow and The Nimrod Sanction) completed. A twenty six episode children's television series in the works along with a three novel adaptation (The Timethreader Chronicles) in the works. Like other writers, I find Scrivener both indispensable and almost as much fun as I imagined writing to be when I started in this crazy career. Gone are the tedious, rotten years of bum glue and sheer slog. I even have a private life now. Scrivener? Yes!”
- Dr. Patrick Maher, author of the works listed in the testimonial.
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“I've tried several novel writing software tools and they've all been rubbish. Then I found Scrivener and after watching the demonstration video I knew it was different. I downloaded the software for trial but purchased it before the 30 days were up, I was so impressed.
It's really helped my writing output increase, and it's an incredibly powerful tool. My favourite feature is being able to import research files, websites and other media so everything is together in one place. I won't be using anything else to write with.”
- Jenna Dawlish, author of Love Engineered.
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“Scrivener took my experience of writing to a whole new level. With its structuring and outlining features I can focus on writing itself and never lose track of my work. Scrivener really is like a Co-Author which makes everything much easier. My most favorite feature? The smooth user-interface, snapshots, the corkboard, well, let's just say the whole package. I just published my first novel and almost finished my second and with Scrivener I simply can't wait to start the third.”
- Bernhard Böhm, author of Nemesis.
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“I spent a couple of years planning my first book, but when it came to actually writing it, I had a three month sabbatical from work in which to accomplish it. Without Scrivener, I never could have written 60,000 words in that amount of time and had the freedom to do the amount of experimenting and re-working that I did. Scrivener's ability to allow working on a book in small pieces, as well as getting a sense of how those connect together into a whole, and then fluidly move between detail and big picture, is invaluable. After using Scrivener, you realize how inadequate conventional word processors are for actual book writing.
I hope this won't be my last book, and I definitely plan to use Scrivener for my next one.”
- Adam Richardson, author of Innovation X is a creative director at award-winning global innovation firm frog design, inc.
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“Scrivener has revolutionised my working day. Instead of scrabbling around in piles of paper, with sixteen different windows open on my screen, I now have everything I need in one aesthetically pleasing place. I love being able to store all my research - web pages, photos, PDFs, whatever - in the same project file as my work in progress. The split-screen facility enables you to glance across at research documents while you type (and to easily leaf through these). It works because it's so intuitive: a computerised version of the typewriter surrounded by cuttings. My desk is immeasurably tidier since I got a Mac and started using Scrivener, and I find that I work far faster too. In the 2 years I've had Scrivener, I've written 1 complete novel, 8 short stories, and several articles, with countless other projects in the pipeline. It helps organise my thoughts as well as my papers.”
- Sophie Cooke, author of The Glass House, Under the Mountain and Dragana Savic.
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“As a novelist and Mac fan, Scrivener's my first choice for writing anything longer than a blog post.”
- Martin Sketchley, author of The Liberty Gun, The Destiny Mask and The Affinity Trap.
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“I use Scrivener for writing all my books and longer articles. I used it right from the beginning to produce my most recent book, Talking the talk: Language, Psychology, and Science. I like the way Scrivener works like a science writer thinks. The software makes it easy to keep track of material and the organisation of the document without getting too bogged down in formatting issues at an early stage. It also makes it easy to reorganise stuff and navigate through a very large document. I found the split pane feature particularly useful. The program is exceptionally stable and bug-free. It's easy to use and the documentation and support are superb. I can't now imagine writing a book in any other way.”
- Trevor A. Harley, is the Head of Psychology at the University of Dundee and the author of Talking the talk.
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“I have bought, and been disappointed, by nearly every writing tool available for the Mac. Each one would have a unique feature that I loved, but would be lacking in some other regard, so I found myself moving projects in and out of different pieces of software as I wanted certain tools. But then I stumbled over the Literature & Latte site and my world changed. Scrivener is simultaneously the most featured and flexible writing tool I've ever used. Within fifteen minutes of launching it, I was in love.
