Writing Sites - Tumblr Posts
Not every writer wants to post their work online, however there are positives to doing so. If you seek feedback and advice from readers and writers, you might consider posting a draft or two. Even a few chapters or a poem can be uploaded online to get a little audience feedback.
Here are writing sites I’ve explored along with brief reviews of my experience in using them:
Fictionpress & Fanfiction.net Neither site allows you to remove reviews, delete your account, or budges an inch about harassment reports. This attracts many trolls, spammers, and critics who feel you’re entitled to their extremely negative opinions of your work. I don’t want young or amateur writers going through that, and the rest of us don’t deserve harassment either. There are wonderful readers and writers on both sites, but overall it’s an unsafe environment I can no longer recommend (further info).
A decent alternative to FF.net is Fictionpad. It’s a smaller site with fewer fandoms, but it’s easier to use and the admins were nice when I last tried it.
Archive Of Our Own (AO3) | Fanfiction only** | No covers — Invite only, but getting in isn’t hard. High viewership, well organized, and ad-free. Some written feedback, especially if you ask for some, but the “kudos” button is open to the public so anyone can leave their mark of approval. You can also set individual stories to “users only” along with other useful privacy options.
Crossover friendly, so you can finally post that multi-fandom fic and tag each property for search. Ships, subject material, and trigger warnings are also taggable for search (or to weed out in the case of tws). Lets you group individual stories into a series, and has various features for sharing/gifting your work with others. Overall the best place for fanfiction, hands down. — Adult Material Allowed
Major Demographics: Female, All ages.
Popular Genres: smut, epic dramas, fluff/angst, whump
Wattpad | Original & fan fiction | Covers Req. — Wattpad has been steadily improving its features and policies in the five years I’ve been using it. Here, some writers receive tons of feedback and appreciation, but most receive very little. A few authors have gotten published thanks to this site, others have followers in the hundreds of thousands, and still others become site administrators to support the bustling community.
They’ve recently rebranded, and have also introduced a feature to earn writers money. It is currently in beta and being tested with select authors only.
Unlike other sites, this one has very clear international groups and a high ethnic diversity among its writers. There’s an emphasis on supporting foreign authors and their stories in any language. Contests are set up by the site, but also smaller niche ones can be run by individual users.
It’s very fun to use and if the site chooses to feature one of your works you can get a lot of traffic. For the most part however, you have to practice marketing yourself, and/or develop a group of writer friends and read/promote each other’s work. — Adult Material allowed, but along strict guidelines (lots of kids use this site!).
Major Demographics: Female, Teens.
Popular Genres: romance, young adult, supernatural, celeb fic, fantasy
Royal Road | Original & fan fiction | Covers Opt. — This was suggested in the replies, so I did some research. Haven’t used it myself, looks nice, but here are the main points interested writers should know:
Site does not claim ownership of your work, copyright stays with you.
Popular stories receive much feedback and viewership in the millions.
You cannot remove reviews on your own stories, and you must submit a ticket to remove your story or delete your account.
From their FAQ: “All new submissions are manually checked for appropriate tagging and plagiarism, so expect it to take 12-24 hrs for a submission to be approved.” Also, stories with low-quality spelling and grammar will be removed by moderators.
Keeping a steady update schedule of “polished” drafts seems to be mandatory, and reviewers sound entitled.
One-shots seem to be out of the question, this is a site for novels.
Premium and free options exist for both readers and writers.
Site is affilated with Amazon, has been running for six years, and is based in Israel.
Fantasy, supernatural, epic dramas.
Adult Material Allowed
Smashbook, Livejournal, Inkspired, and Booknet are sites I am aware of, but have too little knowledge of to review. Likewise Wordpress, Blogger, or right here on Tumblr you can regularly post stories or novels and receive feedback. However, for those sites you do have to figure out a blogging system for yourself.
While researching good sites for this post, I found this user’s comments insightful. She suggested Writer’s Digest and Absolute Write as good places to seek professional feedback on your work. They don’t appear to be sites where you post work, but rather they provide tips and resources to help improve your work.
There are dozens of other places online where you can post your original fiction, non-fiction, and fan fiction. Things to keep in mind when site shopping:
READ THEIR SUBMISSION POLICIES & GUIDELINES FIRST
Search for reviews of the site by individuals who’ve actually used the site and are not affilated with the site.
