In a perfect world, you’d remember every detail about your manuscript, and have a thorough book or series bible to back you up. In reality—if you’re anything like me—you’ve rewritten some scenes so many times you can’t remember which version of it you kept (did I mention the sister or leave her out?), and you definitely forgot to make a note of which type of gun your heroine carries (was it a Sig or a Beretta?).
Luckily, Scrivener makes it easy to search your manuscript, whether you “lost” a scene while trying to move it, or just can’t remember the details. Here are three easy ways to find what you need in Scrivener 3.
Using Project Search
In Scrivener 3, there’s a new Search button on the toolbar that aggregates several search-related functions, including Project Search (formerly a text box in the toolbar), Document Search, Synopsis Search, Find by Formatting, and Project Replace.
Accessing Project Search
To quickly access Project Search, click the magnifying glass portion of the Search button and a search box opens at the top of the Binder.
Type the word(s) you want to search for in the text box. The Binder changes to a list of documents that match your search criteria. When you select one of the documents in the list, you can scroll through to see any matches highlighted in yellow.
To clear the results and view the normal Binder list, press ESC on your keyboard, or click the X in the project search text box.
Changing the Search Parameters
Did you notice how the match in the example above was not the word I typed, but a word that contained my word? Sometimes that’s great. Other times not so much. In this section, we’ll look at how to adjust the parameters to get exactly what you’re looking for.
The settings for Project Search can be adjusted by clicking on the magnifying glass in the project search text box to change what elements Scrivener searches (e.g. All, Title, Text, etc), what type of search it performs, and which files it looks in. You can even make your search case sensitive, which is handy if you have a name that is also a word, like Bob or Trace.
Notice that project search text box displays the most recent type of search in gray text so you know if you need to make changes.
Determining Which Parts to Search
The “Search In” section of the menu allows you to narrow the elements Scrivener searches. You can only choose one option for this section. So, if you want to only search the text of your documents—as opposed to titles, synopses, notes, keywords, etc—you can choose Text. If you’re looking for a synopsis with a specific word in it, choose Synopsis.
TIP: If you choose All, and you don’t see a match in the text of the selected document, check in the synopsis, label value, title, etc.
Choosing What to Match
The “Operator” section is where you decide how specific the match should be. You can only choose one of the following options.
Any Word will return a match if one or more of the words—or parts of the words (e.g. form in formed)—are found in the document, in any order (not necessarily next to each other).
All Words will only return a match if all the words you typed in the search box—or parts of the words—are present in the document, in any order. So if you typed “big gun” Scrivener would return a match for a document that contains “the gunman was big.”
Exact Phrase returns a match only if all the words appear in a document in the exact order you typed them, but will still match partial words. So, “big gun” would return at match for “big gun” or “big gunman.”
Whole Word lets you narrow your search to exactly the word(s) you typed. So, “gun” would return a match for “gun” but not “gunman.” Keep in mind that while this is useful for names and words that are part of other words, you can also get tripped up by possessives. For example, “Bob” would return a match for “Bob” but not “Bob’” If you need both, try a different option.
RegEx allows you to use regular expressions. If you’re not familiar with them, don’t worry about it!
Deciding Where to Look and More
The “Options” Section lets you further narrow or expand your search. You can choose more than one option for this section.
There are a lot of handy choices here, like narrowing your search to only your Draft/Manuscript folder, excluding files that are in the Trash folder, making your search case sensitive (great for names of people or locations), and ignoring diacritics (accents and other marks used in some languages to change the pronunciation of a letter).
Search “Included” Documents refers to those documents that are marked to include in Compile. “Excluded” documents are those not marked for inclusion in Compile. You’ll find the Include in Compile option at the bottom right of the Editor pane, or in the Compile window.
Invert Results displays the opposite of your search request (e.g. if your search is set up to find all documents with the word “phenomenal” in them, choosing Invert Results will display all documents that do not contain that word).
Creating a Collection from a Project Search
There’s an option at the bottom of the project search menu to “Save Search as a Collection.” Choosing this option creates a collection based on the current search criteria. Anytime you view the collection, it will run the search and display the results. Handy for finding documents labeled as “To Do,” those written in a specific POV, articles written for a specific blog site, or anything else you might want to view regularly.
