Do you recommend anyone course online?
Personally, I don’t. Best to dive in and write!
There’s plenty of resources at hand
- Walk through Scrivener’s official tutorial
- Watch the videos
- Read the manual
- Ask questions in the Forum as needed -> we’re a friendly bunch
- There’s also some good How-to books as well.
If you find a good free online course, I’d say it can’t hurt to give it a look. But there are a number of paid courses/trainings out there that I would steer clear of. Mainly because they’re not going to give you any additional information that you can’t pick up from thoroughly working through the tutorial, giving the manual a read, and asking any questions on this – completely free – forum.
The benefit of online courses is that they show you how best to figure out the things that you would most likely be able to figure out on your own simply by using the program and working through its settings using trial and error. They’ve done the trial and error and know what does what, so that you don’t have to learn why something does what it does, you just know that it does it. Personally, I think the best learning comes from working with something and figuring it out, rather than having someone tell me how to work with it.
Your results may vary, though.
I bought an e-book which actually helped me. I like books.
I got through 50% of David Lee Martin’s Udemy course called LEARN SCRIVENER - A Quick & Easy Guide and found it to be worth every penny. He demonstrates all the robust capabilities, including back up to Drop box on closing. Don’t ask why I think this is a grand tool. You can scan the subjects of each video and select the one you need.
Cheers,
KathPoole 8)
I liked “Writing a Novel with Scrivener” by David Hewson very much.
If you are looking for a German book, I recommend my own “Scrivener: Romane, Sach- und Drehbücher professionell schreiben” 
I love Karen Prince’s work: freebies and paid. She’s a great person to boot. Here’s her URL: karen-prince.com/
I know it has been a while but I think it is worth resurrecting this thread, as UDEMY is currently having a sale with many courses (including Scrivener courses and writing courses) available for USD$10 / AUD $15
see: udemy.com/courses/search/?q … =scrivener
This offer is evidently available until August 31 2017.
KathPoole, above, stated she was happy with David Lee Martin’s Udemy course called LEARN SCRIVENER - A Quick & Easy Guide.
I have enjoyed youtube tutorial by Karen Prince and her course - Scrivener | Full Course on How to Write a Book in Scrivener - looks pretty good also.
Both are rated 4.7/5, both are on sale for the price noted above.
I’m just tossing up between the two… I think I prefer karen’s narration so will probably go with hers.
Cheers all
Well, I have just finished the course by Karen Price (Scrivener | Full Course on How to Write a Book in Scrivener), and I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone new to scrivener. I had been getting a bit frustrated with scrivener but now I have a much better understanding of it and a renewed confidence allowing me to get back into the writing…
The udemy AUD$15 sale ($USD10 I believe) is still on for the next few days if anyone is interested.
Cheers
I’m about to dive in and learn Scrivener, but wondered whether one of the online courses would help speed the process?
Are there any courses/resources you’d recommend? Or any that you would recommend avoiding?
Hi Everyone,
I’m new to Scrivener and am struggling with the manual and online tutorials. I find that critical steps are often skipped. For example, some tutorials kept saying to click “draft.” I could not find draft for days. Finally, I found a video in which someone explained that you have to rename a folder to “draft.” Not very helpful and very frustrating for days.
Is there someone out there who teaches this stuff live? By phone or in person or something? Pouring through endless tutorials and text to arrive at no answer after a week is getting tedious. I’m sure someone who is familiar with the program could walk me through everything I want to know in less than half an hour.
Is such a service available?
Thank you,
Mickey
If you haven’t done it yet, in Scrivener try Help → Interactive Tutorial
Hi Krastev,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I tried those. It’s one of the sources that mislead me for days on the non-existent “draft” folder. I’m hoping to find some guidance on effective outlining tools and strategies. Course, video, phone call, anything short and sweet.
Thanks,
Mickey
Scrivener projects come with three fundamental folders, Draft, Research and Trash.They can be renamed but not deleted. In some of the available Project Templates, like “Novel” for instance, Draft is named ?Manuscript", that’s all … it’s the same thing as the Draft folder you’re concerned about. You don’t need to create a separate folder called “Draft”.
Hope that helps.
Mark
Thanks Mark. Yes, in a few days I did learn that. I’m just going to start. Not worth hunting around for something I don’t know even exists.
I figured out my method of outlining. I just taped a bunch blank paper on the wall. Then once I’m happy with that structure, I’ll put it into Scrivener. I supposed everyone has their own method. First book. Had no idea how to approach it. Starting in Scrivener is not for me. Thanks for all the replies!
Thanks for the feedback on the tutorial. I’m having some difficulties locating the specific areas of confusion that you are referring to. I’ll go over the areas we wrote to address this point of confusion directly, so that you know where they are and can determine whether you might have skipped them or somehow missed the point—either could be helpful in improving them.
The official tutorial project (accessed from the Help menu) does not have a renamed Draft folder in it. The word “Draft” will be in front of you when it says:
“So let’s dive in. In the binder sidebar, you will see a folder entitled ‘Draft’. Beneath this, indented, you will see ‘The Basics’, ‘Get Oriented’, ‘Main Interface’ and more. To get started, click on ‘Main Interface’.”
Most will probably gloss over on that one, it’s a casual mention that is mainly an instruction on where to click next, where the draft is only provided as a landmark to look for. We don’t really get into the Draft as a concept until the section titled, “The Binder”, where we find this:
“Note: All folders and files can be renamed, even the special folders. In some of Scrivener’s project templates, the Draft folder has a different name, such as ‘Manuscript’.”
It should be noted this is where the so-called special folders are being described for their purposes—where you would most likely be looking for “Draft” yourself and maybe even experimenting with it or thinking about it (I’d say the previous mention in the introduction is probably something most people gloss over). This is where you are learning about what the draft is. From this tutorial you have a clear and present example of it to the left, and an explanation for why it might be called “Boomerang Sunrise” in your test project.
So that’s the tutorial. The user manual also goes over the special folders, naturally, and has this to say in the quick introduction to the interface (which is also the first instance of the phrase “draft folder”, for those searching for it):
“[The draft] folder will sometimes be referred to by other names in some of the built-in templates. If you cannot find a folder called ‘Draft’, look for the special icon as seen in Figure 4.5.”
But in the formal long description of the three special folders, where the Draft folder is described in great detail, there is a large yellow warning box in the middle of page 94, titled, “My project doesn’t have a ‘Draft’ folder”, which again goes over how it can be renamed and how some of our templates do so. It again refers one to the special icon, and as well to the Navigate ▸ Reveal Draft Folder menu command, which will always do just that, no matter what you call it.
When you looked up what the draft folder is, in the manual, what could have been done better than the screenshot and the explanations? When you were going through the tutorial and it said there was a draft folder in the binder, what caused that to be missed? Was a matter of methodology, where you were looking in different places? Were you skimming, and if so, at what point of the tutorial were you directed to reference the draft folder and found you could not? Etc. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.