See what the site’s policy is on deleting works & accounts. You don’t want to get your name and work trapped on a site with a bad reputation.
If “popular” stories have very little feedback on them, this means the majority of stories on that site get none.
If most users haven’t updated in months/years, this means the site is practically dead and may soon shut down. RED FLAG: the site does not date anything.
If the “feedback” on users’ pages and stories are “Like my work!” or “Read for read?” and other self-promotional messages, don’t sign up.
If a site looks cool to you but you’re still unsure, make an account with a junk email and post something you don’t care too much about just to test the waters. Good/bad doesn’t matter much right now, what’s important is figuring out how traffic works and what readers there are interested in.
Sites to AVOID due to spam, scams, and shifty behavior:
Inkitt—spam/shifty; claims it’s the #1 site for online publishing, but this is misleading. Their idea of getting users is to send copy/paste “invitations” to pre-existing online accounts (often dead accounts), and lie about how good one’s writing is even though they’ve never read it. Signing up with them also gets you endless emails about their pathetic contests.
Dreame/Ficfun—spam/scam; similar deceptive invitation tactic, except they are relentless (they’ve “invited” me five six TEN times on two different sites). Their gimmick is to offer you pennies for 5yr rights to your work (and their site is trashy with very little reader feedback). Both are owned by their Singaporean parent company Stary PTE Ltd. (who personally sent me my 5th “invite”).
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+ HEY, Writers! other social media: Wattpad - AO3 - Pinterest - Goodreads
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*Based on what I see as receiving the most traffic and feedback on each site. These are not accurate statistics, merely observations.
** “Is AO3 really just for fanfic?” (tl;dr—YES)
WRITING HELP SITES 1. NaNoWriMo
The National Novel Writing Month blog provides inspirational posts for when you’re stuck with writer’s block and offers guidelines for everything from the publishing process to finding feedback.
2. Write It Sideways
The articles for writers on Write It Sideways outline real-life advice, like writing grants, author branding, and gift buying, as well as writing tips and tricks, like dialogue mistakes and how to build tension.
3. Helping Writers Become Authors
K.M. Weiland, the writer of Helping Writers Become Authors, is an award-winning author who shares creative writing advice on story structure, character arcs, common writing mistakes, and much more!
4. Inklyo.com
This website offers great advice for authors, bloggers, businesspeople, and students. Not only will you find writing advice and inspiration, but the site also offers a wealth of practical tips for honing your writing skills, finding work, and staying productive. If you’re looking for in-depth instruction, Inklyo.com also provides a range of courses and ebooks aimed at helping you learn how to write anything well.
5. Warrior Writers
Warrior Writers is run by best-selling author Kristen Lamb, who guides writers with comprehensive and detailed posts that have a humorous and easy-to-read tone.
6. Fantasy Author’s Handbook
Although this is technically a genre-specific writing blog, New York Times best-selling author Philip Athans has great advice for writers of all types, guaranteed.
7. Abidemi.tv
Abidemi is an accomplished author who has decided to share her insight and knowledge of the writing and publishing world to help others become better writers. In addition to offering free resources in her blog, she also creates and sells writing courses.
Writer’s Lifestyle
The following writing websites are great for writers who have some extra time or need to take a quick break and want to spend it productively.
8. Write to Done
Write to Done clearly outlines useful topics for writers, like imposter syndrome, recovering from destructive criticism, and finding a pen name.
9. Brain PickingsMaria Popova’s writings on culture, books, and other eclectic subjects are always extremely interesting reading for any writer with some spare time.
10. Novelicious
While this might be more of a book website than a writing website, Novelicious also has advice for writers on retreats and for writing serialized novels—not to mention post about which books are being turned into movies this year (and reading that is time well spent for any writer, really).
11. Opinionator
The exclusive online commentary from the Draft section of Opinionator covers essays by journalists, novelists, linguists, and grammarians on the art of writing.
12. The Authors’ Nook
The Authors’ Nook houses relatable posts for writers along with advice on being a writer, allowing for a blend of good fun and useful advice for writing breaks.
Marketing/Blogging
These blogs help writers market their books and create blogging personas to engage an audience more effectively.
