Scrivener Script Writing Tip: Spark

Scrivener is the Swiss army knife of writing tools. If you haven’t heard of it before, do a quick Google search and you’ll read endless articles singing its accolades. I’ve used it to write three novels, a dozen comic scripts and two screenplays. But as awesome as it is, for any kind of script writing, be it stage, screen or comic, Scrivener lacks some of the power of dedicated script writing apps like Montage or Final Draft. Specifically, when you’re script writing, you need to be able to switch between elements like Action and Slug and Character with ease. Scrivener offers some ability to do this, but not hot key command switching so you can change elements without interrupting your writing flow.

There is one very good work around for Mac users though. It’s a free app named Spark from a ShadowLab. It runs as a background app and lets you assign command key combinations to actions in applications. I used it to create my standard set of commands for elements (Command+1 for Slug, Command+2 for Action, etc) so that when I’m writing scripts in Scrivener, I get the same element changing power of Final Draft and Montage, but in an application that I find much more flexible overall for writing.

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