Resources For Spell Writing And Casting Methods

resources for spell writing and casting methods

A Guide to Spell Writing by intrepidcrow-girl

Candle Color Meanings from natural-magics

Cannabis Witchcraft by intrepidcrow-girl

Creating a Sigil by intrepidcrow-girl

Cursing Stones from hellboundwitch

Enchanting and Charming Items by cindernook

How I Do Crystal Grids by gardenofthequeen

How to Make a Curse Vessel by intrepidcrow-girl

Important Factors to Consider when Writing a Spell by thiscrookedcrown

Knotwork Guide by nyphele

Magic/Sigil Circles by gardenofthequeen

Quick Curses by intrepidcrow-girl

Tips on Charm/Item Placement in Spellwork from natural-magics

Watercolor Binding Technique by naturalenchantments

Web Weaving How-to by fractalcaster

Witches, Jars, and Burrying ‘em by thiscrookedcrown

Witches’ Ladders by intrepidcrow-girl

How to Win Writing Contests—and Big Publishing Contracts

When I was in college, I wrote a story and—on the advice of my professor—entered it into a competition. It won third place, and as I considered my fifty dollars, I realized that I had made over twice the minimum wage writing that story. So I wondered, “If I worked harder, could I win more money?”

I was going to school full time and didn’t have a job, so I set a goal to win first place in a writing competition. In order to boost my changes, I decided to enter several contests. I worked for several months and entered them all within a couple of weeks. To my surprise, I won all six of the writing contests, including the International Writers of The Future Contest.

When I went to receive my award atop the World Trade Center, several editors approached me and asked to see my first novel. The outline interested the editors enough to start a small bidding war, and within a couple of days, I got a three novel contract. I went on to get rave reviews for that first novel and won a Philip K. Dick Memorial Special Award for it. I stayed on Locus’s Science Fiction Bestseller list for five months, and that helped set the tone for my career.

So, how did I win those contests? Well, I started by making a list of lists of ways that a judge might look at my work. For example, some judges might look for an ending that brought them to tears, while another might be more interested in an intellectual feast.

Recently, several people have asked me to share my list. I no longer have that original document, but here is a list of things that I might consider in creating a story that I want to use as an entry to a contest—or for a novel that I want to submit to a publisher.

First, a word of warning. When I was very young, perhaps four, I remember seeing a little robot in a store, with flashing lights and wheels that made it move. To me it seemed magical, nearly alive. My parents bought it for me for at Christmas, and a few weeks later it malfunctioned, so I took a hammer to it and pulled out the pieces to see what made it work—a battery, a tiny motor, some small colored lights, cheap paint and stickers.

Your story should feel magical and alive. It should be more than the sum of its parts. So as I list these parts, be aware that a great story is more than any of these.

Setting

My goal with my settings is to transport the reader into my world—not just through the senses, but also emotionally and intellectually. I want to make them feel, keep them thinking. This can often be done by using settings that fascinate the reader, that call to them.

1) Do I have unique settings that the reader will find intriguing? In short, is there something that makes my setting different from anything that the reader has seen before?

2) If my setting is in our world, is it “sexy” or mundane. (People are drawn to sexy settings. Even if we place a story in a McDonald’s, we need to bring it to life, make it enjoyable.)

3) Do I have any scenes that would be more interesting if the setting were moved elsewhere? (For example, let’s say that I want to show that a king is warlike. Do I open with him speaking to his counselors at a feast, or on the battlefield?)

4) Do I suffer by having repetitive settings? For example, if I set two scenes in the same living room, would one of them be more interesting if I moved it elsewhere?

5) Do my descriptions of settings have enough detail to transport the reader?

6) Did I bring my setting to life using all of the senses—sight, sound, taste, feel, smell, hot/cold?

7) Do my character’s feelings about the setting get across?

8) Do I want to show a setting in the past, present, and suggest a future? (For example, I might talk about a college’s historical growth and importance, etc.)

9) Can a setting be strengthened by describing what it is not?

