I am not sure whether to use the fiction template for novels, and simply write a nonfiction book, or whether to choose one of the Nonfiction templates, though none of them seem to fit. Unless it’s Nonfiction {with subheads}, assuming subheads are the same as chapter titles?
Thanks in advance!
The “Novel” template is going to be perfectly adequate for most non-fiction, yes, just delete the stuff you don’t need like the character sheets. In fact for a good while we did not even have a general non-fiction template because there wasn’t much reason for having one. Novels, biographies, general non-fiction and so on all have very similar structural requirements (bunch o’ chapters with an undifferentiated block of text in each chapter).
Sub-heads, in this context, refer to the default compile settings provided to that template which will be suitable for technical non-fiction that has labelled sections of text (much like the Scrivener user manual does).
But in general, just remember that Scrivener project templates are more about setting up a working environment than anything else, or an inclination. There is nothing that one template can do that another cannot. They are all just projects, frozen at a particular point of setup. They can be mixed and matched or ignored entirely (for instance, I myself never use them. I have a few of my own that I’ve made that set up my favourite display settings (like tinted icons), but I start each project from the ground up with nothing in the Binder).
Thanks, Amber. I’m under a very tight deadline on this and wanted all the structural support I could get, so wanted to make sure I chose the right template. I understand your point about customizing.
I would give the “General Non-Fiction” template a look-through as its default Binder layout will be more appropriate and it has some compile-time help that may be of use. The file at the top of the Binder (marked with a blue icon) explains what the template sets out to provide, and a sample PDF in the Binder will demonstrate default output. Where the non-fiction template will help you, if you need it, is in numbering figures and tables. The macros that we’ve developed for this template are not available in the novel template (though they are just Compile tricks that could be copied to any project).
Thank you, again!