To view your collections, click the View button and choose Show Collections (or go to View>Show Collections).
Searching in Context with the Quick Search Toolbar
For a quick search that displays the results in context, use Scrivener’s new Quick Search feature. I often find it more useful than a project search because it displays the surrounding text, making it easier to determine which result is the one I want.
Unlike project search, though, you can’t adjust the settings for Quick Search. It only looks for the exact phrase you type.
The Quick Search is located in the center of the toolbar. When not being used to search, it displays the title of the document you’re currently working on.
Here’s how to use it.
Click in the text box and type a word or phrase to get a list of files containing those characters, organized by where they were found (e.g. Titles, Text, Synopsis).
Click on a listed item to view the document in the Editor, or choose Full Project Search to access the Project Search feature.
Searching by Formatting
Have you ever wanted to find all of your italicized words? Or maybe you’re a fan of annotations like I am and you want to go through them one by one during revisions. Find by Formatting is your friend. Here’s how it works.
Go to Edit>Find>Find by Formatting.
In the Find dropdown menu, choose the type of formatting you want to search for. In the example below, I want to find italicized text, so I chose Character Format, then clicked the I button for italics (and deselected anything else). [IMAGE: 8WITS-FindByFormatting]
If you’re looking for a specific word in your italics or annotations, type it in the Containing Text text box. TIP: I use this to search for annotations containing the word “excerpt,” which I use to mark passages of my book I may want to use in marketing materials.
Click Next to find the first instance, and repeat as needed until you find what you’re looking for.
There are other search options in Scrivener, but these are the ones I use most. What questions do you have for me about searching, or anything else, in Scrivener?
* * * * *
ABOUT GWEN
Gwen Hernandezis the author of Scrivener For Dummies and helps authors all over the world find the joy in Scrivener through her online courses, in-person workshops, and private training. She also writes romantic suspense (Men of Steele series).
In her spare time she likes to travel, read, jog, flail on a yoga mat, and explore southern California, where she currently lives with her husband and a lazy golden retriever.
Last time I visited Writers in the Storm, we talked about dialogue—what characters say out loud to themselves or to other characters. If you missed that blog, you can find it here at Dive Deep into Dialogue.
This time, I want to shift to internal dialogue—what your characters don’t say out loud to themselves or to other characters.
There are two things to remember before we start. The first is Point of View (POV). When I wrote the sentence above, I should’ve added what your Point of View (POV) characters don’t say out loud to themselves or to other characters.
Why?
Because only the POV character can have internal thought. Think of it this way. The POV character is the person telling the story in a particular scene. And he calls it the way he sees it.
That means, as a reader, we only get to know what the POV character sees, hears, smells, feels,and thinks. Watch out for characters reading each other’s thoughts unless that’s part of your storyline. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many accidental “psychic moments” sneak into manuscripts.
The second thing to remember is punctuation. The question is—to italic or not italic? The answer is—it depends on how much of a connection you want between your reader and your character.
I want my reader to feel like she’s stepped into my character’s body and is experiencing the world through her eyes. There’s something about italics that adds a little speedbump. And if you’re writing in first person, everything your character thinks, describes, and narrates is her direct thought so you don’t really need italics at all. Check out the direct thought that follows the dialogue below.
Example:
“You would know.” Outside, I’m cucumber cool. Inside, I’m an off-the-rails rollercoaster.
Third person is a little trickier. If you’re writing in third person and have first-person thoughts or if you’re writing in past tense and have present-tense thoughts, you’ll need italics. Otherwise it’ll look like you made a mistake.
Example:
She fanned herself. I just want to cry.
We went from third person (she) and past tense (fanned) to first person (I) and present tense (want).
Or, to stay in deep POV and stay away from the italics speedbump, you can modify the sentence and remove the first-person thoughts and present tense.
Example:
She fanned herself, desperate to cry. (Change the wording)
She fanned herself. Don’t cry. (Make it a more direct thought) (This is the deepest POV connection)
Now we’re ready to move on to the INS and OUTS of internal thought.
