Writing Reference Tools
Free online thesaurus
The Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Oxford English Dictionary
The British Library
Resources for writers
Writing Organisations
The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading
www.ciep.uk/
The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), formerly the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), is a professional organisation based in the UK for editors and proofreaders – the people who strive to make text accurate and readable. They provide training and professional qualifications.
The Society of Authors
societyofauthors.org
The Society of Authors is the UK trade union for more than 10,000 writers, illustrators and literary translators. Whatever your specialisation, you are eligible to join as soon whether you have been offered a contract from a publisher, broadcaster or agent, or if you’re an emerging author or at the beginning of your creative career. Develop your craft at workshops and receive specialist training on different topics.
New Writing South
New Writing South serves writers from across southeast England, offering supportive creative space with regular events, performances and networking opportunities. They offer bursaries, participate in the TLC Free Reads Scheme, and provide training – from a Creative Writing Programme to shorter courses and workshops covering different writing styles.
New Writing North
New Writing North supports writing and reading in the North of England. They commission new work, create development opportunities, nurture talent and make connections.
Literature Works
https://literatureworks.org.uk/
They are the regional literature development agency for south west England, a registered charity. They support creative writing and the development of writers and readers of all ages, from all walks of life in the region.
Spread The Word
https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/
London’s writers development agency.
Writing East Midlands
http://www.writingeastmidlands.co.uk/
The literature development agency for the region, Writing East Midlands help develop the skills and talents of creative writers. They run various projects, events and courses all year
Writing West Midlands
https://www.writingwestmidlands.org/
The literature development agency for the region, Writing West Midlands help develop the skills and talents of creative writers. They run various projects, events and courses all year, and have monthly meetings for Young Writers.
Literature Wales
https://www.literaturewales.org/
Literature Wales is the national company for the development of literature. Their vision is a Wales where literature empowers, improves and brightens lives.
The Writers' Guild
The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) is the trade union representing writers in TV, radio, theatre, books, poetry, film, online and video games.
The National Literacy Trust
The National Literacy Trust is a national charity dedicated to raising literacy levels in the UK. They work to improve the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in the UK's most disadvantaged communities, where up to 40 per cent of people have literacy problems.
Scottish Book Trust
Scotland's leading agency for the promotion of reading, writing & literature.
Writing Magazines
Mslexia
The magazine for women who write. Mslexia is an independent publishing company that provides information and inspiration for published and unpublished women in the UK and beyond. In addition to a quarterly magazine and Writer’s Diary, Mslexia runs workshops and events, and a series of high-profile competitions for poets, novelists and short story writers.
The Literateur
The Literateur is an online literary magazine featuring interviews with luminaries of the literary world, articles, reviews and exciting new creative works.
Words with JAM
Words with Jam email out issues packed full of interviews with authors and industry professionals, articles on writing, reading, libraries, the publishing industry and indie-publishing every other month (the beginning of February, April, June, August, October and December), as well as occasional newsletters
The Writer Magazine
Each month, The Writer is full of features you can use to improve your writing, including before-and-after examples of improved writing, more literary markets than ever before, practical solutions for writing problems, selected literary magazine profiles, tips from famous authors and hands-on advice.
Orbis
Quarterly international literary journal.
Five Dials
The monthly downloadable literary magazine from publishing house Hamish Hamilton.
Writing Exercises
Writing Exercises from A Writers' Journal Workbook by Lucy van Smit
The Naming Game - A daily exercise on how to switch between the ordinary and a writer's way of seeing.
Character Sketch Game - An exercise on creating new characters by taking inspiration from different people
Character Voice: Drawing Inspiration From Real Life - How to use your own voice to learn about dialogue
What Is Your Story About? - Develop the seed of a story idea with this longhand writing exercise
The Logline Game - Can you summarise your story in one sentence?
Writing Exercises from the W&A team
Location, Location, Location - Sharpen your setting skills with this exercise on describing a familiar place to an unfamiliar person
Choosing a Point of View - Try your story from different POVs
Create a Chapter Summary - An exercise in creating a blueprint for your book
Build a Blurb - Entice your readers with a hooky blurb
Writing Exercises inspired by the W&A Guide to How to Hook an Agent by James Rennoldson
Finding the USP of Your Story - Find what is unique to your story
Writing Exercises from the W&A Guide to Writing for Children & YA by Linda Strachan
Mind Map - Stimulate a story idea
What If...? - A prompt to generate new children's fiction ideas
Plot and Subplot - Identifying the different strands in your story
Duologue - Develop conversation between two characters
Writing Communities
ABCtales
ABCtales puts writers and editors together. Because there’s as much to be learned from editing as from writing, giving feedback is at the heart of ABCtales. From your first short poem to the final chapter of that novel you’ve been working away at, the ABCtales community will read your work and give you advice on how to improve as well as helping to spread your writing to a wider audience.
