Action Story Writer

Even though activities nowadays revolve more or less around a computer, it doesn’t mean classic habits, such as reading or writing are no longer available. On the contrary, a computer now makes it easy to create fiction, and there are various specialized applications to help in this regard, with Action Story Writer being a suitable example here.

First of all, the application doesn’t even take you through a setup process to make all its functions available to you, so you can see what it’s all about as soon as it reaches your computer. Note, however, that Java Runtime Environment is a mandatory requirement for functionality, so make sure it’s installed before you decide to take it for a spin.

You might end up a little confused at first, given the large, empty space, and the name which suggests that it’s a story writing application. It is, but the approach on the whole situation is rather different than simply letting you enlist all your ideas in a simple text pad. In other words, it’s mostly developed as a mind-mapping program with emphasis on writing.

The concept of mind-mapping is when you get together several ideas, enlist them on a canvas in a particular order, and create relationships. When in the creation mode, placing an item brings up a small window in which you need to specify the title, as well as the content. These represent chapters, so don’t hesitate to add rich content.

Unfortunately, only the title appears on the canvas, and viewing content is only possible through the edit mode. Although this gives you a good grip of the narrative, it becomes a pain when reviewing content, especially since chapters aren’t enlisted in a dedicated section. When actually done, you can export as PDF, but only the image, without content, gets exported.

To sum it up, Action Story Writer comes with good intentions, but it’s oriented more towards mind-mapping activities rather than helping you develop a solid narration of events. Even so, the set of features leaves much to be desired, and you’re easily tempted to look for alternatives, or stick to the conventional pen and paper method of writing.