writing websites for stories

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Ali Novak is a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's creative writing program. She started writing her debut novel My Life with the Walter Boys when she was only fifteen. Since then, her work has received more than 150 million hits online and My Life with the Walter Boys has been optioned for television by Komixx Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television.

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Having been active on Wattpad for several years, I knew it would be the perfect platform for a thriller with lots of cliffhangers for readers to discuss. Teen horror is my passion, so I can’t wait to be able to share Light as a Feather with other horror aficionados on Hulu.

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Home » Writing » 50 writing websites and online resources

Sites for notes and writing

6. evernote.

This bookmarking tool is a great way to collect moments of inspiration and ideas for your story together in one place, where they can be filed and organized, ready to be put to good use. It might be a ‘how to’ article you want to read, a quote that reminds you of one of your characters, or an image that would be the perfect setting for your next scene. Inspiration strikes in the most unexpected places, but as Evernote is available on almost every platform, you can collect notes wherever you are. You can choose to have one notebook that you throw everything into, or you can set up separate notebooks to help you organize your thoughts and ideas as you go. If you’re working on a novel, why not set up separate notebooks for each character or each chapter?

7. Scrivener

While some writers prefer to stick with the traditional pen and paper or word processor, for others, technology can be a game-changer. Scrivener is a powerful writing tool that allows you to organize your notes, research, and writing all in one place. You can create separate documents for each chapter, scene, or character and easily move them around as needed. You can also set word count goals and track your progress, making it an empowering tool for both planning and writing your work.

8. Storyist

Another popular writing app is Storyist , which offers a wide range of features for novelists, screenwriters, and playwrights. From corkboard view to character and plot development tools, Storyist helps you bring your stories to life in an organized way. It also has a distraction-free writing mode, making it easier to focus on your writing without any distractions. Plus, with its built-in formatting tools, you can easily export your work into a professional-looking manuscript when it’s time to self-publish.

9. Calmly Writer

For those who prefer a clean and minimalist interface, Calmly Writer is a great option. This writing app allows you to focus on your writing without any clutter or interruptions. You can also save your work as you go, making it easy to come back to where you left off. And with its auto-save feature, you don’t have to worry about losing your work in case of any technical issues. It’s available on both desktop and mobile devices.

10. Ommwriter

For writers who need a tranquil and calming environment to get their creative juices flowing, Ommwriter is the perfect writing app. With soothing background music, minimalistic design, and customizable backgrounds, this app offers a meditative experience for writers. It also has a “focus mode” that allows you to hide everything on your screen except for your writing, helping you stay in the flow and avoid distractions. Ommwriter also has a mindfulness timer that reminds you to take breaks and practice self-care while writing.

Writing community resources

In the realm of writing, the adage “It takes a village” is extremely true. Having a community as a writer isn’t just important—it’s essential. While writing is often seen as a solitary endeavor, there’s nothing like the support, inspiration, and feedback from fellow wordsmiths. It’s about belonging to a group that gets the highs and lows of the creative process and turns struggles into shared successes.

Here are a few of our favorite sites to find your village.

11. Catapult’s Don’t Write Alone

The blog Don’t Write Alone was created by the team at Catapult, a publisher and magazine dedicated to nurturing and enhancing writers’ talents. Founded in 2005, Catapult showcases a diverse range of literary works and is now sharing its vast knowledge. The platform offers a huge collection of content, including insightful interviews, detailed essays on the craft of writing, and explorations of the writer’s life. Its mission is to offer comprehensive support and inspiration to writers at any stage of their journey.

12. Gutsy Great Novelists

Are you a novelist seeking motivation, accountability, and encouragement? Look no further than Gutsy Great Novelists , a free online community just for you. With the tagline “where serious creative writers gather to finish their novels,” you can’t really go wrong. Award-winning novelist Joan Dempsey founded this platform to help writers feel less isolated. Members get access to critique groups, lots of online resources, and events and classes that will keep you on track until your novel is complete.

13. Lambda Literary

For writers and readers alike, Lambda Literary is a community-driven organization that champions LGBTQ+ literature. With a mission to elevate voices and stories that have been historically marginalized, this platform offers various resources for writers, including workshops, literary events, and publishing opportunities. It also hosts an annual writing retreat for emerging queer writers, providing a safe and supportive space for creative expression. Sign us up!

15. Writing.com

Writing.com is one of the largest online writing communities out there. It’s a super supportive environment for writers of all levels—and you have a portfolio to store and share your writing. You can also join various groups based on your interests or genres, providing opportunities for networking and collaboration with other writers. Plus, Writing.com regularly hosts contests and challenges to help improve your writing skills and gain recognition for your work. Whether you’re seeking support or looking to expand your audience, this community has something for everyone.

16. Reddit’s r/WritersGroup

If you’re a Reddit fan, you probably already know about r/WritersGroup . This subreddit serves as a testament to the strength of community in the writing process, offering a space where writers from all walks of life can share their drafts, seek advice, and provide constructive criticism. Whether you’re battling writer’s block, seeking feedback on a new chapter, or just in need of inspiration, this is your go-to sanctuary.

17. She Writes

Created by women, for women, She Writes is a supportive community that celebrates their diverse voices and experiences. With more than 32,000 members and 350 groups, it’s the largest online community of women writers in the world! With forums and tons of articles, this platform provides a safe space for women to share their work and receive feedback from other writers.

18. SFF Chronicles

For science fiction and fantasy writers, SFF Chronicles is a valuable resource for learning, connecting, and honing your craft. With forums dedicated to discussing the latest trends and tropes in the genre, as well as sections for feedback and critique, this is your virtual writing workshop. It also hosts contests and interviews with established authors, if you’re seeking insight and inspiration.

19. The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Imposter syndrome is hard to battle alone. Step into the Insecure Writer’s Support Group , where those whispers are drowned out by the resounding voices of support, encouragement, and understanding. This haven is dedicated to writers at any stage of their journey, providing you with resources, advice, and, most importantly, a community that gets it. Conquer your insecurities by reading their blogs and monthly newsletters, joining their social media groups, and joining their pitch event to find an agent or publisher (every January).

20. Underlined

Formerly known as Figment , Underlined is a website that provides story starters, writing inspiration, and advice from published authors . You can also join a community of aspiring writers, share excerpts of your work, and provide feedback to each other—all valuable parts of the creative life.

Writer using 750 Words to practice writing.

Sites for improving your writing

Now that you’re equipped with a plethora of platforms to connect and expand your creative horizons, it’s time to take your writing to the next level. Improving your craft is a continuous, evolving process—whether you’ve just penned your first poem or are on your tenth novel.

Here are the resources you need to refine your skills, find your unique voice, and perfect the art of storytelling. From grammar guides to story structure tips, these sites offer the tools you need to elevate your writing.

21. 750 Words

As with any skill, the best way to improve your writing is to practice, practice, practice. The website 750 Words provides a daily nudge to get your creative juices flowing. Based on The Artist Way ‘s morning pages , the goal is to write 750 words (roughly three pages) every day, without any distractions. By just writing without an agenda and without judgment, you’ll make writing every day a regular productive habit and steadily build your confidence.

22. Helping Writers Become Authors

The Helping Writers Become Authors site, created by award-winning author K.M. Weiland, offers practical tips and advice on story writing, from structure and plot to character identity and dialogue. It’s a great, regularly updated resource to take you from writer to professional.

23. Grammar Girl

Get a grip on the quirks of language and the rules of good grammar with this entertaining and useful podcast based on the hugely popular blog by the same name. Top listened-to Grammar Girl episodes include “Affect Versus Effect” and “Active Voice & Passive Voice.”

24. Coursera

Looking for a more structured approach to learning? Coursera offers online courses on writing, from writing your first novel to academic writing . With options from top universities such as Stanford and Wesleyan, you’ll have access to expert instruction and peer feedback to hone your skills.

25. Masterclass

Masterclass brings together some of the biggest names in writing, like David Sedaris , Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman , for online video courses on pretty much any aspect of writing you’re looking to learn. With a subscription, you’ll have access to their wisdom and techniques for crafting powerful stories that captivate your readers.

26. Critique Circle

Join a community of writers, both published and aspiring, on Critique Circle to get feedback on your writing and provide critiques for others. With tools for tracking your progress, finding beta readers, and connecting with fellow writers, this platform offers valuable resources for improving your craft. Plus, the supportive atmosphere encourages growth and development as a writer.

27. Now Novel

For those looking for a more structured approach to writing, Now Novel offers personalized coaching and guidance throughout the writing process. From outlining and character development to editing and publishing, their team of experts will provide valuable feedback and support to help you bring your story to life. Whether you’re just starting or need help revising, Now Novel offers a community and resources tailored to your specific needs as a writer.

Resources for characters and plot

We’re betting you have more than one favorite character from more than one book. Characters like Elizabeth Bennett, Albus Dumbledore, and Bilbo Baggins live on in our minds long after we’ve turned the final page. Your characters should become like old friends that you know inside and out to add depth and humanity to your story. These are the resources you need to make it happen.

28. Writer’s Digest’s Character Development Sheets

Subscribing to the Writer’s Digest mailing list gets you access to this free worksheet designed to flesh out each of your characters. Working through a series of questions, you’ll develop their key hopes, fears, and skills, their personality quirks, how they might act in different situations, and how all of this will be revealed to the reader throughout your story.

