Scrivener for Windows available for pre-order

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Nov 1, 2011 at 08:55 PM

I haven’t used Storybook, but have looked it over at its web site. It seems a pretty formidable application for writing fiction. But that’s exactly how it differs from Scrivener, which has a lot more flexibility built in to allow you to use it for any type of writing. I don’t write novels, so I wouldn’t know this for sure, but perhaps an application like Storybook would be a better solution for a novelist. It seems especially strong at tracking characters. For any other type of writing, it seems to me, Scrivener would prove more useful.

Here are a few of the ways I see the two applications differing:

Scrivener has an outline view.

Scrivener has the “Scrivenings” view, which allows you to view any number of separate pieces of your project together in one screen. This is an especially important view, in my opinion. (And yes, this is available in the Windows version.)

With Scrivener, you can build whatever structure you want or need for storing your drafts and research materials for a project.

Scrivener allows you to add a lot of meta data to any entry. (The Mac version now allows you to create your own meta-data fields, a feature not yet available for Windows.)

Scrivener has a well-developed system for taking “snapshots” of your documents, so you can keep track of changes, and revert to a previous version if necessary. (I didn’t see this feature on Storybook, but I could have missed it.)

But Storybook has lots of features for tracking characters, including an interesting diagramatic approach called Memoria.

Anyway, that’s my quick take. I hope it answers your question.

Steve Z.

pereh wrote:
>Hello,
> >I have no in-depth knowledge of software for writing books, so I would really
>be thankful for some kind of comparison of Scrivener and Storybook. To me, these look
>very similar.
> >Thank you.