A pet peeve of mine is something I hear often regarding Scrivener-- "Scrivener is just too complicated!" On another popular online learning site, the description of a course for another writing software states "Focus on Writing! Not complicated software."

This is a quote of a rant from someone on Youtube who just watched a training video on Scrivener 3 (this is NOT unusual):

"Scrivener is unquestionably the King of the writer's fiefdom, and I use it and upgraded to v3, but OMG! All I want to do is what 90% of all other writers want to do--be able to write and edit a number of chapters and compile those chapters into paperback and ebooks for the Kindle and iPad. I never did figure out the compile features in the last two versions, but I was able to stumble with settings and projects over a period of YEARS to produce my final product, and I'm thankful to have written and published a dozen books. But this upgrade to v3 is insane only because it is so unbelievably complicated, especially the compile options. My goodness, is there a human being on the face of the earth, besides the programmer (who must be a very sick genius) who can figure out how to use the compile features, let alone the 50,000 other features that no person in their right mind would ever use? 90% of us are shaking our heads wondering what the heck happened down at the creator's computer desk. Listen, I have learned that I'm a very average guy, a good writer, and normal in most respects, and I'm telling you that if I think this way, thousands upon thousands of other writers are thinking the same. The Scrivener Manual in pdf for v3 is 883 pages! Yea, no typo there--883 pages. I'm dying here with amusement, disbelief, and laughter. I just spent the last two days and about 18 hours trying to figure v3 out. There are many videos by the creator and many other Youtubers, but they only cover 150 features in v3. What about the other 49,850 features that we cannot figure out how to use. Look, I'm still using Scrivener because it is the best, and I wanted the mobile option, too, which it has, but I'm just saying, someone has to get a hold of the creative genius in his mother's basement and tell him to come out into the sunshine and see what the rest of us look like. And then he needs to design a very simple compile option and do very clean and straight forward how to videos. I think I know who this creator/programmer is. I think he is "Frederick 'Warlock' Kaludis" on the Bruce Willis movie "Live Free or Die Hard", you know the computer genius who lived in his mother's basement?"

* * *

Well, here is my rant: "Who complains that Adobe Photoshop is too complicated? Who complains that Excel is too complicated? Who complains that any professional level computer program is too complicated? These programs are POWERFUL and sometimes do require a steep learning curve but they are extremely flexible so that anyone can do whatever they need to do with the program from simple projects to extremely complicated projects. Scrivener isn't even close to being as complicated as most of those programs and it lets you work the way you need to work, and many of the features in Scrivener were directly requested by users of Scrivener, so you can't blame the creator."

The redesigned compile feature in Scrivener 3 is actually very well done, and if a person just slows down and thinks it through it is very logical and well thought out. I know how to use most of the features in Scrivener, it's not that hard.

To see what can be done with Scrivener, I recommend watching this video by Elaine Giles on Youtube, even though this is regarding Scrivener for iOs, the first 10 minutes shows how she uses Scrivener in General:

youtu.be/eWXsZ3bwJSg

Happy Writing!

Leisa Eining

Leisa Eining

Writer & Scrivener Enthusiast

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