Avenir 2.3.6: The Writer’s Workshop - An authoring tool worth your time

Reviewed by Derek Caudill    © 2007 Edited by Harry (doc) Babad

Company: Return Self Software Developer: Todd Ransom Developers’ Web Site: http://returnself.com/ Developer Contact: avenirsoftware@mac.com Forum: http://returnself.com/forum/ Released: August 13, 2007 $30 USD System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher; Available as a Universal Binary.   Strengths: Clean familiar interface, smooth integration with existing OS X features, user flexible, strong developer and user-base support, strong page layout alignment and text formatting features, interactive user Tutorial, auto save and backup features, Growl support, too many additional helpful features to list in this section.

Weaknesses: Out of date help documentation, help documentation doesn’t discuss all features, lack of basic page layout display features, occasional interface-access bugs. Terminology may confuse some.   For a 30 launch demo of Avenir, simply download and install, when starting, just click the Use Demo button: Demo download page   The software was tested on a Digital Audio 733 MHz PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 1.25 GB SDRAM running under Mac OS X 10.4.9 – 10.4.10 and took only 10.7 MB on my non-Intel system.   Copyright Notice: Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Reviewer’s Note: I have been informed that Avenir does not use standard outline terms to describe its interface features. For those who are familiar with such terms, and in the hopes of a clearer review, I have tried not to use Avenir’s terms too often. For clarification, Avenir uses these terms:

• Instead of Element, Avenir uses “Object”,
• Instead of Group, Avenir uses “Category”,
• Instead of Character, Avenir uses “Actor”,
• Instead of Filter, Avenir uses the term “Smart View”,
• To describe the outline and narrative as a whole, Avenir uses the word “Project”, and
• To describe the groups and their list’ of elements, Avenir uses the word “View”.)

Now the use of the developers specialized terms is no big deal, but may confuse those of you who actively use outlines, or have tried other authoring software.)

 

What Avenir Does

 

I’m the type of writer that usually has so many ideas when I start writing a story, I can’t keep everything straight. I have folders full of partially completed stories that I just didn’t finish because I got blocked on an organizational level. Being so disorganized, and a wannabe fiction writer, I am desperate for any type of help.

 

I hope to find such help, for those afflicted with creative disarray, and myself, in applications that promise aid in outlining our creative thoughts and in putting them all together in a clear to read narrative.

 

Two such applications I have found are Mariner Software’s Montage for screenwriters (Reviewed by Mike Hubbartt in the May 2007 issue of macCompanion), and Real Self Software’s Avenir for fiction writers.

 

Avenir is a program focused on helping wannabe and established fiction authors create detailed outlines that include information on every element of their story, and then using that outline to create a clear reading narrative.

 

According to Real Self Software’s website, “Avenir is a new kind of software for writers. Part word processor, part database, completely focused on the creative process. Whether you are brainstorming for your first short story or putting the finishing touches on your latest best-seller Avenir provides the tools you need to manage the creative process from inception to publication.”

 

Avenir’s promise has great potential, and could very well live up to the positive expectations of its developer’s plugs.

 

How Avenir Does It

 

Avenir treats every element of the narrative, characters, locations, scenes, and even the chapters themselves, as separate “Objects”, each with their own notes section. These elements are then grouped together into “Categories” based on what kind of element they are, i.e., all the character elements are put in their own group, all the scenes elements are put into theirs, and so forth.

 

By doing this, Avenir lets the author keep detailed notes on every element for reference when actually writing their novel. These notes can be anything. For example, an author may create a character named Bob, and then write notes detailing Bob’s favorite food, color, and where he went to school. Likewise, the author can write notes detailing the locations where events in the story take place, so that when writing descriptions in the novel, he or she can paint a picture with words.