29. The Write Practice’s Characterization 101

This free course from The Write Practice guides you through seven key steps to creating memorable characters, covering important character archetypes, character motivations, how not to introduce a character to your story, and much more.

30. The Novel Factory’s 150+ Character Questions

Building on the idea of character development sheets, The Novel Factory offers a comprehensive list of over 150 questions to help you fully flesh out each character in your story. From physical appearance and background to their biggest secrets and flaws, this resource will help you create well-rounded and dynamic characters that readers will connect with.

31. TV Tropes

Ever come across a character or plot twist that seems oddly familiar? That’s because many writers use common tropes and archetypes in their stories. TV Tropes is a user-edited wiki page that outlines these common patterns and themes found in media, providing examples and analysis for each one. It’s a helpful resource for understanding how to effectively use, subvert, or avoid these tropes in your writing.

32 Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

Need some guidance in creating a fictional world for your story? This list of 123 questions from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America can help you think through all aspects of your world, from its physical laws to its social structure and cultural customs. By taking the time to fully develop your world, you’ll make it feel more immersive and believable for readers.

33 Reedsy’s Plot Generator

When you’re stuck on where to take your story next, Reedsy’s plot generator can help spark new ideas. Simply select a genre and hit “generate” to receive a random plot outline that you can use as a starting point for your own story. It’s a fun tool for getting unstuck and exploring new directions for your plot.

Writer editing a script on paper after using online writing resources.

Resources for editing and reviewing

In addition to proofreading for spelling, language, and grammar errors, two other forms of editing should form part of your review process. Developmental editing, which is editing for the structure, flow, and consistency of your story, and substantive editing, which is concerned with clarity, accuracy, and reader comprehension.

When your manuscript or first draft is complete, let it sit a while before reviewing. It also helps to have a second and third set of eyes on your work. Even better, if your budget allows, hiring a professional editor can give your story the polished finish it deserves.

34. Grammarly

Available as a Google Chrome extension or device app, Grammarly works across your web pages and documents as you write to help you catch common writing errors. It highlights and fixes grammar, punctuation, and contextual spelling mistakes. The premium version can also suggest alternative vocabulary choices.

Remember not to rely on online spell checks alone to proofread your work. Always give your text a thorough check yourself, too.

35. ProWriting Aid

ProWriting Aid takes your writing beyond mere spell checks, offering a holistic approach to improve your writing style, tone, and clarity. What sets it apart from Grammarly is its in-depth focus on your writing’s overall readability and engagement level. It provides detailed reports on style, overused words, sentence length variation, and even readability scores, making it invaluable for writers looking to polish their manuscripts to perfection. While Grammarly excels at real-time grammar and spelling corrections, ProWriting Aid is the go-to tool if you’re looking for comprehensive feedback on your structure and style.

36. Hemingway Editor

As the name suggests, Hemingway Editor is an online editing tool and website that will help make your writing clearer, bolder, and more direct—just like the author it’s named after. Simply copy and paste your text into the tool to check for overly complex sentences, overuse of adverbs, and the passive voice. It will also highlight instances where a shorter word could serve the same purpose.

Every writer needs a good editor, and Reedsy only works with the best. Their hand-picked, experienced, professional editors can review your story development, structure, consistency, and style, helping to perfect and polish your manuscript. Reedsy also offers a tool to easily write and format a book , the same way a professional typesetter would. (You can print from their tool with Blurb, too!)

Code, showing the backend of AI tools for writers.

Artificial Intelligence for writers

AI gets a bad rap, but in our digital age, its emergence is nothing short of a revolution in creativity. Whether you’re battling writer’s block, seeking the perfect synonym to elevate your prose, or plotting a novel, AI-powered writing assistants can offer a wealth of resources at your fingertips. These innovative tools are not doing the writing for you—they’re about enhancing your creativity and offering insights and suggestions that might not have crossed your mind.

38. Sudowrite

Using artificial intelligence, Sudowrite offers suggestions and ideas to help you improve your writing. It can generate plot twists, character names, and even entire paragraphs based on the information you provide. While it’s not meant to replace human creativity and imagination, Sudowrite can be a helpful tool for sparking new ideas and breaking through writer’s block.

Claude has emerged as a dynamic counterpart to ChatGPT, due to its ethical and safer approach to AI. What sets Claude apart is its focus on nuanced, open-minded text generation—working to understand context and intent before replying. It can help you with brainstorming, research, structural analysis, line edits, critique, and even productivity—with writing sprints, prompts, word count, and positive reinforcement. It’s not replacing creativity, but supporting you from blank page to final polish.

40. Jasper.ai

Jasper is another AI-powered writing tool that can assist with plot development, character creation, and even research for your story. Jasper also has a feature that allows you to collaborate with other writers in real time, making it a useful tool for team projects or brainstorming sessions. What’s great about Jasper is that it has a document feature, so you can write, edit, and save your work like you would in Word or Google Docs, rather than chatting back and forth with AI.

Writer signing books at a book promotion event.

Resources for promoting and marketing

Once your masterpiece is polished and ready to shine, the next thrilling chapter of your author’s journey begins: promoting and marketing your book. This can seem like a Herculean task, especially in a world flooded with content. But with the right tools and strategies, you can cut through the noise and get your book into the hands of eager readers.

We’ve lined up the best resources to transform you from a writer into a savvy marketer!

41. Wattpad

Use this storytelling platform to connect with writers and readers around the world, build an audience, and even get discovered. On Wattpad , you start by sharing a story, and then if you build a big enough fan base, you may have a chance to work with entertainment companies and publishers looking to feature your work. Just remember, some publishers won’t print work that appears online, so be sure to do your research before uploading your entire novel!

On this writing and reading hub, you’ll find stories, articles, and inspiration that are curated to your taste and written by people like us. Want to share your own writing, photos, or videos? You can do that on Medium —and potentially earn money. The platform lets you see how your stories are performing and what kinds of readers like your writing. It also offers tips for starting a newsletter, submitting to publications, and curating your work.

43. Kindlepreneur

Kindlepreneur is a treasure trove of resources for authors, especially those venturing into self-publishing. From book marketing and advertising strategies to optimizing your Amazon sales page, author Dave Chesson has got you covered with his helpful blog posts, videos, and courses. He also offers free downloadable templates and worksheets to help you plan and execute your book marketing strategy.

44. NY Book Editors

Need help proofreading your manuscript or marketing your book? NY Book Editors provides editing and proofreading services, as well as an extensive blog full of helpful advice for writers. They also offer a free guide to writing the perfect query letter to help you attract agents or publishers—and plenty of other useful publishing and marketing information.

45. Agency Query

If you want to get an agent or a publisher, use Agency Query to build your list of potential agents and publishers. The website also provides features like tracking the status of pitches sent out to agencies, keeping notes on each agency’s submission requirements, and more.

46. The Creative Penn

The Creative Penn is a website run by bestselling author Joanna Penn . It offers a wealth of information on how to, “write, publish and market your book—and make a living with your writing.” Penn also has a vibrant YouTube channel and podcast where she shares advice for authors, helpful if you are a visual or auditory learner.

47. Publishers Weekly

Stay up to date on the publishing industry and get insider tips from publishers, editors, and literary agents with Publishers Weekly . This website offers news, reviews, job postings, and other helpful resources for writers. They also have a dedicated section for independent authors if that’s you.

48. Storiad

Storiad is a tool designed to help you promote and market your book through social media, website creation, book trailers, and more. They offer various packages for authors at different stages of their careers, from beginners to established writers. Storiad can also help you create a professional author website with built-in marketing tools.

49. BookBub

BookBub is a popular platform that lets you promote your book to millions of readers through daily email newsletters, targeted ads, and featured deals. You can submit your book for consideration or use their blog for free marketing advice and trends in publishing. BookBub also offers webinars, courses, and other resources for writers.

50. Author Marketing Club

Author Marketing Club is a community of authors helping each other promote their work through free and paid book promotion tools, tutorials, webinars, and more. They also offer a powerful search engine that allows you to find relevant blogs, websites, and book promotion sites to submit your work for exposure. Joining this club can help you reach a wider audience and get more readers interested in your writing.

How Blurb can help

From collecting inspiration to the final finishing touches, there’s a whole world of tools , websites, support, and advice out there to help you with every stage of writing your own story and making your own book. You have all the tools you need. Now write!

And when you’re ready to publish and share your work with the world, Blurb can help. Our self-publishing platform allows you to turn your manuscript into a professional-quality book, whether it’s a novel, memoir, poetry collection, or any other genre. With customizable book formats and design tools, as well as tons of options for distribution, we make it easy to bring your writing to your fans.

So what are you waiting for? Start creating and sharing your stories with the world today. We believe in you!

Blurb is your platform designed to turn the dream of publishing your book into reality. Whether you’re crafting a photo book, a novel, or a poetry collection, we’ve got the tools and support to help you professionally design, self-publish, promote, and sell your work.

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Best story writing websites in 2022

What are the best storytelling websites? We’ve put together a selection of writing sites offering writing tips, help with plot and character, book publication and promo resources and more.

Post author By Jordan
27 Comments on Best story writing websites in 2022

Need writing resources? Here are some of the best story writing websites. We’ve updated these resources to include writing tips, story plotting resources, publishing and book promo help, and more.

Fiction writing websites – categories

Writing tips and insights from authors, community and writing critiques, help creating plot and structure, advice on creating characters, worldbuilding and creating story settings, writing tools for planning stories, creativity, inspiration and writing prompts, editing and evaluating your writing, insights from and help finding agents, story and book publishing help, help promoting your writing, writing genres and genre-specific insight.

