Resources
My Favorite Links
Of course, I can’t put EVERYTHING on here, but I put my very favorite things I found the most useful to me in my writing. I hope they are helpful to you as well.
Structure & Storyboarding
- Plot Layout With Notes – I created this from Larry Brooks’ StoryFix.com and his book Story Engineering and added my own notes. It is a story layout in 4 parts.
- Storyboard – Standard storyboard layout in four parts (rows) with 5 columns for chapters or scenes which can be added as needed. The end of each row is the turning point. Adjust boxes as needed to fit your story.
- Storyboarding on Canva – This layout is more like storyboarding for shows or animation but works perfectly for stories as well. You can work big picture as it is or add boxes as you want to go into more detail.
Books, Writing, & Related Websites
ATTICUS REVIEW — great magazine about and with great writing. A literary online journal.
ELECTRIC LIT — all about writing, goings on in the world of writing, magazines and newspapers posts about writing and writers and events. Tons of stuff.
JANE FRIEDMAN — a must have resource for all writers. Get informed and insightful guidance to make the best decisions for your career and business, from someone who’s been working with writers and publishers for nearly three decades.
LITHUB — find out all about writers and writing on this site. It’s one you don’t want to miss.
POETS & WRITERS — This is a magazine I think every writer should have. Stay up to date with everything writing.
REEDSY — apps, tools, connect with agents and editors. Reedsy has it all.
STORYFIX — Larry Brooks’ website for writers. Great info, books, blog, you name it.
THE MARGINALIAN — tons of info writers need to know about stuff.
GROUPS & WORKSHOPS
I’m a member of several writers’ workshops, both live and online. Some I even started myself. Writers group can come and go but I’m proud to say I’ve been a member of a few of them for decades. Here are ones most useful to me.
APEX WRITERS — $ an online world-wide writers group started by NYT bestselling author David Farland. 3 zoom presentations a week. June is Camp Fik-A-Kee where we do all sorts of challenges in writing camp. We form our own writers sub-groups. It’s an amazing group with tons to offer writers.
DFW WRITERS WORKSHOP — & yearly conference. $ Live. The weekly workshop meets every Wednesday night in the Dallas/Fort Worth mid-cities area. The yearly conference is world-renown with agents and editors galore.
NTSFWW — North Texas Speculative Fiction Writers Workshop. Free. Live & Online. We really need a new name. Before the plague, we were live only. But we change as times change. Now we have writers from around the world! Our focus is the Speculative Fiction genre, writing to publish in today’s market. We meet on Discord.
MUSIC, SOUND
Sometimes you just need some music to go with your writing. I like to use music as a tool to enhance my story. Like a fight scene has fight music. A romantic scene romantic music, and so on. Here are a few of my faves.
IHEART RADIO — Everyone has their fave and I found Iheart a long, long time ago and stuck with it, paying for the service and I take it with me everywhere, even in my smart car (well, it’s kinda smart).
MIXCLOUD — a nice little station that has tons of music options.
STARSTREAMS — I discovered Starstreams long before Mixcloud, but Starsteams is also on Mixcloud, so there ya go. This was a late night time slot on a local Dallas/Fort Worth area easy listening/jazz radio station. That’s how I found it. Then it went online and I’m there almost every day. Great to tuning out the rest of life going on around you.
WACO100 — And on Iheart radio, I listen mostly to Waco100, an online station for country music based in Waco, Texas. I like it cause there’s not so much commericial and talk as some of the more popular and local radio stations with constant commericals and peppy people I don’t want to listen to. 🙂
Podcasts, Videos, etc.
HATTIE CRISELL PODCAST — Hattie Crisell is a writer and freelance journalist based in London. She’s taught writing. Published books, and articles, etc. Smart stuff here.
LITERARY FRICTION — this is the Sound Cloud link but you can find their podcasts just about everywhere.
THE CREATIVE PENN PODCAST — episodes are posted every Monday and include interviews, inspiration and information on writing and the business of being an author
THE SHIT NOBODY TELLS YOU ABOUT WRITING — a podcast for emerging writers, who are looking to improve their work with an aim to having it published, or for anyone who would like a behind-the-scenes look at the publishing industry, by litereary agents.
Research, info, etc.
CAMPFIRE WRITING APPS — helpful apps for writers
CLAUDE.AI — One of my most useful links for critiquing my own work and brainstorming, or sometimes just getting me unstuck.
LIBRARYTHING — keep track of the books and ebooks, etc., that you own!
ONELOOK DICTIONARY — OneLook scans 16,965,772 entries in 805 dictionaries.
ONELOOK THESAURUS — Enter a word, phrase, description, or pattern above to find synonyms, related words, and more.
ONELOOK REVERSE LOOKUP — go backwards!
SAVE THE CAT — A great site to improve your writing. Great templates.
Style Guides
Style guides are a necessary evil to writers. Each guide has a use. For ficiton, usually it’s CMoS, the Chicago Manual of Style. For business, usually it’s AP, The Associated Press Style Manual, and so on. Know your intended publication’s guidelines.
AP STYLEBOOK –$ & free, The Associated Press Stylebook is THE go-to style book for just about everything. Even CMoS sometimes refers to the AP Stylebook to reference.
APA STYLE GUIDE — American Psychological Association. The goal of APA style is to enhance readability and comprehension of scholarly work by providing standardized rules for paper structure and source citation.
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE (CMoS) — $ The gold standard for fiction writing in particular. the venerable, time-tested guide to style, usage, and grammar in an accessible online format. It is the indispensable reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the editorial canon with sound, definitive advice.
GLOBAL PRESS JOURNAL — Promoting dignity and precision in the practice of international journalism.
GREGG REFERENCE MANUAL — Did you take shorthand in school? I did, and 2 years of typing. Do I remember shorthand? No. LOL This reference source is great for style, grammar, usage, and formatting. Not available online.
MLA STYLE GUIDE — Modern Language Association. MLA style is most commonly used to cite sources within the language arts, cultural studies, and other humanities disciplines.
WRITING DEVICES, TOOLS, ETC..
I’m a nut when it comes to tools for writing, especially when it’s writing, brainstorming, plotting, etc., by hand! Here’s some of my fave sites with some cool goodies for writers.
NOTION — I use Notion to organize my thoughts and create wikis of my books. It’s a great little project manager and it’s not as difficult to learn as some others. Easy to use templates.
NOVLR — an online writing site. Built by writers, for writers, Novlr is the world’s only writer-owned creative writing platform. Join a community with writers and their goals at the heart of everything we do.
OBSIDIAN — another great project manager et al like Notion, but with a steeper learning curve. Templates help.
PLOT DEVICES — specially designed books, pencils, and other tools for writers.
SEMIKOLON — handcrafted writing products, esp. journals, etc.
WORLDANVIL — World Anvil is a set of worldbuilding tools that helps you create, organize and store your world setting. With wiki-like articles, interactive maps, historical timelines, an RPG Campaign Manager and a full novel-writing software, we have all the tools you’ll need to run your RPG Campaign or write your novel!