10) Does my setting resonate with others within its genre?

11) Do my settings have duality—a sometimes ambiguous nature? (For example, my character might love the church where she was married, have fond memories of it, and yet feel a sense of betrayal because her marriage eventually turned ugly. So the setting becomes bittersweet.)

12) Do my settings create potential conflicts in and of themselves that aren’t explored in the text? (If I have a prairie with tall grass and wildfires are a threat, should I have a wildfire in the tale?)

13) Do my characters and my societies grow out of my setting? (If I’ve got a historical setting, do my characters have occupations and attitudes consistent with the milieu? Beyond that, with every society there is almost always a counter-movement. Do I deal with those?)

14) Is my setting, my world, in danger? Do I want it to be?

15) Does my world have a life of its own? For example, if I create a fantasy village, does it have a history, a character of its own? Do I need to create a cast for the village—a mayor, teacher, etc.?

16) Is my setting logically consistent? (For example, let’s say that I have a merchant town. Where would a merchant town most likely be? On a trade route or port—quite possibly at the junction of the two. So I need to consider how fully I’ve developed the world.)

17) Is my setting fully realized? (Let’s say I have a forest. What kinds of trees and plants would be in that forest? What kind of animals? What’s the history of that forest? When did it last have rain or snow? What’s unique about that forest? Etc.)

18) Do I describe the backgrounds (mountains, clouds, sun, moon), along with the middle ground (say a nearby building) and the elements nearest to my protagonist.

19) Does my setting intrude into every scene, so that my reader is always grounded? (If I were to set my story in a field, for example, and I have men preparing for battle, I might want to have a lord look up and notice that buzzards are flapping up out of the oaks in the distance, already gathering for the feast. I might want to mention the sun warming my protagonist’s armor, the flies buzzing about his horse’s ears, and so on—all while he is holding an important conversation.

20) Are there any settings that have symbolic import, whose meanings need to be brought to the forefront?

Characters

I want my characters to feel like real people, fully developed. Many stories suffer because the characters are bland or cliché or are just underdeveloped. We want to move beyond stereotypes, create characters that our readers will feel for. At the same time, we don’t want to get stuck in the weeds. We don’t want so much detail that the character feels overburdened and the writing gets sluggish.

So here are some of the checkpoints I might use for characters.

1) Do I have all of the characters that I need to tell the story, or is someone missing? (For example, would the story be stronger if I had a guide, a sidekick, a love interest, a contagonist, hecklers, etc.? (Note: if you don’t recognize those character types, Google dramatica.com.))

2) Do I have any characters that can be deleted to good effect?

3) Do I have characters who can perhaps be combined with others? For example, let’s say I have two cops on the beat. Would it work just as well with only one cop?

4) Do my characters have real personalities, depth?

5) Do my characters come off as stock characters, or as real people?

6) Do I know my characters’ history, attitudes, and dress?

7) Does each character have his or her interesting way of seeing the world?

8) Does each character have his or her own voice, his own way of expressing himself?

9) Are my characters different enough from each other so that they’re easily distinguished? Do their differences generate conflict? Remember that even good friends can have different personalities.

10) Have I properly created my characters’ bodies—described such things as hands, feet, faces, hair, ears, and so on?

11) Do each of my characters have their own idiosyncrasies?

12) Do I need to “tag” any characters so that readers will remember them easily—for example, by giving a character a limp, or red hair, or having one who hums a great deal?

13) How do my characters relate to the societies from which they sprang? In short, are they consistent with their own culture in some ways? And in what ways do they oppose their culture?

14) What does each of my characters want?

15) What does each one fear?

16) What things might my character be trying to hide?

17) What is each character’s history? (Where were they born? Schooled, etc.?)

18) What is my characters’ stance on religion, politics, etc.?

19) How do my characters relate to one another? How do they perceive one another? Are their perceptions accurate, or jaded?

20) Does each character have a growth arc? If they don’t, should they?

21) How honest are my characters—with themselves and with others? Should my readers trust them?

