Using Collections a Deep Dive

Uses for Collections:

You can use either type of Collection for many of the possible uses listed below, but with Static (Standard) Collections you can add or delete documents as you see fit. The beauty of collections is they can be created, deleted, and altered without ever changing a single word in your novel/project/Binder.

Standard Collections Possible Uses:

— Experiment with an alternate scene flow without disrupting the original layout. Use the Scrivenings View to read this as one continuous document. Add any scenes you need and rearrange their order any way you want to evaluate alternative versions of your story.

— Narrow searches. If you use a collection and select all the files (Ctrl + A) you can use the Project Search option of searching in the (current)Binder Selection Only to limit the documents searched. This allows you to search just a character’s group of Scenes, or a specific location for example.

— Collect all scenes that still need editing in one place and remove from the list as you complete editing. It can be very satisfying to see your edit list shrink. This can also be done with a Dynamic Collection and is often done using the Status of documents to sort files.

— Compile Collections: Designate items that you wish to share with another author using one of the various syncing methods. You can choose to export a specific collection as a means of collaboration or send samples of your work to Beta Readers or Editors. Any Collection can be chosen to compile as a word, pdf, or ebook file if needed. (Either Static or Dynamic Collections can be used for this purpose.)

— Test Compile Formats: Use a small collection of one to two chapters with front and back matter to work out the kinks in a Compile Format, without having to compile the whole book.

— Collect special groups of files/folders for future to follow story themes, foreshadowing, romances, subplots, etc.

— Have a Collection for each main character to see their story as one continuous arc. You can do this for each character to make sure their individual story is coherent and consistent.

— Follow a key item in the story. A magical sword, or spell book. Just look at the scenes where this appears.

— Use a collection to gather all the scenes occurring in one location to make sure your details remain consistent.

— Research Collections- You can make collections of key research information to have available to refer to grouped according to topic or need. Start with an initial Project Search and Save the Search as a Collection. This is a Dynamic Collection and files cannot be added or subtracted directly from this. However, if you use the Menu command Navigate > Collections > Convert to a Standard (Static) Collection, then the Collection can be modified like any standard Collection. Now open this Collection and use the bent arrow to open the whole collection in the Editor. Click on the Icon in the Editor header bar and lock in place. Now you can drag any Binder files or folders into this collection as you see fit or want to organize it. (See below)

Dynamic Collections:

These use predefined search parameters to check the project EVERY time you click on the collection to give you the latest information. You do not need to input the search criteria each time with this method. However, documents cannot be manually added to these types of Collections.

Use these to do the following:

— Create a collection of scenes for one character, or a group of scenes occuring in a set location that would grow as you write the novel.

— Search for any occurrence of a word or words you tend to overuse to edit your novel.

— Keyword Searches (one or multiple). Look for the group of scenes that occur in a specific location, have a certain character or a combination of both. Create collections that will grow as your novel does based on criteria you choose. You can follow specific POV characters, themes, locations, times in your stories or metadata such as keywords, labels, status, custom metadata. Every time you click on a Dynamic Collection it does a new search based on your original search criteria, so the Collection has the latest information and will grow as your story does. You can search for multiple keywords at one time to look for documents that satisfy more than one search at a time.

— Do searches by Date modified or created. You could use a Dynamic Collection to pull all documents created or modified (Modified will include both documents newly created and newly modified as one group.) Thus, you could use this to find all recently changed documents set to a certain parameter like the last week, or month.

— Search other Metadata such as labels, status, section types, and custom metadata

— Create Collections of themes or story arcs such as a romantic plot line in the story.

— Create a collection of scenes where two characters interact, either romantically or the clash between the hero and the villain.

— Use collections to manage your plot elements or subplots. For a mystery novel, this would include clues, red herrings, suspects, etc. By tagging with specific keywords, label colors, or status.)

While editing, you may create a large number of Collections. Whenever you think of something that needs checking over the entire novel, you can create a Collection. If you tag documents with labels, keywords, or a piece of metadata (such as status, labels or custom metadata), then when you finish editing and remove or change the tag used in the particular Dynamic Search Collection, then the corrected item will no longer appear in that Collection when you rerun your search by opening the Dynamic Collection. This gives you a way to visually monitor your editing progress as the list shrinks with every edit.

— A Timeline Collection. The outliner can sort metadata columns including a story timeline in chronological order if you include dates as an option in custom metadata. These files can then by right clicking on all of them be displayed in the Binder. Now, right clicking on the Binder documents allows them to be added to any collection or create a new timeline one with scenes in chronological order. This can be crucial in mysteries and crime dramas.

Note: Ordering Scenes chronologically in a Collection has no effect on the binder. (Collections are essentially a list of shortcuts/links to files and folders in the Binder.) This can be done manually or using metadata.

— Use Collections to create an alternate story timeline or arrangement of scenes to explore the best way to present your story without changing the current version. (Rearranging a story timeline is often easier to do with a Static Collection.)