by Debbie Burke
Public domain photo
When it comes to learning new technology tricks, I’m definitely an old dog. But if there’s a way to learn a new trick in a program I already use, rather than having to master a whole new program, I’m thrilled.
In this case, the new trick is in Word.
Recently I stumbled on a post by Wendy Lyons Sunshine entitled How to Teach Word a Scrivener Trick on Jane Friedman’s always informative blog.
Scrivener is a popular and powerful writing program that number of TKZers use and swear by. One Scrivener feature that’s always appealed to me is the corkboard. You write each scene on a virtual index card. Then if you discover problems with timeline or continuity, you can easily rearrange scene order.
Unfortunately, despite taking several classes in Scrivener, I never mastered the learning curve.
So I continue to use Word since it’s the preferred program for most publications I write for.
For my novel first drafts, I write in scenes, separated by white space and asterisks. In later drafts, I divide scenes into chapters. Some chapters are only one scene long, others are three to five scenes.
A problem arises when I write scenes out of order. That leads to a jumble of scenes that need to be rearranged before completing the final draft.
This is where we pantsers get in trouble. You outliners in the audience, feel free to smirk here.
Eventually I have to find those out-of-order scenes buried in the 75-80K manuscript and, using cut and paste, reposition them where they should be. But locating those scenes, as well as their new position, can be a pain in the posterior.
Being old school, I write a summary of each scene on a 3X5 card. I lay the deck of cards on the living room floor and rearrange them as needed until the scene order is correct.
But…the Word doc still needs to be changed. That requires a lot of scrolling back and forth to find the right scene, highlight and cut it, then more scrolling to paste it into its new location.
Yes, outliners, I hear you snickering. If you had an outline, this problem wouldn’t come up.
But it turns out Word has a trick to mark scenes so they’re easy to find.
Now I’ll give the floor to Wendy since she explains it very well. She graciously granted permission to quote the following excerpt:
“Insert descriptive headings throughout the manuscript. You might insert a heading above each:
- Chapter
- Section
- Scene
- Any unit of content that needs to be easily identified or moved.
The goal is to clearly identify where a chunk of content begins. By default, that chunk ends where the next chunk (denoted by a heading of the same level) begins.
Assign styles:
Open Word “Styles” and assign each of the descriptive headings a standardized heading style. Assign “heading 1” style to chapter titles, then assign “heading 2” to other types of content.
Open the Navigation Pane
Now that headings are set up, open the navigation pane via View > Show > Navigation Pane. The Navigation Pane will display vertically along the left of the screen.
Use the Navigation Pane two ways. First, you can navigate to specific content by clicking on that specific heading. Second, and most wonderfully, you can reorganize content by dragging and dropping the headings. Navigation Pane headings behave much like Scrivener’s index cards and are easily shuffled around.
Dragging a heading moves all associated content together in one bundle. This works beautifully across a large document and is far easier than trying to cut/paste/or drag blocks many pages apart.
Fiction writers can adjust this approach for their needs by crafting headings to describe POV, scene, location, interiority, backstory, etc.”
Thanks for making my life easier, Wendy!
After reading her instructions, I went through my WIP (working title Fruit of the Poisonous Tree) and chose Heading 2 for the beginning of each scene. Still using Heading 2, I wrote a brief summary of that scene, so it stands out easily in the manuscript.
Now, within the Word doc, I can easily jump to the summary of each scene. No more wasted time, scrolling through pages, searching for the parts that need to be cut and pasted to different locations.
When the scenes are in correct order, then I’ll place the chapter breaks, using Heading 1. That makes formatting easy for Kindle Direct Publishing and Draft2Digital.
Best of all, this new trick is within Word so I don’t need to learn a whole new program to accomplish what I need.
Photo credit: Lars Curfs CC-BY-SA-3.0
Now I’m still an old dog, but a happy one.
~~~
Many thanks to Wendy Lyons Sunshine and Jane Friedman for their kind permission to quote.
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TKZers, were you aware of this capability in Word?
How do you keep track of scenes and rearrange them in your manuscript?
Do you know any other Word tricks to share?
Great post, Debbie. Welcome to the “styles” secret. Google Docs has the same thing.
I use Scrivener, but I write a detailed outline in Google Docs. And I use the styles format to find scenes quickly and move things around.
Thanks for explaining this clearly. I hope it will help many readers.
Have a great day!
Thanks, Steve. Can I hire you to outline for me 😉
Credit goes to Wendy for the clear explanation.
I use Styles for chapter headings and scene breaks – have been doing that for a long, long time, and always have the navigation sidebar open.
I’ve written chapter/scene descriptions along with other things I need to track (days, time, characters, setting, etc.) and a short summary in an Excel spreadsheet. Haven’t thought about doing it in the ms, though. Might help me remember to do it! I can be lazy about that.
