If I haven’t made it totally obvious by now, one thing I love almost as much as writing is talking about writing. I’m also a perfectionist. So I spend a lot of time online looking for things that make me think about my writing and things to help me improve my writing. It seemed a shame to keep all those resources to myself, so I’ve compiled a list of them to share with anyone reading this who writes or wants to try writing fanfic. It’s all divided up into what I hope are pretty useful categories, and you might even find a few things you’re interested in even if you aren’t a writer.

Research

Some specific information about Hanson that may be helpful for writers and some other useful research/resources.

General

Historical Resources for Fanfic Writers
Little Details For questions about almost any possible little but important detail in your story.
tour life? A post with some good information about touring bands.

Hanson

Hansonish Humorous site, but quite informative about some bits of Hanson canon (great Fools Banquet section, for example).
HansonSongs.com Mostly accurate lyrics and song info.
HansonStage.com News articles, interviews, lyrics, and a list of every Hanson concert ever with opening acts and setlists.
HitzPics.com Huge picture resource over the years.
Mmmboptastic.com Up to date news and a great archive of old news articles.
A quick history of Hanson — image heavy! (mostly basic info, but still possibly useful)
Taylor Hanson History Lesson (for non-Hanson fan SNAFU readers)
Thinking Bout Hanson Argentina Mostly in English, despite the name! Lots of update to date info, news and various media.
Those Hanson Devils Fansite with very detailed list of events in the bands’ history. Hasn’t been updated since 2009.

Writing: The Technical Side

Advice and resources for the technical side of writing — that is, how to put words together into something readable.

General/Miscellaneous

20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes
Format, Paragraphs and Pacing: All the Boring Crap that Makes a Fic Readable.
How To Use The Semicolon
Open Letter To Bad Fic Writers (but the rest of you should read it too).
Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do)
Tenses and Point of View in Fiction: Is Present Tense More Desperate?
Urban Legends from the World of Grammar

Words and Language

Confusing Words
A Dictionary of Slang
The Free Dictionary
Phrase Thesaurus
Synonym Finder and Thesaurus
Writing Thoughts: Beautiful Words

Writing: The Creative Side

Advice about how to turn those grammatical sentences into something people actually enjoy reading.

General and Miscellaneous

The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life
Balancing Backstory
Effective Foreshadowing
On Writing AUs
The Top 10 Mistakes New Writers Make
Writing About Writing

The Writing Process

Inspiration
Ficspiration
Hanfic Plot Generator
Hanfic Slash Generator
Hourly Writing Prompts
Imagine your OTP (prompts based on scenarios for your favorite ships)
Prompts and Pointers
Spark Your Imagination
A Writing Prompt A Day Keeps Sanity At Bay
writing prompts

Plotting
The 36 Dramatic Situations
Dropping Hints: keys to effective foreshadowing
Giving your plot a good kick in the ass
Outlining vs. Not Outlining
The planning process
Plot Is Not A Four Letter Word
what we talk about when we talk about outlining
When Is A Scene Not Necessary?
Writing Better Fanfic Using Romance Structure
Writing Meta: Event-Based Plotting
Writing Without a Plot

Story Length
How to write long-form stories
Ten things you can do in the middles of novels

Writers Block
10 Ways To Get Out Of Your Writer’s Rut
110 Resources For Creative Minds
911 Writers Block
How To Finish A Work In Progress
The Illusion of the Muse
Jump right back on that horse (4 ways to get back into writing)
Rx for Writer’s Block
Ten things to do when you’ve gotten bored with your novel
What do you do when you’re stuck?