22) What would my characters like to change about themselves? Do they try to change?

23) Do my characters have their own family histories, their own social problems, their own medical histories, their own attitudes? Do we need a flashback anywhere to establish such things?

Conflicts

One of the surest ways to engage our audience is through conflicts. When a conflict is unresolved, and when the audience is waiting breathlessly for its outcome, the reader’s interest will become keen. They’ll look forward to the resolution unconsciously, and may even be thinking, “Oh, this is going to be good!” That state of arousal is called “suspense,” and it’s perhaps the most potent element of a tale.

1) What is the major conflict in my story?

2) Do I have proper try/fail cycles for it?

3) Is the major conflict resolved in a way that satisfies the readers?

4) Is it universal enough so that the readers will find it interesting? (Note that a conflict becomes far more interesting to a reader if it is something that he must deal with in his own life.)

5) Have I brought the conflicts to life through the incidents that I relate? In other words, are their ways to deepen or broaden the main conflict?

6) Do I have secondary conflicts? Most stories require more than one conflict. For example, a protagonist will often have an internal conflict as well as an external conflict. He may also have a love interest. He might have conflicts with nature, with God, and with his companions. So as an author, I must create a host of conflicts and decide how each one grows and is resolved.

7) How do my characters grow and change in order to overcome the conflicts?

8) Do my characters perhaps decide to adapt to a conflict, struggle to live with it rather than beat it?

9) How ingenious are my character attempts to solve their problems? Ingenuity often adds interest.

10) How driven are my characters to resolve their conflicts? Characters who will go to extremes are needed.

11) Do I have any namby-pamby attempts that I should delete? For example, if I have a protagonist whose main problem is that she doesn’t have the nerve to talk to her boss about a problem at work, should I strike that entire try/fail cycle? (The answer is that almost always you should strike out the scenes and replace it with something better.)

12) Is my hero equal to or greater than his task at the start of a tale? If so, then my hero needs to be weakened so that we have a better balance.

13) Does my protagonist ever get betrayed?

14) Does my protagonist have an identity conflict? At the heart of every great story is a character who sees himself as being one thing—charming, heroic, wise—while others around him perceive him as being something else—socially wanting, cowardly, foolish.

15) Do I have enough conflicts to keep the story interesting?

16) Should some of the minor conflicts be deleted, or resolved? (Remember that not all conflicts need to have try/fail cycles.)

Themes

Themes in the story might be called the underlying philosophical arguments in your tale. A story doesn’t need to have a theme in order for it to be engaging. Likeable protagonists undergoing engaging conflicts is all that you need in order to hold a reader. But a tale that tackles a powerful theme will tend to linger with you much longer. Indeed, such tales can even change the way that a reader thinks, persuade him in important arguments. Shakespeare made every story an argument, and the “theme” was the central question to his tale.

Some people will suggest that dealing with themes is “didactic.” Don’t be fooled. Those same writers will put themes in their own works, and usually they’re taking stands that oppose yours. For example, if you argue that morality is innate and central to what a human is, they’ll argue that it’s situational and we’re all just animals. They don’t oppose the idea of stories having themes; they may just be opposed to your views. So make sure that your arguments are rigorous and persuasive.

1) Can I identify themes that I consciously handled?

2) Are there themes that came out inadvertently?

3) How universal are my themes? How important are they to the average reader?

4) Are there themes that need to be dealt with but aren’t? For example, if I have a policeman who is going to take a life, does he need to consider how he will feel about that?

5) Are there questions posed or problems manifested that bog the story down and need to be pulled?

6) Do my characters ever consciously consider or talk about the main themes? Should they?

7) Do my characters need to grapple with important questions? If not, perhaps they should.

8) Do my characters change at all due to the influence of new ideas or beliefs?

9) If my theme is going to “grow,” become more important as the story progresses, do I need to add or modify scenes in order to accommodate that growth? In other words, do I need to let the theme help shape the tale?