Further writing resources and roundups

Let’s dive in and explore some of the best writing resources on the web. Use the links on the right (if on a desktop device) to go to the section that interests you:

The websites in this section aren’t so much story writing websites as resources offering a peek into authors’ writing process , inspiration sources and advice:

The Paris Review

The Paris Review’s ‘Art of Fiction’ series includes interviews with celebrated authors and editors.

Interviewed luminaries include Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury and others. See, for example, Faulkner on why believing you can rewrite better is positive motivation for an artist.

The books section of NPR offers many interesting interviews, podcasts (with transcripts) and book picks.

The New York Times By the Book

The New York Times is an excellent website for writers generally due to the caliber of its writing. The ‘By the Book’ section of this writing website offers illuminating author interviews.

Read Ocean Vuong on bringing books to lunch dates , ‘just in case’. Although the NYT is paywalled, it’s one of the more worthwhile (and cheaper) sites to subscribe to.

Writers & Artists

UK writing platform Writers & Artists has many blog articles and interviews. Their ‘advice’ section is particularly helpful for writers.

See this article by author Michèle Roberts , Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Roberts shares how to get over writer’s block.

Best writing website quotes - Michele Roberts

The Writer Magazine

Founded in 1887, The Writer magazine offers many illuminating interviews with authors. Here, for example, author Emma Straub talks character development , writing routine, the writing process, and more.

Additional resources

Is there another website whose author interviews you love? Please share your favorites in the comments below. Read advice from eight Nobel-winning authors here .

Writing groups are a fantastic way to develop your story (as our Group Coaching writing course alumni attest). Here are places to get feedback on your writing:

We’ll toot our own horn here: Now Novel’s critique groups are home to first-timers and experienced writers alike. Members who earn our ‘top critiquer’ badge frequently and consistently give thoughtful, considered writing feedback. We’ve regularly featured in Reedsy’s list of top writing communities and other best-of roundups.

Read our article on how to give feedback that rocks here .

Develop Your Story With Support

Finishing writing is hard – get help and stay accountable to your goals.

The writing platform Medium is described as an open platform ‘where readers find dynamic thinking’.

You’ll often find interesting thought pieces, such as Katie Lawrence’s piece on writing a bestseller here , as well as readers’ engaging comments.

Absolute Write Water Cooler

Absolute Write is a free writing forum and community. Here, writers share tips on subjects from writing software to approaching agents and editors.

See the full list of writing forums , spanning basic writing questions, how to deal with having stories turned down for publication, and much more.

The /r/writing Subreddit

Reddit is the more verbal of all the social platforms, and thus a natural fit for writers. The /r/writing subreddit currently has over two million members, and there are daily discussions about writing tools and software, and weekly critique and self-promotion threads too.

Creating the plot and structure for a story is hard without a framework. The fiction writing websites below offer plot frameworks, ways to understand story structure, and tips for writing page-turning stories.

To get brainstorming stories right away, start with Now Novel’s browser-based story outlining tool , the Now Novel dashboard.

Now Novel story planning tool example using Cinderella

The Nashville Film Institute provides a useful breakdown of Dan Harmon’s ‘Story Circle’ plot structure template , which itself is derived from Joseph Campbell’s classic The Hero’s Journey story structure concept .

UC Berkeley teaching resources

UC Berkeley has a portal with resources for teachers that includes a wonderfully clear summary of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey . The resource includes deep dives into the hero’s journey in myth and film. Explore various ways this story pattern recurs in different media.

Screenwriting tricks for authors

Author and screenwriter Alexandra Sokoloff’s blog offers many tips on plot and story structure. See a plot structure series Sokoloff wrote for NaNoWriMo on three-act story structure, beginning with the inciting incident .

The Plot Whisperer

Author Martha Alderson offers plenty of advice on how to plot and structure stories on her Plot Whisperer blog.

See, for example, ‘ 15 tips to create a compelling plot for your story ‘.

Aerogramme Writers’ Studio

Although Aerogramme Writers’ Studio has been taking a hiatus since around 2020 from posting new content, there is still a trove of useful story plotting and structure info on this story writing website.

See teacher and author Kenn Adams’ breakdown of the ‘story spine’ , a simple, eight-step ‘fill-in-the-blank’ process to find the core focus of a story.

Plot generator

This plot generator tool churns out some pretty wild plot ideas (‘Bernadette is a killer fuelled by homophobia, who watches teachers and shaves them’.) You may find useful plot tidbits in the midst of the absurdity.

The Learning Network on the NYT

Another helpful part of the New York Times (apart from the author interview section linked above) is its learning network.

See for example 1000 writing prompts for students in this article. These could be interesting questions to ask your fictional characters, too.

The secrets of story structure by K.M. Weiland

Author K.M. Weiland’s blog has many helpful articles on story craft. Her fiction writing website includes multi-article guides such as ‘The Secrets of Story Structure’ here .

ChatGPT by OpenAI

This AI writing generator is a helpful tool for finding writing prompts, synonyms, creating permutations of lines and ideas, and more. See our article on 10 helpful uses of AI writing tools where we explore the tool’s uses and limitations.

Learning how to create characters in an ongoing process of writing, learning more about the psychology of goals, motivations, desires and conflicts, and reading great character studies. Read our best articles on creating characters , and find useful character creation resources below:

Writers Write

Writers Write, originally founded by Amanda Patterson, has many articles on character development. Read this blog post for 350 ideas for character traits .

Ian Irvine’s character how-to’s

Author Ian Irvine has a great selection of character-building advice here , which he has condensed from Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias .

Random motive generator

Random generators are hit and miss, but this character motive generator can give you some ideas for the motive part of goal, motivation and conflict.

See more tips on creating clear goal, motivation and conflict for your characters in this extract from our monthly writing craft webinars with Now Novel coach and HarperCollins-published author, Romy Sommer:

This person does not exist

This AI-driven image creation tool composites a massive sample of images to create images of humans who do not (in theory) exist, generating characterful new people from visual data . Try refreshing the page a few times, then write a paragraph of description imagining who the person in front of you is.

Live Write Breathe

Author Janalyn Voigt offers plenty of writing advice on her blog, including this characte-building worksheet .

Worldbuilding is vital for creating believable settings that feel lived in and plausible. Read our best articles on creating settings and find worldbuilding resources for stories below:

Azgaar’s fantasy map generator

Countless fantasy novels begin with front pages showing fictional maps. Create your own with Azgaar’s fun, free browser-based fantasy map generator .

TED-Ed is the American media organization TED’s (of TED Talks – ‘ideas worth spreading’) platform for educational materials. Among the resources shared, you’ll find this rap from YouTube creator Flocabulary on why setting in stories matters .

TV Tropes offers many succinct wiki-style pages on film, TV and book tropes (motifs or devices that recur in popular culture and literature). See a post on the ‘standard fantasy setting’ that also links to TV Tropes’ page on urban fantasy.

The British national archives

If you are setting your story in England in a specific historical period, the national archives are a great resource for finding information. The collection spans 1000 years plus, including subjects such as the military, census records, famous wills, photographs of famous prisoners and more.

Writing a story set in another non-fictive country? Google for digital archives that may supply texture and detail for your setting.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has many useful worldbuilding resources. See, for example, Patricia C. Wrede’s comprehensive list of fantasy worldbuilding questions .

Planning stories and creating outlines in advance is one way to ensure that you stay on track and don’t get stuck while drafting.

Read ways to use Now Novel’s story outlining tools and find more tools for planning stories below:

Several Now Novel members have mentioned that they use this well-known desktop-based writing software in tandem with Now Novel’s own online story brainstorming tools, as each compliments the others set of features. Read more about Scrivener’s features .

Although exclusive to Apple devices, this is a popular writing app that includes features such as word count tracking, as well as folders where you can organize writing project snippets by material integrated into your manuscript, material in review and process work or scrapped ideas.

Milanote is note creation tool pitched to story-boarders working in film, advertising and novel-writing as well . Like Evernote, it has a web clipper for saving snippets of articles you read to notes.

One stop for writers – timelines

In addition to offering helpful writing advice on their blog at Writers Helping Writers , Angela Ackerman and co provide a story tool with a timeline-creation tool that you may find useful if the sequence of events in your story is important.

Trello is a flexible browser-based project-management tool with a board-based interface (similar to Milanote) that you can use to organize scene summaries (much like our own Scene Builder, which is more story-oriented). Here’s an article from Trello’s blog on ways to use it to organize your story or story research.

How do you find a story idea ? The resources below include writing prompts, resources for finding story inspiration and more:

The Write Practice blog

The Write Practice has many helpful articles for writers on their blog, including this selection of writing prompts .

The Marginalian

The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) is Maria Popova’s fantastic blog about writers, inspiration, creativity and more. See for example how she unpacks complex ideas about inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin .

Positive Writer

Bryan Hutchinson offers helpful personal accounts relating to writing and inspiration, such as how creative journaling helped his writing process .

Advice to Writers

Jon Winokur’s writing website offers ‘writerly wisdom of the ages’ in daily quotes, such as this one:

I’ve tried to figure out what good writing is. I know it when I read it in other people’s work or my own. The closest I’ve come is that there’s a rhythm to the writing, in the sentence and the paragraph. When the rhythm’s off, it’s hard to read the thing. Sebastian Junger, quoted by Jon Winokur.