I used to use separate applications for comic book scripts, my journal, research projects and my novel manuscript. Scrivener has replaced all of them. As much as I love the flexibility of creating and organizing the actual script or manuscript, the single greatest feature of Scrivener is the ability to keep every disparate snippet of text and random photographic reference in a single Scrivener project along with the work in progress. I am a horribly disorganized individual and all of my projects end up requiring extensive amounts of reference material. Pasting it all into the project doc has literally saved me hours of time. I would never have finished the scripts for Resident Evil or my novel manuscript without Scrivener.”
- Ricardo Sanchez is the writer for Wildstorm's 2009 Resident Evil comic book series.
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“After year of suffering with Microsoft Word, I've finally found a program that makes it easy for me to write the way I want to write! I'll never go back.”
- April Henry, New York Times best-selling author.
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“How do I begin talking about Scrivener? I loaded a trial in August and ten days later had to buy the full licence. In five months I've written a novel, a radio play (my first), two short stories, outlines for two more, and now I've begun plotting another novel. I have never before found anything that is anything like so productive for an author. Scrivener has all the tools I could need, but without restricting my style and forcing me to work in a specific way. I just use the tools I want - and then the whole thing is there in front of me . I am so delighted with it, I've recommended it to all my friends who write. Scrivener for me is now the primary reason for owning an Apple computer. As a writer, it really is that good. It makes my machine sing for me. Fantastic software.”
- Michael Jecks, author of the Templar Series and the founder of Medieval Murderers. Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association 2004/5, he is the present UK Chairman of International Thriller Writers.
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“A decade-long PC user, I recently bought a Macbook for the express purpose of writing my next novel on Scrivener. I'm glad I did. I do a lot of research for my novels, and I love having my research documents conveniently filed alongside my writing. I also like the way Scrivener adapts to the way I write - non-chronologically, in fragments that I later piece together. I'm now moving along at a brisk pace, enjoying the flexibility and simplicity of Scrivener.”
- Michelle Richmond, New York Times best-selling author of The Year of Fog and No One You Know.
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“I first heard of Scrivener from some other writers, all of whom said it had changed the way they worked. I was hooked in days. It's smart, efficient software that allows you to organize material easily and organically. You can see your chapters. You can see your research. You can even see your corkboard. It's not confusing or glitchy. Finally, someone made good software for writers! And the price is fantastically low so that everyone can afford it, even if you're just getting into writing. It's not a crippling investment. (I'd buy it for ten times that or more. Really.) It works and it's worth it. Get Scrivener and leave the horrors of Word behind forever.”
- Maureen Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and Suite Scarlett.
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“I've used a lot of different writing software, but none of them feel as polished as Scrivener. It made the writing process so much smoother and simpler - going back to anything else would feel like I was chipping the words out of stone with a hammer and chisel. It has become one of my very few absolutely-must-have pieces of software.”
- Cory Poulson, author of Reiyalindis.
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“Even though I can now hold it in my hands, it is hard to believe that we wrote California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How It Can Be Fixed in a hundred days. But I find it even harder to believe that I could have written it without Scrivener.
"Scrivener helped me do everything a writer needs to do, and particularly a writer in a hurry: Gather up shards of facts and ideas. Fit them together into sentences and paragraphs, building sections and chapters. Tear down what you've built and try them another way. Annotate. Rewrite. Through all this construction and rearranging, the sources and footnotes and links follow each shard as it is passed around. At the end a finished manuscript pops out, ready for editors and readers. And best of all, Scrivener is flexible enough to let me write my own way, in full screen or with multiple panels begging me for their attention. I can't imagine a more perfect tool for my writing-books, articles, reviews, op-eds.”
- Mark Paul, co-author, with Joe Mathews, of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How It Can Be Fixed, University of California Press.
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“Scrivener is head-and-shoulders above all other Mac applications for
writers (and I say this having tried every one over the past 15 years,
and heavily using several of them). Scrivener is fast, it's reliable,
and it's intuitive. More times than I can count, I have tried to do
something in Scrivener because it seemed logical to me, without knowing
if I could, and been pleased to see the result I expected. Scrivener
makes it easy to keep track of everything that matters - research
material, notes, multiple versions of drafts - while forgetting
everything that doesn't. The application doesn't require you to think
like the guy who wrote the software, or require a lot of your attention
to work flawlessly. It lets you be yourself. The developer is
amazingly attentive and responsive, too. And it costs a fraction of what
its competitors charge.”