13. The Write Life
This writing website offers solid ideas for blogging, including working from home, pitching ideas, guest posting, and much more.
14. Goins, Writer
National best-selling author Jeff Goins shares real-life experiences and reflections about building an audience, shortcuts to success, and engaging a community in the age of Internet fame.
15. The Book Designer
As stated in its tagline, The Book Designer gives “practical advice to help build better books,” which includes writing creative disclaimers, choosing the right platforms, and using social media efficiently.16. Angela BoothAngela Booth, a copywriter, ghostwriter, author, marketer, and writing coach, write ample posts to help authors improve book sales and ensure a book will be a financial success.
17. Carly Watters
Carly Watters is a literary agent who provides advice on getting published in the 21st century. Her useful “Things I Wish I Knew” posts provide true accounts and tell how other writers can learn from them.
Publishing
The writing blogs below aid writers in the publishing process, from behind-the-scenes intel to publishing tips and tricks.
18. Jane Friedman
Jane Friedman has more than 20 years of experience in the book publishing industry. She provides informative articles on both the writing process and the publishing process.
19. The Creative Penn
Run by New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Joanna Penn, this site offers articles and other resources related to writing, publishing, and marketing books.
20. Alan Rinzler
The articles of Alan Rinzler, a consulting editor, help writers understand what goes on behind the scenes of the publishing process.
21. Publetariat
Publetariat gives practical information on networking, author websites, and the publishing process. It also shares links to big news stories in the world of publishing.
22. The Independent Publishing Magazine
The Independent Publishing Magazine hosts posts about many different parts of the publishing process, such as growing a following, avoiding authorship problems, and finding the right editor.
Writing Inspiration/Prompts
These sites are excellent for writers who are stuck in a rut and need some inspiration or even concrete prompts to get them writing again.
23. WritingPrompts.com
Writing prompts are posted here daily, offering inspiration for writers in all genres. Some of the prompts focus on breaking through writer’s block, while others focus on building characters or refining your dialogue-writing skills. If you’re feeling as though you’re in a writing rut, the site also posts inspirational quotes from famous authors.
24. Positive Writer
Positive Writer was created for writers with doubt—like the website’s author, Bryan Hutchinson—and to provide inspirational posts that help writers keep writing.
25. Blots and Plots
The Blots and Plots blog instructs writers to stay in the habit of writing, targeting specific problems and demonstrating how it’s possible to write a novel even with a full-time job.
26. Writer’s Digest
This well-known and comprehensive site offers all manner of advice and resources for authors. Of particular interest are the site’s many creative writing prompts. New prompts are published weekly, and writers post their results in the comments section.
27. Qwiklit
Qwiklit offers fun and accessible articles about reading and writing. It also has a bunch of writing prompts for writers who might feel stuck.
28. Writing Prompts That Don’t Suck
This one’s pretty self-explanatory, but Writing Prompts That Don’t Suck tries to avoid boring and familiar writing prompts to provide fun and interesting ones instead.
Have at it!
Source
Ok here is a compilation of all the software and useful tools I’ve come across whilst writing. Some of them I’ve reviewed on here already, more coming soon.
Got an idea? Well get planning! Here’s some useful outlining, brainstorming and mind- mapping software:
Coggle
Lucidchart
Mural.ly
Blumind
MindMeister
Mindmaple
Mindomo
NovaMind
Popplet
Scapple
Tree Sheets
Visual Understanding Environment (VUE)
XMind
FreeMind
Oak Outliner
Work Flowy
The Outliner of Giants
Just want to get writing? You want a word processor:
Gedit
Google Docs
Kate
LibreOffice
Microsoft Word
My Writing Spot
NoteTab
Open Office
Quabel
Ted
Vim
yEdit
Making notes? Here you go:
CintaNotes
Evernote
KeepNote
Memonic
MS OneNote
Scribe
SuperNotecard
Tomboy
Timelines giving you a headache? Try these:
Aeon Timeline
Dipity
Preceden
Tiki-Toki
Timeglider
Timeline
TimelineJS
TimeToast
Now perhaps you want to organise those notes. Got a lot of research? Character sheets? Images? Well here’s some tools to keep all that together:
Liquid Story Binder XE
LitLift
PangurPad
Scriptito
Scrivener
Writer’s Café
Yarny
yWriter
Are you easily distracted? The following tools will keep you on track:
Dark Room
FocusWriter
JDarkRoom
Momentum Writer
OmmWriter
Q10
Writemonkey
Zen Writer
Even more productivity tools to help keep you focussed on your task:
Cold Turkey
FocalFilter
Freedom
InternetOff
Keepmeout
Nanny
Productivity Owl
RescueTime
SelfControl
SelfRestraint
Simple Blocker
StayFocusd
Strict Workflow
Time Doctor
Waste No Time
Website Blocker
So you’ve got something down? Need to edit?
