As an editor, your improvement and success as a writer is my top priority. And as a fellow writer, I see no reason not to share these resources I've stumbled across in my quest for free online advice. Enjoy!
The Craft of Writing
- Odyssey Workshop's writing tips - Though aimed at the science fiction/fantasy crowd, this site has plenty to offer writers of any genre of fiction. It begins with the mechanics of grammar and progresses up the scale of complexity to character development, pacing, and revision.
- Writers of the Future Online Workshop - A free online course (by the same folks who run the Writers of the Future contest) that will take an intermediate short-story writer through the whole process of creating a story, from generating and researching ideas to revising and refining the finished piece.
- Wikipedia's List of Writing Genres - Links to pages describing just about every written genre or subgenre imaginable, from adventure to yuri. Not sure which one your WIP belongs in? Find out here.
- NaNoWriMo - Each November, this nonprofit challenges writers to set down a 50,000-word novel in a month. Even in the off-season, the WriMo community is a wellspring of advice and motivation.
- Writing the Other - Advice and encouragement, in the form of books, classes, and collections of articles, on including diverse characters in your works.
- Chuck Palahniuk: Thought Verbs - A must-read for every novice writer who finds their characters bogged down in wordy on-page ruminations. Ban a few verbs for a month and watch your writing improve.
- Purdue OWL: Parallel Structure - Everyone who strings words together should know about parallel structure: how to arrange the clauses in a list so that they match in form, in function, and don't do this. (And beyond that article, the OWL site has several other concise, accessible guides to various aspects of grammar--it's well worth a browse.)
- Sketch a Novel in an Hour Exercise - A helpful exercise for any writer unsure of where their plot is going (or whether they have one at all).
- Kat Feete: What Do You Do With a First Draft Novel? - Outlines a process for revising the first draft of a novel—not in place of a professional developmental edit, mind you, but in preparation for it.
- Poul Anderson: On Thud and Blunder - Discusses (at great length) the practical considerations of writing within a historical, fantasy, or otherwise low-technology setting.
- RinkWorks's Fantasy Novelist Exam - Can your work-in-progress pass this cliche-detector test?
- Limyaael's Mary Sue Test - Is your protagonist perhaps a bit too perfect, too infallible, too special, or too much of an author stand-in to make for good fiction? In other words, do you have a Mary Sue on your hands? This test will tell.
Working with Editors
- Editorial Freelancers Association Rate Chart - Not sure how much an edit should cost? This chart gives a good guideline. For per-word rates, divide their hourly rates by the number of pages per hour, then divide that number by 250 words/page.
- Louise Harnby on The Different Levels of Editing - How to decipher the various names editors use for their services and find an editor that can give your manuscript what it needs.
- Unfamiliar with Microsoft Word's Track Changes? These two articles, one official and one humorous, ought to help.
- Track Changes Guide - In case the above wasn't enough, this article by editor Lisa Poisso presents a strategy for tackling the thousands of changes to your manuscript that your editor is likely to suggest.
The Road to Publication
- A. C. Crispin: How to Find a (Real!) Literary Agent - The most comprehensive guide on the topic I have yet to encounter online.
- Miss Snark, the Literary Agent - An insider's take on life at the opposite end of the slush pile. Inactive since 2007, but her wit and insights make it a worthwhile read for any author seeking representation.
- Marion Zimmer Bradley: Why Did My Story Get Rejected? - The acclaimed fantasy author and magazine editor details the many reasons why editors reject stories—even, on occasion, perfectly good and well-written ones.
- Jane Friedman on Permissions and Fair Use - An introduction to the concept of fair use (as defined under US copyright law) and when and how to request permission to incorporate copyrighted material into your work. Particularly important to self-publishing authors, but even aspiring traditional-publishers should know how this stuff works.
- HostingFacts.com - As you work your way from unknown to published, you'll want to establish an online presence for yourself. A major component of that presence is a website: a publicly visible page that shows the world who you are, what you've done, and where they can go to give you money for it. A good website will take a lot of time and thought to set up, but the first few choices (where to host your site, what domain name to call it, and which tools to build it with) are pretty straightfoward with the right information. That's just what this site, which publishes statistics and reviews of hosting platforms, aims to provide.
Reference Materials
- Wiktionary - Wikipedia's dictionary counterpart. Includes etymologies, pronunciations, synonyms and antonyms, translations, and more in an ad-free, quick-to-load interface.
- TV Tropes - An immensely comprehensive (and entertaining) encyclopedia of storytelling devices, and a great place to become more genre-savvy. As its authors remind us, tropes are neither bad or good in their own right, but like all tools, they're best used intentionally.
- Kate Monk's Onomastikon - A massive collection of historical names grouped by culture. Very helpful for naming characters.
- Behind the Name - Another resource on names; this one provides information on individual names, including etymologies, variant forms, and popularity data.
- Encyclopedia Mythica - A great source of information on mythological entities from cultures and traditions around the world.
- Internet Sacred Text Archive - Another collection of religious and mythological resources. Contains public-domain editions of everything from the Bible to the Kama Sutra to American folklore anthologies.
- Internet History Sourcebooks Project - Yet more resources, this time for the historically-inclined.
Fun Stuff
- RinkWorks Fantasy Name Generator - Generates random names of varying quality. Choose a template from the drop-down menu or master the generator's (somewhat arcane) syntax and create your own.
- "Take Three Nouns" Writing Prompt - A good warm-up exercise that might just spark your next story.
- Lunaii Dollmaker - For those brain-dead days when the words just won't come. Curl up under a blanket with your laptop and while away the afternoon dressing your characters in funny hats.
Please let me know if any of these links break!