 

Additionally, Avenir also includes three additional groups of notes designed to keep track of any research materials needed for the narrative, and to keep track of the current tasks that the writer is doing, to help them stay focused, i.e., spending an hour developing Bob’s educational history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avenir’s interface (main working window) is straightforward. It consists of only three columns. Each of the groups can be seen on the left hand side, and when clicked, expands into the second column to show each element’s parts in a list. (The group clicked and the list of elements is referred to as a “View”, for example, the “Chapters View”.), When an element is clicked, it will call up the notes in a second row in that column for that element.

 

The third column contains little pieces of information that connects each element, such as which chapter a particular element appears in. If the author wishes to group different types of elements together, it allows the author to create tags to link them. These could then be used to create filters, or a “Smart View”, that show all the elements that contain a specific tag.

 

For example, the author could have over a dozen characters created, but wants to view only those in the Smith family. The author could add the tag “Smith Family” to each character that is a member. Then create a filter that when clicked only shows those Smith family related characters.

 

Story Element Integration - All of the elements of the narrative are created and organized in this fashion. When the author is ready to begin writing the novel, their ideas on what they want to do with a story and each element have been captured. Where they want to go with each element of their story is not only well thought out, but documented for easy reference. This way, they can focus on putting the narrative (story) together when writing, instead of making it all up as they go along and throwing it all together.

 

Using Avenir to create, in effect, a detailed outline of story elements lets the author take all the pieces, and fit them into the place where they belong. The software’s straightforward interface also allows for a short learning curve for using Avenir. The author can spend more time creating their outline, and writing the novel, than spending time learning how to use the software.

 

Additional Features to Ease a Writer’s Task

 

Avenir expands the functions of the basic “how-it-works” details described above with a variety of additional enhancements (tools) that aide in actually creating the outline, and writing the narrative.

 

When creating the notes for each element, the second row of the second pane acts as a TextEdit.app-like environment that by default only includes basic font formatting tools. This allows the author to segment the notes or create emphasis using bolded, underlined, or italicized text.

 

When the author begins to create actual chapter contents, the “notes row” changes to feature not only those basic font formatting tools, but also basic paragraph, and tab, alignment tools. In other words, the software defacto changes from a plain-text editor to a more word processing-like tool.

 

Getting an Uncluttered View - While Avenir’s main interface is unobtrusive and clean, some might find working with multiple columns distracting. Such a user can create the notes for each element in a separate window that sits above the main interface. This lets the user switch back to the main interface window to access the other groups, and then back to the element’s notes separate window. For element notes, the all-standard formatting features are available in that separate window. This is true when creating chapter content, but that separate window takes on added features of a “Chapter Editor window” retaining the paragraph and tab alignment features.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In such a stand-alone window, the author can split the screen horizontally or vertically. As a result of this feature they can reference one part of the chapter while writing another. Any word can be “annotated” to include clarifying additional notes. The user can automatically go to the location of these annotated words via a drop-down menu on the window’s toolbar.

 

For those that find anything but text on the screen too distracting, the writer can even clear the entire screen, OS X menubar included, and replace it with a colored background on which nothing else appears but the text they are typing; done via the “Chapter Editor Window”.

 

It is important to note that all throughout the chapter content creation process, the author can click back and forth to review their notes that they created while outlining their novel, and they can even edit them as well.

 

Additional Capabilities

 

While the primary focus of Avenir is to help create a detailed outline for a fiction narrative, it goes above that purpose by including additional tools that help not only with the outline creation process, but also helps to keep the author focused. While full descriptions of all of these abilities are beyond this review’s scope, several that I found impressive include:

 

1.     Setting a word, page, or time goal for each writing session, and a separate word goal for the entire project using the built in Progress Meter.

 

2.     Checking how many times a particular word is used, and what the ten most commonly used words are, with the built in Word Frequency Meter.

