Link Database for writing & research (1 Viewer)

[kami]

Here are a few links that I have amassed in my research and I thought I would share them.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/mistakes_allen.htm
This is an article called the standard deviations of writing and focuses on some of the classic mistakes some short stories make.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/biblio.htm
The above contains a list of "how to write" books.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/basics.htm

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/mistakes.htm
The above two are articles on grammar and whatnot.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html
It contains a lengthy introduction but it has a lot of tips on what not to do-especially for the scifi/fantasy/speculative genre.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/strategies.html
This is about work avoidance and motivation in writing.

http://www.sfwa.org/bulletin/articles/baxter.htm
The above is a guide to creating new worlds and such.

http://www.itools.com/
Yahoo Internet Life called this the "Swiss army knife of research instruments." Search dictionaries and thesauruses, look up acronyms and quotations, translate English to French or Japanese (and back again), figure out anagrams, word-search Shakespeare or the King James Bible, look at maps, check stocks, find zip codes, track UPS or FedEx packages, and much more.

http://lazette.net/vision/index.htm
This contains several articles about research, character building and more, so check it out.

Hope some of this helps.

 

[_muse_]

wow... amazing sites.. thankyou so much kami

 

[kami]

I'm going to bump this thread since research into the medium is one of the things that all of you 06ers should be doing and it might be nice to stick some of this stuff into your journal.
It should be noted though, that any 'how to write' guides you read are only opinions - its your work in the end and your rules, these are just to get your brain ticking.

 

[Abbeygale]

The SFWA site is brilliant, and I read the resources about three times over the course of 2005.

I hope you don't mind me hijacking the thread to add my own suggestion, but-

This might not be best for everyone, but for people who are at their most productive under pressure, I heartily recommend NaNoWriMo-
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
In NaNo, the goal is to write 50 000 words between the 1st and 30th of November. It's almost impossible to complete during the HSC, but last year I wrote ten thousand words for it, from which I was able to pick out about 1000 words which weren't drivel. From this I made a framework for my MW, and added and edited until I had something I think was pretty good. I believe that I wouldn't have been able to complete the course nearly as easily if it wasn't for the mindless free-write I did in November.

 

[courtnez]

I heart nanowrimo. I like dabbling in it every november, but never hold any expectations to win

BUT the guy who created the thing has written a book called "No plot? No problem!" which I've found in a few of the generic bookshops around sydney - it's fairly good, if you wanted to do either nanowrimo or start randomly with your ext 2 on a very unique foot.

 

[rahrah]

Hey, thanks.. those sites were really helpful =]

 

[jusdorange]

i wish i'd seen these links when i was doing ext 2!