My Fave Writing Articles

Writing is a hard craft and there's nothing better than being able to find an article to help you with your needs. Whether it's characters, plot holes, or editing, a good post can be useful. It's a bit long but you can either read it all or skip to what you're looking for. Without further ado, here is a list of some of my top articles for writers.

Pre-Writing

Before You Type "Chapter One"- A short but good post on things to think about before you start your story.
50 Questions for Your Outline- Fifty may seem like a lot, but look them over anyway. There are some excellent ones you might be missing from your outline.
Plan Your Novel for NaNoWriMo with World Building- Don't be fooled by the title. This advice can be used anywhere and is great for both fantasy and sci-fi writers.
Writing Historical Fiction: You Don't Need As Many Facts as You Think- A great post about not stuffing your novels full of facts, no matter how cool they are.
How to Cut the Crap and Research Your Novel Effectively- This goes over research from making a plan, conducting an interview, taking notes, getting information off the internet, getting information from books, and then using all that information. Check out the rest of the site too.
Creating a Fantasy Culture- A post about creating an original fantasy culture.

Writing

5 Tips for Setting Reasonable Writing Goals- Getting writing done is hard and this post shows you how to set goals and accomplish them.

This picture tells you the best ways to include a prologue.

3 Ways to Start Your Novel- Includes examples from well know books.

The Worst Ways to Begin Your Novel: Advice from Literary Agents- I like this one a lot because it is full of opinions of the people who actually work with novels. Read through all of them.

And here is an infographic of Pixar's rules of storytelling. Always take tips from the pros.

Editing

5 Words to Eliminate from Your Writing- Good prose is part of good writing, and you need to cut useless words for that.

5 More Words to Eliminate from Your Writing- The second part to the first post.

8 Things to Cut When You Kill Your Darlings- In this article, Kristen tells you what kill your darlings means, and how to do it.

10 Things Your Beginning Should Do- A list of the things your beginning, or first three chapters, should do.

Characters

10 Signs Your Villain Might Be Cheesy- I like this one because I often see some of these things in my writing. You should read this one.

6 Terror Tactics for Really Scary Villains- Who doesn't want to write a super scary villain that will make your readers wet themselves.

Building a Character Arc: Start at the End- This make a really great point to make a strong character arc.

Four Behaviors Fiction Needs to Stop Glorifying- I think this one makes an excellent point about what you should and should not have characters do.

6 Ways to Hide Your Villain in Plain Sight- Villains you can't locate are the best ones.

How to Write Diverse Characters- Characters anymore seem rather cliche and boring. This article tells you how to making them better.

Your Heroine Doesn't Have to Kick Butt to Be Strong- My absolute favorite article. I love all the points she makes.

You can also find my writing boards on Pinterest here. Just keep scrolling until you find them. I hope this helps you.