Encyclopedia Mythica

Myths, legends and fables have always been fantastic sources of inspiration for new stories. Encyclopedia Mythica is a helpful wiki all about mythology and famous mythic figures.

Reedsy Plot Generator

Reedsy has a fun tool for generating plot ideas by genre that may help you find initial inspiration for something you can alter and make your own further.

Nonsense Generator

This is another idea generator tool that churns out absurd sentences. More silly than serious, you might find an image that strikes you all the same. Example generated: ‘Two-finger John set a treehouse on fire’.

Bookfox (formerly The John Fox) has many articles with writing prompts and inspiration. Here’s a list of how 50 authors prepare to write and get inspired.

Best writing quotes - Sebastian Junger on good writing

Resources for editing stories will be more important to you perhaps if you are nearer the end of your manuscript. Find out about Now Novel’s editing services here and keep reading for helpful editing tools and resources:

Chicago Manual of Style’s shop talk blog

The Chicago Manual of Style is a trusted style and editing manual. Their ‘shop talk’ blog has helpful tips on grammar, style and punctuation. Also find articles such as this on using Word vs Docs to edit your manuscript.

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is ‘an AI-powered writing assistant’ that checks writing for style and grammar issues. See their article on why they’re a good choice of editing plugin to use with Now Novel .

Hemingway App

Hemingway is a simple, browser-based editing tool for checking paragraphs for issues such as sentence structure, reading level, and grammar.

Grammarly is another style and spelling checker that is widely used.

Oxford grammar practice resources

Practice your grammar online with these basic, intermediate and advanced lessons from Oxford University Press.

Grammar Girl

Grammar Girl is a resource that’s part of Mignon Fogarty’s ‘Quick and Dirty Tips’ network. It’s a useful resource for brushing up on grammar. Read about the different types of nouns and their uses , for example.

Once you’ve finished writing a book and edited a draft so it is good enough to send off, where do you find help writing synopses or lists of agents open to submissions? Here are some helpful resources around representation and querying your manuscript:

Writer’s Market guides

Writer’s Market publishes useful annual guides on the publishing industry. You’ll find query letter templates as well as guides to getting agency representation packed with actionable advice.

The Query Shark

Janet Reid’s blog Query Shark provides excellent insight into the parts of query letters that work and pique interest.

Association of Authors’ Representatives

Many agents belong to associations such as the AAR. These agent listing platforms provide a useful way to search for agents interested in your genre and whether they are open to unsolicited submissions or require referrals.

Querytracker

This platform provides a useful list of agents as well as individual agent profiles where querying authors comment their experiences and whether or not they received full or partial manuscript requests. It’s helpful to determine which agents are active and which tend to be more responsive to queries in a specific niche.

Agent and publishing coach Rachelle Gardner

Agent and publishing coach Rachelle Gardner offers plenty of useful advice on writing and publishing, such as this article on whether or not you should write to market .

Curtis Brown Creative’s blog

Curtis Brown Creative, a London-based literary agency established in 2011, offers plenty of advice from agents and agent-represented authors on their blog. Founder and director Anna Davis offers some excellent advice on preparing to submit to agents .

Guide to literary agents

Writer’s Digest’s ‘Guide to Literary Agents’ blog section touches on querying, the importance of perseverance in getting published, and more.

NY Book Editors

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.

Poets & Writers agent database

Poets & Writers magazine has a helpful database of literary agents where you can find agents’ contact details, the genres they’re interested in representing, and further details such as their respective agencies’ websites.

Nathan Bransford’s blog

Nathan Bransford, an author and former agent at Curtis Brown, writes a blog where he offers tips such as how to write a query letter .

Evil Editor

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

Publishing is a vast subject area, from choosing between indie and traditional publishing to understanding market, Kindle store categories, what the publishing process is like, and more.

Watch a video extract from our monthly webinars below where Romy Sommer explores paths to publishing. Then keep reading for useful publishing websites:

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly is a great resource for all things publishing-related, including weekly information on recent book deals that will help you abreast of what’s happening in publishing.

Writer Beware (the SFWA)

Writer Beware , a subcommunity of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, offers a great resource on dubious publishing tactics and would-be agents and other pitfalls to keep aware of.

Publishers Marketplace

Publishers Marketplace is another useful publishing resource (particularly for US-based writers), including information on agents, their commission rates, recent book deals and more.

Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman’s blog focuses on the publishing industry and helping authors navigate processes such as starting out as an unpublished author. See her beginner’s guide to getting published .

The Creative Penn

Joanna Penn’s blog includes podcasts and interviews with specialists in a range of niches, including book publishing and promo. See for example this podcast interview on going wide with publishing consultant Mark Leslie Lefebvre.

Publishing Perspectives

This publishing portal offers news on recent writing prize winners, news round-ups about events in the book industry, and more.

Hawes Publications

This useful internet resource keeps an updated list of brief plot summaries (loglines) describing popular releases, a two-sentence plot summary or blurb . Reading over succinct summaries could help you tighten your own elevator pitch or logline.

Writing Cooperative

Writing Cooperative is home to many useful resources for writers, such as this list by Austin Hackney of 128 publications that pay for short stories.

BookBub’s blog often features helpful articles on publishing matters, such as this article ‘ 50+ Publishing Resources You Should Know About ‘ by Diana Urban.

Reedsy offers a comprehensive directory of publishers that have been vetted, including data such as location, size, what genres they publish, and whether or not they are indie and open to submissions.

Kindle Publishing Guidelines

If you’re planning to indie publish a book on Kindle, Kindle Direct Publishing has a handy knowledge base with information on everything from cover image guidelines to enhanced typesetting tips.

Book marketing is something many authors find challenging. Reading the right resources and putting time into promoting your work (or rather, building relationships with future readers) is key to selling. Find useful resources for book promo below:

Penguin UK’s blog

Penguin’s blog has many articles offering succinct tips, such as this post on ways to promote your book (including video on what a book publicist does).

NetGalley is a book promo platform devoted to helping build your ‘street team’ – readers who may receive advance copies in exchange for honest reviews.

Smith Publicity

Smith Publicity is a book publicity agency that offers helpful guides to doing book promo. See these 110 tips for marketing your book.

Whitefox, a company offering publishing consultancy and other services relating to publishing and distribution, offers helpful tips on book promo on their blog. See this round-up, where nine book industry insiders give advice for creating pre-publication buzz.

Scribe Media

Scribe Media offer, among other services, book launch preparation and assistance getting media exposure. Read their helpful post on thirteen ways to get more exposure for your book .

Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur

Dave Chesson provides useful introductions to book promo (pertaining to selling via Amazon’s Kindle store), such as this guide to choosing the right categories for giving your books maximum visibility.

The Book Designer

The Book Designer, in the same stable as Self Publishing School, has several helpful articles related to book promo, such as this one on how to get reviews for indie-published books .

Self-Publishing School

Self-Publishing School offers various tips on book publishing and promo, and this is a helpful round-up of free and paid sites where you can promote your latest publication .

There are many internet resources that provide insight and help specific to different writing genres. Find resources for romance, fantasy, mystery, crime, sci-fi, historical and more below:

Writing romance

Find our best romance articles here and extra romance writing websites below:

Write for Harlequin

Harlequin has long been a big name in romance publishing. On the ‘Write for Harlequin’ blog, the publisher frequently shares editors’ wish lists such as this summary of stories sought in the historical romance subgenre .

The Mills & Boon blog

Mills & Boon is another big name in romance publishing, and their blog features many interesting romance subgenre and trope discussions, such as authors on why they love writing the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope .

Diana Gabaldon’s blog

Diana Gabaldon, author of the successful romantic historical Outlander series, has an active blog where she shares interviews from the archives, news and more. Here’s an interview where Gabaldon speaks on writing an honest romance book that will ring true regardless of setting, time period, and how much (or little) autobiography it contains.

She Reads Romance Books

Review communities dedicated to specific genres are a great way to delve into the minds of readers in your target market and see what makes readers love the books they do. This romance-focused site offers round ups of the best romance books over the years and more.

Nicholas Sparks’ blog

Some of the tips on romance author Nicholas Sparks’ blog may read a little pat, but in the ‘advice to writers’ section of the author’s website there is this good advice:

Over time, quality work will lead to an audience for your work. In the end, readers always choose. Nicholas Sparks, author’s website.

Romance Writers of Australia

This Australian romance writers’ organization offers a fun ‘three things I learned writing …’ series where romance authors discuss three things they learned while writing their published books. It’s full of motivating lessons from romance writing such as ‘anything is fixable’.

Romance Writers of America

The RWA likewise has an archive of helpful articles on romance writing . Articles range from industry news to tips for building your newsletter.

Writing fantasy

Read all our most popular fantasy-writing articles here , and more on the genre below:

The SWFA’s blog

This has been mentioned already above in a different context, but in addition to its excellent guides and resources, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America also offers articles by guest contributors on topics such as walking the line between good style and too much fantasy jargon and slang .

Ursula K. Le Guin archives

The ‘about writing’ archives on Ursula K. Le Guin’s website are a great selection of the late fantasy and science fiction author’s musings on fantasy-related and more general writing topics. Here’s a good open letter on plausibility in fantasy with interesting discussion of the way Tolkien uses settings.

