Outlines, story structure, and the wonderful writing program Scrivener go together like ice, cream, and chocolate sprinkles. When an author is aware of his story’s structure as he’s writing his outline and first draft, the end product will be that much tighter and more powerful. That’s why I’m excited to be able to offer you a spiffy Scrivener template for outlining and structuring your novel, based on the principles of outlining and story structure I discuss in my books Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success and Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story.

This marvelous template was created by Stuart Norfolk. Feel free to contact him at email [at] stuartnorfolk [dot] com. Click below to download the zipped folders. Below the links is a screenshot (click for a fullscreen view).

Download Windows Template         Download Mac Template

After downloading the template onto your computer, make sure you copy/paste the files out of the zipped folder onto your computer before trying to open the template in Scrivener. Otherwise, the program won’t recognize the template has been installed. Double click on the project.scrivx file to import it into Scrivener.

To get the template to show up in Scrivener as an option the next time you start a new project, you’ll need to save it as a template (File/Save As Template).