Monday 25 June 2012

A few useful links for creative writers

I seem to have reached a point where I've been away from University for just long enough to start thinking about writing stories for enjoyment again - not just jumping through hoops for a creative writing degree, but really letting my imagination lead the way. So, I'm placing these links here mainly so that I don't lose them, but also to help out any other writers who happen to stumble across my blog!

The Speech Accent Archive  - recordings and phonetic translations of people speaking in different accents. So if you want to write about how a character speaks when English is not their first language, but you're not sure of what their accent would sound like, this is a useful tool. Remember, it's best to write about what you know, and do your research when writing about a country or a culture that is unfamiliar to you, otherwise your writing can come across as uninformed and could even offend people.

34 Tips to Make You a Better Writer - some we've all heard before ("Write every day for 30 minutes!" Yeah, yeah) and some are more unusual and will really get you thinking. I'll definitely be putting some of these tips to use.

One Word - I love this. When you press 'go' you'll be presented with a random word (I got 'seeds'), a text box, and a timer counting down 60 seconds in which to write as much as you can on that topic. Great for making you think about topics that wouldn't otherwise cross your mind, and it can help you to come up with new ideas and directions to take a story or a poem you're stuck on.

(Click the 'writing' tag to see some links to similar tools that I've posted before)

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