AutoCrit
EditMinion
Grammarly
LyX
SlickWrite
SmartEdit
After the Deadline
All done? Perhaps you’d like some e-publishing tools:
Acrobat
InDesign
Calibre
CutePDF
Jutoh
Mobipocket Creator
PagePlus
PageStream
PDFCreator
Scribus
Sigil
I’m feeling generous, have some more cool stuff:
750 Words
One Page per Day
Oneword
Penzu
Write or Die
Written Kitten
Focus Booster
Spaaze
AutoREALM (Map building software)
Enjoy! I may update the list as I find more, or I’ll make a second list.
Awesome Sites and Links for Writers
Just about every writer out there has several go-to websites that they use when it comes to their writing. Be it for creativity, writer’s block, to put you in the mood or general writing help. These are mine and I listed them in hopes that you’ll find something that you’ll like or find something useful. I’ve also included some websites that sounded interesting, but I haven’t tried out yet.
Spelling & Grammar
Grammar Girl – Grammar Girl’s famous Quick and Dirty Tips (delivered via blog or podcast) will help you keep your creative writing error free.
The Owl – is Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) it's a great resource for grammar guides, style tips and other information that can help with your writing, especially academics.
Tip of My Tongue — have you ever had trouble of thinking of a specific word that you can’t remember what it is? Well, this site will help you narrow down your thoughts and find that word you’ve been looking for. It can be extremely frustrating when you have to stop writing because you get a stuck on a word, so this should help cut that down.
Free Rice – is a great way to test your vocabulary knowledge. What’s even better about this site is that with every correct answer, they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. So, please disable your adblock since they use the ads on the site to generate the money to buy the rice.
HyperGrammar – the University of Ottawa offers up a one-stop guide for proper spelling, structure, and punctuation on this site.
AutoCrit – the AutoCrit Editing Wizard can check writing for grammar errors, clichés and other no-no’s. It also provides a number of other writing resources as well.
Writer’s Digest – learn how to improve your writing, find an agent, and even get published with the help of the varied blogs on this site.
Syntaxis – it allows you to test your knowledge of grammar with a ten-question quiz. The questions change every time you take the quiz so users are sure to be challenged each time around. It definitely helps writers know if there’s something that they need to brush up on.
Word Frequency Counter – this counter allows you to count the frequency usage of each word in your text.
EditMinion – is a free robotic copy editor that helps you to refine your writing by finding common mistakes.
Proofreading for Common Errors – this is a simple tutorial on proofreading your writing by Indiana University.
BBC – has a section for helping you with your skills, especially in writing, from grammar to spelling, to reading, to listening and to speaking.
Tools
Copyscape – is a free service that you can use to learn if anyone has plagiarized your work. It’s pretty useful for those that want to check for fanfiction plagiarism.
Plagium – is another a copy detection system, that provides a very similar service to Copyscape and uses Yahoo! rather than Google to perform its searches. Just keep in mind that searches for simple text up to 25,000 characters remains free of charge, but any larger requires credits to be purchase.
Write or Die – is an application for Windows, Mac and Linux which aims to eliminate writer’s block by providing consequences for procrastination.
Written? Kitten! – is just like Write or Die, but it’s a kinder version. They use positive reinforcement, so every time you reach a goal they reward you with an adorable picture of a kitten.
Fast Fingers – offers you an easy way to improve your typing skills. It’s puts you through a quick typing game that tests your typing speed and improves it at the same time. It’s also a great way for writers to warm up.
Information & Data
RefDesk – it has an enormous collection of reference materials, searchable databases and other great resources that can’t be found anywhere else. It’s great to use when you need to find something and check your facts.