- David Berreby, author of Us & Them: The Science of Identity.
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“Is it indecent to love Scrivener so much? I used to write with a cobbled together system of scraps of paper, multiple Word docs, and a cork bulletin board. Ever since I've started using Scrivener life has gotten easier. I spend less time organizing and more time actually writing. Thank you!”
- Lisa Yee, author of Absolutely Maybe.
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“I've been using Scrivener now for a little over over a year and cannot imagine how I wrote novels without it. It is a paradigm shift from word processors equivalent to the shift from clay tablets to typewriters. It allows for a flexibility and organizational structure that's nonpareil. I (and other writers I've pointed in its direction) can only say thank you for making my work not only more productive but more adaptable to experimentation and flow.”
- Gregory Frost, author of Shadowbridge, Lord Tophet (Del Rey/Random House) and many more books and stories.
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“Scrivener remains my writing tool of choice for day-to-day large projects.”
- Nik Rawlinson, editor of MacUser UK and author of The Independent Guide to the Mac, The Independent Guide to the iPhone, The Ultimate iPod Guide and Apple Aperture 2: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers.
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“Sticky notes, manila folders, and 3X5 cards - Rest in Peace. The geniuses at Literature & Latte have created a writing software package that is immensely powerful and extremely affordable. As soon as I downloaded Scrivener, I watched the Tutorial and found myself drooling. Once I started using Scrivener on my next novel, I found myself wondering how I ever wrote a book without Scrivener. Think of a feature you'd like to have with your writing software... seriously... anything that would make the writing process easier. How about having every chapter both separate and part of the whole so that you can move them around with total ease? Or maybe you are an outliner like me and you'd like to see the outline on screen right next to your manuscript. Perhaps you are totally a visual writer; how about being able to drop art and photos into a display window that sits open on the side of your manuscript? And for the ADD writers out there - yeah, I'm one of those - how about a mode that blocks everything else on your desktop and completely focuses you on the page you need to finish? If this sounds good, wait. I haven't even covered a 3rd of what Scrivener can do for you. The beauty of Scrivener is the interface. Everything you could possibly need is right there on the same screen. Because of Scrivener, I am flying through my next manuscript. God bless the folks at Literature & Latte! Now, go download Scrivener for yourself... now.”
- Wayne Thomas Batson, best-selling author of The Door Within Trilogy, Isle of Swords and Isle of Fire.
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“I like trying out new software and I download a lot of new things. Most don't last and even fewer get my money. If you're a writer and you use a Mac, Scrivener... is one of the best software bargains out there.”
- Chris Routledge, author of Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint.
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“My first book was written on an Olivetti typewriter. Everything that followed was Microsoft Word. I still have a headache from that period. When I first tried Scrivener, working on the sequel to my first novella, I was dubious. Then I saw the full screen mode - gasp! Just words. No formatting concerns. No changing ribbons (first dynasty) or worrying about fonts and indents (second dynasty). I've arrived at the third dynasty - where I can integrate notes, images, "folder" scenes and chapters I'm not sure about, and seamlessly re-arrange things. Thank you Scrivener, for opening a whole new world to my writing.”
- Michael Maupin, author of The Crowded Room: A novella by Jeffrey Dunne, semi-finalist in the 2005 IPPY Awards in the Juvenile and Young Adult Fiction category.
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“For me Scrivener was the only real choice in novel writing software. All my macabre thoughts multiplexed into one remarkable piece of software. A-10 'Warthog' IR gun camera footage? Iridium phone satellite orbits? My early writings that tie into my current novel? Drag them all into the research category and be done with it!
Truly remarkable - a game changer in novel writing.”
- J.L. Bourne, author of the cult classic horror novel Day by Day Armageddon.
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“For years, I searched for an app that supports my writing style. I tried them all. If you're a writer, you know that standard word processors just don't cut it. They're either too directive, too bloated, or bog down on long documents. Finally, I found Scrivener, and I've been in love with it since it was a beta. It's now a full-throttle, high-performance beauty, with features that make writing, organizing, rewriting, combining, rearranging, dividing, tracking, editing, annotating, and footnoting easy, intuitive, and yes even fun. I could not recommend Scrivener more highly. When I drive, I drive a BMW because I love its power, its safety, the way it handles the road, and its responsiveness to my every driving need. When I write, I write with Scrivener. Take it for a spin. Put it through its paces. You won't want to write any other way.”
