This is an ultimate masterlist of many resources that could be helpful for writers. I apologize in advance for any not working links. Check out the ultimate writing resource masterlist here (x) and my “novel” tag here (x).
✑ PLANNING
Outlining & Organizing
- For the Architects: The Planning Process
- Rough Drafts
- How do you plan a novel?
- Plot Development: Climax, Resolution, and Your Main Character
- Plotting and Planing
- I Have An Idea for a Novel! Now What?
- Choosing the Best Outline Method
- How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method
- Effectively Outlining Your Plot
- Conflict and Character within Story Structure
- Outlining Your Plot
- Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets
✑ INSPIRATION
- Finding story ideas
- Choosing ideas and endings
- When a plot isn’t strong enough to make a whole story
- Writing a story that’s doomed to suck
- How to Finish What You Start: A Five-Step Plan for Writers
- Finishing Your Novel
- Finish Your Novel
- How to Finish Your Novel when You Want to Quit
- How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan
✑ PLOT
In General
- 25 Turns, Pivots and Twists to Complicate Your Story
- The ABCs (and Ds and Es) of Plot Development
- Originality Is Overrated
- How to Create a Plot Outline in Eight Easy Steps
- Finding Plot: Idea Nets
- The Story Goal: Your Key to Creating a Solid Plot Structure
- Make your reader root for your main character
- Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense
- Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot
- The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations
- Adding Subplots to a Novel
- Weaving Subplots into a Novel
- 7 Ways to Add Subplots to Your Novel
- Crafting a Successful Romance Subplot
- How to Improve your Writing: Subplots and Subtext
- Understanding the Role of Subplots
- How to Use Subtext in your Writing
- The Secret Life of Subtext
- How to Use Subtext
Beginning
- Creating a Process: Getting Your Ideas onto Paper (And into a Story)
- Why First Chapters?
- Starting with a Bang
- In the Beginning
- The Beginning of your Novel that isn’t the Beginning of your Novel
- A Beginning from the Middle
- Starting with a Bang
- First Chapters: What To Include @ The Beginning Writer
- 23 Clichés to Avoid When Beginning Your Story
- Start Writing Now
- Done Planning. What Now?
- Continuing Your Long-Format Story
- How to Start a Novel
- 100 best first lines from novels
- The First Sentence of a Book Report
- How To Write A Killer First Sentence To Open Your Book
- How to Write the First Sentence of a Book
- The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening
- Hook Your Reader from the First Sentence: How to Write Great Beginnings
Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing and the Red Hering
- Narrative Elements: Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing and Suspense
- Foreshadowing Key Details
- Writing Fiction: Foreshadowing
- The Literary Device of Foreshadowing
- All About Foreshadowing in Fiction
- Foreshadowing
- Flashbacks and Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing — How and Why to Use It In Your Writing
Setting
- Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life
- Write a Setting for a Book
- Writing Dynamic Settings
- How To Make Your Setting a Character
- Guide for Setting
- 5 Tips for Writing Better Settings
- Building a Novel’s Setting
Ending
- A Novel Ending
- How to End Your Novel
- How to End Your Novel 2
- How to End a Novel With a Punch
- How to End a Novel
- How to Finish a Novel
- How to Write The Ending of Your Novel
- Keys to Great Endings
- 3 Things That End A Story Well
- Ending a Novel: Five Things to Avoid
- Endings that Ruin Your Novel
- Closing Time: The Ending
✑ CHARACTER
Names
- Behind the Name
- Surname Meanings and Origins
- Surname Meanings and Origins - A Free Dictionary of Surnames
- Common US Surnames & Their Meanings
- Last Name Meanings & Origins
- Name Generators
- Name Playground
Different Types of Characters
- Ways To Describe a Personality
- Character Traits Meme
- Types of Characters
- Types of Characters in Fiction
- Seven Common Character Types
- Six Types of Courageous Characters
- Creating Fictional Characters (Masterlist)
- Building Fictional Characters
- Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
- Character Building Workshop
- Tips for Characterization
- Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
- Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills
Males
- Strong Male Characters
- The History and Nature of Man Friendships
- Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)
- ‘I Love You, Man’ and the rules of male friendship
- Male Friendship
- Understanding Male Friendship
- Straight male friendship, now with more cuddling
Character Development
- P.O.V. And Background
- Writing a Character: Questionnaire
- 10 Days of Character Building
- Getting to Know Your Characters
- Character Development Exercises
✑ STYLE
Chapters
- How Many Chapters is the Right Amount of Chapters?
- The Arbitrary Nature of the Chapter
- How Long is a Chapter?
- How Long Should Novel Chapters Be?
- Chapter & Novel Lengths
- Section vs. Scene Breaks
Dialogue
- The Passion of Dialogue
- 25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue
- Dialogue Writing Tips
- Punctuation Dialogue
- How to Write Believable Dialogue
- Writing Dialogue: The Music of Speech
- Writing Scenes with Many Characters
- It’s Not What They Say …
- Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue
- Speaking of Dialogue
- Dialogue Tips
- Interrupted Dialogue
- Two Tips for Interrupted Dialogue
Show, Don’t Tell (Description)
- “Tell” Makes a Great Placeholder
- The Literary Merit of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
- Bad Creative Writing Advice
- The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do
- DailyWritingTips: Show, Don’t Tell
- GrammarGirl: Show, Don’t Tell
- Writing Style: What Is It?
- Detail Enhances Your Fiction
- Using Sensory Details
- Description in Fiction
- Using Concrete Detail
- Depth Through Perception
- Showing Emotions & Feelings
Character Description
- Describing Your Characters (by inkfish7 on DeviantArt)
- Help with Character Development
- Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page
- Omitting Character Description
- Introducing Your Character(s): DON’T
- Character Crafting
- Writer’s Relief Blog: “Character Development In Stories And Novels”
- Article: How Do You Think Up Your Characters?
- 5 Character Points You May Be Ignoring
- List of colors, hair types and hairstyles
- List of words to use in a character’s description
- 200 words to describe hair
- How to describe hair
- Words used to describe the state of people’s hair
- How to describe your haircut
- Hair color sharts
- Four Ways to Reveal Backstory
- Words Used to Describe Clothes
Flashbacks
- Using Flashbacks in Writing
- Flashbacks by All Write
- Using Flashback in Fiction
- Fatal Backstory
- Flashbacks as opening gambit
- Don’t Begin at the Beginning
- Flashbacks in Books
- TVTropes: Flashback
- Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: Flashback Techniques in Fiction
- 3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks
- The 5 Rules of Writing Effective Flashbacks
- How to Handle Flashbacks In Writing
- Flashbacks and Foreshadowing
- Reddit Forum: Is a flashback in the first chapter a good idea?
- Forum Discussing Flackbacks
P.O.V
- You, Me, and XE - Points of View
- What’s Your Point of View?
- Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”
- How to Start Writing in the Third Person
- The Opposite Gender P.O.V.
LANGUAGE
- How To Say Said
- 200 Words Instead of Said
- Words to Use Instead of Said
- A List of Words to Use Instead of Said
- Alternatives to “Walk”
- 60 Synonyms for “Walk”
✑ USEFUL WEBSITES/LINKS
- Grammar Monster
- Google Scholar
- GodChecker
- Tip Of My Tounge
- Speech Tags
- Pixar Story Rules
- Written? Kitten!
- TED Talks
- DarkCopy
- Family Echo
- Some Words About Word Count
- How Long Should My Novel Be?
- The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test
- Writer’s “Cheat Sheets”
Last but not least, the most helpful tool for any writer out there is Google!
