Need writing resources? Here are 200 of the very best writing websites, organised for you by subject and genre. They’ll help you when you start using the Now Novel process to fine-tune your novel idea and create a helpful outline for your story:

Structure and Plot

Screenwriting Tips for Authors is the blog of screenwriter and novelist Alexandra Sokoloff, packed with tips.

The Plot Whisperer by literary and historical fiction author Martha Alderson is all about plotting.

Plot Generator churns out some outlandish ideas, but offers a fun way to generate plot ideas.

Scapple is mind-mapping software from the same company that developed Scrivener. Although it is paid software, there is a 30-day trial.

Self-publishing School put together this fun list of 400 writing prompts. Find inspiration for your next story premise.

Hawes Publications keeps an updated list of the loglines (two-line summaries or blurbs) for all New York Times bestsellers. A useful resource to read brief story idea synopses that could inspire your own next plot idea.

Plot analysis worksheet by Deborah Bruch, an Associate Professor of Theatre at Michigan Technological University. This simple worksheet contains questions to ask when analyzing your plot.

K.M. Weiland’s blog is a useful resource for writers on plot as well as other subjects. The link above is to her ‘The Secrets of Story Structure’ series.

Now Novel’s storybuilding tools and coaching help our members develop and expand their plots (yes, we included ourselves!). Try the first part of the tool for free (basic membership includes free access to our peer critique forum).

Characterization

Baby Name Center will help you get the crucial right name for your character. You can search for names by origin, meaning, number of syllables and more.

Motive Generator is a simple random character motivation generator.

Writers Write founded by Amanda Patterson has a useful blog. The linked blog post lists 350 ideas for character traits, negative and positive.

Character Creator is a fun avatar-creation tool you can use for character inspiration. Play around with facial features, physique, clothing and accessories. Then jot down a description of your character in the ‘Characters’ section of our story outlining dashboard.

This person does not exist is a fascinating website for character inspiration. Each time you refresh the page, it generates a realistic portrait of someone who does not exist using AI. Find visual inspiration for a character fast.

This character development worksheet by Janalyn Voigt has some good prompts to brainstorm characters.

You can also use the ‘Characters’ section of our story dashboard to profile characters step-by-step and add them to your growing story outline automatically as you complete each one, then download a PDF of all your character profiles alongside plot, setting and scene ideas.

Researching Agents and Writing Queries and Synopses

Query Shark offers contributors the opportunity to have their novel queries critiqued. You can also read critiques of others’ queries for insights.

Evil Editor breaks down synopses and explains pitfalls writers should avoid.

Chuck Sambuchino’s Publishing Insights section of the Writer’s Digest blog touches on querying among other important aspects of publishing.

Agent Query is a free searchable database of literary agents. It not only allows you to search by genre, but also includes information such as agent interests and whether they are currently accepting new clients.

Janet Reid, Literary Agent writes another excellent blog. Crime fiction is her specialty, but many of her posts concern all types of fiction.

NY Book Editors have an excellent blog – the linked article on writing query letters gives plenty of good tips as well as helpful examples of strong openings and more.

Publishing (and the business of writing)

Editor and Agent Blogs

Self-Publishing

Creativity, Inspiration and Writing Prompts

Workshops and Forums

Writing websites offering general advice

Grammar and Language

Romance and ‘women’s’ fiction

Literary Fiction

Crime, Mystery and Thrillers

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror

Children’s and YA

Historical

Research

Wikipedia remains a useful resource for quick, ‘dirty’ searches (in that it’s important to check any information you find there against a published source for accuracy).

British Pathé has incredible footage in its archives of news reels from the early 20th Century, including footage of historical events such as the Hindenburg Disaster – as useful resource if your story includes famous events from this time period.

Evernote a browser-based note-taking app such as Evernote is extremely useful when you are doing historical research for your story online, as you can snip any relevant section of an article into a note and store it for later reference.

Europeana is a fantastic collection of European cultural records, from art and maps to music, natural history, newspapers and more. Trawl their collections for relevant records if you are writing a story set in historical Europe.

Lehigh University’s digitized collection of letters (titled ‘I remain’) contains letters by the likes of Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, and many others, spanning art, literature, science, travel and more.

Google Art Project is a particularly useful resource if your story features any famous artists or you simply want to find stunning visual inspiration, such as the colourful pieces in this article on the life of Frida Kahlo.

Snopes is a fantastic internet resource for separating fact from fiction – you can search for common urban legends and myths and find origin explanations and other debunking material.

Is the sheer quantity of writing on writing overwhelming? Maybe you should stop reading and start writing your novel.

What are your favourite websites and blogs for writers?