- Tim Hurson, author of Think Better: an innovator's guide to productive thinking.
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“Scrivener saved my brain! I tried writing in MS Word, tried to use various other word processing programs, but I just got more and more frustrated. I read about Scrivener on another author's blog and immediately downloaded the trial. This was it! The flexibility to organize chapters the way I want to, move sections around, keep all my research material together saved me from going utterly insane. I've written all four of my books in Scrivener and will use it forever.”
- Maria Lima, author of Blood Lines series (Pocket Books).
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“I use Scrivener every day - for blogging, for creating huge reports at the day job, and for keeping my personal creative projects, including the next novel, organized and in order. It's a wonderful bit of work - one of the very few programs that have, as they say, "changed my life."
Great stuff. Thanks so much for creating and refining it.”
- Mark McElroy, author of Lucid Dreaming for Beginners: Simple Techniques for Creating Interactive Dreams and more.
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“I searched everywhere for a program that would help me organize my manuscript, Creative Awakenings. As an artist, I am a very visual person and I needed the software to serve two purposes, allow for organization as a storyboard (visual) for over 30 pieces of art, and a finalized concrete product I could deliver to my publisher. After researching other programs and starting with MS Word, I was fortunate to stumble upon Scrivener! Scrivener was the perfect software for my needs. I highly recommend this product to anyone seeking a tool to support the organization of their manuscripts and projects. Even my editor was pleased with the end result! I continue to spread the news about Scrivener to everyone I know who writes and works with MAC. Thanks for developing this amazing product.”
- Sheri Gaynor, artist, transformational life coach and author of Creative Awakenings: Envisioning the life of your dreams through art.
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“I wouldn't say Scrivener makes writing a book easy... it just makes
it easier than any other way to go about it. When I was revising my
book, I must have rearranged the chapters, parts of chapters, and
recipes a dozen times. Doing that in a traditional word processor
would have been like eating nails. Plus, Scrivener's full-screen mode
keeps me away from online word games, at least temporarily.”
- Matthew Amster-Burton, author of Hungry Monkey.
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“I'm about to start a new novel and decided to review your tutorials so I could get to grips with the changes as of 1.5. And as I went through the tutorials, I realised how much I wanted to write and tell you what a pleasure it is working with Scrivener.
I don't know how long I've been using your excellent software, but I have now written a novel, two non-fiction books, several scripts and treatments, and quite a few magazine articles and speeches with Scrivener. It's a great tool, and has become an essential part of my creative practice. I'm uncertain which comes first - my conceptual process, or the Scrivener framework - but the two seem to have merged.
Thanks a million, and keep up the great work.”
- Dr Charles Kriel, is a live improvisational video montage creator (DVJ), and has worked with DJs such as Pete Tong and Norman Cook.
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“I've been a Scrivener user for more than two years. I just recently found out that you have wonderful technical support as well as wonderful software. Thank you so much!
Scrivener changed the way I write. I create a file for each scene and shuffle them in the bulletin board view until the story works, then I group them into chapters. I love that Scrivener lets me work in small pieces like this, especially when it comes time to revise a completed manuscript.
I've read that the best writing is transparent. Scrivener is like that. It gets out of the way and lets me work on my manuscript the way I need to work on it. I'm much more productive with Scrivener than I have been with any other software. I recommended it to my writing friends every chance I get.”
- Erin Thomas, author of Draco's Fire, Boarder Patrol (Spring 2010) and Wolves at the Gate (Fall 2010).
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“I have published 12 novels in 25 countries. Tried Scrivener before, couldn't quite make it work for me, tried it again as I started a new book, now it's working great and I love it. Thanks for making such brilliant software.”
- Jeff Abbott, best-selling author of Panic and Fear.