Bib Me – it makes it easy to create citations, build bibliographies and acknowledge other people’s work. This is definitely something that academics will love. It’s basically a bibliography generator that automatically fills in a works cited page in MLA, APA, Chicago or Turbian formats.
Internet Public Library – this online library is full of resources that are free for anyone to use, from newspaper and magazine articles to special collections.
The Library of Congress – if you’re looking for primary documents and information, the Library of Congress is a great place to start. It has millions of items in its archives, many of which are accessible right from the website.
Social Security Administration: Popular Baby Names – is the most accurate list of popular names from 1879 to the present. If your character is from America and you need a name for them, this gives you a accurate list of names, just pick the state or decade that your character is from.
WebMD – is a handy medical database loaded with information. It’s not a substitute for a doctor, but can give you a lot of good information on diseases, symptoms, treatments, etc.
MedlinePlus – is the National Institutes of Health’s Web site that contains information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in language you can understand. It also offers reliable, up-to-date health information, anytime, anywhere, for free. You can use the site to learn about the latest treatments, look up information on a drug or supplement, find out the meanings of words, or view medical videos or illustrations. You can also get links to the latest medical research on your topic or find out about clinical trials on a disease or condition.
Mayo Clinic – is a nonprofit medical practice and medical research group.
World Health Organization (WHO) – is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; the mitigation of the effects of non-communicable diseases; sexual and reproductive health, development, and ageing; nutrition, food security and healthy eating; occupational health; substance abuse; and driving the development of reporting, publications, and networking.
Google Scholar – is an online, freely accessible search engine that lets users look for both physical and digital copies of articles. It searches a wide variety of sources, including academic publishers, universities, and preprint depositories and so on. While Google Scholar does search for print and online scholarly information, it is important to understand that the resource is not a database.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac – this classic almanac offers yearly information on astronomical events, weather conditions and forecasts, recipes, and gardening tips.
State Health Facts – Kaiser Family Foundation provides this database, full of health facts on a state-by-state basis that address everything from medicare to women’s health.
U.S. Census Bureau – you can learn more about the trends and demographics of America with information drawn from the Census Bureau’s online site.
Wikipedia – this shouldn’t be used as your sole source, but it can be a great way to get basic information and find out where to look for additional references.
Finding Data on the Internet – a great website that list links that can tell you where you can find the inflation rate, crime statistics, and other data.
Word References
RhymeZone – whether you’re writing poetry, songs, or something else entirely, you can get help rhyming words with this site.
Acronym Finder – with more than 565,000 human-edited entries, Acronym Finder is the world’s largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initials.
Symbols.com – is a unique online encyclopedia that contains everything about symbols, signs, flags and glyphs arranged by categories such as culture, country, religion, and more.
OneLook Reverse Dictionary – is a dictionary that lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word.
The Alternative Dictionaries – is a site that you can look up slang words in all types of languages, including Egyptian Arabic, Cherokee, Cantonese, Norwegian and many, many others.
Online Etymology Dictionary – it gives you the history and derivation of any word. Etymologies are not definitions; they’re explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.
MediLexicon – is a comprehensive dictionary of medical, pharmaceutical, biomedical, and health care abbreviations and acronyms.
Merriam Webster Online – the online version of the classic dictionary also provides a thesaurus and a medical dictionary.
Multilingual Dictionary – it translate whatever you need from 30 different languages with this easy-to-use site.
Writing Software
Open Office – why pay for Microsoft products when you can create free documents with Open Office? This open source software provides similar tools to the Microsoft Office Suite, including spreadsheets, a word processor, the ability to create multimedia presentations, and more.
LibreOffice – is a free and open source office suite. It was forked from OpenOffice.org in 2010, which was an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite comprises programs to do word processing, spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, maintain databases, and compose math formula.
Scrivener – is not a free program, but it’s certainly a very popular one. It's great for organizing research, planning drafts, and writing novels, articles, short stories, and even screenplays.
OmmWriter – is for Mac OS X, a free simple text processor that gives you a distraction free environment. So you can focus only on your writing without being tempted or distracted by other programs on your computer. They are currently working on a Windows version of their software as well, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested.