Neil Gaiman’s blog

Author Neil Gaiman’s career has spanned an eclectic range of genres and formats, from dark fantasy to sci fi, graphic novels and screenplays. The author’s blog is full of interesting insights into fantasy, such as an appreciation post for Sir Terry Pratchett or this essay on where Gaiman gets his ideas .

The Speculative Literature Foundation

The Speculative Literature Foundation is ‘a global nonprofit dedicating to promoting literary quality in speculative fiction’. Resources the organization offers include lists of grants for fantasy and sci-fi writers as well as interviews with speculative fiction writers and deep dives into writing matters .

Fantasy author Brent Weeks

The fantasy author Brent Weeks offers plenty of excellent advice on fantasy worldbuilding , magic systems, writing fight scenes and more on his personal blog.

Writing science fiction

Another complex speculative genre, science fiction has many fantastic writing organizations and story writing websites dedicated to the genre:

Neal Stephenson’s writing advice

Although not a separate story writing website, speculative fiction titan Neal Stephenson’s writing advice on the TED-Ed blog is simple and golden.

Galaxy science fiction magazine archives

Galaxy was a science fiction magazine published from 1950 to 1980 and is thus an interesting time capsule for SF writers. You can read stories by Ray Bradbury in its pages (including his story ‘The Fireman’ which later became his cult novel, Fahrenheit 451 ).

Philip K. Dick on androids and humans

One of the most influential sci-fi authors of all time gave a speech titled ‘The Android and the Human’ at the Vancouver Science Fiction Convention in 1972, available to read here .

Asimov Online

Isaac Asimov, one of the so-called ‘big three’ science fiction authors, is the subject of this internet archive of sci-fi resources , essays and more.

Arthur C. Clarke at 100

On the centenary of Arthur C. Clarke’s birth, Adam Roberts reflects on this ‘big three’ sci-fi author’s legacy and works such as Rendezvous with Rama (1973) and 2001: A Space Odyssey for The Guardian .

Tor, a speculative fiction publishing company, runs a blog featuring interesting science fiction reads such as this article by author Adam Oyebanji on how science ‘nudges fiction towards new frontiers’.

Locus Magazine

Billed as ‘the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field’, Locus’ fiction writing website has speculative fiction publishing news, reviews, interviews, lists of sci-fi and fantasy conventions, and more.

Writing crime and mystery

The crime and mystery fiction writing websites below include writing organizations, useful crime-writing and mystery resources, and more:

Mystery Writers of America

The Mystery Writers of America writing organization describes itself as ‘the premier organization for mystery and crime writers, professionals allied to the crime-writing field, aspiring crime writers, and folks who just love to read crime fiction’. See their list of vetted publishers of crime and mystery .

The Crime Writers’ Association

Another crime-writing organization based in the UK, member benefits include co-promotion of new crime novel releases, monthly crime fiction -devoted newsletters, and more.

International Thriller Writers

The International Thriller Writers organization like the CWA has a debut authors program , whereby you get extra help with launching and promoting your debut in return for membership.

Agatha Christie archives

This website devoted to the seminal mystery author’s life and work includes interesting information such as this article on how Christie wrote , along with bibliographies, reading lists and more.

Louise Penny’s author site

Mystery author Louise Penny offers tips and encouragement for getting published on her personal author site.

Crime Reads

A crime and mystery-writing website, Crime Reads offers blogs on mystery topics such as the ‘fine art’ of writing riveting plot twists .

Sisters in Crime

Founded in 1986 to advocate for women crime writers, Sisters in Crime offers writing webinars, resources for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, and more.

Jungle Red Writers

This blog helmed by seven women who write crime has many interesting reads, such as Hannah Mary Mckinnon’s article on embracing research .

Elizabeth Spann Craig

Cozy mystery author Elizabeth Spann Craig blogs about writing mysteries and also has an well-curated writing guide roundup she shares via Twitter called ‘Twitterific Writing Links’.

Criminal Minds blog

The premise of this story writing website is simple: ‘Each week, we respond to provocative questions about crime fiction, writing, publishing and life.’ Read crime and mystery Q&As .

Crime by the Book blog

Crime by the Book is ‘the result of one girl’s ongoing exploration of crime fiction from around the world’. You’ll find crime book reviews, recommended reading lists and more on this portal dedicated to the crime genre.

Crime Fiction Lover

This crime-focused writing site offers crime novel reviews, author spotlights and interviews, a virtual book club and more.

Author Bryn Donovan’s blog

Author Bryn Donovan offers helpful tips for mystery and crime writers, such as this list of 25 case-solving clues you could use in a story.

The unsolved mysteries subreddit

Reddit is full of interesting topic threads with deep dives and articles shares. A good subreddit or community for mystery authors is the Unsolved Mysteries subreddit .

Here, members discuss unsolved cases and their theories about what happened. [Note that stories may share disturbing elements relating to unsolved police cases].

Writing children’s and YA fiction

Writing for younger readers entails writing to specific reading age norms, knowing what is age-appropriate and more. Find useful writing websites for YA and kids’ lit below:

The Atlantic

The Atlantic is not dedicated to YA and kids’ lit, but has a helpful article here where YA authors share their best tips on writing for and about teens.

The YA Bookshelf

The YA Bookshelf is a useful website for YA book reviews and resources. See their roundup of YA book blogs , for example.

Hannah Holt’s blog

Children’s writer Hannah Holt has an interesting deep dive into YA author stats (though published in 2017, it has all kinds of insights into YA author advances, average submissions until being published and more).

So You Want to Write

So You Want to Write has a comprehensive guide to writing YA by YA fantasy author Mackenzie Belcastro.

John Green Q&A

It’s great when authors give concise answers to complex questions. YA author John Green’s writing FAQs on his website answers interesting questions such as ‘how do you write about adolescents when you aren’t one?’

Vlogbrothers

Writing for younger readers necessitates using platforms younger readers love well and meaningfully. See John and Hank Green’s vlog on YouTube for ideas of how to create meaningful video content for your YA readers.

Sarah Webb’s children’s writing tips

Children’s author Sarah Webb shares great advice for writing for children on her author site.

Michael Morpugo’s teaching resources

Sir Michael Morpugo, one of the best-loved children’s authors and author of War Horse , shares inviting question and quiz resources for parents and educators to go with his books via the author’s website. An inspiring ed-tech format to use with your own children’s writing.

Interview with Maurice Sendak

The Guardian has many fantastic articles mixing essay with interview, such as this biting and fascinating conversation with Maurice Sendak , author and illustrator of the beloved Where the Wild Things Are . His statement ‘I refuse to lie to children’ is an interesting maxim for writing for younger, truth-seeking readers.

The Federation of Children’s Book Groups

This helpful resource for children’s book writers and readers includes interviews with authors, information on the Children’s Book Award, and more.

Writing historical fiction

Writing historical fiction naturally involves research due to stories being based on real events. Here are some of he best internet resources for researching and writing historical books, including museum archives with digital collections and universities’ subject specialist research guides.

British Pathé archives

British Pathé is a fascinating resource for historical footage and photo collections. See, for example, their outline of key events from WWII.

The National Archives (UK)

The National Archives is a vast archive spanning 1000 years of UK history. The searchable collections have many photo albums and articles, on everything from coronations to crime and punishment in specific eras.

The Smithsonian Institute

Across the Atlantic, the Smithsonian Institute offers vast archives of research materials to do with American history, from conservation biology to art history.

National Archives of Australia

Writing books set in Australia? The National Archives of Australia provides research guides for subjects such as first peoples and colonial history, foreign relations, military history and more.

USC Latin America resource guide

The University of Southern California offers a useful, organized guide to resources on Latin American history and archives from this region as well as the Caribbean. Google ‘.edu’ and the area you’re interested in and ‘resources’ to find similar librarian-developed research resources for historical fiction.

Yale’s European history library guide

Yale University has a fantastic library guide to historical research resources about Europe . Includes resources for general Western European history and medieval, early modern and modern Europe.

The Historical Novel Society

Founded in 1997, this organization is devoted to historical fiction and offers a quarterly magazine, information on historical fiction conferences, member directory and more.

A Writer of History by M.K. Tod

Historical fiction author and blogger M.K. Tod shares many interesting historical fiction discussions and interviews on her blog. For example, this deep dive on behind-the-scenes facts from WWII .

Africa is a Country

Africa is a Country (the title is ironic) is a fantastic resource for nuanced journalism and contemporary, left-leaning analysis of African culture and politics, reviews of books about African and diasporic issues, and more. A good research resource for studying African issues and debates.

English Historical Fiction Authors

This history writing blog began in 2011 and shares all kinds of interesting micro history accounts by historical writers from various periods of British history.

Queen Anne Boleyn blog

This site devoted to historical fiction and named after the famously executed second wife of Heny VIII has many interesting blog articles. See, for example, where history authors weighed in on casting decisions and the question of race and representation in adapting historical stories for film and TV.

Jane Austen’s World

This blog offers thought-provoking deep dives into Austen’s writing , the Regency period (such as social customs of the time) and more.

Further writing resources

Mcsweeney’s internet tendency.

A long-standing humor site that publishes biting satire and parody, such as ‘If people talked to other professionals the way they talk to teachers’ by Shannon Reed . A good regular read for aspiring humor writers.

Quora is often a very useful resource when you have a specific writing-related question you’d like to crowd-source answers for (for example, ‘ What is plot development? ‘).

Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds

Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds blog is full of interesting and profanity-laden articles about the writing process [not for the expletive-squeamish] and now features guest articles on topics such as ‘five things learned while writing a book’.

