Hey-o, Wordplayers,

You and I probably have something in common, besides being humans and breathing air, etc. That something is that, like me, you probably enjoy free stuff. Free samples, free ice cream, free T-shirts. And today is all about free.

As a writer and avid reader, I enjoy reading on how to improve my writing. I use computer programs to write, organize, and polish my work. I especially like when they don’t cost me anything. So, here are 7 free resources writers can find.

1. yWriter

yWriter is a nifty tool I recently learned of for planning, organizing, and writing books. It’s a free download (no hidden fees.)

With yWriter you can. . .

• Make a character list and add info about them, organizing them into main characters or side characters.

• Make a locations list, adding info about each location and a photo if desired.

• Have a section for project notes.

• Create scenes.

• Add characters, locations, and items to each scene, say whether it’s an action or reaction scene, add notes to the scene, and more.

• Add scenes to chapters

And more.

I did find yWriter a bit confusing to work at first, but there is a help guide you can use if you need help, and I have a 10 minute walk-through video. Once I figured the program out though, I realized how I liked it.

2. Crafting Unforgettable Characters by K. M. Weiland

Crafting Unforgettable Characters was another freebie I found. It’s a helpful ebook that can be found on multiple platforms, including the author’s website. This book is (obviously) about crafting great characters, and includes an extensive character “interview” that is great for fleshing out your characters. It also contains advice on how to begin your story, writing prompts to deepen your, characters, and info on naming your characters.

3. 100 Writing Prompts for Fiction, Journaling, Blogging, and Creative Writing by S. A. M. Richards

This is another free ebook I got from the Kobo webstore, and, as the title says, it’s a book of writing prompts. It’s got prompts for writing stories, lists, day-in-the-life, descriptions, and more.

4. LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice Writer is a pretty standard writing program, a lot like Microsoft Word. You can add text, headers and footers, images, graphs, and more. I’ve used it for years now, and in fact wrote the first draft of this blog post on it. It’s free and easy to download.

5. Complete Outline Transcript for Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure by K. M. Weiland

If you’ve been looking into outlining your novel but just don’t quite know what it should look like, this transcript could be a huge help. It contains character planning, world building (with a ton of useful questions you yourself can use) and plot planning. This is again free as an ebook.
(Note: I have not read the actual novel Storming and therefore cannot endorse or caution against it)

6. Kindle Create

This next freebie is a novel formatting program you can download. You can turn certain text files into a neat ebook or file for paperbacks, certain image files into a comic, or a PDF of your fixed layout book into digital format. Please note that this is designed for creating Kindle books, though a new feature has been added where you can now export in EPUB (though it didn’t look like this worked for fixed layout books.)

7. WordWeb

WordWeb is a handy free dictionary app I use on my laptop. With a keyboard shortcut to open it up and a cute little icon that can sit on your taskbar for easy access, WordWeb is a useful way to quickly look up a word.

And that’s your 7 free writing resources. Let me know in the comments what you thought and/or what your favourite writing resources are.

Live for Christ, and give Him praise.

~Claira