Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones.
There's something so exciting about discovering a new website you love, which is why a few weeks ago I started bugging the writers in my life about which writing websites they love or feel are particularly relevant for young writers. Here are some of the ones that were recommended to me:
Teens Can Write Too
A great blog by teen writers, for teen writers. They've been around for a few years and have a great community going on. I love the blog chain thing they do every month where they gather lots of views on the same topic. Great stuff.
Post to check out: Learning From Other Writers
Tessa Emily Hall
A blog by a YA author who encourages teens to "embrace their uniqueness, tap into their potential, and pursue the impossible." Here you'll find writing prompt challenges, great tips, and a unique glimpse of the writing world.
Post to check out: Discover The Story of Your Heart
Inklined
Love this blog by Sarah Faulkner, a teen writer with a big heart and lots of wisdom. She also runs a teen book chat on Twitter once a month. (#TBkchat 8pm EST first Monday of the month.)
Post to check out: Make Your Characters Ugly
Dreaming Hobbit
This blog covers some really interesting and unique writing topics. You can easily wander around this site for a few hours and enjoy Emily's very honest voice.
Post to check out: Don't Let This Problem Kill Your Action Scene
Vaguely Circular
This is a group blog that explores a variety of writing-related topics. I'm partial to their "Weekly Wrap-ups" which link to interesting writing articles or just cool stuff that could inspire your next great book idea.
Post to check out: A Novel A Day (which explores the topic of if you should write every day.)
Below are a handful of sites that aren't specific to teen writers, but they have great resources for beginning and advanced writers alike:
Hilari Bell - Writing Tips
Our friend Sarah Faulkner shared this site with me. There are great, in-depth articles here about all kinds of writing topics. I haven't had a chance to read them all yet, and I'm excited to go back.
Post to check out: Twisted Plots
Dan Wells - Story Structure
Dan is one of my favorite writing teachers. He's funny, he's real, and he's super smart. The above is a link to a class he taught on story structure. Great stuff. He's one of the podcasters on Writing Excuses, which is also excellent, but we talk about it often enough on here that I didn't want to repeat myself by adding it to our list.
Helping Writers Become Authors - K.M. Weiland
An amazing blog for writers at all stages. Basically any writing question you have is answered somewhere on this website. And Katie is a rock star on Twitter as well.
Post to check out: Your Book's Inciting Incident: It's Not What You Think It Is
Shallee McArthur - Index for Writers
Shallee was a guest of ours back in November (Beyond Fancy Clothes and Funny Foods—Creating the Culture of Your Story) which is when I learned about this lovely index to articles on her website.
Post to check out: Turn An Idea Into A Killer Story Concept: Go Big Or Go Home
Janice Hardy's Fiction University
There are so many articles on this website. Like ... so many. I could get lost here for a while.
Post to check out: Prep Work: Ways To Be A More Productive Writer
And if you're a fan of writing prompts, here are a couple sites that are fun to play around on:
The Story Starter
Creative Writing Prompts
Story Spinner
Have a favorite writing website you'd like to recommend? Leave it in the comments below!
Thank you so much for these great sites, Mrs. Morrill! I'm excited to check them out. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you like Hilari Bell's tips! They were and still are huge influences on my writing. They were the only tips I'd read until Go Teen Writers, the other huge influence on my writing.
ReplyDelete~Sarah Faulkner
Thank you so much for posting these Mrs. Morrill! Can't wait to check them out! :3
ReplyDeleteOoooh thanks for the recommendations! Can't wait to check them out!
ReplyDeleteLooks like an amazing list! I'm bookmarking this, Steph!
ReplyDeleteThe research for this blog post felt pretty selfish :) It was a lot of fun to discover new sites!
ReplyDeleteYes, here's a few:
ReplyDeleteThis Page Intentionally Left Blank (liamwood.org) -- Posts about various aspects of writing, from plot to style and beyond. Basically dissecting books, movies, and TV shows that did something well to find out how they did it.
YAvengers (yavengers.com) -- A group of writers who take on personalities of the Avengers and write posts on certain writing themes every month.
Kingdom Pen (kingdompen.org) -- Started out as an e-magazine for teen Christian writers (submissions and articles on craft), and have expanded to a website with helpful writing articles posted pretty regularly. They're trying out a theme of the month currently as well.
Oh yeah, and there's this great blog for teen writers that definitely has the most bookmarks in my "writing related" folder... ;P
Here's a writing blog me and some other writers post on: Inthecharactersshadow.blogspot.com . Hope y'all check it out :)
ReplyDeleteOh, nice list!! I might need to check some of these out... :)
ReplyDeletehttp://plottingertwist.blogspot.com/?m=0
Great list! I'm definetly going to have a bigger bookmarks page! Some other websites that I know of are SuperHero Nation (while the title says superhero, most of the advice shared applies to all genres) and How to Write a Book Now. This website takes you step by step through the dramatica theory and is very helpful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these! (And seriously, to whoever has yet to check out Dreaming Hobbit, it is a must!)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this list!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to share my website geared for young writers. http://www.atime2write.com/p/home.html?zx=c4c407cc98772239
Abigail