Writer’s Digest

Writer’s Digest is one of the longest-standing writing sites on the web, with WD having been founded long before the interne in 1920. They offer fiction and non-fiction writing resources, a very broad section on getting published and more.

National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo has a simple premise: Challenging writers to try produce a book draft in a month. Anyone who has written or attempted to write a book knows this is no time at all, but many authors use the write-a-thon as an exercise to see how much they can churn out of a manuscript within 30 days.

Writer Unboxed

This story writing website founded by Kathleen Bolton and current editorial director Therese Walsh offers an engaging blog and also published a writing manual , Author in Progress in partnership with Writer’s Digest. The manual is billed as ‘a no-holds-barred guide to what it really takes to get published’.

Literary Hub publishes a wide variety of material, but their ‘craft and criticism’ section is perhaps the most immediately useful. Read this article by author Vauhini Vara on how to keep a long project alive (with advice from writer and Emeritus Professor of English Tobias Wolff).

What are your favorite literary writing websites? Let us know in the comments below. Start writing a book with structured support and a caring community’s help.

Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites
Publishing a novel in 2022: 10 useful insights
How to get your book published: Detailed 2022 guide
Tags writing resources , writing websites

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

27 replies on “Best story writing websites in 2022”

Always great content on here! Really impressed at how in depth this list is. Bookmarking it for later.

Thanks so much, Ben.

Great content and we are really impressed with the way of presentations

This was such an awesome article. So awesome in fact I’ve featured it on my top 15 best articles on writing – ever! http://reflectionsfromaredhead.com/the-best-articles-on-writing/

Thank you, Janine! Have shared your post on social media.

That is quite an extensive list. Thank you very much for this comprehensive blog post.

Take a look at Writelight as well.

Thank you for the suggestion, Artem.

Hello, I Like your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation. Wish you best of luck for all your best efforts. Bonobology | Romantic Story

If this list gets update sometime, some sites for Writer Podcasts and Book Cover resources would be good addition.

Hi Adrijus, great suggestions. It’s on my list!

Happy to share some if needed.

P.S. Do you take guest posters on? 🙂

Hi Adrijus, we do when it’s good content relevant to aspiring authors primary challenges (e.g. craft, organization, publishing process, etc.) The best thing to do is submit a pitch to help at nownovel dot com via email including topic and title suggestions and we’ll see if there’s fit.

Thanks for asking.

Sounds good. Thank you!

Hi Bridget, you have done a great work here. I’m really impressed.

This was such an awesome article. You can also publish your story on https://highlightstory.com

Thank you! I’m not sure I’ll check out all these resources, but I’ve already found some useful ones for me. I find great support in writers’ blogs and the block with general tips is very useful for me. In addition, I want to share some interesting articles: https://stacitroilo.wordpress.com/2019/07/19/author-inspiration-writing-links-83/ I read this blog regularly as yours and find many useful ideas.

Thank you, Anna. Thanks for sharing helpful resources you’ve come across too.

[…] Novel: “Story writing websites and resources: 200 of the best,” a comprehensive resource divided into useful categories including everything from plot […]

Some of your links need to fixed. One’s like Deborah Bruch’s Plot Analysis Worksheet leads to a “Forbidden” access page, and you have Reedsy leads to the previous option of Nonsense Generator. You have a shit ton of great links, some just need to be cleaned up a bit.

Thank you, JD. Will do – this one hasn’t had some attention in a while. Thank you for reading our blog.

i love writing stories guys

That’s great, Larric – keep writing them 🙂

Nice collection Jordan! I also have a blog where I share my writing tips for story/book writing.

Hi Pauline, thank you for sharing that. I had to remove your link to your site as there is a lot of advertising on-page and the content that I read had several confusing paragraphs and would benefit from editing. Readers could thus see the site as spammy (a reason we don’t run third-party ads on this blog). I would suggest looking at those aspects if you want your readership to grow.

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No registration is required. All resources from the story creator to the writing challenges and blog content are openly available to all site visitors. This also means that we don’t store any personal information, allowing users to explore Imagine Forest without the need for a formal registration process. The platform is designed to prioritize user privacy and accessibility, ensuring that creative individuals of all ages can freely engage with the diverse range of writing resources.

Is Imagine Forest safe for kids?

Yes of course. The absence of a registration requirement means that no personal information is collected, providing an added layer of privacy and security. Additionally, the content and activities on Imagine Forest are tailored to be child-friendly, fostering a positive and creative environment. The platform aims to inspire and nurture the imagination of young writers in a safe and age-appropriate manner. As with any online platform, it's advisable for parents to monitor their children's online activities and ensure that they are engaging with content suitable for their age group.

Can I view a list of Writing Prompts?

Yes. Imagine Forest has a huge list of writing prompts and story starters. You can view this collection of writing prompts on our blog, in the writing prompts category .

Is it possible to remove the ads?

Sorry, there is no option to remove ads yet. Ads help keep Imagine Forest running and providing free access to its creative resources for all users. While it may be inconvenient for some to see ads, they play a crucial role in sustaining the platform and ensuring that it remains freely accessible to a wide audience. Imagine Forest relies on revenue generated from advertisements to cover the costs of maintaining the website, developing new features, and expanding its offerings. By allowing ads, the platform can continue to provide a wealth of writing tools, challenges, and other resources without requiring users to pay for access. In the future, we may offer users a paid subscription option which allows them to remove ads from the site.

Is it possible to upload my own images?

At this moment in time, no it is not possible to upload your own images in the story creator tool. We may bring this feature in the future. The purpose of Imagine Forest is to guide you on how to write a good story. It is an educational tool for helping beginners write stories and poems. We do however provide a huge built-in library of photos, and illustrations to use. You can also request more specific images by contacting our team .

The 17 Best Writing Websites to Become a Better Writer

In the competitive world of writing, no one is perfect. Even the best of the best can make improvements to their craft. No matter how accurate you think you are, there are always things to learn.

This can be done in a few ways, with writing websites being one. These websites exist with the sole purpose of helping writers of all levels and types.

Writing websites can provide many things to a writer looking to improve themselves:

Tips to strengthen your stories.
Tighten up your publishing knowledge and skills.
Empower writers to work hard and do a good job.
Improve your methods of writing and storytelling.
Provide daily motivation, inspiration, and general advice.

These are resourceful places to get all the information we might need as writers. The owners of these websites are, usually, genuine people who want to help growing writers become the best they can be.

Writing websites are a comfort zone for writers. You can go to them in times of distress, writer’s block, or uncertainty around your plotting. You will be able to find resources to help you know how to write a novel or a helpful nonfiction book.

Benefits of Using Writing Websites

Writing websites give specific pieces of writing advice to all writers – established and aspiring.
Writers get the ultimate guidelines from successful authors, whether they are looking for help writing or publishing.
These sites offer literary techniques to help writers reach their full potential in their writing endeavors.
Writers will learn how to correct mistakes and create credible work.
Writing websites will provide resources, exercises, and things you can do to improve your writing skills.
They offer writers free courses on a variety of subjects, so you are sure to learn a lot.
Writing websites help writers learn how to market themselves and their work. This can help them get both published and hired.
All the learning, whether from people or courses, is (mostly) free.
Writing prompts are posted daily on some writing sites which can be useful for many writers struggling to find inspiration.
Writing sites help a writer to keep on writing; it can give writers a boost and a push when they are feeling down and unmotivated.

Classification of Writing Websites

There are numerous writing websites online and of course, they all offer something a little different. You will need to look around a little to find what you are looking for, specifically.

Writing websites are generally classified into five categories, depending on the content.

[table id=7 /]

The 1 7 Best Writing Websites

There are so many helpful writing websites online. They all help writers learn different things. Listed below are some of the best ones.

The guides, tools, and advice on these writing websites are fantastic when used in conjunction with quality writing software. A good example of this is Squibler.

Squibler helps a writer do the actual writing. Organization, research, development, settings – it can help you put into practice everything you learn from these resources.

Daily Writing Tips

This writing website helps writers improve their grammar construction and word usage. The site gives writing tutorials and advice to writers.

The tips provided here are free, but if you want to gain some additional features, a $5 monthly price can be paid to get premium access. This includes comprehensive courses to help you improve your writing.

Janice Hardy’s Fiction University

This website will help a writer that has a rigorous weekly schedule. You will be able to develop the discipline that can help you get through the week without giving up on your writing halfway through.

This blog publishes articles about writing, with a focus on novels. There are many areas in which you can find advice:

Planning your novel
Writing your novel
Common writing problems
Editing your novel
Selling your novel
The general life of a writer

With over 2500 articles published, there is a lot of good information here. In addition to their own articles, they also offer a comprehensive list of other resources. Some of these include:

Other writing sites
Agents and querying resources
Writer’s conferences
Editing and writing services
Publishing-themed websites
Communities
Critique sites
Writing blogs
Book review blogs

The website is run by Janice Hardy, a writing teacher who is passionate about helping everyone learn to write. She offers her own expertise as well as plenty of posts and articles from guests who offer a different perspective.

Helping Writers Become Authors

This writing website is run by K.M Weiland, who has written a number of books – both fiction and nonfiction. She strives to help writers make the transition to authors.

She has many articles about the most basic elements of writing a novel. These include:

Story structure
Character arcs

She has published several books that are also written to help writers become authors. These books are an extension of the information found on the blog.