FocusWriter – is another free distraction-free writing application that keeps your writing space simple and clean without sacrificing functionality. It includes a daily goal tracker—work count and time spent writing—spell checking, real-time feedback on variables like word and page count, and tabbed document browsing. The great thing about this is that it's available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Q10 – is a free portable distraction-free writing tool for Windows. The interface includes nothing but a tiny bar at the bottom that displays the character, word, and page count—you can toggle the bar off for a totally distraction free workspace.
Evernote – is a free app for your smartphone and computer that stores everything you could possibly imagine losing track of, like a boarding pass, receipt, article you want to read, to do list, or even a simple typed note. The app works brilliantly, keeping everything in sync between your computer, smartphone, or tablet. It’s definitely a useful app for writers when you have ideas on the go.
Storybook – this open source software can make it easier to manage your plotlines, characters, data, and other critical information while penning a novel.
ScriptBuddy – is a full-fledged screenplay software program. It handles the proper screenplay format automatically, so you can concentrate on your story. It is easy to use and the basic version is free.
TheSage – is a free application, which is a comprehensive English dictionary and thesaurus that provides a number of useful and in some cases unusual search tools.
Sigil – is ideal for e-book authors because it's a free EPUB editor with a stack of essential features.
YWriter5 – is a free word processor and is designed for Windows XP, Vista and beyond. It's a small but very comprehensive tool which helps you to plan your novel. It breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. You can set up deadlines, for instance, and the program’s Work Schedule report will let you know how much you’ll have to do, each day, to finish on time. You can even enter your characters, locations and items and freely organize them into scenes. This definitely sounds like it’ll be useful for NaNoWriMo writers.
Kingsoft Office (WPS Office) – is an office suite for Microsoft Windows, Linux, iOS and Android OS. The basic version is free to use, but a fully featured professional-grade version is also available. This software allows users to view, create and share office documents that are fully compatible with dozens of document formats, including Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel. In other words, the format is similar to a Microsoft Word document (.DOC or .DOCX file) and supports formatted text, images, and advanced page formatting. Kingsoft Writer documents can be converted to Microsoft Word *.doc files in the software.
Creativity, Fun & Miscellaneous
National Novel Writing Month – is one of the most well-known writing challenges in the writing community, National Novel Writing Month pushes you to write 50,000 words in 30 days (for the whole month of November).
WritingFix – a fun site that creates writing prompts on the spot. The site currently has several options—prompts for right-brained people, for left-brained people, for kids—and is working to add prompts on classic literature, music and more.
Creative Writing Prompts – the site is exactly what it says. They have 100+ and more, of prompts that you can choose from.
My Fonts – is the world’s largest collection of fonts. You can even upload an image containing a font that you like, and this tells you what it is.
Story Starters – this website offers over one trillion randomly generated story starters for creative writers.
The Gutenberg Project – this site is perfect for those who like to read and/or have an ereader. There’s over 33,000 ebooks you can download for free.
The Imagination Prompt Generator – click through the prompts to generate different ideas in response to questions like “Is there a God?” and “If your tears could speak to you, what would they say?”
The Phrase Finder – this handy site helps you hunt down famous phrases, along with their origins. It also offers a phrase thesaurus that can help you create headlines, lyrics, and much more.
Storybird – this site allows you to write a picture book. They provided the gorgeous artwork and you create the story for it, or just read the stories that others have created.
Language Is a Virus – the automatic prompt generator on this site can provide writers with an endless number of creative writing prompts. Other resources include writing exercises and information on dozens of different authors.
Background Noise/Music
SimplyNoise – a free white noise sounds that you can use to drown out everything around you and help you focus on your writing.
Rainy Mood – from the same founders of Simply Noise, this website offers the pleasant sound of rain and thunderstorms. There's a slide volume control, which you can increase the intensity of the noise (gentle shower to heavy storm), thunder mode (often, few, rare), oscillation button, and a sleep timer.
Coffitivity – a site that provides three background noises: Morning Murmur (a gentle hum), Lunchtime Lounge (bustling chatter), and University Undertones (campus cafe). A pause button is provided whenever you need a bladder break, and a sliding volume control to give you the freedom to find the perfect level for your needs and moods. It’s also available as an android app, iOS app, and for Mac desktop.
