Every Budding Writer Should Use These Seven Tools
So, you want to write a story, or even a book. You want to create new worlds like Tolkien, or satirize the world like Twain. But you’re struggling to figure out how. I know the feeling. For the past six years, that’s been my struggle.
Becoming a great writer isn’t easy (Or so I’ve been told. I haven’t made it there yet), but these tools will put you on the right path to writing well.
If you have any other great tools to share with me, email me here.
1. Hemingway
Hemingway is a smart word processor that helps you write clear, concise prose.
How? Hemingway analyzes your work as you write, and provides suggestions for improving readability. It catches everything from the passive voice, to over-use of adverbs and run-on sentences.
It also keeps a stream of statistics on your writing, from grade-level, to word-count, to reading time. It will never replace a human editor, but it’s a great tool for making your writing prettier in a jiffy.
2. “On Writing” By Stephen King
Few people know more about writing than Stephen King. He’s published 54 novels, including many bestsellers, and over 200 short stories.
Using examples from his life and career, King teaches you the mechanics, the creative process, and the life-skills required of a great, prolific writer. Much more engaging than your college writing class.
3. Daily Page
Suffering from an acute case of writer’s block? The Daily Page might be just the free tool you need to free your mind.
Daily page sends you one writing prompt a day, and provides you with a a beautiful free web-editor to answer the prompt. You can save your responses, share them publicly or privately, and look back at past work for inspiration.
Personally, I love their choice of prompts, because they’re usually just general enough for me to be able to write something. I happen to hate really “structured” writing prompts, and I’m impressed with their selection.
4. Morning Short
Fact: The easiest way to become a great writer is to read great writers.
Why? Exposing yourself to a diverse set of styles and genres allows your brain to find new ways to frame your own ideas.
Morning Short (I run it, bTW) sends out one curated short story every morning at 8AM to 9000 readers.
Each story is readable in twenty minutes, formatted beautifully, and chosen for being exceptional.
We also try to include a wide array of famous authors, to expose our audience to the incredible variety in style possible in the english language.
5. Zen and the Art of Writing By Ray Bradbury
This is my favorite book on writing. Ever.
Not only does Bradbury, author of such famous sci-fi masterpieces as Fahrenheit 451, offer some incredible writing (and creativity) advice.
This book is filled with his musings on why writing is wonderful. Each chapter is an essay, and each essay posses a unique personal touch by Bradbury. You learn a lot, but it doesn’t feel “instructionary”. Instead, it teaches, and it inspires. It tells you where to look within you for stories, and how to pull them out of you. It’s a quick read, and it is wonderful, from cover to cover.
6. Haven
Writing fictions is very difficult, particularly for beginners. What do you write about? Who are your characters? To me, writing reality is easy. It’s coming up with new worlds that really challenges me.
Haven makes it easy. Haven is an app filled with tools for inspiring your stories. There’s a character creator, a plot generator, and even a plot-dice tool.
Each of the several included tools is designed to inspire your writing in some way. Use one, or use them all, depending upon what you need. All these tools are also packaged in an outstanding word-processor. It’s basically a creative swiss-army knife.
7. Medium
If you’re reading this article, you likely know Medium at least from a reader’s perspective. Medium is chock-full of great writing and even greater writing advice.
Medium is also fantastic for authors. The Medium editor interface is so beautifully functional that I often use it as a text-editor for random documents.
If you’re looking for feedback, hundreds of Medium Publications are open for submissions, and provide feedback in the form of editors and audiences.
Medium’s commenting tools in particular, which include sentence-by-sentence annotation tools, make sending and receiving feedback on Medium absolutely wonderful. There isn’t too too much creative writing on the platform now, but together we can change that!
Recommend this post (by clicking the ❤ button) so other people can see it!
Michael Sitver is Chief Curator of The Morning Short, a daily email, and an avid Product Hunt user..
