Being a writer can be a lonely profession. Hunkered down at your desk for hours at time, chipping away at a book over periods of weeks, months, or even years. The perfect formation of characters, settings, and dialogue that only you can make right.
Luckily, we live in an age when there is a plethora of different resources to help writers. Whether it’s a community of fellow writers to help you brainstorm ideas and clean up a manuscript, or it’s a resource center for sharing hard-earned advice and guidance, help is only a webpage away. Read on for some of the best online writing resources for authors, no matter what you may be seeking.
Chances are if you’re reading this, you already know about Kirkus Writers’ Center. In partnership with Kirkus Reviews, the Writers’ Center contains advice and information on everything related to publishing, editing, marketing, and yes, writing. Geared toward writers, published authors, and everyone in between, it’s a virtual treasure trove of industry insider tips. Whether you want to learn about the latest developments in the sci-fi industry or how to find (and land) a literary agent, you’ll find it here.
Association of Writers & Writing Programs
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is a national professional organization that unites creative writers with various writing programs, journals, presses, and arts communities to foster creativity and further the art of writing. It hosts the largest annual gathering of writers in North America, and members can find plenty of opportunities for mentorship programs and virtual tips via their website and podcast. They even host multiple writing contests throughout the year to encourage you to get in that daily word count.
Sometimes we all need to be reminded that manuscript rejections are simply an unfortunate part of a writer’s life. Enter LitRejections, a gathering place where writers can read others’ letters of rejection from various publishers while sharing their own professional tales of woe. The website also features an agency database that lists literary agents from ten different countries to help writers persevere over past rejections and hopefully find literary representation for their next book.
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began back in 1999 as an online challenge to writers. The goal? To write at least fifty thousand words of a novel in the thirty days of November. Now the movement has gone global . . . and so has the support. An official nonprofit as of 2006, NaNoWriMo has expanded its network to offer year-round support for its writers, including “Now What?” Months in January and February, Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July, NaNo Prep, and a Young Writers Program for kids, teenagers, and educators.
Writer’s Digest has been famously providing resources for writers for over one hundred years—but did you know that they have an entire section dedicated to writing prompts? From suggestions that lean toward the creepy, like “Write about a film student finding something grisly on an old VHS” to suggestions that make you really think, like “Write about someone who has been willed their distant relative’s storage unit,” there are plenty of ideas to jog your creative juices when you’re just not feeling the inspiration.
Critique Circle is an online author community started in 2003 that focuses on writers helping writers. Membership is free (unless you want to fork over money for the paid subscription that unlocks additional features) and follows a certain system. First, you must critique a few other people’s works, which earns you a certain number of credits. Then you can use those credits to submit your own story for others to critique.
The idea is that you’ll then use that feedback to improve your own work while continuing to review others—creating a virtually endless cycle of helping and being helped. One important feature of Critique Circle is that none of the stories you submit are considered published, meaning no one will be able to search for and find them online. In other words, the work you submit to be critiqued remains largely private, with only limited accessibility that you control yourself.
Similar in concept to Critique Circle above, Scribophile is another resource for writers who want to gain valuable feedback on their work before it hits the final stage. Here, writers earn karma points for critiquing other people’s writing. You then spend those karma points to allow others access to your own writing, receiving detailed feedback on areas that they feel need improvement. Scribophile also advertises itself as a great place to pick up beta readers, which many self-published novelists swear by.
Andrea Moran lives outside of Nashville with her husband and two kids. She’s a professional copywriter and editor who loves all things books. Find her on LinkedIn.
