One of the fundamental applications of tagging in Scrivener is one that I haven’t touched on yet, but it’s extremely powerful.

Most writers know the power and utility of character arcs. Readers want to see not so much what happens to our protagonist and stakes characters but what they do about it — but the real meat of the story, what really delivers on the premise and what readers will either love or hate about your story when all is said and done, is how these characters are changed by what has happened to them and what they’ve done about it.

Example: Steve Rogers isn’t Captain America at the beginning of Captain America: The First Avenger. He isn’t even Captain America after Dr. Erskine whammies him with the super-soldier serum. Even after he’s met his original goal of being deployed and is hawking war bonds on stage in his costume…