She offers a couple of freebies to start, with the rest being available for purchase on her website.

Kristen Lamb

Best-selling author Kristen Lamb runs a blog that offers tips, advice, and help for writers. She has a fun and casual demeanor that is welcoming for readers.

Her posts are relatable and easy to understand.

She also offers a number of courses where she will teach on different aspects of writing. Some of these are downloadable courses while others are live classes.

At its core, Reedsy wants to create beautiful books. They do this by giving authors and publishers access to quality professionals, useful tools, and educational content.

If you are looking for a professional to help you make your book better, Reedsy offers a diverse team including:

Ghostwriters
Web designers

In addition to this they also offer a free writing tool that helps you with the actual process of writing your book. The software provides a space to create and organize your different sections and elements – such as characters, research, etc.

You can use the software yourself, but it also has a fantastic collaboration feature. With this, you can seamlessly write with others. This is especially useful for new writers who are still learning how to write a book .

Lastly, Reedsy offers a large database of writing prompts to get you started.

You can pick from a list of different genres, and get some specific ideas start writing about. You can use these to begin your next big novel, or to do some practice.

Write to Done

Write to Done is a writing website that covers many different areas of writing. They have sections for:

Freelancing
Copywriting

They have articles from several different writers who all have different perspectives and opinions to offer.

Writers in the Storm

This is a unique writing blog that focuses on inspiration and motivation. If you are in a metaphorical writing “storm” this is a good place to go before deciding to give up.

The blog is run by a few different writers who all come from separate genres. This offers a wide range of perspective.

They also have some articles and information on improving your writing craft itself.

The Book Designer

This site is one that focuses more on the physical book itself and the publishing process.

It is run by Joel Friedlander who uses his own extensive experience to create articles on design and self-publishing. His wealth of information has already helped thousands of writers.

Jerry Jenkins

Jerry Jenkins is a 21-time New York Times best-selling author who is revealing his secrets.

One thing he offers on his site is an extremely helpful free guide: How to Become an Author: Your Complete Guide.

Once you’ve downloaded this, you can join his network of thousands of other writers and sign up for his newsletter which sends writing advice right to your inbox.

He also offers a list of writing tools to help you learn how to write a book. These are tools that assist with editing, organization, and distraction. These are programs that he endorses personally, so you can be sure they offer a quality service.

Lastly, his blog covers pretty much everything you need to know to learn how to write a novel or nonfiction book . From ideas, to characters, to plot, you can find advice right from the mouth of a seasoned writer.

Writers Helping Writers

This writing website does exactly what it says – it has writers helping other writings. They offer coaching services in addition to their articles on writing and publishing.

They also have a series of writing tools available for download. These are designed to help writers in a few different areas:

Character arc progression
Setting planner
Character profile questionnaire
And many more

The website is run by two women: Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. n addition to running the site, they have co-authored a series of books to help writers.

The books are all part of the “thesaurus” series. It includes titles such as The Emotion Thesaurus and the Positive Trait Thesaurus.

Language is a Virus

Here you will find some articles on the writing craft. However, this is not their focus. This website contains several tools to help you either get started or keep going in your writing.

Their home page itself has a writing prompt right on it, with the option to generate another if you don’t like it.

They have a series of writing games, exercises, and generators to help you get inspired and motivated.

This is a fantastic resource for writers who may be feeling stuck or defeated.

Story a Day

Story a Day is an initiative that hopes to inspire creativity. They run two month-long challenges each year – one in May and one in September. The challenge is to write a short story every day.

This alone can be inspiring for writers, but they offer many extras:

Accountability group. On the first of each month you can publicly post your commitments for the coming month.
Weekly writing lessons and prompts.
A blog with regular posts on writing and creativity.
Twice-monthly podcasts with writing prompts and pep talks.

This writing website provides a community based challenge. this not only stimulates a writer’s imagination, but it does so with the support and accountability that others can provide.

The Intern Archives

While no longer an active blog, this archive can be extremely helpful to those embarking on a publishing journey. “The intern” also known as Hillary Smith, worked as an intern for several years.

In these archives, she shares insider information about the publishing industry that she thinks will be helpful to new and aspiring authors.

Positive Writer

This site was created to help writers stay positive. The blog contains posts on many positivity themed categories:

Writer’s doubt
Positive thinking
Goal setting

In addition to these inspiring and motivational articles you can also find information on writing, blogging, and publishing

Writer’s Digest

This site is for writers who want to be successful. The website is vast and extensive, but a few of the key features include:

Writing Prompts
Competitions
Online writing workshops

From poetry, fiction, and nonfiction,you can find advice, tips, and resources to help you. The workshops and communities available will only serve to enhance your ability by connecting you to others.

Poets & Writers

Poets and Writers is a non-profit that looks to serve creative writers of all kinds. In addition to their helpful and informative website they offer a number of other services:

A magazine.
Financial support for readings and other events.
sponsorship of writing prizes and awards.

The website offers articles on writing itself, as well as publishing, agents, awards, and writing news.

Writer Beware

Everyone appreciates getting help with their writing and publishing efforts. There are many people out there telling writers what they should do, or at least consider doing.

Authors everywhere choose some programs or websites to endorse, and they send their readers on their way. Writer Beware has taken it upon themselves to warn writers and authors of scams, schemes, and fraud they should be avoiding in the writing world.

Founded in 1998, they have been around long enough to see a lot of shady things go down. They know what they’re talking about.

Especially if you are close to publishing, take a look around this website. Make sure you don’t fall victim. This would make your experience learning how to write a book more negative, where you should only be doing positive things to move forward.

Improve Your Craft with These Writing Websites

This collection of writing websites should be enough to get you going. With a combination of advice, tips, insight, prompts, inspiration, and tools, you have more than enough to start learning how to write a novel or book of any kind.

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Great stories are planned before they are written

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, came up with the idea for the series while waiting for a train. Did she immediately begin writing the first chapter? No. On that day, she began a five year long journey planning the immersive world and plot of the Harry Potter series. Five years in, and she publishes the first of seven books. What followed was nothing short of amazing.

The series went on to become a worldwide phenomenon and some of the best selling books in history. Records were shattered. Fans clamored for more. J.K. Rowling became a household name and won the admiration of millions around the world.

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Story Planner’s easy-to-follow steps help writers plan novels, screenplays and more.

Writing is easier when you have a plan. We take you through each stage of the planning process to help you create a better story.

How Story Planner can help you

We offer a range of story plans to suit your writing style, whether you like a fast, easy planning method, or more detailed story structure.

We look at planning methods so you don't have to. We've selected the very best ways to plan a story and many popular methods used by successful writers.

Our plans can help with more than just plots. We can help you understand your characters, define your story setting, and understand why you write.

Story Planner Helper will guide you to choose the right plan. We have plans for every stage of the writing journey.

INTERESTED IN JOINING A WRITING GROUP?

WriterLink is Story Planner’s sister site. It helps writers meet new friends for support and feedback on their journey to getting published. It lists groups, courses and services to help writers improve their skills.

It took J.K Rowling five years to outline the plots for her Harry Potter books - she used detailed spreadsheets and notes.

66% of writers plan their novels.

The majority of agents ask writers to send a one or two page story outline or synopsis.

"A pantser" is the word used to describe someone who writes without any planning. They write "by the seat of their pants."

Story structure was described by Aristotle in his "Poetics" in 335 BC. The Dramatic Structure he described is at the heart of many modern writing plans.

Choose from a vast range of templates.
Easy A-B-C steps to help plan story structure.
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When Writing Gets Hard: 3 Hidden Causes of Writer’s Block

Image: a writer sits in a chair, struggling to concentrate amid a wild array of confusing, colorful objects.

Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas ( @manzanitafire ), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach.

One newspaperman, Red Smith, is credited with saying, “Writing is easy. You just sit at your typewriter until little drops of blood appear on your forehead.”

When Dorothy Parker was asked if she enjoyed writing, she replied with characteristic wit by saying, “I enjoy having written.”

All of which is to say, writing is famously hard.

If you occasionally hit a rough spot for what feels like no reason at all, then the solution is often to stop for a moment, take stock, and look a little deeper into what it is you’re attempting to write.

As a writer myself, I’m no stranger to these sorts of points, where it feels like I’ve been cruising along with my writing only to suddenly hit a brick wall. And as a book coach, part of my job is helping people get through these rough spots in their creative work.

In looking at this phenomenon from both the inside and the outside, I’ve come to see that there almost is a reason for it—though these reasons may not be at all obvious to us at the time.

In fact, these are usually points where the wise storyteller inside us is trying to tell us something.

1. You don’t know enough about your story.

You may know how the story starts, and how it ends. You may know who the characters are, exactly what they love and hate about each other. You may even know what it was in the protagonist’s past that led her to have such strong feelings about what the antagonist is doing.

The fact is, you can know a lot about your story and still not know enough. And by enough , I mean the right things—the things essential to telling a compelling story, at the level of the big-picture structure.

Those are the story elements I focus on in my course on big-picture storytelling , and in my one-on-one outline coaching work as well: your protagonist’s emotional journey in the story, and subsequent transformation; the cause-and-effect trajectory of your plot, and how it pushes your protagonist to grow and change; and what your characters want and why they want it.

I’ve seen this over and over again (and experienced it for myself): If you’re not clear as a writer on any one of these things, you will eventually hit the wall with your story—or head off in the wrong direction entirely, with an increasing sense of uncertainty and unease as you do so. Which in turn makes writing hard.

