Hey guys –– Tessa here. Over the past couple of weeks I decided to compile some helpful websites for aspiring authors and writers like myself. Hopefully some of these help you, too… and feel free to add onto the list!
1. Noisli
This one might seem kind of obvious, but this website is basically a noise generator that plays background music to help you stay focused. You can choose a variety of noises –– rain, campfire, thunderstorms, crashing waves, coffee shops, fan noises, etc. – and if you create a free account you can save the mixes you like yourself, so when you come back to writing you’ll already have your favorite noises ready to play.
I’ve seen a ton of fantasy generators floating around the internet, and while some of them are helpful, this one has to be my favorite. The interface is super cool and allows you to pick between four different options –– a fantasy generator, which is a general generator used for creativity, a beast generator, which helps you come up with names for all your goblins and creatures, a spell forge, which gives you examples of spell names and their possible uses, and a land forge (my favorite!) which helps you determine a name for your magical, mythical place. There’s a ton of customizable options (such as keeping certain words and disposing others, etc.) to make it your own.
This one has been talked about in great length here on Tumblr, but I figured I’d reiterate to showcase it’s awesomeness. Basically, you paste (or type) whatever you’re working on and the application reads through your writing and lets you know if there are any difficult to read sentences, uses of the passive voice, how many adverbs you have, and what the reading level is for the specific passage. Of course, take all these edits with a grain of salt –– sometimes the editor doesn’t understand your writing style and will mark a sentence as “hard to read” when it really isn’t, but it’s a great editor for catching small mistakes and giving you useful stats on your piece, such as word count, paragraph length, etc.
This is a very long survey, but it’s 100% worth it once you have your protagonist (or set of protagonists) laid out for your story. It’s even helpful for fan fiction and RPG, so don’t dismiss it entirely if you don’t write anything original. Basically, it’s an assessment to see if your character is a “Mary Sue” (there’s a detailed explanation of what that is on the website as well). Honestly, it’s a long survey, but depending on what type of fiction you’re working with (fanfiction, original fiction, even RPG) it won’t take you very long and it’ll give you an interesting perspective on your character. I highly recommend you take this test especially if you’re an original fiction writer. Having a strong protagonist is as central as an engaging plot!
5 & 6. Behind the Name Generator and Baby Name Voyager
I’ve lumped these two together because they serve the same purpose –– naming a character. The “Behind the Name” Generator presents you with a ton of options to check off and it’ll present you with names that fit those specific criteria, so it’s really helpful if you’re looking for a specific type of name for your character. Similarly, the Baby Name Voyager will show you an interactive chart with popular names from the decade, and if you type a name into the search bar, it’ll tell you when it was most popular (such as the ‘90s) and what names were giving to siblings, which is extremely helpful if you want to make sure your characters’ names are cohesive to the timeline of the story. There’s also a detailed-search option like the Behind the Name generator.
Not so much a website as it is a helpful reference, but this site shows the twelve common human archetypes which is helpful when creating characters and attempting to figure out their external vs. internal motivation. This plays a lot on psychology, but fear not –– if you don’t think your character fits into a certain archetype or prefer not to use these, then don’t!
In addition, here are some awesome writing blogs who have stellar advice. Feel free to message me or any of these wonderful people if you have questions about character development, plot questions, or anything else related to writing!
@authors-haven / @simplewritingtips / @thoughtsfromthewritersdesk / @theticklishpear / @the-writers-nest
Happy writing! ♡