Useful resources!

[littlebutfierce]

What's helped you writing fic? Is it something that has helped you get past writer's block, made you less afraid to post something, helped you find out useful information? Maybe an application or website that makes actually sitting down and churning out words easier?

It would be great if this could evolve into a comprehensive resource geared towards fic writers, especially new(ish) ones. Please keep letting me know what essential tools you've discovered, and I'll add them to the list. (I'm also happy to further annotate links if there's other information of note.)

General Discussion About Writing

Writing in quantity. Some good information here on tools, motivation, and other ways to just get that word count going.

Fanfic-Specific

Fanfic 101. Lots of essays and useful tips.

Technical Resources

How to add a word meter to your DW.

This post offers lots of info on how to format fic, whether on LJ/DW or somewhere else, for maximum readability.

Fanfiction Header Builder. Easy, coherent headers.

Zoho Writer. Online word processor for easy access to your stuff from multiple locations. (There's also Google Docs, natch: does anyone have any thoughts on pros/cons for any online word processor?)

Scrivener. Mac only (EDIT: Now available for Windows!), free trial, $39.95 to buy. Allows you to keep all your research (PDFs, web pages, sound files, etc.) right alongside your writing.

Writer's Cafe. Similar to Scrivener; includes a Windows version. $45.

From kate: A very useful wordcount spreadsheet

Reference

Dictionary.com. Dictionary and thesaurus.

The Emotion Thesaurus.

Reasoning with Vampires. Grammar tips via critique of Twilight.

The Gender Genie. For a quick, cheap check of whether the voice in your fic is male or female. (Note: I tend to take issue with stuff like this, but I know some people find it useful!)

Online Etymology Dictionary. Useful if you're writing historical fic & need to ensure your characters aren't using anachronistic language.

Getting the Words on the Page

Every Word Is More Practice: An Apology For Making (And Keeping) A Daily Word Count Goal. More on how to kickstart your word count.

750 Words. Based on Julia Cameron's idea of "morning pages," where you write without censoring yourself for 3 pages a day--though not necessarily in the morning! You can get e-mailed reminders to write; there are badges and points for motivation. There's also 750words.

inkingitout, our affiliate comm, is a year-long high word-count challenge.

Write or Die. Set a time limit for writing, and if you're not writing the whole time, the website gives you consequences ranging from a gentle reminder to erasing your text!

Written? Kitten!. The carrot to Write or Die's stick: if you write, you get shown cute pictures of kittens!

Dark Room. Full screen writing program for minimal distractions. Windows only.

FocusWriter is a similar program, but available for Mac, Windows, & Linux.

My Writing Spot is another of these programs, but the pared-down writing app also includes a dictionary/thesaurus. iPad, iPhone, & Android apps available too.

dailyprompt, daily_prompt, fic_promptly and 15_minute_ficlets might spark something!

Miscellaneous

Wordle. Pretty word clouds are a nice way to procrastinate! They're also useful for seeing which words you overuse in a fic...

Comments

[sibyllevance]

I would like to recommend a software that I've used in the past: Scrivener (Mac only). It's meant to be for big writing projects (thesis, article, essay, novel, etc) because it's specifically built to handle all the 'research' part of your project. Writing something set in the 20s? You can have your whole project (images, downloaded podcasts, articles you found interesting, etc) in a specific place next to your writing space.

I've used it for my short fanfiction that didn't need much research too - the software has a full screen option which darkens your whole screen and just leaves you with one blank page to work on. It's dead effective.

[littlebutfierce]

Oooh, pretty. I'd heard of it before, but never really looked into it (partly because I wasn't writing, partly because until fairly recently I wasn't using a Mac as my main computer). I like that!

I will add it in--thanks for mentioning it!

[lilmoka]

I often use Dark Room when in need to write without distractions. It's really cool! :)
An alternative to Scrivener could be Writer's Cafe, that works on Windows too.

[littlebutfierce]

Oh brilliant, thanks for those links! I will add them in.

(& what a beautiful icon!!)

[lilmoka]

EEEE, thanks! :D

[charamei]

I recently discovered the Emotion Thesaurus, and it's single-handedly defeated one of my biggest stumbling blocks in writing! They've also got a sensory thesaurus for common scene-settings and a symbolism one.

Also, Reasoning With Vampires. Love or hate Twilight, Dana's grammar pointers and tips on sentence construction are excellent.

[littlebutfierce]

That Emotion Thesaurus is so cool!! Thanks for that, & the Twilight link -- I'd seen that site before but it didn't occur to me that it could be used for more than strictly LOLs, heh.

I've added them both.

[meridian_rose]

The Thesaurus is amazing. Will bookmark, thank you :D

[lovepeaceohana]

Oh my good lords of writing things, this is SO USEFUL. *huggles post forever* THANK YOU!

[littlebutfierce]

Holy late reply Batman, but I'm glad this is useful! <3

[sylvaine]

There's also FocusWriter, which turns you screen into one blank page (including hiding the navigation bar) for minimum distraction. It's also pretty customizable, so you can, say, set your daily word count/minute goal, set how it counts your words, change the color of the background and of the text, set a picture as the background... (which I personally find a little distracting, but it's still pretty cool.) Also, it's available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, so it's usable for anyone who has any kind of computer! ^^

[littlebutfierce]

Oooh, v. nice! (Esp. the multiple platforms.) Will add, thank you!

[jessalae]

Something I found recently: Written? Kitten!, a website that rewards you with an adorable picture of a cat when you've written a certain number of words. The default is one kitten per 100 words, but you can set it to 200, 500, or 1,000 words as well. :)

[littlebutfierce]

Oh, yes, thank you! Will add in!!

[linaewen]

I've found the following site helpful:

http://www.etymonline.com/

It's an online etymology dictionary that helps me determine how old a word is -- some of my writing uses older types of English, and checking this site is a safeguard for me, keeping me from using a word that is actually too modern for the time period I have in mind in my story.

[littlebutfierce]

Oooh, that's really useful! I'll add -- thank you.

[dirty_diana]

Online word processor: My Writing Spot. Browser version plus iPhone/tablet apps. I like that it's pared down to just the things I actually need: a notepad plus dictionary/thesaurus and word count tool. Awesomely simple!

[littlebutfierce]

Ah, v. nice! Especially that it is pared down but also includes a dictionary/thesaurus (I think a lot of the similar programs don't). Thanks -- will add.

[laceblade]

Hey, found this collection of writing-related Tumblrs and thought it might be helpful.