I am a self-taught writer. In a past incarnation, I worked in an office job in finance and the only writing I got to do was marketing mail-outs. So, when I made the startling discovery that I wanted to write a book, I knew that there was a lot I didn’t know about being a writer. I looked for free resources for writing but everything pointed towards costly courses or expensive books.
That said, I have been at this for four years and had some short stories published now. And I already knew how to research from university days. I read and listened to everything I could about becoming a writer and, importantly to some, about the business of writing. Here I share some of the best online free resources for writing I have found.
Note: There are some affiliate links in the following list.
Writing Craft & Support
Creative Writing Lessons from Stephen King
The bestselling author answers questions on creative writing.
This book is a handy guide for showing emotion through action. You’ll come back to this one again and again.
TED: Your Elusive Creative Genius – Elizabeth Gilbert
The author of Eat, Pray, Love talks about finding your inspiration, or muse.
TED: How to live Passionately at any Age – Isabel Allende
The prolific author talks about finding the passion, or the story, in every day life.
Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott discusses the psychological realities of being a writer.
Check out my post on how to write vivid settings in your novel.
Writers’ Support Resources
The Writing Bad website, despite its name, helps you to write good. There is also a supportive FB group.
The Writers Digest site has loads of trustworthy information on every aspect of writing.
Nanowrimo is a month-long event all about writing your novel. The site has resources, forums and lots more.
Planning
Worksheets for Writers are free resources for writing including beat sheets for plotting.
The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure any Writer can Master is a great resource to clarify the basics of structure in order to create a page-turner. (Not free!)
Take Off your Pants is one of the clearest plotting advice books I’ve found.
Researching
I use OneNote to organize my notes as I can make separate worksheets and take screenshots of images or text which automatically add the web address.
Pinterest is a powerful visual search engine – look for location settings, costumes, antiques or how to’s from any period, as well as articles about them.
This article provides the basics of different ways to research and organize your notes.
This site has many different links for historical research.
Find out how life was actually lived in medieval times with this book.
Editing / Beta readers
What to do when you Finish your Book helps you make informed choices about editing and publishing.
Have a listen to the Writing Excuses Podcast, where a team of authors talk about everything to do with writing (in short 15 minute episodes).
This article on Structural Editing of your Novel is useful for explaining different types of editing and why they are needed.
Questions to ask your Beta Readers helps to manage expectations around your readers – they are not proofreaders or editors.
Submitting
Query Shark Blog – Janet Reid critiques real queries.
Find an agent with the largest database of literary agents, Agent Query.
Get a Literary Agent : The Complete Guide to Securing Representation for Your Work From researching agents to crafting queries, this book by Chuck Sambuchino takes you through everything you need to know. (Not free!)
Self-Publishing Resources
The Creative Penn podcast is worth a listen. Joanna Penn talks about self-publishing.
Have a look at Self Pub Boot Camp, which has heaps of resources for self-publishing.
Download the free Bookbaby guides to publishing and marketing your book.
The Business of being a Writer by Jane Friedman is a no-nonsense look at the realities of turning writing into a money-making exercise. (Not free!)
Marketing
This article has fifty great ideas for authors to promote their books.
I wrote this article on how writers and bloggers can grow their traffic with Pinterest.
Do you know the genre of your book? It’s more important than you might think.
Join the Facebook group 20 Books to 50k which gives lots of insight into selling indie-published books, including great resources such as how to set up an Amazon Author Central page.
Mailchimp is a site to get your author newsletter up and running. It’s free, up until 2000 subscribers. Here is an article from Jane Friedman’s site about how to start your mailing list including how to run a giveaway or freebie. Read the blog and book from The Newsletter Ninja to find out how to make us of your mailing list.
Author Website
This is an easy step-by-step guide to creating an author website by Joe Bunting. He recommends doing this before you publish.
Should I use a pen name? is an article I wrote discussing gender and pseudonyms.
Writing Short Stories
See my list of 2020 competitions open to writers all over the world here.
Submittable is a very useful app, which shows you publications open to submissions and tracks your stories. Sign up for a free account. The Submission Grinder is a completely free website that is so useful for submitting short stories. It shows wait lengths, acceptance rates, open markets. You’ll never go back after using this one. It does rely on authors keeping the information up to date though.
I try to keep my list of Writing Contests and Submissions for Writers all over the world up to date.
Inside Creative Writing with Robert Olen Butler is a fascinating walk-through of a writing lecturer’s process of writing a short story from the blank page to the finished product.
Legal Questions
Don’t get caught short! Know what to avoid with these 7 legal tips for Writers.
Read this PDF guide to intellectual property in publishing.
Want more free resources for writing?
With a bit of digging, there are a lot of free resources for writers online. Check out this list of One Hundred best websites for Writers.
A bit of fun: Book Title Generator
Find the perfect character name and meaning, including historical names and from different countries with Behind the Name.
What should your book’s word count be? This site is sorted for genres with lots of examples from classic works.
I share with you what I discover on my writing journey.
If you like these (mostly) free resources for writing, please join up to the mailing list (I’ll never spam you, only 5-6 newsletters per year with tips and writing opportunities.)