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Two Minute Tip- Creating a Workflow
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How Scrivener Can Help You Complete ‘The Challenge’How Scrivener Can Help You Complete ‘The Challenge’
If you haven’t heard of Scrivener before or maybe you have, but you’re not sure how it works or what all the fuss is about, then I would like to take this opportunity to give you a brief explanation. Scrivener is a writing management software program that has amazing capabilities. It’s a fantastic app for writing long text such as family history stories but offers you many features that make it much more effective and efficient then let’s say Word.
Scrivener is built on four core ideas.
- Write your story in sections as small or as large as you like and easily rearrange them.
- Add synopses to sections, so that it is easy to work with an overview of your manuscript.
- View research and other parts of your writing side-by-side with your writing.
- Export your work using different formatting for different requirements.
Of course, this is stating the program very simply. While I’m confident, you can see how this program can benefit you in writing your family history stories. Let’s take it one step further and get a little more specific with a few tips on how it can help you in our upcoming Challenge.
Set Your Targets.
You can set a goal of how many words you want to write each day. Scrivener will keep track of your targets for you. Knowing you’ve met your target for today will make it that much easier to write tomorrow. You’ll find Targets under ‘Project’ the menu.
Incorporating Your Storyboard into Scrivener.
In our Challenge Prep Course, you learned how to create a storyboard, a story plan so that you know exactly what you are going to write each day during these four weeks. Create your storyboard in the Research section of your Draft. This will allow you to reference the storyboard as you go but will also enable you to have the freedom of keeping the storyboard as a separate entity from your draft.
Jump Between Sections.
It’s so easy in Scrivener to jump around and write different chapters or scenes as you see fit. You don’t have to write in chronological order. If you followed our Challenge Prep Course and created a storyboard then you can pull anyone of your scene cards and write.
Create Some Target Points.
If you don’t have a storyboard ready you can still create an outline to help guide you.
In the Draft folder in Outliner mode, create some blank documents with titles and short synopses for each of the critical scenes you identified for your storyline. This will help to tell you where you are going. Not as detailed as a storyboard but it can still be very helpful in keeping you focused. However, you can work towards filling in the spaces in between. They’ll sit in the binder and make sure you know where you’re going. If your story changes direction, you can change them or delete them as needed. Having a destination can help you to keep moving forward even if you decide to change course later.
Import Your Inspiration.
In Scrivener, you can split the editor, so that half of your screen is your story and the other half allows you to view your research. This can also be a great help when you are in need of inspiration. For example, when it comes to describing the setting of your story, take some time to search the Internet for some setting pictures of the location of your story. Upload them to your research files and then when it’s time to write that setting you’ll have inspiration at your fingertips.
Make a Research List in Document Notes.
This is probably one of my favourite tips. When you are writing the last thing you want to do is stop writing and get pulled on the Internet doing research. Keep your writing and research times separately. I like to use Project Notes to keep me on track. In the Inspector, under Project Notes, I create a new note that I’ll title Research List. As I’m writing and I come across something that I need a little more information on, rather than leaving my writing, I will make a small note in my manuscript where I want the information and then add the item to my Research List. When I’m not writing and I have some time, I can pull up my research list do some research.
Scrivener Special
This year during the Family History Writing Challenge, I am going to offer some small tips in our Daily Dose emails on using Scrivener and helping you to improve your use and knowledge of Scrivener. If you’ve been sitting on the fence about using Scrivener then this is the year you may want to give it a try.
A Discount From Scrivener
Scrivener has been kind enough to create a coupon code that will give you a 20% discount on the purchase of a standard licence for either Scrivener for macOS or Scrivener for Windows. For your discount use coupon code: FAMILYHISTORY
If you don’t yet own Scrivener, you can download the 30-day free trial. Click Here.
A Discount From Us
In addition to your Scrivener discount, we are offering a 30% discount off our eBook Scrivener for The Family Historian. It regularly sells for $9.99 we are offering it for $6.99. This price is in effect for the next 72 hours.
Extended to Monday Jan 22, 2018.
Use coupon code: challenge2018
If you’re still not sure about Scrivener, check out our Scrivener Video Page where you’ll find videos that will give you a look inside Scrivener.
20 Reasons You Should Blog Your Family History Book20 Reasons You Should Blog Your Family History Book
I believe in the paper book especially when it comes to leaving a lasting legacy of our family history. Don’t get me wrong, I own an e-reader, and I love technology, but paper books remain for me the best choices to record our family history stories. Paper has proven to stand the test of time, and it remains the best option for leaving a legacy for future descendants.
Who knows where technology will lead us in the years to come. I do know that printed books have been around for thousands of years, and despite our advancements in technology they continue to hold on. You do not have to worry about whether your stories will be found in the vast world of internet or whether your information saved on your computer or CDs can be opened and accessed by your descendants. Books don’t require any special technology to read them.
However, I also believe that we need to consider today’s technology for reaching out to our living relatives. I hear it over and again. Family historians tell me how their family is not interested. But we need to consider how and where we are delivering these stories.
E-books, blogs, e-newsletters, and Facebook are just a few ways we can convey our stories to our living relatives.
To reach out to our children and grandchildren, we need to deliver our stories to their laptops, tablets, and smartphones. We need to address our family, particularly the younger generation where they live – online. We need to distribute our family history, in short, digestible stories, that fit today’s fast-paced lifestyle.
Enter blogging, an excellent tool for providing your family history stories in small, easily digestible snippets for today’s generation.
However, blogging has an added advantage. Not only can you use it as a tool to entertain and educate your living family, but you can also curate those blog posts into a paper book to leave for your descendants. Family history blogs give you the advantage of addressing today’s generation but also leaving your stories in a printed format for tomorrow’s generation. We need to focus on both so that our descendants will find our stories.
Family history blogging offers a variety of benefits for family historians and should be taken seriously as a means of bringing your family history to the online world and in a printed book.
Here are 20 benefits you can gain from blogging your family history book.
- Simplify an overwhelming project–breaking down the task of writing a book into small blog posts.
- Organization – short blog posts help you to organize your book into chapters, isolate themes, and ancestors to focus on.
- Establish a writing routine – learn to write on a regular schedule compiling a collection of narratives.
- Develop your writing skills –with each post your writing will improve. (I promise)
- Find an audience for your book – introduce yourself as a writer to not only your family but a worldwide
- It’s free – write a blog for free. Work out your stories before you invest in printing costs.
- Get feedback from readers on your stories.
- Create an email list of readers who may want to buy your future book
- Draw out distant cousins and find new leads on brick walls.
- Promote your genealogy skills and or business.
- Develop your social media skills.
- Produce material to share with your social media networks.
- Test book ideas before you invest a great deal of time in writing them.
- Build your authority as an expert in your field.
- Reach a younger generation where they live – online.
- Leave a legacy online for future generations to find.
- Increase your income.
- Attract an agent or publisher.
- Attract media to your business.
- Accountability and deadlines – hold yourself accountable to an audience to produce content in a timely and consistent manner.
Do you want to learn how to write a family history blog? Join our Family History Blog Writing Course, our first online course in The Family History Writing Studio. Learn to write and publish your family history one post at a time!
Family History Blog Writing Course
This intimate, hands-on workshop will assist you in outlining and writing content for your family history blog for the purposes of curating your stories into a family history book.
Begins Jan 3rd. 2017, Registration now open.