Last week I was sent a link to something interesting - Scrivner, writing software package that I've long been interested in (and just as long been miffed that they were mac-only) was holding an open windows beta*. It is, unfortunately, not a beta of their Scrivner 2.0 version, but an earlier version (I say unfortunately, because some of the stuff in Scrivner2.0 for mac looks very problem-solvy for the few shortcomings I've found) but I downloaded it, dutifully went through their introduction video and tutorials and had a play.

I should mention, before I get into this, that Scrivner's having a promotion at the moment - anyone who enters and wins Nano gets Scrivner for windows half-price.

Like yWriter, Scrivner is writer's software that knows its place - which is to get the hell out of the way of the writer and let them write. There are no questions, character profiles, location profiles, goal mapping, etc (though you can certainly - and easily - set those up as a template if you want them), no pre-structured outline or expectation that you're going to write a certain way. It's designed to be broader than yWriter - for people writing research papers, screenplays, articles, anything - so Scrivner avoids anything that would centre the software as "software for novelists". This may be a turnoff for you, if you want something that feels like "Novel Writing Software(tm)", but I find it refreshing. It means the software can't have preconceptions about how I'm going to work.

Work Structure

Scrivner allows you to split your work into arbitrary folders and documents. Create folders and subfolders and sub-sub-subfolders if you like, and be as inconsistent with what 'level' each one is, Scrivner doesn't care. In the end, it'll just run through the folders, 'compiling' the draft in the order you've given into one long MS. Personally, this is a great approach for me, and an improvement over yWriter's more rigid chapter-and-scene structure.

Multiple views

You can view your work from an outline view - a grid with the document or folder synopsis and some other information, or as a 'corkboard' where the synopsis of each document in the current folder is displayed as an index card. Unfortunately, folders within the folder you're viewing only display their own summary, anything inside them is not displayed - something which Scrivner 2.0 seems to address, and I must admit, does bug me a lot - I'd really like to be able to see all the documents on the index cards without removing my folder-structure. As it is, you can only ever view one 'level' at a time on the corkboard. But, any changes you make to the order of things on the board (or in the outline) are immediately reflected in the folder structure beside it.

There's a third view called "Scrivenings", where each document is displayed in order, as if it was the finished 'compiled' manuscript - great for judging the tone from endings to beginnings.

Extras

So - flexible structure, multiple views, depending on what kind and how much information I want to see, and interlinked structures so I can make changes from any of those views. There's also some extra data - you can add a custom label or status to a document or folder, add keywords, notes, annotations and footnotes, references to other documents (that you can view while you're writing, split-screen) and a few other things I'm glossing over.

There's also 'snapshots', which I think is awesome - the ability to basically make a backup of a document before you change it, and look at / return to it later. Personally, I save major draft revisions as entirely different documents, but for people who are less anal-retentive about traceability, snapshots is probably an ideal revision-control system.

I should also state again, so it's obvious, that if you do want a certain structure - a folio of character bio's, location information, item notes, etc that you can set all that up as a template for yourself. The flexibility includes the ability to create a rigid structure.

What's missing

As I said before - the fact that the corkboard can't show sub-levels really gets to me - I really enjoy that visualisation of the story, and I'd love to be able to see the whole thing that way, not just the current level. There are a few other things that Scrivner's missing that you may or may not find problematic:

• No character POV indications. As it's broad-spectrum, there's no concept of 'characters' to Scrivner, or 'point of view'. You can work around this with labels - create a label that says 'Bob's POV' for example, but you can only add one label to a document/folder. You can also do it with keyboards, but again, that's not ideal. 
• No timelines or timestamps. The creator has explained this away as not being able to come up with a good way for it to interrelate with the folder structure, which makes sense - stories aren't necessarily in order, and the software has no way of knowing whether you're writing chronologically or what. (Personally, I think he could manage it just fine with his 'collections' feature, but it's not a big deal to me - these kinds of features involve a lot of time spent fiddling with information bits like days and hours etc instead of focussing on what's really important. Though I admit, the idea of a timeline feature is nice, I have to admit I never bothered using yWriter's properly).
• Project targets and project planning is pretty light-on. You can make a target word count for the current session, the document/folder and a total target for your project, and that's it. No targets-per-day, or per-week, by-due-date, etc. yWriter's project planning features are certainly much better than this one - but then again, you can do the same thing for yourself with a post-it, a calendar and a pencil.
• No free-form-ideas-play area. There's a scratchpad, but nowhere where you can do anything concept-map-y or similar.
• Anything else very-specifically-novel-writing-esque. But that may or may not be a good thing, for you.
• You can't edit the files outside Scrivner. This is a major drawback for me - I hate being stuck with software, especially software that doesn't run on all platforms (you can run this on 'nix with Wine, but that requires privileges that you may not have if working on a network.). While they are saved in .rtf format, apparently editing them can lead to corrupting stuff. The workaround is to use the export/import feature whenever you want to work outside Scrivner, which is okay for the occasional use, but less idea as a weekly habit.

Interface and introductions

For the less-than-comfortable with computers, I also have to mention that the interface is very simple and clean, and that their video introduction and tutorials are very good - this is probably the most accessible piece of software-for-writers I've found, and probably the one I'd recommend for anyone just starting to migrate to writing on PC. Perhaps wait until after the beta, though - the full software's slated for release in January for $40 (pocket change compared to what some companies charge these days... Outline 4D changes twice that for half the functionality).

Conclusion

I'm pretty much sold, I have to say - Scrivner is replacing yWriter as my go-to application.  I'm even toying with the idea of picking up a cheap macbook somewhere so I can use Scrivner 2.0, when it comes out. The two versions are compatible with each other, after all, and Scrivner 2.0 promises things like custom meta-data (create your own extra info, like timestamps and durations for the scenes), 'collections', so you can view all of (for example) one character's POV scenes without changing the structure of the story, and a free-format scratchpad-corkboard type thing as well as being able to view more than one 'level' of structure at a time on the corkboard, all of which are things I think I'd actually use.

*What on earth's a 'beta'?

A beta (short for 'beta test') is the manufacturer's way of finding the really odd bugs in their program by allowing interested users to play with it and (hopefully) find said bugs so they can be fixed before the official release. Usually the major errors have been ironed out during the alpha test (that's generally done by the programmers themselves) so all the major things should work, but as it's near-impossible to come up with all the different combinations of things the software will be asked to do 'in the wild', to test it properly, you need real users.

It's important to understand that software that's in beta can be unpredictable, prone to crashing, not doing what it's supposed to or sometimes doing very odd things - that's why it's in beta, and not in official release. It's always a "use at your own risk and backup regularly" situation. If you're not comfortable with that (or not comfortable with computers in general) I'd strongly recommend waiting a few months for the official release.

(For the sake of completeness: an open beta is one that anyone can participate in. A closed beta requires users to essentially apply to be part of the beta test - more often used in the games industry, usually to protect the saleability of the product long term. Scrivner is under open beta.)