 

3.     Performing many of the functions found in the toolbar and menubar using contextual menus.

 

4.     Performing batch functions on multiple elements.

 

5.     Adding graphics to any notes by use of drag and drop.

 

6.     Turning text into clickable links to any webpage, from any group.

 

7.     Copying any format styles and pasting those styles into any group.

 

8.     Converting text into other formats; e.g. ALL CAPS, Title Case, lowercase, and Smart and Straight Quotes.

 

9.     Using many of the features built into Mac OS X such as the systems’ spell checker, font palette, special character palette, and the services menu.

 

10.  Working with Growl (http://growl.info/), featuring a variety of notifications for the user to choose from.

 

11.  Automatically saving the project every ten minutes, not only in the original location, but also to a user set backup folder, and to the user’s .Mac account as well.

 

12.  Renaming, deleting, and/or creating additional groups to fit specific element types.

 

13.  Saving custom outlines as custom templates for future use.

 

14.  Using at least three built in templates; the default Novel template that it opens for new projects, one based on the Snowflake method of writing (http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php), and another based on the Novel method with a Submissions group already included.

 

Gripes and Suggested Features

 

Avenir at this stage of its development does its job well, but, in my opinion, it could be improved.

• Non-standard Outline Terminology: While I don’t really consider Avenir’s terms a problem, to appease those who are a stickler for the standard outline or authoring terminology, I would suggest that the developer list in the built in tutorial, and the manual, a conversion chart of sorts for Avenir’s terms, much as I have at the beginning of this review.
  
  

• Help Documentation Manual Out-dated: While I found that the included help documentation manual was an invaluable resource while I was doing this review, I was disappointed that it wasn’t up to date with the current version of Avenir. There were too many references to features and tools that no longer exist in the current software version.

• Tutorial and Manual Detail: I was concerned that there wasn’t more discussion listing all of Avenir’s features in more detail. The included manual and tutorial are downright skimpy. Too often I found myself having to figure out how things worked. In some instances, features are left out completely from the manual, but are found in the tutorial, and vice versa. Worse yet, they aren’t covered in either place! E.g. the trait of the Word Frequency Meter to highlight the ten most commonly used words. I had to post to the forum to find out what was going on when I saw those words mysteriously highlighted.

 

• Page Layout: I would like to be able to see a page layout view in Avenir like in Word and AppleWorks that shows the pages as separate, with borders. With the similarity between Avenir and TextEdit.app, I was surprised that there wasn’t a page layout view available.

• Page Margin Control: I would like to be able to set the page margin measurements, when printing the chapters myself. I also would like to have more room on a page to type. Since Avenir makes available other page layout and alignment tools, I find it odd that margin control is missing.

• Headers and Footers: I would like to be able to include footers. Being able to set up a “back page” that has automated page numbers and user set headers and footers for every page, such as those that can be created in applications like Adobe InDesign, would be a really slick touch in case I wanted to print my narrative out myself.

• Thesaurus Access Needed: Avenir needs to make a Thesaurus available to us sometimes word-poor authors. Integration with Mac OS X’s dictionary is nice, but I have never been able to access the operating system-included Thesaurus that is supposed to be included with the system dictionary.

Bugs Encountered In Avenir

 

I only encountered a few bugs with Avenir’s functionality, none of which were very serious:

• Annotation Issues: Several times, while working in the main interface, and in the “Chapter Editor Window”, neither the Annotate, nor Delete Annotate toolbar buttons would light up. This occurred when I selected text to annotate, and even when I placed the cursor in the annotated word with the intention to delete the annotation.
  
  The buttons would sometimes light up for the first selection, but after that, they were very finicky, sometimes working, and sometimes not. At first, I thought that maybe it was because I was selecting spaces to start with, but that wasn’t the case, and closing the “Chapter Editor Window”, or switching groups didn’t help. I could use the menu to add and delete annotations, so I wasn’t stuck, but I eventually had to quit Avenir, and restart it to get the buttons working reliably again. This has only happened to me once, but is still something to be aware of.

