Resources

So What Is This, Exactly?

To answer the above question, this is a library of sorts, if you will, of articles that other people have put together and that I have found are quite helpful in regards to writing. Since my goal is to be as helpful as possible with your writing journey, and I can't provide assistance on everything, I figured something like this would be appropriate.

Blogging

NaBloPoMo Guide - Unofficial

An unofficial guide to help you find your way around National Blog Posting Month.

6 Blog Design Tips for Non-Designers

I don’t do a lot of B2B (blogger-to-blogger) posts here, but I was trying to read a blog post the other day (about something I really wanted to learn about) and the design of the blog made it absolutely painful to read! So I thought maybe I’d take my experience as a web designer and write a little post with a few tips that’ll help make anyone’s blog more comfortable to read. So if you aren’t a blogger, feel free to skip on over this post. I’ll be back tomorrow with regularly scheduled Wholefully-ness.

Characters

Writing Unlikeable Characters

As a general rule, when we chose our main character, we pick someone that we would want to be. Someone who is overall a good person, who is trying, even if they have flaws that get in their way. (Which they do. Because everyone does.)

But what if we want to write from the point of view of someone who… isn’t. Who we’d rather never see ourselves as?

Character Development Resource Round-Up

Hey writers. I come today bearing a gift: A collection of resources to help out with character development. I’ve sorted it into categories so that you can easily find what you’re looking for (or just easily sort out what’s what), and I’ve collected here many of the posts I’ve found over the years and saved to my Pinterest boards (you can find my account here if you’d like to see some of the other articles I’ve saved on other aspects of writing, or if you’d like to see my storyboards/character boards/etc., and here are my Writing Tips: Characters and Characters: Creation boards if you’d like even more tips on character development).

NaNoWriMo

6 Alternatives to NaNoWriMo

There are a lot of reasons to do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but there are a lot of reasons not to do it, as well. Perhaps you write short stories instead of full-length novels. Or you simply don’t want to put yourself through the stress of trying to write 50,000 words in one month. That’s okay. And it doesn’t mean you can’t embark on a challenge.

NaNoWriMo Resource Round-Up

NaNoWriMo is a significant undertaking, and it can help a lot to have some resources to fall back on both during prep for November and during the event itself. Here are some of the resources I’ve found helpful in past years.

NaNoWriMo Alternatives – Word Count Tracker Options & Community

I’ve been participating in National Novel Writing Month since 2014, and I think the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a great tool to get people writing and foster community among writers and just overall encourage authors. Lately, however, the NaNoWriMo organization has been making a lot of decisions based on politics, and they’re decisions that I personally think are detrimental to the encouragement of community that is central to what NaNoWriMo has to offer. You’re welcome to agree or disagree with me on that, and through this post I do not mean to advocate for leaving the NaNoWriMo organization or suggest that it’s the best option—I haven’t even decided for myself yet whether I’m staying or leaving. This is simply intended to be a gathering of resources in case anyone has seen NaNoWriMo’s recent changes as deal-breakers, or to provide additional resources for those who are sticking around but maybe want a separate word count tracker or more targeted community.

Worldbuilding

Medicine and Medical Practice in Fantasy Cultures – Guest Post by Allie

Welcome back to another worldbuilding post! This one is a guest post by my best friend Allie, who was kind enough to write up a post about something that she loves and is great at: medicine. Specifically, of course, fantasy medicine. So, without further ado, let me turn you over to her!

Thank you for this opportunity to guest post on your blog, Ariel! Lord knows I have a hard time posting enough on my own blog, but I love helping others out, especially on a topic I enjoy ranting about for hours on end: medicine!

How to Organize Your Conlangs with World Anvil

Languages and conlangs (that’s constructed languages like, for example, Doth’raki and Klingon) are a great way to add flavour and immersion to your D&D campaign or novel setting! But organizing them – and figuring out how much you need to write for each one – can be tricky! In this post, we’re going to take you through how to organize your fantasy languages and conlangs using World Anvil, the ultimate worldbuilding platform.

How to create a language

If you’re jealous of Klingons and Dothraki, with their beautiful, deep languages – don’t fear! I’ve got a great step by step guide to creating a language for your world. Language forms a pretty huge part of a culture, so it stands to reason that your cultures should have their own way of speaking. These are conlangs (constructed languages).

I’m Cam from Vulgarlang, and we’re going to take you through some steps to make your own languages!

Discovering Your World: Organizing the Info

Due to a week of massive sleep deprivation and the realization that I’ve actually already written a decent post on developing wildlife that said everything I’d say now (see here), I’ve decided to replace my intended post on wildlife with a post on organizing your worldbuilding, to keep things on-schedule.

Worldbuilding is a massive undertaking, and there’s a ton of information to keep straight. Chances are you have info scattered everywhere–a sticky note with a handful of city names, a map tossed in a desk drawer, a binder that has some of your worldbuilding but not all the stuff that you wrote down in various notebooks. Fortunately, there’s a cure for this! Actually, multiple cures, depending on how you like to work.

Writing

Writing Resource Roundup

So I’m going to do something a little bit new and put together a roundup of online writing resources that I’ve found helpful, and hopefully you will too. All of the following are free unless marked.

Brandon Sanderson’s lectures at Brigham Young University. I’ve linked the first of twelve YouTube videos. I’ve only watched the first three so far, but they were very good. He talks about the main aspects of writing – characters, setting, and plot – and what he calls “the box,” which I haven’t gotten to yet.

Reading for Writing: What Authors Should Read

I’m guessing that everyone here is a reader. I’m also guessing that most of you authors began writing out of a love for reading. When you started, reading was a grand escape and a fun leisure activity, and you read whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, but now that you’re an author you hear people saying “Read these books to improve your craft!” “Don’t read those or you’ll take too much inspiration for your own books and write a copy!” and other dos and don’ts that could make reading less enjoyable. We start reading for writing instead of reading for reading, which has its benefits but also its drawbacks. Here’s what I personally think authors should read (hint: it’s pretty much everything) and why each category is beneficial.

5 Fiction Writing Exercises to Stretch Your Skill

This week’s blog tour focus is Carnival Hearts, the second story in the new edition of Short Story Collection vol. 1. Since Carnival Hearts was really a writing exercise that went well, I figured it would be fun to share a handful of fiction writing exercises you can try to get out of your writing comfort zone! I don’t know about you, but my best writing tends to happen when I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone; and even when the end result isn’t great, the process of doing an exercise is almost always a ton of fun.

5 Favorite Writing Reference Books

Full disclosure: I don’t read writing books as much as I maybe should. I tend to wing things, or read blog posts, or take courses (mostly wing things… I’m working on it). But I do have a pretty decent writing resource library, and I have actually read a few of the books in it, and they’re worth recommending, so here are five writing books that I’ve found helpful.