Why? Because your wise inner storyteller is trying to tell you that you don’t know enough about your story to write it.

2. You don’t know enough about your scene or chapter.

You may be clear on how your story fits together in the big picture but still be in the dark as to how a given scene or chapter unfolds—and the more important that scene or chapter is to your story, the harder it will be to write.

These are the days when many of us stare at our computer screens for hours on end, writing and deleting and writing again, and deleting again, in a frustrating loop that can actually lead to thinking in ways that aren’t very kind to ourselves.

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I write this? What is my problem today?

In my experience, this is just another variation on the first issue: Your wise inner storyteller is telling you that you don’t know enough yet to write this scene or chapter.

The solution in this case is to simply to stop trying to write that scene or chapter directly and pre-write instead—in whatever form you find most helpful.

Prewriting might mean taking some time to make some notes about that scene or situation in your process notebook. (You keep one of those, right?) It might mean freewriting in that notebook about what each of the characters in this scene or chapter is feeling at this point in the story, about what their perspective and agenda is.

Or prewriting might mean actually drafting that scene or chapter in a very loose way, by hand, then going back over it and adding possible variations and possible deletions, without making any commitments either way—and then, and only then, going to the computer and formalizing the language.

Try this the next time you feel stuck in this way, and I think you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to write that big scene or chapter when it doesn’t feel like you have to produce it “from scratch.”

3. What you think you know is wrong.

In other cases, you may feel like you know exactly what’s supposed to happen in this section of your story, or exactly what is supposed to happen in this scene or chapter, but … it still feels really hard to write.

Some folks get stuck here—for days, months, and sometimes even years. But writers are nothing if not stubborn, so many of them simply find a way to push on through.

If that’s what you’ve done with a section of your manuscript, this may wind up being a section you feel you can never quite get right. You may go over and over it again in revision, tweaking and nipping and cutting, fiddling with the language, the transitions, the POV, whatever—but no matter what you do, something about it still feels off.

And because we spend so long reworking on those sections, we often wind up getting attached to them. They become those “darlings” Faulkner was talking about—the ones we ultimately have to kill, for the greater good of the story.

Which is to say, sometimes the parts that feel hard to write, or hard to “get right” in revision, are simply wrong for the story, no matter how much you’ve managed to convince yourself otherwise.

Meaning: it’s out of keeping with what you’ve already established, it will not help you land the ending, it leads to a wrong ending, it IS the wrong ending, it will not create a satisfying experience for the reader—or some combination of the above.

In this case, your wise inner storyteller is telling you to step back and reconsider what you think you know about the story and see if there’s something you’re missing—and something different here that needs to happen in this section of your novel instead.

Have you experienced this type of “writer’s block” with one of your stories?

And is there a point in your writing journey where your wise inner storyteller was trying to tell you something you didn’t realize at the time?

Let me know in the comments!

Susan DeFreitas is the author of the novel Hot Season , which won a Gold IPPY Award, and the editor of Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin , a finalist for the Foreword INDIES. An independent editor and book coach, she specializes in helping writers from historically marginalized backgrounds, and those writing socially engaged fiction, break through into publishing.

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Excellent advice. I like all the ideas, especially the pre-write idea.

Glad this post landed for your, Marlene!

More From Forbes

Wine writing lessons from some of history’s great travel writers.

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The sun sets over the Parthenon (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Never before have so many wanted to spend their days visiting vineyards and writing about the magical subject of wine. Yet somehow, the profession (or should I say vocation?) is in a state of crisis. Arguably, it always has been. Nevertheless, as wine publications struggle for revenue, and the large tech platforms further choke visibility and traffic, the fragmentation of quality voices continues. Dispersing in their wake is a critical mass of engaged readers. With A.I. lurking menacingly on the horizon, raising the bar on quality is crucial for survival.

Given the stakes, we might consider an extended delve into early 20th century English travel writing as a little indulgent. Lingering on the pretty phrases of well-schooled gentlemen, endlessly keen to express their comfort with the great works of the ancient world, would usually sit at odds with the incessant buzz of notifications, emails and the need to keep content and invoices flowing.

Yet, the predicament is providing splendid opportunity for meandering exploration through some of the more literary and erudite texts of the genre. In many cases, they are harmless, hapless adventures, and ooze the kind of personality that makes such writing timeless. So, filing my inquiry under research, and temporary escapism, I embarked on Robert Bryon’s iconic Road to Oxiana .

Published in 1937, it charts his journey through the Levant and across the Middle East. Byron’s self deprecating tone will inevitably strike a more pertinent chord with the British reader, but it is universally acknowledged a masterpiece for its balance of witty memoir and poignant observation. Sensual prose bring exotic scenes to life, capturing the essence of people and place.

The author’s primary interest lies in the great monuments of Islam, but his deep knowledge is administered carefully, diluted with engaging journal entries that document the trials and tribulations of a colourful and unpredictable journey. Clearly, he is well versed in his field and able to braid scholarly comment, but it remains a backdrop, and a device for maintaining order lest his more comedic characters infringe on the intended atmosphere. For Byron, architecture (we may read wine) is a reason for travel, but it is certainly not the story .

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Henry Vollam Morton is another outstanding travel writer of a bygone era, despite suggestions of appalling character. Over the last few days I’ve found it difficult to put down A Traveller in Southern Italy (1969). Although less poetic, the format is similar. Enthralment with the lives of the Saints provides motivation for his expedition, but his writing draws from the well of knowledge modestly - skilfully aware of the importance of peeling back the curtain and standing clear.

Inevitably, the subject of wine provides rich material for the writer and there are many enclaves in which to develop a specialism. For me, the most alluring wine writing, and the most age-worthy, provokes and evokes in a way that the best travel writing does. It connects on an emotional level and makes one long for experience. Put simply, the best books about wine are often not really about wine - at least, not entirely.

Paul Theroux, the great American writer noted that, “travel writing begins in journalism, slides into fiction, and ends in autobiography”. When I think back to those bright and elegant columns by Hugh Johnson or Michael Broadbent, I am reminded of a note by Hemingway. “If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.”

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

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By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

A woman wearing a jeans jacket sitting at a table showing photos of a young boy on her cellphone.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

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Best Free Writing Apps in 2024

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FocusWriter

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Ignite your creativity. Coach your brain to think creatively & spark brilliant ideas at work and in life.

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Writer Plus

Writer Plus is a writing application without the fuss and distraction of a traditional word processor, perfect for writing notes, novel, lyrics, poems, essay, draft on your phone or tablet.

Platforms: Android

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Website: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.easy4u.w...

★★ Features

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Writer Tools

With our writing tools you can track your progress thus far, plan your novel, write your novel and be able to focus on what matters for you the most: FINISHING THE DAMN BOOK!

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Joplin is an open source note-taking app. Capture your thoughts and securely access them from any device.

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Black Note is the black theme's notepad. It's the simple notes app.

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The Internet's best write-reward system! Write one hundred words, get an image of a kitten!

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Slick Write

Slick Write is a powerful, free application that makes it easy to check your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest. Whether you're a blogger, novelist, SEO professional, or student writing an essay for school, Slick Write can help take your writing to the next level.

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Enjoy a distraction-free writing experience, including a full screen mode and a clean interface. With Markdown, you can write now, and format later.

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Wattpad
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Find fellow Novlr writers on Discord. Join them to thrash out ideas, share your struggles, get advice, or just hang out with a likeminded community. With Novlr, you can achieve your writing goals. Built by writers and owned by its writing community, Novlr helps you progress along every stage of your writing journey.
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If you are writing fanfiction (aka stories that use characters from movies or TV shows), this is the place to be. With millions of readers and writers, this community is extremely active.
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Best writing websites for writing craft and inspiration. 1. Almost an Author. Offering up new content every day, Almost an Author covers a grand scope of writing topics. From genre-specific advice to emotional support on your writing journey, there's tons of useful info here for beginner and veteran writers alike. 2.
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Although not a separate story writing website, speculative fiction titan Neal Stephenson's writing advice on the TED-Ed blog is simple and golden. Galaxy science fiction magazine archives. Galaxy was a science fiction magazine published from 1950 to 1980 and is thus an interesting time capsule for SF writers.
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Campfire authors and readers are all here for the same love of a great story—and you're invited to join us. Get started for free. Join Campfire. Campfire is a reading and writing platform for genre fiction. Discover books & bonus content, write novels, and self-publish with best-in-class royalties.
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Writers in the Storm. This is a unique writing blog that focuses on inspiration and motivation. If you are in a metaphorical writing "storm" this is a good place to go before deciding to give up. The blog is run by a few different writers who all come from separate genres. This offers a wide range of perspective.
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WritersCafe.org is an online writing community where writers can post their work, get reviews, befriend other writers, and much more.. Post your poetry, short stories, novels, scripts, and screenplays. Get reviews and advice from thousands of other writers. Enter hundreds of free writing contests. Join writing groups or start your own.
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5. Milanote. Cost: Free for basic plan or $12.50/month for premium. Milanote is an easy-to-use creative writing app to organize your research, ideas, characters and outline in one place. The vast majority of novelist-oriented writing software is organized around the idea of a linear document.
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Slick Write is a powerful, free application that makes it easy to check your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest. Whether you're a blogger, novelist, SEO professional, or student writing an essay for school, Slick Write can help take your writing to the next level. Platforms: Online