The way I see it, there are three ways to improve your abilities as a writer: practicing a lot, devoting time to reading, and taking advantage of the free resources that can make your work much easier. Although the best writers combine all three, in this article, I’ll focus specifically on the third tactic.
As independent novel writers, one of the main challenges we face is the lack of experience, means, and resources to finish our books. A writer doesn’t only write. The free resources we’ve listed in this post will help improve our stories and reduce the time spent on tasks we might not enjoy as much, like planning, editing, designing, and organizing ideas. This allows us to dedicate more time to what we are truly passionate about: writing.
Many of the resources included are apps, websites, and blogs. Therefore, this list is a personal and subjective selection. That being said, I’m not claiming these are the best, but they are the ones I particularly like.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links at no extra cost to you.
1. Name Generator Tools
It’s almost impossible to forget names like Holden Caulfield, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Potter. Those are great, memorable character’s names.
Coming up with the perfect name, though difficult, can get your character off on the right foot. However, there are some free resources for writers that can help make the process of choosing much easier for you.
Actually, there are websites that generate names for your characters. The only thing you have to do is to specify the genre and in some cases, other preferences; an asset when it comes to picking secondary character names. The good news is that you can change it later when you get to know better that creature you’re shaping.
a. Name Generator
This is probably the most famous. As their slogan reads: “Find the perfect name for every occasion.” I personally love it because you can fill an entire form to make your name fit perfectly with your character. It provides you with some sub-categories as well. So, it can generate names for elves, countries, twins, villains, etc. I find it really useful when it comes to saving time.
b. Reedsy
With over 1,000,000 names to inspire you, Reedsy will help you choose the perfect name for your character. You can choose between medieval names, god names, fantasy names, and others. They also provide you with the meaning behind the name and some tips in case you would rather create your own character name.
2. Random Prompts
Try sparking your ideas with a randomly generated prompt when you feel stuck.
a. Robert Peake: Poetry Writing Prompts
You have to choose the number of words you want to be given, the number of challenges and if you want or not a picture for inspiration.
b. Writing Exercises
It offers free creative writing exercises, prompts, and random generators for your stories and poems.
c. Writing Idea Generators
We all have that moment when ideas don’t arrive at all. If you need an idea or a jump start, using one of the random generators of this website will definitely help. They cover questions, sentences, titles, plots, and many more.
3. Plot organizers
If you’ve started writing a novel or a script, you might have noticed that it requires much more work than writing a short story. I’m not referring to the number of words but to the structure. You do need to work on the structure of your novel or script, and it’s a real challenge to plot your novel well without prior planning.
And while you can certainly do it with a notebook and pen, there are apps and websites available that can help you organize your characters, plots, and everything else you’ll need when you start writing.
a. Trello
One of the things that I absolutely love about Trello is that there’s no limit to the things you can do with it. There’s literally nothing you can’t organize. A Trello board can help you structure both the format of the book and your day-to-day schedule. You can create lists of things, cards to capture your ideas, to-do lists, and much more. It is also useful for organizing your characters, plots, and sub-plots, and creating an organization chart of your story that will make all the writing much faster and easier.
You can get the Mobile app for iOS and Android. There’s also an app desktop version for Mac and Windows, which I consider a real asset.
4. Note Taking
What would a writer be without his or her notebook? I like to keep mine on my bedside table, because I read somewhere that great ideas come right before sleeping. However, in this digital era, an online tool to do so wouldn’t be out of place.
a. Evernote
This app helps you organize, remember, and find your notes. You can store, classify and label every kind of information (audio, image, mails, video, etc.) to find it more easily later on.
b. SpeechTexter
This tool is not as famous as the first one, but it’s more suitable for those who prefer dictating their ideas instead of writing them down. This free professional multilingual speech-to-text app is supported by Chrome browser and Android.
5. Word Processors
In my experience, there are two types of text editors: those you use for getting ideas (1) and those for writing books (2).
a. Ommwriter
This tool will help you concentrate and unleash your creativity. It insulates your mind from distraction. It is as they would describe it “an immersive experience”. Each and every element of this website is designed to create an ideal setting and stimulate your creativity.
b. WriteMonkey
If you are looking for minimalism, then WriteMonkey is for you. Its objective is to offer a pure, simple, and distraction-free resource for writers. The interface looks nothing like other conventional processors. In fact, the Setting Menu is hidden behind a shortcut (Ctrl+Space). And the truth is that if you like the software you’ll have to memorize some because it prioritizes the use of the keyboard. In spite of its apparent simplicity, the app includes full markdown compatibility and plug-in support.
c. yWriter
This app is a simple and extremely useful tool. It allows you to organize all the elements of your text. With yWriter you can separate a very long text into chapters and scenes. Adding relevant information such as what characters, places, and plots are in the scene you create a visual chart that will support the development of the story. Click here to download it.
e. Papyrus
An online word processor that allows you to create books in PDF, Epub, and Kindle formats. Some of the advantages it has are that you can import web content and design your own book cover. It is a completely free, fully stocked toolkit. It’s very intuitive and you can use it for any writing task.
6. Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of creating the world or the universe where your story is developed. You can create everything, from a regular common reality to a mythic oneiric world.
When you are capable of creating the world beforehand, you will undoubtedly have less complicated work when you start writing. And though a bit complicated, there are a few apps and websites that can help you streamline this process by spending more time actually crafting rather than wasting it looking for the right tool.
a. Notebook.ai
Though there is a premium version, the truth is that you can create your own worlds, adding locations, characters, and items in its free version. And it’s pretty good. I think this might work for short stories and not-so-complicated worlds. It’s very easy to use, and from my point of view, the features included in its free version are a great help.
b. World Anvil
This online platform is our top pick. It helps you build, organize, and store your world with an incredible array of tools. You can build your timeline, create maps, link everything, and use images, video, and audio to create an amazing unique world behind your book. It also allows you to work with your friends and have your entire world’s information in an abstract and thematically organized way.
6. Grammar and Spelling
a. Scribens
This English and Grammar checker corrects your spelling mistakes and checks the grammar of your texts. It also detects stylistic elements such as word repetition, and redundancies, and even suggests synonyms for every word. As if that’s not enough, it provides highly detailed statistics on your texts as well as a readability indicator and more.
b. Visuwords
As a renewed conception of a dictionary, this online graphical linguistic tool produces diagrams like mind maps to show associations between words. This visual thesaurus focuses more on word-type relationships but also offers more detailed information when clicking on a specific word.
c. Grammarly
Grammarly is far from being just a grammar checker. It analyzes your text and suggests improvements. It helps you fix your grammar and spelling and also revise sentences that although grammatically correct, are wordy or not clear. Though there are free and premium versions, the free version is quite complete. You can install the extension for Google and the keyboard for your phone.
d. Written Sound
Wondering what does the fox say? With Written Sound you can find out how to write the sound of almost anything. And by the way, the fox vocalization is something similar to “ack-ack-ack-ackawoooo-ack-ack-ack.” Not weird at all.
7. Writing Events
Writing Contests are crucial to boost your visibility and give needed authenticity to your career. And though sometimes you have to pay to submit your work, there are many free options as well. You can use Google, but I highly recommend checking Free Writing Events Resources first
a. Writer’s Knowledge Base
This is the writer’s search engine for excellence. Here you can look for categorized articles on writing. You can find more than 50,000 articles and blogs on the topic.
8. Fantasy Creatures Compendiums
These websites can be a fantasy author’s greatest ally, and significant assets when worldbuilding. These free resources for writers will help you craft the perfect book!
a. A Wikipedia List of mythological creatures
They are categorized by habitat, type, element, and animal association. Though Wikipedia is not the best for true or authentic information, at least you can get some names to Google from the list.
b. Encyclopedia Mythica
You can search through more than 11,000 articles on numerous mythological creatures and characters. Since some articles are not detailed; it’s good for general, but not specific research.
c. Theoi
This project focuses on Greek mythology, their gods, spirits, fabulous creatures, and heroes. It’s one of the most helpful websites that I have found on the topic. It offers an encyclopedia summary, quotations from a wide selection of ancient Greek and Roman texts, and illustrations from ancient art. The downside? It’s not a quick read.
I also recommend you check our article about myths and legends you can use in your novel.
Design
Self-publishing needs money. One of the things that require money is designing. The design of your cover, and the design of all the marketing things you need to help you promote your work.
We don’t recommend that you design your cover yourself. A professional designer is always the way to go. But after you have the essentials designed: cover and branding basics, you can go on and do the rest yourself: for example bookmarkers, posters, stickers, t-shirts, and so on.
So, to design your merch and if you still want to design your cover, or can’t afford a professional designer, then we have the best free resource for writers right here: Canva.
- Canva (graphic design for non-designers)
This is just one of those perfect free resources for writers, comfortable and practical. You don’t need to be a designer or have any previous knowledge to start working with it. Canva comes with templates pre-designed for all kinds of formats: book covers, infographics, markers, logos, and posts for all your platforms… and you can adapt them without any problem! You can also use pictures from Pixabay, Pexels (you can access their pictures from Canva), and Unsplash (which are free to use).
It also has thousands of free elements, drawings, color combinations, backgrounds, videos, etc. Check it for yourself, just create your free account right here.
Summing up…
Writing requires a lot of effort and patience. Sometimes, you might lack that little extra help to find websites or relevant information to inspire you during the creative stage of your novel.
Ideas are yours, and they’re free! However, most of the tools or resources to bring them to life can be pricey. Don’t let this stop you from making your dreams come true. As you can see, there are many websites, apps, and blogs with similar features that you can use for free.
Do you know any other free resources for writers? Has this article been useful? Let me know in the comments!
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