Terry, an Excel spreadsheet sounds like a great idea to keep track of timelines. Thanks for the suggestion.
Alas I have never mastered the corkboard/cards in Scrivener. I feel your pain.
Thanks, Jane. Scrivener is a great program but my brain isn’t great enough to grasp it!
Great post, Debbie.
I just wanted to put here that I wrote an article on Jane’s blog. It was published on April 30, and it’s about opening chapters.
Kudos for your excellent post on Jane Friedman, Azali! I remember reading it but didn’t connect it with your name.
Here’s the link: https://janefriedman.com/avoid-persevere-endure-fight-4-goals-for-unforgettable-opening-scenes/
The Word Styles are designed for outlining. I use them all the time. In Outline View you can move sections around very easily.
Styles are also what drives the table of contents. Many Word users make the mistake of creating the TOC first. It is the last thing to create. If you have used your styles correctly, the TOC lines up perfectly. And, if you go back and add three pages to chapter 17, recalculating the TOC picks up the change and renumbers everything.
What a helpful tip, Alan! I know many writer who’ve struggled for hours on TOCs.
I use Draft2Digital for formatting and they handle TOC and page numbering but it’s good to know that Word can also.
Great info, Debbie.
I had not heard of this technique/function in Word. You can bet I’ll be messing around with it, 95% pantser that I am!
🙂
Deb, we pantsers need a little organizational assistance! This tip has already saved me considerable time.
Great article, Debbie! I still do not like Word, but…if I used it to write my ms, this would make it easier.
I write in Scrivener and each scene is a chapter. To keep up with my timeline, when I start a new chapter, I use the left sidebar to name my POV character for that scene, the date and usually the time of day.
Pat, if I had my way, I’d still be using WordStar!
When you’re submitting for publication, do you convert from Scrivener to Word and then export the Word file?
Great information, Debbie. Although I use Scrivener now, I wrote my first novel in Word, and I remember the difficulties of moving things around.
Although I use Scrivener, I don’t use the corkboard feature. I prefer to use my “Post-it notes on the closet doors” method. 🙂
Oh, but I use Scrivener’s Outline feature to print an outline of the WIP with summary description and word count for each scene.
Love your Post-it notes on closet doors, Kay! Much more user friendly than my index cards–they require too much getting up and down on the living room floor.
Maybe I’ll give Scrivener another try with the next book.
Great tips, Debbie. I did play around with the navigation pane in Word years ago, but not to this level. That’s impressive. However, I gave up using Word for my novels since the current online version wants the computer running it connected to the internet, and my writing computer (a Mac Mini) is offline. A Windows-using friend in my writer’s group suggested Libre Office, which works just fine. I’ll have to see can provide a similar navigation and section option that you shared.
I’m an outliner, but no smirking here. I do at times write out of order. However, when I do, it’s always a scene further in the story, like the climax/confrontation or the validation at the end, so it’s easy to track. I can see for someone who writes much more non-linear fashion today’s tip would be invaluable.
Dale, you’re too nice to smirk!
MS is forcing their subscription version of Word in the Office suite. I own my own copy and resist “renting” from them.
Good to know about Libre Office. Thanks!
I don’t use Styles in Word, Debbie. I write the first draft in Word, then load the manuscript into Atticus, where I can easily move scenes if need be. But I also plan my milestones in advance, so I rarely do. Still enjoyed learning a new Word trick, though. Thank you!
Sue, a couple of years ago, I started to use Atticus but then my PC died and I switched to Mac. Thanks for bringing up another option for our toolbelts.
Atticus works great on a Mac, Debbie. Just FYI in case you want to jump back in.
Good tip, Debbie. I’m a semi-pantser (Outline and them modify it a lot). Mostly I use the scribbled notes in a massive mess on my desk method.
Yes, scribbled notes on the messy desk is my natural style too, Elaine! Unfortunately my handwriting is getting so bad, I can’t read most of them.
That is one of the things I learned when formatting in Word. I still find word clunky and difficult to use when revising/editing.
I’ll agree, Scrivener has a steep learning curve. I ended up taking a class to learn how to use it effectively and was off and running. It is totally customized for me along with my template for writing. I keep customizing it and saving the template so things are easy.
Word is good if you know how to format like Wendy showed you, But even with that I was all over the place with research, story bible, character bibles, etc and was frustrated with Word’s lack of functionality.
Scrivener and Word are the only two programs I use since I work off-line a lot and if the program can’t be used off-line, it is essentially useless for me. When you have limited internet, you don’t need totally online programs.
Glad you picked up a new trick but I’ll stick with Scrivener.
Thanks for chiming in as another happy Scrivener user, Barbara. I should take another class–maybe it will finally click for me.