Rainy Cafe – it provides background chatter in coffee shops (similar to Coffitivity) AND the sound of rain (similar to Simply Rain). There’s also individual volume and on/off control for each sound category.
MyNoise: Online Fire Noise Generator – If you love the sound of fire crackling in a fireplace, this is the site for you.
8tracks – is an internet radio website and everyone can listen for free, well it use to be completely free. Unlike other music oriented social network such as Pandora or Spotify, 8tracks doesn’t have commercial interruption (that’s if you get 8tracks Plus). Users create free accounts and can either browse the site and listen to other user-created mixes for as long as they like, and/or they can create their own mixes. It’s a perfect place to listen to other writer’s playlist, share yours or find music for specific characters or moods. Note: Joining is still free, however you’re now limited to 1 hour of free listening for each week (or more depending on how much people like your mixes). If you want unlimited access it’s $30 per year or $5.00 a month.
Playmoss – with 8tracks no longer having free unlimited listening and no commercial interruptions many people looked for an alternative and Playmoss is what 8tracks use to be. It has all the same basic features that 8tracks has, only with extra goodies like unlimited skips, able to see the entire tracklist before playing, start at any point in the playlist, see how many playlists contain a certain song and even collaborate playlists with other people.
for all you writers out there:
donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.
this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.
this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.
and vulgar allows you to create a language, based on linguistic and grammatical structures!!! go international phonetic alphabet!!!
LET ME TELL Y’ALL ABOUT THIS WRITING APP
Fighter’s Block is the best writing app I’ve come across in a long time.
You type in the amount of words you want to write and as you write, your mini lil avatar fights a monster. Each word you write acts a hit towards your monster, and once you’ve hit your word count the monster is defeated!!!
How cute!!!!
Work quick though as how long you spent not writing decreases your avatar’s health. It’s a productive fight to the death against the clock!
Best things about this app:
You can PAUSE it!!!! Need go get a cup of tea? Need to sneeze? You can!!!!!
Settings are adjustable! You can change the monster’s speed and the attacks!
You can change the theme and font!
You can level up!!!!! The number of words you write equals your EXP. You can unlock one avatar thus far, but I believe there may be more in the future!
You can minimise the fight above if it serves as a distraction, and only show the decreasing green bar.
Best of all: If you don’t hit the target word count in time, YOUR WORK DOES NOT DISAPPEAR. In the past I’ve lost so much work because I wasn’t typing fast enough, or sneezed.I cannot express enough how thankful I am that it presents a challenge where the consequence is a knock of pride and not a fit of rage.
Honestly, I urge all writers out there to give this app a go. It’s my new favourite thing.
Not every writer wants to post their work online, however there are positives to doing so. If you seek feedback and advice from readers and writers, you might consider posting a draft or two. Even a few chapters or a poem can be uploaded online to get a little audience feedback.
Here are writing sites I’ve explored along with brief reviews of my experience in using them:
Fictionpress & Fanfiction.net Neither site allows you to remove reviews, delete your account, or budges an inch about harassment reports. This attracts many trolls, spammers, and critics who feel you’re entitled to their extremely negative opinions of your work. I don’t want young or amateur writers going through that, and the rest of us don’t deserve harassment either. There are wonderful readers and writers on both sites, but overall it’s an unsafe environment I can no longer recommend (further info).
A decent alternative to FF.net is Fictionpad. It’s a smaller site with fewer fandoms, but it’s easier to use and the admins were nice when I last tried it.
Archive Of Our Own (AO3) | Fanfiction only** | No covers — Invite only, but getting in isn’t hard. High viewership, well organized, and ad-free. Some written feedback, especially if you ask for some, but the “kudos” button is open to the public so anyone can leave their mark of approval. You can also set individual stories to “users only” along with other useful privacy options.
Crossover friendly, so you can finally post that multi-fandom fic and tag each property for search. Ships, subject material, and trigger warnings are also taggable for search (or to weed out in the case of tws). Lets you group individual stories into a series, and has various features for sharing/gifting your work with others. Overall the best place for fanfiction, hands down. — Adult Material Allowed
Major Demographics: Female, All ages.
