I use a couple of Wiki’s as story bibles. If I create keywords in CamelCase it makes it very easy to link to link key items, clues, traits to the “bible” entries.
e.g. using a keyword Thing() The keyword Thing(PatsWatch) is found in a keyword search (using any word option) for thing or for pat or watch. Then a copy/paste of PatsWatch can be used for a quick lookup in the Wiki.
Other’s I use a lot are: POV(), Loc(), Trait(), Clue(), Car() etc.
Desc() - for something descriptive in the text - as “Combes, a six-foot-five Amazon of a cop…” keyword would be Desc(Combes) which would lead me to a page that has some physical description of Combes.
And finally, to help cement everything Wiki(CatherineCombes) cements all the search’s related to Combes to the detailed Wiki entry.
My only wish is for an improved visibility of keywords. Having to click away from Notes to the seperate keywords - pane is a bit awkward, especially since there is no keyboard shortcut to quickly switch Inspector panes. But the same holds true to external references, I wish the Inspector panes were stackable, or customizable.
yWriter. You make a character sheet for everyone and they are highlighted everywhere. I never had a problem seeing who was where. Locations have a different color (and are set up in a different - but similar - way as characters. Same with items.
The program has a tracking feature… I’m having trouble adjusting to this approach, even though I love many of the other features offered on Scrivener. I may use both programs Some hassle but maybe one day I’ll find a program that does every thing I love all at once! LOL
I migrated from yWriter to Scrivener, and I’m glad I did. The character tracking is a bit easier to do in yWriter, and the storyboard you can build in that program is great; you’re not going to be able to completely beat it in Scrivener, yet. But there are a lot of things you can’t do, and keywords, once you figure out how to use them, almost make up for a lot of that functionality. You could also use something like Storybook (never really got into it myself though) to get that timeline thing down. The free version looks like it ads that functionality and then you could link it (somehow) into Scrivener. Just a thought.
Yeah, like I said - Scrivener has so many features I love.
I have never tried Storybook. Not planning on starting I’m tired of the many programs. I think I’ve tried almost everything. I’ll stick with Scrivener, yWriter, Write or Die, and the occasional Focus Writer.
Exploring Scrivener is priority one. It’s slowing down my editing, but I’m enjoying the break. LOL
Keywords are going nicely. The more I practice, the easier they are to work with.
Thanks, pigfender. Using your reply and this thread, I successfully located my missing chapters, eliminated orphan index cards, etc. And I’m using keywords to indicate the main character in each scene. I notice that each time I enter a new keyword it gets a different color. Do I have any choice in the color selection? Also, the colors don’t appear when I use the corkboard to view all the cards for the entire MS. So what are they for?
You can pick your own colours… just double click on the coloured square to open up the selector.
EDITED - Apols - my earlier links showed how to put the label colors in various places!
You can show the keywords colors on the index cards using Ctrl+F12
I’ve been seeing a lot of other people trying to figure out character tracking, so I decided to curate pigfender’s keyword method in the Tips forum: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19076&start=0
Thanks again for sharing, PF!
I’ve only been a user for seven months, but I have found Keywords to be invaluable. Not only do I use pigfender’s method for characters, but I use it for the various plot lines as well. It allows me to see and work on entire lines without confusion and interference from the whole story.
Unfortunately (or not), I don’t have any complaints about the latest Windows version of this software running under 64-bit Win7. I’m so happy with it that I cry myself to sleep at night over having discovered it, and I literally bounce out of bed in the early a.m. to commence work. Keep on rolling.
Open the Keywords Hud [Ctrl+Shift+O]
Double click the keyword you want to change.
Rename it.
Select yes to apply changes to all the tags with old name.
Aha! It did, and now I see what I was doing wrong.
When I double-clicked it before, my mouse pointer was touching the colored square. When I double-clicked, the color-choosing window opened!
After seeing your message, I realized I must have been doing something wrong, so I moved my mouse pointer to the right a little, and voila, the keyword name became editable!
I have started to use keywords and sort them into groups (characters, places, plotlines etc) using the useful hierarchy structure.
But does anyone know what is the point of the group names being treated as ‘parent’ keywords, and themselves being assignable as keywords? Wouldn’t it be more useful for these group names to show up and help organise the keywords panel?
And what about the coloured chips that appear on the sides of corkboard cards? Once there are more than five or six, these become so small as to be pointless. It would be useful if you could select whether a keyword chip appears on a card or not.
I guess it’s just to provide as much flexibility as possible.
You can treat the parent entries as true group labels simply by not assigning them to any documeent. In my case I use them to create collapsible nests of keywords in the HUD. In earlier posts I’ve already said that I have two keywords per character (“Dave_present” and “Dave_mentioned”). I put the ‘mentioned’ keyword as subsidiary and collapsed so I don’t double my list of keywords.
As for the number of colour swatches (in particular, your suggestion you be able to nominate which colors are displayed), that might be worth raising separately in the ‘Wish List’ forum.
As Pigfender says, this does provide some extra flexibility. You may not need it, but it can be useful to give levels of details for certain keywords while still keeping the main projet list clean. For instance, I have a project that uses keywords to track certain subplots/elements. In some documents, I just need a generic “Experiment” keyword; in others I need a more specific variation, e.g. “Experiment-TeamA” or “Experiment-TeamB”. I group the specific ones under the general to keep them organized and make my main list collapsable to fewer elements, and I use either shades of the same color or just identical colors for the keywords (depending whether I need the additional information when viewing the corkboard).
Similarly, if you had the parent keyword “Feature” and then individual keywords for specific features, you could add the parent “Feature” in addition to the specific keyword, popping the document into a search collection just looking for “Feature” without caring about the specifics. We’ll be adding a way to optionally include the parent keyword when dragging a child in order to make this even simpler.
I’m coming back to an old WIP after a long absence and I’m having a hard time remembering what’s happening. I compiled a synopsis, which helps a bit, but it would really help if I could include the keywords as they occur.
That is, in addition to my short synopsis for each scene, which I wrote at a high level, intending to use it when submitting my novel to an editor, I could include a list of keywords at the end.
Example:
[b]Wesley Awakens on Memorial Day
As he stalks his prey, Wesley reflects on what Memorial Day was like in his time. We begin to understand some of his hardness.
Some hassle but maybe one day I’ll find a program that does every thing I love all at once! LOL
Keep on rolling.