THE INS OF INTERNAL THOUGHT
INTERNAL THOUGHT CAN:
AMPLIFY DIALOGUE by supporting, expanding, or contradicting dialogue.
Examples:
Support Dialogue
“That’s not possible.” It’s an excuse he’ll believe.
Expand Dialogue
“You can’t just call him.” It’s like unwritten law or something.
Contradict Dialogue and Add Tension
“It’s fine.” It’s so not fine. But Dad doesn’t do labor intensive.
LET US KNOW WHO’S SPEAKING. Rather than using a dialogue tag (said) or an action (he sipped his coffee), you can use internal thought to show the reader who’s talking in a conversation.
Examples:
“Top one’s veggie for Claire.” Alek slid the first pizza box off the second.
“Mine now. She went AWOL with Josh after sixth period.” After she promised she’d hang with me tonight.
HELP CHOOSE POV when you have multiple points of view in a story.
Do you have more than one character telling your story? One of the ways to choose which character gets to tell the story (be the POV) in a scene is to consider the reader’s need to have access to a certain character’s internal thought.
Example:
Alek frowned and moved in to put his arm around me. “Did I do something?”
He hadn’t done anything. But that didn’t stop a chill from breaking over my skin or me from backing out of reach. My newly-acquired auto-flinch didn’t care that Alek had touched me a thousand times before. It overrode every single time we’d squeezed into a crowded booth in a restaurant, shared a cushion on the couch, and fallen asleep against each other movie-marathoning in the game room.
If this isn’t in this character’s POV, we don’t see her thoughts, and we think she’s afraid of Alek when her reaction is really about someone else.
SHOW HOW YOUR POV CHARACTER FEELS without having her tell us.
Example:
Trace startles me enough that I jump. He might be two inches shorter than Cade, but he makes up for it in ego.
The character’s telling us she doesn’t like Trace without saying she doesn’t like Trace.
SET A MOOD. How your POV perceives people, places, or situations influences how the reader feels about them too.
Example:
It didn’t help that I was alone in a house that was more “modern mausoleum” than “contemporary living.”
WEAVE IN BACKSTORY OR CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS without a major information dump.
Example:
Dad’s already rounding the corner into the great room. “You’re not driving in Dallas traffic.”
Normally, he wouldn’t notice if I played in traffic.
That one line of internal thought gives us a lot about our POV character’s relationship with her dad.
BUILD TENSION
Example:
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Cleaning up.” Don’s eyes darted to my face, his expression changing from bored to lethal. “I’ve had a very messy day.”
I glanced down.
Blood splattered on his jeans. Blood that hadn’t been there an hour ago.
The color had to have drained from my face. I felt it go—all the way to my feet. Don killed Lisa. And now we were alone.
MAKE AN POTENTIALLY UNLIKEABLE CHARACTER LIKEABLE or create a villain who has the possibility of being redeemed. Knowing a person’s motivation for an action can change the way we feel about that person.
Example:
“Didn’t ask for your help. Don’t want it.” I shut him down with a quick cut of my voice the way I always did. Only this time, when he hung his head and shuffled away, I was the one who bled.
THE OUTS OF INTERNAL THOUGHT
WATCH OUT FOR:
GIVING YOUR CHARACTERS THE SAME INTERNAL VOICE. A teen’s thoughts shouldn’t sound like his mother’s thoughts. Teens are more reactive than adults. Men and women have very different internal thoughts. Generally, women tend to think everything out. Men have shorter responses.
If you don’t give your characters their own unique internal voices, they’ll get jumbled together. Voice sets each character apart. Not only what they say but how they think, react, and process what’s going on around them.
TELLING EMOTIONS IN PLACE OF SHOWING THEM.
Telling Example:
“What are we going to do about it?” Bill leaned over the table, his gut barely clearing the top. “We’re going to let it go.”
Bill’s words made John mad. Let it go? No chance.
Using the emotion word “mad” and the internal thought that he wasn’t going to let it go evokes zero emotion in the reader.
Showing Example:
“What are we going to do about it?” Bill leaned over the table, his gut barely clearing the top. “We’re going to let it go.”