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“There was a point about one month into my first using Scrivener when I realized just how much it had changed how I worked, how much easier the task had become, and I just started crying in relief. I had no idea how much of the story I was stringing together in my head, trying to keep a whole universe balanced while I worked, not until Scrivener helped me lay it out across a binder. The key for me was being able to compose scene by scene and move them around as needed, to skip whole sections of story or include them only as notes without having to use an additional document or paper notebook to keep the mess straight. Since using Scrivener I write much faster, and now years into use of the program I'm creating custom templates and labels, getting wicked with keywords, and in general writing smarter as well as faster. It helps me professionally as well: I keep my correspondence with my publisher in the binder, right beneath the research notes I use to double-check information during copy edits. I've also been able to customize exports of drafts for beta readers and for professional formatting in a way I could never have done with Microsoft Word.
I could write without Scrivener, yes, but I'd never choose to do so. Thanks for making my life so much easier and helping me make my stories stronger.”
- Heidi Cullinan, author of Hero.
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“As a professional copywriter and technical book author, I may not be the 'usual creative type' that uses a tool like Scrivener, but I certainly do use it and love how it keeps me organized with all the little research, interview, and drafting/review cycles I undertake. Sometimes I'm putting together a 20-page chapter, and other times a 500-word case study, but either way, Scrivener is up to the task!”
- Thomas Myer, author of Professional CodeIgniter.
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“After reading a glowing review of Scrivener last year, I saw the potential to hugely ease the challenge of collecting and organizing book scenes, notes, and ideas, and moving them around my manuscripts. Well, I downloaded the free trial and dug into it, and must say that I was totally blown away by how effective, intuitive, and productive it is. Think of Scrivener as a corkboard where you can organize and search all your text clips and ideas at will - then compile them from a single window into a final Word (or other word-processing) manuscript when you are done. For me the program's biggest "Eureka" feature is the ability to readily clip and paste between chapters, seeing and changing each of them separately while at the same time concurrently modifying the whole. I also like the ability to easily compare and combine drafts of the same chapter via a single window. I long ago imported my current book projects and am having a blast making them happen at rates many times faster than what I could do before. And the online forum support has been terrific. Wish I'd had this program to write my first five books! Check out Scrivener if you are a writer and a Mac-head - you'll immediately be hooked. (Watch the online video to see all the cool stuff it does.) The only downside is that after becoming a hero in my writers group thanks to showing around Scrivener, the PC-Windows users became upset when they realized they couldn't use it. There is some good news, though. One of my PC-Windows writing compatriots is switching to Mac - just so she can use Scrivener! Many thanks to the L&L folks for so dramatically improving my writing life and efficiency!”
- Greg Brown, author of five best-selling aviation books; adventure columnist for AOPA Flight Training, a national newsstand magazine; and former Barnes & Noble author of the month. Greg's book for general audiences, Flying Carpet, has been compared by reviewers to classic road trip books like On the Road, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
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“The first time I ran Scrivener, I knew I would love it. The concept is so simple and so elegant. Why didn't someone think of this sooner? Finally, here is a piece of writing software that doesn't get in my way. It's so flexible that I'm sure every writer uses it in a different way. And, I love the idea of keeping everything about my novel, including all the scenes, online research, and multiple revisions, under one roof.”
- Spencer Seidel, whose first novel is due to be published in spring 2011 titled Dead of Wynter.
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“For many months I have searched a chance to finally work with Scrivener - many attempts have been made in the past before, never reaching the aim of writing a novel, a short story and stuff like that. Then, when I needed to cooperate with German writer Martina André regarding the short story 'Du bist ein offenes Buch' ('You are an open book') for the episode novel 'Das Steinerne Auge' ('The Stone Eye') we decided to work in two ways - creating the drafts with Microsoft Word first, exchanging our ideas and later importing them into Scrivener which finally lead to something I want to call structure'. 'Structure' was missing before and while we have sent fourteen versions of the final short story to each other we realized that we had to organize us in another way - and this was the point where Scrivener (which I bought earlier at Version 1) came into gameplay. Finally, I had the chance to really pursue my writing with Scrivener, creating the first real project with it and - last but not least - got my first short story published in a whole novel with other well-known German authors. So Scrivener was the missing puzzle piece which I found... at last - fortunately!”
- Oliver Pifferi, one contributing author of The Stone Eye.