10) As your character grapples with a theme, does he find himself led down false roads? For example, let’s go back to our cop. Let’s say that he shoots a boy at night, and feels guilty when he discovers that the boy wasn’t really armed. What the cop thought was a gun turns out to have been a cell phone. Would other characters try to influence him? Perhaps a senior officer might take him out to get a drink—because alcohol has been his salvation for 20 years. Another officer might suggest that the kid was trying to commit suicide by cop, and our protagonist that he ‘did the kid a favor,’ and so on.

11) Does my character ever have to synthesize a thematic concept—come to grips with it intellectually and emotionally, so that it alters the character’s behavior?

Treatment

Your “treatment” is the way that you handle your story. The number of items that come into play in your treatment is so long, I can’t get into all of them. We would need get down to the real nitty-gritty of putting a sentence together.

You’ll want to create your own list of items to look for in your treatment. If you notice for example that you’re creating a lot of long, compound sentences in a row, you might make it a goal to vary your sentence length. If you find that you’re using weak verbs, you may want to go through your tale and search for instances of “was” and “were.” If you find yourself using the word “then,” you might want to go through in your edits and make sure that incidents in your tale are related in sequential order, so that you don’t need the word “then.” If you find yourself stacking modifiers in front of nouns and verbs, you might want to watch for that in your editing. If you tend to over-describe things, you might want to watch your descriptions.

In short, whatever your own personal weaknesses are in writing, you’ll want to create a list so that you can think about them when you write.

But here are a few elements to consider in your treatment.

1) Is your tone appropriate to the tale? For example, let’s say that you want to invest a bit of humor into your story. You start it with a joke. Do you maintain the tone throughout the rest of the tale, perhaps layering the humor in, scene after scene?

2) Do each of your characters speak with their own unique voices? You’ll need to do a dialog check for each character before you’re done.

3) Do you as a narrator establish a voice for the piece, one that you maintain throughout?

4) Is every description succinct and evocative?

5) Do your descriptions echo the emotional tone of the point-of-view (POV) character?

6) Do you get deep enough penetration into your protagonist’s POV so that the reader can track their thoughts and emotions? If not, is there a good reason why you neglected to do so?

7) Is there music in your language? Do you want there to be? Ernest Hemingway once said that “All great novels are really just poetry.” With that in mind, listen to the sounds of your words. Consider changing them as needed to fit the meter and emphasis that you need.

8) Do you use enough hooks to keep your reader interested?

9) Could you strengthen the piece by using foreshadowing?

10) Do you use powerful metaphors or similes to add beauty and resonance to your work? (If not, you’re in trouble. Your competition will.)

11) Is your pacing fast when it needs to be, and slow when it needs to be?

12) Do you waste space with unnecessary words?

13) Is your diction appropriate for your audience? By that I mean, if you’re writing to a middle-grade reader, is the diction understandable to a ten-year-old.

Story Parts

Sometimes when you’re looking at a story, you need to think about it in “chunks.” Here are a few things that I think about when creating a tale.

1) Is the basic idea of my story original and powerful? (In a contest, entering a story with a mundane concept probably won’t get you far. For example, if you enter a story about a young man fighting space pirates, it probably won’t do well—unless you come up with some new technology or angle that sets it above all other space-pirate tales.)

2) Do you establish your characters swiftly? We should probably know whom the story is about within a scene or two, and we should probably be introduced in a way that tells us something important about the characters.

3) We also need to establish the setting in every single scene.

4) Do you get to the inciting incident quickly and cleanly? (The inciting incident is the place where the protagonist discovers what his main conflict is going to be.)

5) Are there any storytelling tools that I could use to make this tale better. (For a discussion of storytelling tools, see my book “Million Dollar Outlines,” which is available at www.davidfarland.com/shop.)

6) Does my story escalate through the following scenes, with conflicts that broaden and deepen?

7) Does my story resolve well? Do I have a climax that really is exciting? Is the outcome different from what the audience expects?

8) Do I tackle all of the resolutions in a way that leaves the reader satisfied?

