Why I Wait to Chapter My Novel (And How I Do It in Scrivener)

Pro Tips to Organize Scenes, Avoid Compile Errors, and Prep Your Book for Vellum

I’ve discussed chaptering before, as in, I don’t chapter a book until it’s done-done-done-I-mean-it-this-time. Prior to this magical point, my Scrivener binder is laid out in Acts, Plot-points, Pinch-points, and Turning-points. I have it set up this way in a template that I always use as my starting point for a novel.

In the screenshot below, PP01 (or plot-point 01) is made up of two scenes. But PP02 is only made up of one, while PP03 is made up of three. The dots indicate the PoV. Pink for Neria, the protagonist; blue for Dragomir; gray for omniscient. Some of the omniscient scenes use one character as a filter, others use multiple characters in the same scene by floating viewpoint. A few are true god’s-eye omniscient narration from afar. I use the same gray color for all of them, but feel free to set them up in whatever way you work yours.

I also take advantage of Scrivener’s wide choices for icons. I always start with the default icon and then as the scene comes together on some umpteenth pass I change it to a clapper-board. I like the clapper-board because it says, “Scene ready to be filmed,” or in this case, to be published, i.e. shown to the world.

You’ll also notice that I have other icons in there. I was using the test-tube icon in place of the clapper-board for those scenes that pertained to the nanite storyline. It’s a crucial storyline as information is revealed throughout, and I had to be very careful about the continuity there. Having the icons set up allowed me to find only those scenes that pertained to that storyline and made editing passes easier.

I also used the blue warning sign icon to track word counts for each of the eight story sections.

This is what my progress through the manuscript looked like. I used the “Insert—>Current Date and Time” function to insert the date and time. You’ll see how I took a four-month hiatus to gain distance from the work so I could look at it with fresh eyes.

CorgiSan crossed Rainbow Bridge at the end of April and I was working on another manuscript, among other things. So by hiatus, I don’t mean that I stopped writing, just that I stopped working on this manuscript. I worry about the overall length and the length of each section after I have written, particularly if I’m stuck or the story seems to be meandering.

I wrote about some of the editing-as-I-write things I did for this story, here:

Another way to look at this section is with the Outliner View:

The column headings are highly customizable but this is my default. I prefer chapters that are about 2000 words long, so this is a good way to tell how they will break out. Since the scene called “PP05:Vulnerable” is 2900 words, I can easily justify putting all three scenes from PP03 in one chapter.

The first thing I do is remove the Folders I’ve been using, because they often contain notes on that plot point or for that part of the story. The result is below. I want you to pay attention to two things. The first is the Section Type. If the “Part Heading” or the “Scene” is gray instead of black, you need to manually select it so it’ll turn black. You also need to make sure that “Include in Compile” checkbox is checked. If it’s not, your Compile won’t include the document. If the Section Type is not in black, you may also have unwanted artifacts in your compile.

Note that my Scene Titles are not part of the compile, so I leave them as is, with the plot-point they are part of, if they are part of one, intact. This is for later, when, I will go over the final version of the manuscript and create a bible and a timeline from it. I don’t publish scene, or chapter titles, because they give things away.

This is what it looks like after I added folders. Yes, I added them one at a time and manually converted the name from “New Folder” to “Chapter One” and so on.

In the screenshot below you should note how the “Chapter Heading” under the Section Type is gray instead of black. That’s how it looks because it was selected by Scrivener by default. In order to make sure that compile works like I want it to, I will manually select each one so it turn black.

Details and minutiae like this is just one reason why I don’t do this chaptering stuff until the very end. It’s too easy for the Section Type to get messed up as I move scenes or chapters, too easy to let Scrivener select a Section Type by default, and have it be wrong. If you’re having issues compiling this is probably one reason why.

Alternately, you can select multiple consecutive scenes and use the “Documents—>New Chapter From Selection” menu item to create a new folder with the subordinate scenes in it. It can make things go faster.

In the screenshot below, I added another column, one for total word count, and you can see what each chapter total is and also that each “Chapter Heading” is now black instead of gray.

Note also that I’ve added an “Include in Compile” checkmark to the view. If that item is not checked, it will not be included in the compile.

As you chapter these scenes, it’s very important that all scenes be inside a chapter folder or the output won’t look right when you compile. You may have extra lines or the scene may start on a new page when you don’t want it to.

Another consideration for chaptering is whether or not your published manuscript will start a chapter only on the right side. This will add extra pages. It’s how I like to do it, so I keep that in mind. Some people like to pad the size of their manuscript to make it appear that the story is longer than it is, so they will create a ton of chapters that start on the right only in order to up the perceived count. This costs readers more money when it comes to printed books, but they don’t care because what they want is that printed page-count number on their ebook page to make it seem like you’re getting a longer book than what you actually are. This is why word-counts should be used instead of page counts. People who game the system are the reason why we can’t have nice things.

I do not know of a way to automatically create chapter names in Scrivener. If you do, please share. It is time-consuming to do it this way and I think that Vellum will do automatic numbering for you once you import compiled output into Vellum, so it may be easier to just the numbering there. I guess it depends on what you’re going for, which is why covering the Compile process is too much of a bespoke topic. Some people will be compiling for the slush pile, others for publication via Vellum or some other formatting software. I even know some intrepid people who use Word, bless their hearts.

It’s taken me the better part of a morning to chapter this manuscript into sixty-six chapters and make sure that each chapter is no more than 3000 words, as well as ensure that every scene is set up as a scene, every chapter as a chapter, and every part as a part.

Now I will make another pass through the manuscript to make sure that any annotations, notes, or comments-to-self with a to-do label have been dealt with. I can tell you that before you compile, you need to make sure that none of your notes make it into the Compile:

Again, make sure that everything that you want compiled has that checkmark by it, along with the right Section Type designation:

(Yes, I did change the chapter numbers to numerals). I also need to make sure that I didn’t skip or duplicate any chapter numbers. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were to use “AI” for that? But is there? No, there isn’t, because why would we get something so useful? Anyway…

Whatever way you do it, keeping things consistent here is key. I continue to use Scrivener for updates to the manuscript, like when there are typos to correct, and do a fresh compile. I do not do edits to the manuscript in Vellum, ever. Vellum is for back and front matter edits only. I always bring in a freshly compiled manuscript into Vellum whenever I’ve changed anything in the manuscript. It’s up to you how you do it, just know that being loose with your versioning control can come back and bite you, so having some procedure in place in key.

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