Scrivener Document Stats Generator

Table of Contents

• Disclaimer
• Features
• Scrivener Document Structure Assumptions
• Requirements
• Setup
• Usage
  • Command Line Interface (CLI)
• Tests
• Chapter & Scene "Heat Map"
• License

Disclaimer

I'm not a Scrivener user nor an author. This is written for an author friend to give them a better overview of the "shape" of a manuscript in terms of relative sizes of chapters and scenes. Maybe this kind of report is possible in Scrivener somewhere but I was unable to find that functionality. Hence this script.

Features

• Analyses document structure and prints an outline view showing chapters and scenes, with word counts at the scene, chapter, and overall document levels.
• Generates a 'heat map' showing relative sizes (based on word counts) of chapters and scenes within, useful when working to refactor a manuscript (e.g. to minimize exceedingly wordy chapters/scenes relative to others).

Scrivener Document Structure Assumptions

• The Scrivener Binder folder holding the manuscript content is titled "Manuscript"
• The manuscript chapters are prefixed with "Chapter" (e.g. Chapter 1, Chapter 2, ...)

Requirements

• A Mac (uses textutil)
• Ruby 2.5.x.
• A Scrivener version 2.x document (has not been tested with Scrivener 3.x)

Setup

Type the following to install:

gem install scrivstats

Usage

Command Line Interface (CLI)

From the command line, type: scrivstas --help

scrivstats -f PATH [--file=PATH]  # Generate stats on Scriverer doc at PATH
scrivstats -h, [--help=COMMAND]   # Show this message or get help for a command.
scrivstats -v, [--version]        # Show gem version.

Tests

To test, run:

bundle exec rake

Chapter & Scene "Heat Map"

Following is an example 'heat map' showing relative sizes of chapters and scenes within each chapter. Scenes are delimited with an underscore.

[Chapter 1 ] ***
[Chapter 2 ] ************_***************_***_*****_*_*******
[Chapter 3 ] ******
[Chapter 4 ] *******_*************************************__*************_**************_*******************_*******
[Chapter 5 ] ************
[Chapter 6 ] *******************_********_*******_********_**********_****_************__
[Chapter 7 ] ******
[Chapter 8 ] *****_*******_******************_***********
[Chapter 9 ] ********
[Chapter 10] ********************************_********
[Chapter 11] ***
[Chapter 12] ***************_**************_******************************
[Chapter 13] ***_*_**

License

MIT License