Showing posts with label Writing Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing Resources. Show all posts

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Classes for Worldbuilders

This entry is gonna be short and sweet, let's do this!

Sociology
The study of culture and how it affects people and people affect it. Sociology is a great class in general, but for writers specifically it helps shatter your ideas of "normal" and how a culture "should be". It also breaks down a concept as enormous as culture into smaller blocks that are a little easier to work with.

Psychology
Get a better understanding of how humans/sapient beings tick.
Abnormal psychology - which most intro to psych courses at least touch on - will help anyone looking to write mental illness with more realism.
Bonus points if you have to write any sort of scientific journal articles for these classes; go through a few psychology classes and you'll never have trouble writing excerpts from textbooks or scientific documents in your stories again.

Biology
A bit more for sci-fi writers or those interested in non-human characters, but it's still an intriguing look at how life as a biosphere works. Building cohesive ecosystems is easier when you understand what a cohesive ecosystem is.

Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is especially helpful. It's something of a sister class to sociology, peeling back the veneer of social norms a bit. It's also useful for learning about how cultures and parts of culture develop among different groups.

History
How have economics, culture change, revolutions in technology, war, environmental disasters, and much, much more, affected humans in the past? They say the past is the best indicator of the future; if you're looking for human behavior, it's hard to get more accurate than the huge test chamber that is human-inhabited earth.


This incredibly short post brought to you by the huge Software Engineering project I have due on Monday, and by the letter P. P stands for such wonderful words as "panic", "pressure", "pain", and "please please please let this be done on time".

Monday, January 7, 2013

Making Writing Resolutions for 2013?


Need/want some online resources to help you out?

Wordcount Meters:
Requires a Facebook account as an 'anchor' for your image (doesn't postanything or pester you in any way). Easy to modify and lots of personalization available.

Svenja Liv's Word Count Meter
Very clean and classy lookin' counters. Be willing to copy & paste your counter's code often, or have some knowledge of HTML to adjust. 

Write Daily Sites:
Write 750 words per day. The entries are kept completely private, can betagged using metadata, exported, plus you can earn achievements. 

OhLife sends you an email every day (or however often you like) asking how your day went. Just reply to the email with your entry or story or what-have-you, and the site stores them. Again, the entries are completely private andcan be exported.

Just in case you're having trouble making your daily wordcount ;)

Writing Prompts:
WritingFix's Random Writing Prompt GeneratorMight have to scroll down. The prompts were designed for school journals, but some work just fine for story ideas, and if nothing else, writing about the topic from a character's point of view could be useful.


*Not just for dragons*

Language Is a Virus
Generates random writing exercises




Enjoy and good luck!