Writing a story can be an exhausting exercise—intellectually challenging and emotionally draining. When you’re in the throes of it, it may seem daunting. But you’re never really done until the outcome feels magical, and if you take care of all the little things that you should, the outcome will indeed seem wondrous.

Happy writing!

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I am all about stories where the hero and villain know each other very well and were once friends, but I could deal with it being used another way.

What if instead of being used for drama, for wistfulness and pleas to join the other side, it was more like the hero looking over a battlefield going Seriously, who does she think she’s kidding, she’s been using the same chess strategy since we were seven or the villain picking a headquarters in a specific climate because she knows the hero hates hot weather or deciding Send in some forces to round up all the copies of his favorite poet’s work, that’ll tick him off.

Or most of all them still having inside jokes with each other.

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MY WRITING MASTERPOST

I just have a lot of writing tips and masterposts and just stuff in my likes and I decided to put them all into this. All rights goes to the people who made them.

Cool Other Masterposts:

Writing Specific Characters

Writing References

Writing Masterpost

Character Guides

Writing Help for Writers

Ultimate Writing Resource List

Lots of RP Guides

Online Writing Resources

List of Websites to Help You Focus

Resources for Writing Bio’s

Helpful Links for Writing Help

General Writing Resources

Resources for Biography Writing

Mental Ilnesses/Disorders Guides

8 Words You Should Avoid While Writing

The Ultimate Writing Masterpost

General:

The Official Ten-Step Guide to Becoming the Next Gatsby

The Periodic Table of Storytelling

Joss Whedon’s Top 10 Writing Tips

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

34 Writing Tips that will make you a Better Writer

50 Free resources that will improve your writing skills

5 ways to get out of the comfort zone and become a stronger writer

10 ways to avoid Writing Insecurity

The Writer’s Guide to Overcoming Insecurity

The Difference Between Good Writers and Bad Writers

You’re Not Hemingway - Developing Your Own Style

7 Ways to use Brain Science to Hook Readers and Reel them In

8 Short Story Tips from Kurt Vonnegut

How to Show, Not Tell

5 Essential Story Ingredients

How to Write Fiction that grabs your readers from page one

Why research is important in writing

Make Your Reader Root for Your Main Character

Writing Ergonomics (Staying Comfortable Whilst Writing)

The Importance of Body Language

Fashion Terminology

All About Kissing

Genre Help: Romance

187 Mental Illnesses

Types of Mental Illness

Eye Color List

Spectral Groupings

Do you have trouble creating your titles?

On being a co-writer || Additional tips on effective co-writing 

The length of a chapter

How to deal with too many story ideas

On writing two stories simultaneously || a similar ask

When a story stops working

Copyright

Reading critically for writers

The question of outlining

Avoiding publishing scams

Finding story ideas

Tips on building a platform [guest blog]

How much does writing “in genre” matter?

What a “real writer” is

Pennames and aliases

A series of thoughts on series titles

The self-pub miniseries: the why

The self-pub miniseries: the what

Rewriting fanfiction into original fiction

Formatting long quotes and songs 

Characters:

10 days of Character Building

Name Generators

Name Playground

Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

Seven Common Character Types

Handling a Cast of Thousands Part 1 - Getting To Know Your Characters

Web Resources for Developing Characters

Building Fictional Characters

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Body Language Cheat

Body Language Reference Cheat

Tips for Writers: Body Language

Types of Crying

Body Language: Mirroring

Character Building Workshop

Tips for Characterization

Character Chart for Fiction Writers

Villains are people too but…

How to Write a Character Bible

Character Development Exercises

All Your Characters Talk the Same - And They’re Not A Hivemind!

