Jennifer Crusie

New York Times bestselling and award-winning romantic novelist. Her novels include Bet Me and Sizzle.

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.