Category:Writing

This section contains information about the act of writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, UX or Design or something else. For literature, poetry, etc. see Category: Reading. For content strategy, see Category: Content Strategy. For more nonfiction copywriting information (geared toward the web), see Category: Copywriting.

[Writing Advice]

Writing Advice

Writing Advice

Ideas

• Writing idea generation
• Stories we've seen too often at Strange Horizon
• Horror stories we've seen too often at Strange Horizon

Research

• Wikipedia -- And if you're not giving money to Wikipedia for the work you're getting from Wikipedia, you're part of the problem.
• Green's Dictionary of Slang
• That post about writing motorcycle scenes I've been meaning to write by someone on tumblr

Story Structure

• Story Structure

The hard bits: the actual words

Naming things

• Name Generators
• 18th Century PA German Naming Customs

Names I've saved because I like them

• Ariadne
• Callista

Character Development

• A guide to skinny writers who want to write fat characters by Sarah Hollowell
• Special Needs in Strange Worlds: Elizabeth Bear on Writing Disabilities by Elizabeth Bear on SF Signal

Character Generators

• Who the fuck is my DND character? generates short descriptions of characters for use in mostly fantasy settings.

Editing, Business, and Selling

• Yog's Law: Money flows toward the author. Corollary: the only time an author should sign a check is on the back.
• Beta Readers
• Stories from the Slush Pile
• William Shunn: Manuscript Format - for short stories
• Zen in the art of short fiction titling by John Joseph Adams, who many in the field have told me is the best titler in science fiction
• The truth about short story titles by Neil Clarke
• The top 10 most common short story names at Clarkesworld
• Self Editing 4 Fiction is 8+ articles on how to do your own editing
• Things I wish I knew before my book came out by Mallory O'Meara
• Writer Beware - a resource for keeping up with what publishers are playing fast and loose with the "rules" of good business practice.
• How to write a proper short story cover letter
• Debut Author Lessons by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Why should I register my work if copyright protection is automatic? by Copyright Alliance
• Thinking Through Fair Use A tool by the University of Minnesota Libraries to help you think through the issues involved.

Tools

Tools I use

• Apple Pages
• Microsoft Word
• 750 words, which challenges you to write just 750 words a day
• Online Etymology Dictionary for all kinds of reasons
• The Submission Grinder for finding markets

Tools I haven't tried

• After the Deadline promises to be a better spellchecker and grammar checker. I haven't tried it but it does have a demo section on the site.
• Hemingway App is a much-loved product for looking at your writing style, detecting things like weak verbs, complex words, and other things that make your writing harder to read. It includes a reading level calculator.
• Readable is another product I haven't tried, but it appears to do roughly the same things as After the Deadline and Hemingway.
• Wonderdraft is a fictional map creator.
• Worldbuilding on Stack Exchange is a social media site for world building discussions

Writer Communities

• LitReactor is a writing community and classroom
• Inked Voices