Medieval Names Archive

Sympathy Without Saintliness

Family Echo (Family Tree Maker)

Behind The Name

100 Character Development Questions for Writers

Aether’s Character Development Worksheet

The 12 Common Archetypes

Six Types of Courageous Characters

Kazza’s List of Character Secrets - Part 1, Part 2

Creating Believable Characters With Personality

Angry

Bad Asses

Bitches (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Childishness

Emotional Detachment

Flirtatious

The Girl Next Door

Introverts (2)

Mean Persons (2)

Psychopaths

Party Girls

Rich (2) 

Rebels

Sarcasm

Serial Killers (2)

Shyness (2, 3)

Sluts

Villains (2)

Witt

Body Language Cheat Sheet

Creating Fictional Characters Series

Three Ways to Avoid Lazy Character Description

7 Rules for Picking Names for Fictional Characters

Character Development Questionnaire

How to Create Fictional Characters

Character Name Resources

Character Development Template

Character Development Through Hobbies

Character Flaws List

10 Questions for Creating Believable Characters

Ari’s Archetype Series

How to Craft Compelling Characters

List of 200 Character Traits

Writing Characters of the Opposite Sex

Making Your Characters Likable

Do you really know your characters?

Character Development: Virtues

Character Development: Vices

Character Morality Alignment

List of Negative Personality Traits

List of Positive Personality Traits

List of Emotions - Positive

List of Emotions - Negative

Loon’s Character Development Series - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Phobia List A-L (Part 1), M-Z (Part 2)

30 Day In Depth Character Development Meme

Words for Emotions based on Severity

Eight Bad Characters

High Level Description of the Sixteen Personality Types

How Not to Write Female Characters

Writing Female Characters

How to write empowering female characters

Why I write strong female characters

Red Flags for Female Characters Written by Men

Writing strong female characters

The Female Character Flowchart

Eight Heroine Archetypes

Eight Hero Archetypes

Help on picking character names

A tip about realistic characters

Strategies to create believable characters

Additional tips on writing PoC characters

Advice on writing genders

Creating unstable characters

Ambiguous Antagonists

A tidbit on psychological trauma [trigger warnings]

On writing accents

What makes characters stick with me

Sweetening up character description

Making an introverted character stand out

Conveying too much or too little character “inner reflection”

Revealing a character’s asexual orientation

Revealing a character’s gender & orientation

A habit of killing characters

When characters aren’t standing out

Breaking hearts with character deaths

Quick tips on expressing character 

Character development versus pacing 

A mini guide to character voice

A Description Resource

55 Words to Describe Someones Voice

Describing Skin Colors

Describing a Person: Adding Details

Emotions Vocabulary

90 Words For ‘Looks’

Be More Descriptive

Describe a Character’s Look Well

100 Words for Facial Expressions

To Show and Not To Tell

Words to Describe Facial Expressions

Describing Clothes

List of Actions

Tone, Feelings and Emotions

Writing A Vampire

Writing Pansexual Characters

Writing Characters on the Police Force

Writing Drunk Characters

Writing A Manipulative Character

Writing A Friends With Benefits Relationship

Writing A Natural Born Leader

Writing A Flirtatious Character

Writing A Nice Character

Fiction Writing Exercises for Creating Villains

Five Traits to Contribute to an Epic Villain

Writing Villains that Rock

Writing British Characters

How To Write A Character With A Baby

On Assassin Characters

Disorders in general (2, 3, 4, 5) 

Attention Deficit Disorder

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Anxiety (2, 3, 4, 5) 

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome

Bipolar Disorder (2, 3)

Cotard Delusions

Depression (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)   

Eeating Disorders (2, 3)

Facitious Disorders

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Multiple Personality Disorder (2)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Night Terrors

Kleptomania (2)

A Pyromaniac

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Psychopaths

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (2) (3)

Sex Addiction (2)

Schizophrenia (2)

Sociopaths (2)

Aspergers Syndrome

Apathy 

Autism

Someone Blind (2)

Cancer (2, 3)

Disability

Dyslexia

Muteness (2, 3)

Stutter

Actors

Ballet Dancer (2)

Christianity

Foreigners

Gamblers

Hinduism

Hitmen

Satanism

Smokers

Stoners

Taoism

Journalists

Vegetarians

Alcohol Influence (2, 3, 4, 5)

Cocaine Influence

Ecstasy Influence (2)

Heroin Use

LSD Influence

Marijuana Influence (2, 3)

Opiate Use

Tips on Writing Dialogue:

It’s Not What They Say…

Top 8 Tips for Writing Dialogue

Speaking of Dialogue

The Great Said Debate

He Said, She Said, Who Said What?