National Association of Writers' Group
nawg.co.uk (national association of writers’ groups)
NAWG was set up to help create and run writing groups and provide support for individual writers. Receive access to resources and competitions as well as the numerous events they run each year, including NAWGFest, their annual open festival of writing.
Scribophile
Scribophile is one of the largest and most well-respected online writing communities. You can join to give and receive detailed, friendly, and constructive critiques for writing of all kinds. The site also offers free advice, tips and articles about the writing craft, plus news from the publishing industry, as well as their many, busy writing forums.
Underlined
Underlined is an online platform where you can share your own stories, connect with writers and authors, discover new books, and win prizes.
Wattpad
An unlimited, ever-growing library of free books and stories. On Wattpad, you can discover great fiction, share stories with friends and follow their favourite authors chapter-by-chapter.
The London Writers' Cafe
LWC is a fiction writers' group where any creative writer can volunteer to read their work for instant feedback and advice in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
Young Writers' Society
An online writing community for younger writers to share their work, connect with other writers and offer constructive feedback.
Book Crossing
The World's Library - it's a smart social networking site. BookCrossing is the act of giving a book a unique identity so, as the book is passed from reader to reader, it can be tracked and so connects its readers. There are currently 1,181,206 BookCrossers and 10,179,244 books travelling throughout 132 countries.
Prolifiko
Prolifiko is a writing productivity tool that allows writers to track their writing, set personal writing goals and join an online community of other writers.
Writing Advice & Inspiration
Writer's Digest
WritersDigest.com is the one-stop shop for information, resources and writing community. Writers can connect with other writers on our forum, visit our blogs and sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter. Also find weekly writing prompts, contests and competitions, conference listings, and online exclusive articles.
Fiction University
Author Janice Hardy's website is full of practical writing advice and inspiration from visiting authors and publishing professionals, writing prompts, manuscript diagnostics and indie publishing advice covering everything from creating an e-book to the latest self-publishing trends.
The Story Starter
The Story Starter randomly generates story starters. This idea generator can be used for short stories, novels, plays, scripts, or just for fun. It's also a great tool to combat writer's block.
Jane Friedman
Publishing industry veteran Jane Friedman offers insight into how sustain a writing career in the digital age, and explores new media tools and business models for authors of all genres and categories. She frequently writes about the future of publishing and authorship, and how technology is changing how we write and read.
Carly Watters
Carly Watters is a literary agent with the P.S. Literary Agency. This is her blog, where she shares insider tips, brilliant advice and guidance for writers looking to submit their manuscripts.
Nathan Bransford
https://blog.nathanbransford.com/
Nathan Bransford is a former literary agent, and author of writing guides and middle grade novels. He started blogging in 2007, sharing advice on the publishing and writing process, agents and self-publishing.
Curtis Brown Creative
https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/blog/
Curtis Brown Creative – the writing course arm of the agency – have a useful blog full of writing tips from their writing course leaders and blogs from acclaimed authors.
Susan Dennard
https://susandennard.com/for-writers/
Best-selling author of fantasy Susan Dennard has an extensive list of writing resources on her website.
Query Shark
A very useful blog looking at successful query letters, and providing tips and advice on how to revise query letters so as to give them the best chance of achieving their purpose.
Commonwealth Writers
Commonwealth Writers is the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation. It inspires, develops and connects writers and storytellers in a range of disciplines. It builds communities of less-heard voices and links them to groups which seek to bring about social change.
LitRejections
LitRejections helps writers persevere through rejection.
With the ability to publish their own stories of rejection on the site, exclusive interviews with industry professionals, advice articles, inspirational quotes, and full access to an extensive database of worldwide literary agents, the website is a haven for the rejected.
Novelicious
Novelicious is a bright and passionate website dedicated to Women's Fiction readers, writers and aspiring writers. Visit Novelicious for up to date news, reviews, exclusive author interviews, writing tips and competitions.
Bookanista
Bookanista is a monthly web magazine featuring author interviews, essays, new fiction, extracts, book recommendations, picture stories, diary pieces and blogs about the published word.
Smart Quill Insider Tips & Advice
smartquilleditorial.co.uk/tips/
The blog of Smart Quill Editorial, filled with expert tips and advice for writers.
