RESOURCES

Communities

Absolute Write
Discussion forums for writing of all genres.

 

Podcasts

Writing Excuses
"Our goal is to help our listeners become better writers."

Ditch Diggers
"The business of writing, when the craft is not as important as the deadline."

Get To Work Hurley
"For everyone who's ever been frustrated by the pro writing life."

Coode Street Podcast
"Every week Gary K Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan sit down for about an hour to discuss science fiction and other stuff."

 

Plot

The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel (Randy Ingermanson)
"Our fundamental question is this: How do you design a novel?"

Notecarding: Plotting Under Pressure (Holly Lisle)
"Now you're faced with a book that must be done to a professional level in a severely limited amount of time, and, for real fun, let's say that you don't even have any idea yet what the book is going to be about."

It's Just a Phase (Lazette Gifford)
"So, do you want an outline that will take you straight through the story without worry?"

Pace Charts (Scott Westerfeld)
"Basically, it's any method you use to track the ups and downs of momentum in your book, the shifts from action to conversation to tension."

 

Character

Good Character Development Includes The All-Important "F*@% Yeah" Moment (Charlie Jane Anders)
"What makes you invest in a character? Is it when you understand their motivations, or glimpse their all-too-human foibles? When they have rich, multi-layered relationships? Sure, those things all help. But what really helps is the all-important 'f*@% yeah' moment."

 

Worldbuilding

But the next time I write a novel, goddamnit, it's gonna be strange. (Ursula Vernon)
"You start 'Perdido Street Station' with a beetle-headed woman, and you immediately think 'I dunno, I'm not gonna suspend my disbelief for THAT,' and by about twenty pages in, you realized that the author doesn't apparently care if you do or not."

 

Motivation

Being Prolific (David Farland)
"I never think of myself in those terms. I do think about how to be more productive - almost every day."

How to Beat Procrastination (Tim Urban)
"Procrastinators are great visionaries - they love to fantasize about the beautiful mansion they will one day have built - but what they need to be are gritty construction workers, who methodically lay one brick after the other, day after day, without giving up, until a house is built."

 

Novellas

How to Write a Novella (James Scott Bell)
"Digital publishing has brought novellas back into favor. There are some story ideas that don't merit 90k words, but may be just right for 30k."