Heat fused the collar of John’s shirt to his neck. Tightening his fingers around the glass, he stood so fast the metal chair toppled behind him and hurled the bottle across the room.
In this case, taking out the internal thought and the emotion word and adding in John’s action lets us feel his anger.
TOO MUCH SPACE BETWEEN US. One of the biggest ways to break tension in a scene is by interrupting dialogue with long paragraphs of internal thought.
Have you ever read a scene where one character asks an important question or makes a startling statement but by the time you get to the other character’s response, you forgot the original revelation and had to skim back to find it?
Too Much Internal Thought Example:
The drawer slammed, breaking my hesitation.
Uncle Johnny shouldn’t be in my sister’s room. He shouldn’t be touching her stuff. Why would he be in here? Claire’s funeral was only an hour ago, and he hadn’t even shown. Where had he been? Getting drunk in some bar?
I moved out of the doorway. “Why are you going through Claire’s room?” Claire’s room was off-limits. No one should be upstairs. How dare he come up here and rummage through her stuff when he should be downstairs, head hung, pretending to mourn her like everybody else.
He didn’t bother to glance up. “Because I already searched yours.”
The Right Amount of Internal Thought Example:
The drawer slammed, breaking my hesitation.
Uncle Johnny shouldn’t be in my sister’s room. He shouldn’t be touching her stuff.
I moved out of the doorway. “Why are you going through Claire’s room?”
He didn’t bother to glance up. “Because I already searched yours.”
In the first example, do you see how I buried my power punch? “Because I already searched yours,” gets lost under all that thinking and by the time we get to it, it’s barely a tap.
LACK OF CREDIBLE REACTION
Unrealistic Reaction (too much thinking) Example:
Linda washed the tomato sauce off her fingers and checked the clock. Ten after five. And no Jay. In ten years of marriage, he’d never been late. Never missed dinner.
The screen door slammed behind her.
She wiped her hands on a towel and glanced at her husband as he walked into the kitchen.
He passed her without his usual hug and slumped onto the kitchen barstool. “There’s no good way to say this.” His gaze stuck to the granite countertop. “I’m going to prison.”
Linda’s mother went to prison. Her father went to prison. Her brother went to prison. Prison had destroyed her family. Eaten their souls. Wasted them into horrible human beings. She hadn’t seen any of her family since. Even as each of them had been paroled. She’d left that life. Those memories. But now they came rushing back. What would she tell her kids? Her friends? Their neighbors?
Realistic Reaction Example:
Linda washed the tomato sauce off her fingers and checked the clock. Ten after five. And no Jay. In ten years of marriage, he’d never been late. Never missed dinner.
The screen door slammed behind her.
She wiped her hands on a towel and glanced at her husband as he walked into the kitchen.
He passed her without his usual hug and slumped onto the kitchen barstool. “There’s no good way to say this.” His gaze stuck to the granite countertop. “I’m going to prison.”
The towel fell from her hands and her world fell from under her feet. “What?”
Internal thought can be a powerful writing tool to deepen characters, increase tension, and enhance your story. It can also sink your manuscript. How do you know if you’re using too much or just enough? I always suggest reading your final edits on a chapter out loud. Or better yet, have someone else read them to you. The ear picks up what the eye misses.
If you or your “someone else” struggle with a sentence or a paragraph and internal thought keeps going on and on, find places to cut. If your characters seem robotic and your scene seems stale, find places to add. Good luck and happy writing!
Do you struggle with internal dialogue?
Are you willing to share an example from your current WIP?
ABOUT LORI:
Lori Freeland, author, editor, and writing coach holds a BA in psychology from the University of Wisconsin and currently lives in the Dallas area. She’s written numerous blogs for writers and presented at multiple writing workshops. When she’s not snuggled up with her husband or worrying about her kids, she spends her days dreaming up romance and messing with the lives of imaginary people. You can find her Young Adult and Contemporary Romance at lorifreeland.com and her inspirational blog at lafreeland.com.
Though we are a very cohesive group here at Writers in the Storm, we are split down the middle in writing style. Laura and Fae write their stories in a linear fashion while Julie and I quilt ours together scene by scene. The linear approach kills my stories, but story quilting lets me focus on my story's DNA. I firmly believe, whether you are a plotter or a pantser, it's your story's DNA that gets you through to "The End."