• The Vanishing, Almost, Tutorial: I’ve had several problems getting the tutorial to display consistently. It also seems finicky, as sometimes it opens, and other times it doesn’t. Often times I would try to bring it up from the Help menu and nothing would happen; I eventually had to close the project I had open, and only then would the tutorial open again. I did manage to get the tutorial to open once after I had reopened the project, but it was lacking all the toolbars, and all but the left hand pane was missing. The rest of the window didn’t show up again in the tutorial until I clicked on a group. As with the annotations issue, restarting Avenir seemed to clear this up, and I haven’t encountered it again.

Conclusion

 

Avenir features a clean work environment that doesn’t distract me from the task of writing. Gone are countless toolbars, floating palettes, and innumerable options that seem to be in hiding. You know, the “extras” that haunt upscale word processors or other writing aides. Avenir contains many useful easy to access tools that provide a solid foundation for building an outline of a piece of fiction and then writing it. Those feature rich tools make writing easier. I find its ease of use makes Avenir an excellent and well-designed tool to help any new, or experienced, fiction writer start, control and complete their project.

 

Add to that mix the flexibility the writer is given to modify their outline, as the authors ideas change, elements begin to lose their importance, and as new elements come to the author’s mind, it’s clear that Avenir delivers on it’s developers claims, and comes close to living up to its potential.

 

Although I’ve provided a list of bugs encountered, none of them required me to contact the developer for help. None caused Avenir to be anywhere near unusable, or even remotely unpleasant to use, and after evaluating my gripes and suggestions, Avenir still remains suited to its task.

An added bonus for the users is that Avenir has as its developer, Mr. Todd Ransom, who is dedicated to making Avenir the best it can be. This is evidenced not only by the many writer friendly features he’s added to the software, but also by his public interactions with Avenir’s user-base.

 

Mr. Ransom uses the Avenir forums to start discussions that both help in explaining the features of Avenir, and as a place to gather user suggestions for features they would like to see changed or added in future versions. Such discussions also help give him a feel for how the user-base perceives and make use of Avenir so he knows what changes would be beneficial. If there are any problems that creep up, Mr. Ransom is quick to respond, and to issue updates if needed.

 

A Critical User Requirement - Before beginning to use Avenir, I can’t stress highly enough how beneficial it would be for any new user to work through the included tutorial and help files. Doing so doesn’t take long, and really helps change ones perspective that Avenir is just another word processor. Believe, me, it’s not. Take it from a guy who will at times live up to the stereotype of jumping in head first and never reading directions or manuals; if you don’t go into Avenir with the basic understandings that the tutorial and help files provide, you could seriously hinder your efforts at creating a detailed outline and a clean reading narrative.

 

Not that Avenir is very complex, or difficult, to use. On the contrary, it is very easy to use, it just requires changing how you think when writing your novel and trying to win your next Pulitzer Prize. Remember, the outline comes first, don’t put the cart before the horse!

 

I can see why it’s built exclusively for the Mac, as it truly make’s you “Think Different” about how you start, and write, your projects.

 

Recommendation

 

Try It - Buy it! - I recommend Avenir to anyone looking for help in putting together his or her thoughts as a basis for a story or novel.

 

(In fact, I know a few PC using authors that I’m going to tell about this to perhaps sway them to try out an Intel Mac.)

 

While Avenir doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of Microsoft Word, or even AppleWorks, it doesn’t need them; it’s not a tool for letter’s, memo’s, or brochures. It’s for fiction writing. Its focus on capturing all the usual story elements, (e.g., plot, characters, time-line, locale) using an outline is just what an easily distracted author needs.

 

Avenir has enough tools to fulfill its purpose, both as a tool to capture your ideas, and to organize them into a lucid well organized piece of fiction. Once a budding writer tries Avenir, they will be amazed at how much easier it is to not only organize all their story elements, but to also finally finish writing that “Great (Insert Country here) Novel” that is growing within them.

 

Try it out; the only drama you’ll encounter will be in the fiction that you’ll use Avenir to create.