Here are some of my favorite things for quick inspiration and help.
Here’s an inspiring video with lots of images and ideas for creating tone:
If you want to explore blackout poetry, the wonderful publisher Wave Poetry has an erasure poetry tool that is really fun to play with, and it lets you save your redacted work.
Visuwords Online Graphical Dictionary
The Hemingway Editor quickly hip-checks troublesome bits of prose.
Grammarly — goes beyond the basics a word processor offers in terms of catching mistakes.
Little Film School: Basic Shot Types. Short and sweet visual reminder of what your reader needs you to do with words.
Amy Hempel explains “The Harvest,” a story from her challenging collection At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom.
Kurt Vonnegut on “The Shapes of Stories.” Part stand-up comedy, part university lecture: you’ll never think of Cinderella the same way again.
David Lynch on where Ideas come from…
CONTACT:
Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber 
Feel free to leave me a tip about a favorite writing resource you might have. Thanks for visiting!
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Just went through your writing helpers here. Thanks for putting it together. I particularly had fun with the Hemingway one which kind of made me mad!!!
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Well, especially writing flash where the punctuation and complexity are part of the compression — that’s going to make old Hemingway light up like a Christmas tree, for sure! But for a novice writer, especially one who can’t “see” passive construction in his or her own writing, it can be another useful gadget. Thanks for your suggestions below, too!
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David Jauss’s craft book “Alone With All That Could Happen” is an excellent craft resource. I think it’s published now as “Writing Fiction”… Check it out!
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I can’t wait to take a look. Thanks so much Jolene!
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Oh and btw, Amy Hempel’s “Harvest” is one of my all-time favorites so I really enjoyed the video.
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She’s amazing. I feel like her “At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom” is my writing pair of skinny jeans. If I keep writing and studying, one day I’ll be able to put that book on and I’ll understand all the wonder of it.
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These were all very helpful. Liked the ‘basic shot types’ video. Thanks so much!
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These are great! I’m big into craft books…I like to collect them so I can pick them up when I want some inspiration. Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering is good, and Story by Robert McKee (so much to learn from screenwriters). Those are rather novelly. Charles Baxter’s Burning Down the House is good, too. Oh, and the Art of Subtext. So many good ones.
I also think Grammar Girl is pretty great: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar
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I’d say Robert McKee’s STORY is one must have if anyone is wanting to write short stories and novels even though it’s aimed at screenwriters. The principle of Set-ups and pay-offs is just one lesson I use with almost every story I write. And finding the spine.
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Charles Baxter’s name comes up a lot. I have to get a copy of Burning Down the House. Thanks for the reminder, Kate!
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Grammar Girl is a hoot — thanks for the reminder, Kate. I’ll add that link for sure.
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I loved the Vonnegut and wouldn’t mind seeing more of him or of other writers you admire. I second Kate’s Grammar Girl suggestion. Visuwords is neat and much better than the Visual Thesaurus which requires a subscription. A Word A Day includes some pretty cool quotes and etymology — http://wordsmith.org/words/today.html.
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Let me add “Ron Carlson Writes a Story”
http://www.amazon.com/Ron-Carlson-Writes-Story/dp/1555974775
and Jerry Cleaver’s “Immediate Fiction”
http://www.amazon.com/Immediate-Fiction-Complete-Writing-Course/dp/0312302762/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449877825&sr=1-1&keywords=immediate+fiction
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I like Robert Olen Butler’s book on fiction writing titled “From Where You Dream.” And even though it’s not directly a book about HOW to write, I’ve drawn much inspiration from Flannery O’Connor’s “A Prayer Journal.”
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These resources are terrific. Visuwords incompletely new to me. I can’t wait to start playing with it. The basic shots type resource is very helpful. A couple of wonderful resources I’d recommend for flash fiction writers are The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction edited by Tara L. Masih and A Pocket Guide to Flash Fiction by Randall Brown.
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Those are two of my all-time favorites, too, Jan! I should try to add a bookshelf widget. I can’t tell you how often I’ve referred to Randall’s Pocket Guide. Thank you.
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I love the Vonnegut video! Great piece! I was going to mention Grammar Girl but it looks like I was beaten to the punch. That is a fantastic resource as well as entertaining! There is the website or you can purchase it on Amazon for fairly cheap as well.
The Mindful Writer by Dinty Moore is another wonderful resource that I use, as well as The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. Of course, there is my absolute favorite as well, Stephen King’s On Writing. A must read!
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Whats up this is kinda of off topic but
I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or
if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting
a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to
get guidance from someone with experience. Any
help would be greatly appreciated!
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I use the WYSIWYG and supplement when embedding things like videos, columns, etc. There are a lot of tutorials available, and I find it helps to plan by thinking what you want your landing page to be like, and branching off from there. Look at sites you like and study them to see how they are organized. Good luck!
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