How to Write Dialogue Unique to Your Characters

Writing Dialogue: Go for Realistic, Not Real-Life

Tips on Writing Point of View:

Establishing The Right Point of View

How to Start Writing in the Third Person

The I Problem

Style & Craft of Writing:

The literary “weak verb”

Do you have word tics?

Victoria’s Vitamins: vague descriptive words

Victoria’s Vitamins: mood

Breaking writing habits

Varying sentences

Describing colors

Sweetening up character description

Purple prose

Grammar is a tricksy thing

"Smartening" the language of your narrative

Building suspense and making readers sweat

A couple tips about description in fast-paced scenes

Content:

The story of exposition

10 ways to hit your reader in the gut

Make your reader root for your main character

Make your reader hold their breath

What’s the big deal about intros?

A tip about description

The word count of your manuscript

Things that make me keep reading

Choosing ideas and endings

When to describe setting

Battling cliches

Is your story YA, NA, or adult?

When a plot isn’t strong enough to make a whole story

Flashbacks with multiple POVs

Bulking up your word count

Avoiding cliches

Conquer that opening line || response || discussion

Tips on revealing setting awesomely kind of

Deciding between different ideas for the same story 

Revision:

You’ve finished your manuscript! Now what?

Revision sucks but doesn’t have to suck

Where to find beta readers/critique partners

Tips on taking critique

Tips on giving critique

What to do with bad writing advice

Additional insight on bad writing advice

Five quick steps to get into revising that manuscript

When to say you’re done revising

Beginning the awesome journey of revision

Friends are not always the best readers 

Plot, Structure, & Outline:

Writing A Novel Using the Snowflake Method

Effectively Outlining Your Novel

Conflict and Character Within Story Structure

Outlining Your Plot

Ideas, Plots and Using the Premise Sheets

How To Write A Novel

Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense

Plunge Right In…Into Your Story, That Is

Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot

36 (plus one) Dramatic Situations

The Evil Overlord Devises A Plot: Excerpt from Stupid Plot Tricks

Conflict Test

What is Conflict?

Monomyth

The Hero’s Journey: Summary of Steps

Outline Your Novel in Thirty Minutes

Plotting Without Fears

Novel Outlining 101

Writing The Perfect Scene

One-Page Plotting

The Great Swampy Middle

How Can You Know What Belongs In Your Book?

Create A Plot Outline in 8 Easy Steps

How to Organize and Develop Ideas for Your Novel

Create Structure in your novel using index cards

Choosing the best outline method for you

Hatch’s Plot Bank

Setting & Making Your Own World

Magical Word Builder’s Guide

I Love The End Of The World

World Building 101

The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help Bring Your Settings to Life

Creating the Perfect Setting - Part 1

Creating a Believable World

Setting

Character and Setting Interactions

Maps Workshop - Developing the Fictional World Through Mapping

World Builders Project

How To Create Fantasy Worlds

Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds

Helpful Tools & Software:

Tip Of My Tongue - Find the word you’re looking for

Write or Die - Stay motivated

Stay Focused - Tool for Chrome, lock yourself out of distracting websites

My Writing Nook - Online Text Editor, Free

Bubbl.us - Online Mind Map Application, Free

Family Echo - Online Family Tree Maker, Free

Freemind - Mind Map Application; Free; Windows, Mac, Linux, Portable

Xmind - Mind Map Application; Free; Windows, Mac, Linux, Portable

Liquid Story Binder - Novel Organization and Writing Application; free trial, $45.95; Windows, Portable

Scrivener - Novel Organization and Writing Application; free trial, $39.95; Mac

SuperNotecard - Novel Organization and Writing Application; free trial, $29; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable

yWriter - Novel Organization and Writing Application; free; Windows, Linux, portable

