Scrivener or Dabble? Thoughts on the nitty gritty of the two programs?

[WasAnn]

It's almost nanowrimo time, and of course, winners will get yummy discounts on programs and such. I bought Scrivener a long time ago, didn't like it much since I'm a pantser, and never transferred it to my new computer.

Times have changed.

I've got a new world in the mixer and it's a huge one. I can't pants this. I've created a huge wiki already, but as I write, I'd like to be able to leverage visual and organizational cuing to help keep things tidy. Stuff like indexing out the major plot points, relationships, who's on top, villains, etc. I'd like it to work for many books in that world as well, so I can be sure I'm on the right track writing by plotting out what has to happen in each book for every single thing first. To clarify: I'm beyond the world building and moving on to the actual writing part.

I'd considered Scrivener again, but there's something called Dabble now too. It's subscription and even with the discount would be twice as much as Scrivener for the first year. Then more every year after rather than a one time buy. It looks pretty powerful, but I thought that about scrivener back in the day as well.

Anyone have any thoughts on how they use either program, specific benefits they might want to note? Down sides? Things they don't have but should? Other programs? Any input would be much appreciated.

[Simon Haynes]

Freemind?

You can create a huge mindmap, fold bits up, add nodes at will and it costs nothing.

[WasAnn]

Freemind?

You can create a huge mindmap, fold bits up, add nodes at will and it costs nothing.

I downloaded Freemind and played around with it. Great visualization, but not for writing. Also, I found creating a wiki worked better for the world stuff. I now love my wiki, which I made using Google Sites of all things. So lovely, so full of words...

Back on topic, I like structure for writing. Scrivener has that busy old corkboard, but I'm looking beyond that. Dabble looked nice, but having not used it, I'm hoping there are opinions.

[Dormouse]

I've not used Dabble, bit it seems to have little in common with Scrivener apart from the cards.
Much less complex (fewer features), much more expensive, online not local.
But having the visual side work the way you want is critical for productivity. Best if you can be clear what works and what doesn't work for you.

Gingko has an interesting use of cards too. Easy to use once you have adjusted to it.  There's a desktop program as well as the online app, but available on different websites. So one local, one online but can be synchronised. Probably not what I'd use for complex plotting, but everything is very personal and I'm sure many writers do.

There's also WriteitNow. Again uses cards. Slightly more rigid/structured and oriented to new users or inexperienced writers. Simpler than Scrivener; I have noticed some comments from writers who started with this program and moved to Scrivener after writing a few books because they were looking for some particular advanced features.

The old Writers Cafe program had a similar take on the card system, but Anthemion Software have withdrawn it from sale now after a short period of being free. Hadn't been updated in ages but still works if you can find a code.

[elleoco]

What made you think about Dabble? Since I never heard of it, I went looking and couldn't find much except their own website, where I couldn't find screenshots or get much of a feel for it. I'm not curious enough to download their trial.

I came to Scrivener after people posted screenshots of Scriv with their work at that other place. It may even have been long enough ago it was still Kindle Boards. Looking at those, I could see how much easier revisions I'd just struggled through would be and other advantages so tried it. Am still using it but my work isn't anything like as complicated as the project you're talking about.

Anyway (you can tell I'm procrastinating instead of doing what I should, can't you?) I then searched for reviews of writing software and was surprised at how many such programs there are. Found this,

https://www.toptenreviews.com/best-creative-writing-software

which made me curious enough to go to the full review of WriteItNow,

https://www.toptenreviews.com/creative-writing-software-writeitnow-review

Lots of screenshots there and on the WriteItNow site. Some interesting stuff. It looks like it's a flat $60 price. If I weren't happy with Scriv (which I use in only the most basic ways), I'd investigate further, although the graphic charts, mind maps, whatever are lost on me. I'm not a visual person and little boxes with lines running all over do nothing for me.

[APP]

I've used Scrivener since 2009, and I'd never consider switching. There's a learning curve to the program, but once you find the features you like/need, there's no need learn any of the other features. I've heard it's great for screen plays, non-fiction with lots of footnotes, etc., but since I'm not interested in any of those features, I don't know anything about them. I just write fiction.

ETA: I forgot to mention what I consider a great feature. It allows you to export what you've written to mobi and epub formats, as well as a docx. This means once I export it, all I have to do is upload it to Amazon, Kobo, etc.

[Dormouse]

I'd assumed from the word visualisation and mentioning Scrivener and Dabble, meant that you were looking at a program using cards.

Since you may not, I can think of two alternatives.
The first is Write Brothers' Outline 4D. Old program, but still works perfectly well. Offers a switch from outline view to story line. Very frequent sales. Windows only. Lots of things I like about it, but I've never been drawn to the idea of actually writing in it. But then, I am happy in writing in one program and organising in another.

The other is Beth Turnage's Google Based System. I haven't tried it, but thought it looked quite interesting and leverages colour.
One other thing, an alternative Google system would be to use Keep for organisation and writing scenes and Docs for putting the scenes in chapters. There are many add-ons that make it easy to automate. I don't like the lack of control of the position of the Keep notes to try this myself. But most of the other systems are rigid too.

[j tanner]

I switched from Word (or the various open source Office clones) to Scrivener with my current novel project and found it to be a fairly seamless transition. I only needed to learn a few key differences (folders and new text files for acts/chapters rather than one huge doc) and then added a few things that were helpful like character info, color-coding chapters by POV character, and so on. Scrivener is way deeper than I'm currently using but I'll figure it out as needed. Even in my surface level usage, I've found it to be an improvement.

I'll be testing their compile soon which I've heard horror stories about, but if it's trouble I'll just do it in Calibre like before.

[elleoco]

I'll be testing their compile soon which I've heard horror stories about, but if it's trouble I'll just do it in Calibre like before.

I've never used Scrivener to compile a publish-ready mobi or epub. Once I'm close to done with a story, I just use defaults to get it out of Scriv and into rtf (because I use WordPerfect, not Word) for editing and proofreading. After that I used to put it into mobi format via html and a conversion program but now use Vellum. So how difficult Scriv's Compile is depends a lot of whether you just want your story out of it or whether you want it out and in finished form to publish.

When I did mobis via the old pre-version 3 Scriv for beta readers, it did take me several hours to figure out how and get something decent for them, but at least once you work it out, you can save the settings. (When I upgraded to 3.0, before I did any work in it, I ran a test of Compile on those default settings and a couple chapters of an old project just to make sure I could get my project out of the program.)

[She-la-te-da]

I've seen some people talking about a program called Manuskript (I think it's spelled that way). Supposed to be very like Scrivener. I haven't looked at it because I'm used to Scrivener (I found it when it was still called Kindle Boards, so long ago!), and don't want to mess around with anything else.

I used to use yWriter, and liked that. I'm a pantser, and the great thing about it and Scrivener is that you can use what you want and ignore anything else. It's great for keeping things together, which I like a lot better than having to search through multiple Word files.

[Dormouse]

I've seen some people talking about a program called Manuskript

Very early stage of development (0.10). Not really suitable for active use for anyone except the IT adept. And even then a lot of time is likely to be spent dealing with bugs or features that don't run smoothly.
Potentially interesting but too early for anyone who wants to make money writing.