DNA is probably the most famous molecule on earth, but what is it really? There are tons of dense biological explanations, but I like this one when it comes to story DNA:
The fundamental and distinctive characteristics of someone or something, especially when regarded as unchangeable.
What about your story doesn't change?
Physical details
Readers are smart and changing your main character's eye or hair color will pull them out of the story. Many writers find a picture that is close to their character, others keep a binder.
Does one or more of your characters have a physical disability? What does this change about their story line? Keep your research on this disability close for when you get stuck and you need ideas.
What about setting? You can't switch the setting part way through your story without alerting anybody. Readers get pissy about that. A photo or a setting summary sheet will go a long way in keep you focused.
Main characters' misbelief
Lisa Cron posits that a story's entire point is to correct your main character's misbelief. She describes it like this:
Every protagonist enters a story already wanting something. This is what sets her story long agenda – the agenda she steps into the novel with already fully formed. To be super clear: this is something she’s wanted for a long time, since way before page one.
The key thing is: in all that time your protagonist hasn’t gotten what she wants. Hey, if she could easily get it, sure, you’d have a happy protagonist, but then you’d have no story. In other words, something has long stood in the way of your protagonist achieving her goal. And that is her misbelief.
Lisa recommends posting a sticky with your story’s point, your protagonist’s overarching agenda, and her misbelief near where you write, and always look at it before you start writing. Use it as a yardstick for what your protagonist does, and why. Refer to it when you work — and keep referring to it.
This misbelief is a key part of your story's DNA and it's vital you focus on it as you write your story, especially if you're a pantser.
Internal and external conflict
Internal conflict typically revolves around the misbelief we discussed above. In other words, how is your main character getting in his or her own way?
In fiction, ‘internal conflict’ refers to a character’s internal struggle. A character might struggle with an emotional problem such as fear of intimacy or abandonment, for example. Internal conflict is important for characterization, since flaws and internal struggles make characters more lifelike and sympathetic.
External conflict, on the other hand, refers to the conflicts between a character and external forces. This type of conflict can be between one character and another or a group (or between groups of characters). It can also be between a character and more abstract forces. For example, a bleak and hostile environment in a post-apocalyptic novel.
Both types of conflict, internal and external, are useful because they create: tension, stakes and character development.
Bob Mayer teaches a wonderful tool called the Conflict Lock. The live video is here. and it explains the conflict lock and gives examples of the conflict lock table. If you prefer the short version, here are some quick steps shared from Shannon Curtis' post on the subject.
Draw four squares
Label one row for Protagonist (Hero and/or Heroine), and one row Antagonist (Hero or Villain)
Label first column ‘Goal’ and second column ‘Conflict’.
Write in your characters’ objective in the GOAL column, and what is preventing your character from achieving that goal in the CONFLICT column.
If your protagonist’s conflict is born from your antagonist’s pursuit of his/her goal, and vice versa, then you have a Conflict Lock. Here is a photo of a solid Conflict Lock.
Theme
Your story's theme is why you're writing your story, whether you know it right away or not. Your theme might be about overcoming shame or the damaging nature of secrets, it might speak to gratitude or how family is all. Whatever your theme is (and you might not discover it until you're done with your first draft), it is a vital constant to your story.
Theme is a key part of your story's DNA.
Linear writers like Laura write straight through to help themselves discover theme. I usually start with theme and then write to it. John August, the screenwriter for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish, says it much better than I do in this post.
Genre
Genre is a promise you keep to the reader. If you're writing a romance, there will be a "happily ever after." Mystery novel protagonists will solve the crime. Anything less will make your reader want to throw the book across the room because they read your book trusting you will keep your genre's promise. Keep this in mind as you write.
If these five areas fail to keep you focused on your story's DNA, take a break. Go work out, bake something, pray to the creativity gods. This noveling business is hard, y'all. Do whatever works to get you through the rough patches.
Are there other aspects of story that should be included as "DNA?" What is your writing style: linear, quilter, plotter, pantser or all of the above? What helps you stay focused on your story?
By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 18+ years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.