Style

Description
The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life
How To Keep the Thesaurus From Throwing Up On Your Work
Show, Don’t Tell

Point of View and Voice
25 Things You Should Know About Narrative Point of View
Evoking consistent mood
Multiple POVs
On Voice
Revising for Stronger POV and Narrative
Viewpoint Techniques 102
Writing in 2nd Person POV

Story Elements

Characterization
25 Things A Great Character Needs
Characterization and Body Language
Characterization in the small details
Literary Criticism, the Mirror Cliche, and Describing a First-Person Narrator
Making Original Characters Original
“Who the fuck are these people, and why the fuck do I care?”: thoughts on characterization

Dialogue
Dean, Grimly: Or, How to Dialogue Good
Dialogue Formatting Tutorial
Dialogue Tags – A Study In Common Errors
First-Person Narration and Dialogue
Framing Dialogue
How To Use Proper Punctuation When Writing Dialogue
How to Write Natural dialogue and Brotherly Banter and Make It Sound American.
The Interrupter: Blending Action and Dialog Dynamically
Making The Talking Sound Like Talking
The Mechanics of Dialogue
On punctuating dialogue
Punctuating Dialogue

Sex Scenes
1001 Ways To Write An Orgasm
How To Write Smokin’ Hot Smut
Kink list and kink wiki
Lemons: Tips and Tricks
Make It Hot!
Make Love—-The WhiteKnightro Way
More about writing orgasms
On writing kisses
On writing sex
Sex Scenes: Cap Your Pens, Ladies and Gents, ‘Cause We’re About to Talk Dirty
Smut 101
Smut 101: The Geekfiction Guide to Getting It On…On the Page
Why do you think the ‘net was born? Porn, porn, porn!
WriteWorld Writers Talk Shop on Writing Sex from a Male’s Perspective
Writing smut for the non-smut writer
Writing Stories With Rape: Tips (Part I)
Writing Smut: A Guide

Finishing Touches

Advice on everything you should do once you’ve finished that first draft.

Editing

How to Revise
Revising a Novel
Writing Tips: Proofreading

Fanmixes

Fic Soundtracks: Unite Rhythm With Words
How to Make a Fanmix

Graphics

Fic Pics (tutorials, a banner adoption center and more)

Posting and Sharing Fic

An Easy Guide to Writing a Kickass Summary
Getting Over The Fear Of Posting
Headers, or the only way we have to judge a book by its cover
How To Become Successful on Wattpad
How To Get Reads, Votes and Comments: A Guide
How to post your fanfiction on LJ
On transformative works policies
Presentation and readability for LJ and beyond
Protips for Summarizing Your Story
Self Promotion 101: Pimp Your Fic
Self Promotion 101: Pimp Your Fic, II
Ten Simple Ways To Get More Attention For Your Fanwork
A Users’ Guide to AO3 Tagging
Wattpad Handbook
Where Should I Post My Fanfic?

Titles

Entitlement? in a sense
I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself (the one where fakeplasticsnow helps you title your fic)

Various Resources

Anything that didn’t fit into the other categories.

Cool Websites

50 Tools Which Can Help You In Writing
750words.com
Adoptable Stuff (from the NaNoWrimo Forums)
Dark Copy Simple, full screen text-editing
Hanfic Plots Advice, links and tons of ideas for hanfic writers.
Hanfic Sprints Sprint with other hanfic writers to help push up your word count and to have fun socializing.
Mind Meister Online mind mapping program.
Nymbler — Your Personal Baby Naming Assistant
Prompts and Pointers
Seventh Sanctum Generators
Thinkbabynames.com
TVTropes.org
Write Or Die
Writing Junk (tips and more)
Writrs: A Tumblr Community (tips, activities, prompts, etc)

Programs to Download

Dark Room Word processor that allows you to write with no distractions.
Evernote Note taking and organizing program.
Open Office Free word processor that mimics older versions of Word.
Readability Firefox add-on that makes it much easier to read websites (great for reading fic!).
Scrivener Program (Mac only, but with a Windows beta) for storyboarding and writing.
SuperNotecard Program for creating digital story notecards.
yWriter Free novel writing software.

Other Guides

A few other full guides to writing fanfic to peruse after you’re finished here.

A (Beginner’s) Guide to Fanfiction
How To Become a Better Writer
How To Write Fanfiction