The Writing Platform
The Writing Platform is a website dedicated to arming writers with digital knowledge. The website is a free online resource for writers and poets – whether they are emerging or established, traditionally published, self-published or not yet published – who are looking for neutral and best practice information about writing in the digital age in order to inform their practice and career choices.
The BBC Writers' Room
This part of the BBC website is devoted to finding and championing new talent for all BBC platforms – offers advice, inspiration and first-hand experience from established writers. They also run Script Room, an open submission door for all writers across the UK, twice a year.
Now Novel
Now Novel is a book writing website that provides help for aspiring writers. The bi-weekly Now Novel blog offers writing tips and how to's. The members area of the site includes the Ideas Finder (an organised tool for creating your novel’s blueprint), online writing groups and critiques and downloadable writing guides. Members can also sign up for motivating one-on-one writing coaching.
The Itch of Writing
emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/
A blog by Emma Darwin talking all about fiction and creative non-fiction: writing it, reading it, teaching it and sometimes hating it. There’s a wealth of blog posts on the writing process as well as The Tool Kit section, which is an extensive list of writing resources.
Bafta Guru
An online hub full of advice covering everything from screenwriting to writing for games. The Screenwriters Lecture page is full of inspirational talks packed full of advice on the writing process.
Poetry
Apples and Snakes
Apples and Snakes is the leading organisation for performance poetry in England, with a national reputation for producing exciting and innovative participation and performance work in spoken word.
Poetry London
Poetry London is an arts charity and leading international poetry magazine which is published three times a year. They also hold an annual poetry competition.
Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.
Poetry Archive
The Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable to a wide audience. It aims to bring the widest possible audience to the fullest possible range of English-language poetry being published around the world, and to complement that poetry with educational material of value both to the specialist and to the general reader.
The Poetry Society
The Poetry Society was founded in 1909 to 'promote "a more general recognition and appreciation of poetry". Since then, it has grown into one of Britain's most dynamic arts organisations, representing British poetry both nationally and internationally. Today it has nearly 4000 members worldwide and publishes the leading poetry magazine, Poetry Review.
Poets.org
Poets.org aims to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry.
The Poetry Society of America
The Poetry Society of America, the nation's oldest poetry organization, was founded in 1910. Its mission is to build a larger and more diverse audience for poetry, to encourage a deeper appreciation of the vitality and breadth of poetry in the cultural conversation, and to place poetry at the crossroads of American life.
Poetry Daily
Poetry Daily is an anthology of contemporary poetry and, each day, brings a new poem from new books magazines, and journals.
Podcasts
Always Take Notes
Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd speak to a wide variety of authors and publishing professionals about the writing process, and also mine for useful insight into the publishing business from the perspective of the writer.
Backlisted
Hosts John Mitchinson and Andy Miller give new life to old books by inviting guests to discuss a book they love and why it deserves a wider audience.
The Editing Podcast
louiseharnbyproofreader.com/podcast.html
Hosted by Denise Cowley and Louise Harnby, two professional editors, listen for top tips, tools and guidance on how to improve your writing and self-editing skills.
The Bestseller Experiment
bestsellerexperiment.com/
Mark Stay and Mark Desvaux attempt to learn about, write and publish a bestseller in 52 works. Along the way, they talk with publishing industry professionals, best-selling authors, agents, editors, social media experts and many more.
Story A Day May
A podcast to get you writing. Each episode features a particular topic and gives you a writing task to complete before the next episode.
MostlyLit
An award-winning books and pop-culture podcast, created and hosted by Alex Reads, Raifa Rafiq and Derek Owusu - and managed and executive produced by Clarissa Pabi
Literary Friction
nts.live/shows/literaryfriction
Hosted by Octavia Bright and Carrie Plitt, Literary Friction build a show around a related theme, interviewing brilliant authors with some expert book recommendations thrown in for good measure too.
Honest Authors
spreaker.com/show/honest-authorss-show
Authors Gillian McAllister and Holly Seddon discuss the truth behind being a full-time writer and host interviews with industry professionals – from literary agents and editors to fellow best-selling authors.
Death of 1000 Cuts
timclarepoet.co.uk/tag/death-of-1000-cuts/
Hosted by author Tim Clare, this podcast is for writers of fiction, full of motivational rants, writing exercises, interviews with authors, and detailed critiques of first pages submitted by listeners.
What Editors Want
shows.pippa.io/what-editors-want
Hosted by Philip Connor Finn, editor at Unbound, this podcast features weekly interviews with editors from the world of publishing, talking about how books get made.