JDarkRoom - Minimalist Text Editing Application; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable

AutoRealm - Map Creation Application; free; Windows, Linux with Wine

Grammer & Revision:

How To Rewrite

Editing Recipe

Cliche Finder

Revising Your Novel: Read What You’ve Written

Writing 101: Revising A Novel

20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes

Synonyms for the Most Commonly Used Words of the English Language

Grammar Urban Legends

Words Instead of Walk (2)

Commonly Confused Adjectives

A Guide on Punctuation

Common Writing Mistakes

25 Synoms for ‘Expession’

How to: Avoid Misusing Variations of Words

Words to Keep Inside Your Pocket

The 13 Trickiest Grammar Hang-Ups

Other Ways to Say..

Proofreading

300+ Sophiscated and Underused Words

List of Misused Words

Words for Sex

100 Beautiful and Ugly Words

Words to Use More Often

Alternatives for ‘Smile’ or ‘Laugh’

Three Self Editing Tips

Words to Use Instead of ‘Walk’, ‘Said’, ‘Happy’ and ‘Sad’

Synonyms for Common Words

Alternatives for ‘Smile’

Transitional Words

The Many Faces and Meanings of ‘Said’

Synonyms for ‘Wrote’

A Case Of She Said, She Said

Creativity Boosters:

*Creative Writing Prompts

*Ink Provoking

*Story Starter

*Story Spinner

*Story Kitchen

*Language is a Virus

*The Dabbling Mum

Quick Story Idea Generator

Solve Your Problems By Simply Saying Them Out Loud

Busting Your Writing Rut

Creative Acceleration: 11 Tips To Engineer A Productive Flow

Writing Inspiration, Or Sex on a Bicycle

The Seven Major Beginner Mistakes

Complete Your First Book with these 9 Simple Writing Habits

Free Association, Active Imagination, Twilight Imaging

Random Book Title Generator

Finishing Your Novel

Story Starters & Idea Generators

Words to Use More Often

How to: Cure Writer’s Block

Some Tips on Writer’s Block

Got Writer’s Block?

6 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

Tips for Dealing With Writer’s Block

Improvement:

Improve Your Writing Habits Now

5 Ways to Add Sparkle to Your Writing

Getting Over Roleplaying Insecurities

Improve Your Paras

Why the Right Word Choices Result in Better Writing

4 Ways To Have Confidence in Your Writing

Writing Better Than You Normally Do

How’s My Driving?

Motivation:

Backhanding procrastination

On habits and taking care of yourself || Response

More troubles with writing motivation

The inner critic and ways to fight it

The writing life is hard on us

For troubles with starting your story

Writing to be published

"You’re a writer, will you write this for me?"

Writing a story that’s doomed to suck

Writing stamina builds slowly

When depression goes and writing goes with it

Additional inner critic strategies

Tips on conquering NaNoWriMo (or any project, really)

You will change as a writer

Ways to keep writing while in school

13 quick tips when you’re starting your novel

First draft blues

Getting in your own way 

Writing an Application:

How to: Make That Application Your Bitch

How to: Make Your App Better

How to: Submit a Flawless Audition

10 Tips for Applying

Para Sample Ideas

5 Tips on Writing an IC Para Sample

Writing an IC Sample Without Escaping From the Bio

How to: Create a Worthy IC Para Sample

How to: Write an Impressive Para Sample

How to: Lengthen Short Para’s

Prompts:

Drabble Stuff

Prompts List

Writing Prompts

Drabble Prompts

How to Get Into Character

Writing Challenges/Prompts

A Study in Writing Prompts for RPs

Para Prompts & Ideas

Writing Prompts for Journal Entries

A List of Para Starters

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How would you describe green eyes without it sounding cliche?

There are some ways to describe eyes here.

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Fighting Words

Active verbs to use in a fight scene or an otherwise violent encounter, color-coded by severity (with red as most intense and purple as most mild), and categorized by type of fight.

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