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“Scrivener is simply the best way to organize the clouds of my brain. It is the most efficient way to arrange ideas and documents and use them in a long plot.”
- Pierdomenico Baccalario, author of the Ulysses Moore children's saga.
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“A writer friend recommended Scrivener months ago, and I didn't listen. When he told me it was not a word processor but a program specifically for writers, I'm afraid I imagined cheesy brainstorming tools and templates, the sorts of things real working writers don't have time for and find intrusive. So I ignored him. I continued cobbling together messy folders all over my desktop and wasting precious writing time clicking through old drafts and notes, running searches on multiple documents, and struggling to maintain order among my re-ordered and re-numbered chapters.
It's hard to describe the experience of discovering Scrivener. Suffice it to say that I wish I could e-mail it to myself five years ago and get back all the hours of my youth I wasted NOT using it. In short: it's a relief to finally find a piece of software constructed with the ingenuity and elegance writers strive for in their own work.”
- Margaret Lazarus Dean, author of The Time It Takes to Fall.
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“If my mind represents the creativity, Scrivener is the chisel to mould my novel. The easiest way to keep track about my plot, characters, environment. After using it, I cannot write another book without it.”
- Francesco Falconi, author of the Estasia and Prodigium children's saga.
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“I spent months testing different software for authors. Most programs were rigid, too structured. They distracted me from the primary mission - writing my first novel - and turned computer sessions into engineering nightmares. The programs emphasized technology and formulaic patterns, thereby defeating their value as tools.
Then I found Scrivener. There's only a modest learning curve to get started. And the software serves all the core needs of writers. As an outliner, Scrivener organizes your book. It's easy to track events and descriptions. You will never again lose time flipping between pages to confirm whether a character has blue eyes or brown.
As a filing system, Scrivener enables you to save research in the same file as your narrative. No more bushwhacking through cluttered hard drives to uncover buried articles. It's easy to flip between your book and research when confirming details.
As a word processor, Scrivener offers easy-to-use tools: text editor, spell checker, and fonts to name a few. I especially like the export function. It's easy to translate Scrivener files into Microsoft Word - a feature that keeps my publisher happy.
Scrivener is excellent value for the money. Plus, it's a robust platform. I have never lost files or experienced quirky behavior. Scrivener won't write your book. But it will make your time at the computer more productive.”
- Norb Vonnegut, author of Top Producer.
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“Scrivener ist elegant und einfach. Und es funktioniert. Ich kann es nur empfehlen.”
(“Scrivener is elegant and simple. And it works. I can only recommend it.”)
- Ferdinand von Schirach, best-selling author of Verbrechen.
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“I use Scrivener for academic articles and, now, books. I've never come across a tool that meets my needs as completely as Scrivener. I'd recommend it to anyone.”
- Dr Stephen Kinsella, author of Ireland in 2050: How we will be Living.
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“Just wanted to let you know how amazing Scrivener is. I used it to lay out my latest anthology, WITH GREAT POWER (for Pocket books). I've edited seven anthologies to date, and this makes ordering - and reordering - the short stories a joy, whereas having to move a 10,000 word novella in Word is a nightmare. I've written a short story in Scrivener, begun a novel, and am now using it for layout and organizing the catalog copy for Pyr Books' SpringSummer 2010 season. I keep finding new uses for Scrivener, and discovering ways it makes my life easier. Thank you!!!!”
- Lou Anders, Editorial Director of Pyr and author of Fast Forward 1.
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“I find myself using Scrivener more and more in my writing tasks, from poetry, philosophy, my novels, curriculum outlines, screenplay synopsis, and on and on and on. It took me like a virus. At first I would occasionally cough out a few phrases, then, as I got myself exposed to its features, I would find myself lying quite comfortably in the throes of fever induced by Scrivener's intuitive, clean interface and flow. I actually look forward to using the program (no other program quite has this effect), in fact, I think it has added pleasantly to my own genetic code.”
- Shaun Rudie, founder of Core JKD.
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“I just finished my book. In Scrivener. So, it works. Thank you for a great program.”
- Gertjan Van Dijk, writer and user from the Netherlands.
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Read what others are saying about Scrivener...
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