Popular Genres: smut, epic dramas, fluff/angst, whump
Wattpad | Original & fan fiction | Covers Req. — Wattpad has been steadily improving its features and policies in the five years I’ve been using it. Here, some writers receive tons of feedback and appreciation, but most receive very little. A few authors have gotten published thanks to this site, others have followers in the hundreds of thousands, and still others become site administrators to support the bustling community.
They’ve recently rebranded, and have also introduced a feature to earn writers money. It is currently in beta and being tested with select authors only.
Unlike other sites, this one has very clear international groups and a high ethnic diversity among its writers. There’s an emphasis on supporting foreign authors and their stories in any language. Contests are set up by the site, but also smaller niche ones can be run by individual users.
It’s very fun to use and if the site chooses to feature one of your works you can get a lot of traffic. For the most part however, you have to practice marketing yourself, and/or develop a group of writer friends and read/promote each other’s work. — Adult Material allowed, but along strict guidelines (lots of kids use this site!).
Major Demographics: Female, Teens.
Popular Genres: romance, young adult, supernatural, celeb fic, fantasy
Royal Road | Original & fan fiction | Covers Opt. — This was suggested in the replies, so I did some research. Haven’t used it myself, looks nice, but here are the main points interested writers should know:
Site does not claim ownership of your work, copyright stays with you.
Popular stories receive much feedback and viewership in the millions.
You cannot remove reviews on your own stories, and you must submit a ticket to remove your story or delete your account.
From their FAQ: “All new submissions are manually checked for appropriate tagging and plagiarism, so expect it to take 12-24 hrs for a submission to be approved.” Also, stories with low-quality spelling and grammar will be removed by moderators.
Keeping a steady update schedule of “polished” drafts seems to be mandatory, and reviewers sound entitled.
One-shots seem to be out of the question, this is a site for novels.
Premium and free options exist for both readers and writers.
Site is affilated with Amazon, has been running for six years, and is based in Israel.
Fantasy, supernatural, epic dramas.
Adult Material Allowed
Smashbook, Livejournal, Inkspired, and Booknet are sites I am aware of, but have too little knowledge of to review. Likewise Wordpress, Blogger, or right here on Tumblr you can regularly post stories or novels and receive feedback. However, for those sites you do have to figure out a blogging system for yourself.
While researching good sites for this post, I found this user’s comments insightful. She suggested Writer’s Digest and Absolute Write as good places to seek professional feedback on your work. They don’t appear to be sites where you post work, but rather they provide tips and resources to help improve your work.
There are dozens of other places online where you can post your original fiction, non-fiction, and fan fiction. Things to keep in mind when site shopping:
READ THEIR SUBMISSION POLICIES & GUIDELINES FIRST
Search for reviews of the site by individuals who’ve actually used the site and are not affilated with the site.
See what the site’s policy is on deleting works & accounts. You don’t want to get your name and work trapped on a site with a bad reputation.
If “popular” stories have very little feedback on them, this means the majority of stories on that site get none.
If most users haven’t updated in months/years, this means the site is practically dead and may soon shut down. RED FLAG: the site does not date anything.
If the “feedback” on users’ pages and stories are “Like my work!” or “Read for read?” and other self-promotional messages, don’t sign up.
If a site looks cool to you but you’re still unsure, make an account with a junk email and post something you don’t care too much about just to test the waters. Good/bad doesn’t matter much right now, what’s important is figuring out how traffic works and what readers there are interested in.
Sites to AVOID due to spam, scams, and shifty behavior:
Inkitt—spam/shifty; claims it’s the #1 site for online publishing, but this is misleading. Their idea of getting users is to send copy/paste “invitations” to pre-existing online accounts (often dead accounts), and lie about how good one’s writing is even though they’ve never read it. Signing up with them also gets you endless emails about their pathetic contests.
Dreame/Ficfun—spam/scam; similar deceptive invitation tactic, except they are relentless (they’ve “invited” me five six TEN times on two different sites). Their gimmick is to offer you pennies for 5yr rights to your work (and their site is trashy with very little reader feedback). Both are owned by their Singaporean parent company Stary PTE Ltd. (who personally sent me my 5th “invite”).
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*Based on what I see as receiving the most traffic and feedback on each site. These are not accurate statistics, merely observations.
** “Is AO3 really just for fanfic?” (tl;dr—YES)