10 Great Websites for Writers

What can I say? This post does what it says on the tin so let’s get started. In no particular order, here are ten helpful websites for writers:

Creative Penn

Creative Penn is run by Joanna Penn. She gets full points for nice design, helpful content and a solid effort at a clever title. Not only does she give writing advice, there’s also content on publishing and marketing and even a podcast for those who have less time to read but plenty time to listen while doing other things.

Content rating: Everything I’ve read there has been clean and whatnot, I’m happy to vouch for this site.

Story Embers

Run by Josiah DeGraaf and his highly capable crew, Story Embers seeks to equip Christians to write good quality, imaginative, God-glorifying writing. They not only have great content, they also run competitions, have audio versions of a number of their posts, and even have art and poetry sections to the website. All in all, it’s quality stuff and well worth checking out.

Content Rating: Christian website and 100% clean.

Well-Storied

I love Well-Storied. Once again, there are great posts from the author, Kristen Keiffer (complete with audio versions — are you seeing a trend here?) as well as free downloadable worksheets and helps.

Content Guide: Kristen Keiffer is not a Christian as far as I know. Everything I’ve listened to is clean though and I’ve not heard her swear or anything.

I’m afraid I don’t have a picture for this one and I was worried that stealing her mug shot might be a little weirder than just pilfering the logo.

Helping Writers Become Authors

A few days ago, I asked a bunch of young writers what their favourite writing websites were, and K. M. Weiland’s Helping Writers Become Authors appeared consistently. I’ve used it myself a number of times. There’s good advice on there and audios to boot. What’s not to like?

Content Guide: I don’t always agree with her advice but it’s all clean and all good. She’s not wrong, she just does things differently from me (I’ll probably realise I should have done it her way five years down the line and saved myself a lot of hassle but ah well).

 

 

The Plot Dot

This one isn’t so much a site as a page on a site. On Derek Murphy’s Creative Indie website, yo can find The Plot Dot, which has been an immense help in my rewrites of Aurelius because I’m a pantser and that means I tend to get my pacing wrong the first time round. Even if you’re a plotter, it’s helpful because it outlines story structure and when what should happen.

Content Guide: The Plot Dot is good but it has never occurred to me to check out the rest of the website so I don’t know what it’s like. If I get around to it, I’ll update you on it. But this page in particular is smashing.

Think Written

Up next is one I’ve only discovered fairly recently. It’s a nicely designed site and I like their logo. They also have tips for writing, editing, marketing, and publishing for authors as well as a fully stocked prompts department. Always useful.

Content Guide: As I said, I’m new to this site and I haven’t had a thorough poke around. What I have read has been fine but I can’t tell you about the stuff I haven’t read because I haven’t read it.

Once again, I am unable to scrounge their cute little logo from their site.

Writer’s Digest

This one tickles me because I used to work in a newsagent and there were older people who swore by the Reader’s Digest. Well, here’s the Writer’s Digest. You can find everything from articles to agents on here but its design is a little cluttered for me. The content means the aesthetic isn’t a big deal though.

Content Guide: Think Reader’s Digest. I have these guys on my WordPress reader and, honestly, there are whole chunks of the site that I stay as far as possible away from. Their general writing advice is perfectly adequate for me.

 

Mythcreants

Mythcreants gets top points for titles in this list. I’ve known about them for a long time and go through phases of forgetting about them then randomly rediscovering them. They have a ton of really helpful content on practically any part of fiction writing you can think of and their ‘Lessons from Bad Writing’ posts are always fun and educational. The only thing I would say is that they often have story spoilers in their posts when they use books as an example but they give ample warning. on the whole.

Their whole aesthetic makes me want to write space opera.

Content Guide: I want to say all good but I’m aware that it’s not a Christian site (I’m pretty sure it’s not anyway) and I haven’t been on in a long time so I’m not 100% sure. I don’t remember reading anything untoward there.

The Orang-Utan Librarian

Discworld fans will get the reference (hopefully). But for those who aren’t familiar with Terry Pratchett’s universe, it doesn’t matter too much. This is primarily a book review blog and the reviews can be very entertaining. The reason I include it is because writers need to read (I’ll talk about that more at some point) and if you’re ever in doubt about what to read next, book review blogs can provide inspiration. I also chose this one because I love the design and the orangutan logo makes me smile.

Content Guide: I’m sure they’ve sworn on it a few times and because it’s not a Christian site, there will be books reviewed that are less than wholesome. I still follow it because there are good reviews of good books too and because it’s interesting to know what’s out there circulating people’s shelves.

Novelty Revisions

Last but not least on the list is Novelty Revisions, written by a lady called Meg Dowell. If the name sounds familiar it’s because there’s a quote from her blog gracing the home page of my website. I have her on my Reader feed as well. She’s a frequent writer and her posts, though concise, are always insightful. She blends experience and humour with a seriousness and passion for writing which works really well. Go and check her blog out. It’s one of my favourites and it should be one of your favourites too.

Content Guide: She’s clean. She also has no logo, sadly.

So there you are, a wealth of writing advice, podcasts, competitions, and prompts. It’s enough to keep you going for a lifetime. I hope these are as helpful to you as they have been to me and to some of my other writing friends.

Your Turn

• What are your go-to writing websites?
• Have I missed any that should be on the list?