Technology for the Writer

Tech­nol­ogy can be a blessing and a curse. Some software applications seem to be designed to make our heads hurt. Thankfully, there are some to make life easier for a writer, student or teacher. This technology can aid in research, help cre­ate, and pub­lish poems, plays, nov­els, essays, and short sto­ries. The internet is full of free writ­ing soft­ware, brain­storm­ing tools, out­lin­ing appli­ca­tions, gram­mar guides, and other hi-tech tools designed to make writ­ing ses­sions less com­pli­cated and more pro­duc­tive. Below is a list of 20 such tech tools and resources.

1. Book Mar­ket­ing Net­work- An online social net­work for authors and publishers.
2. Book­sie — Writ­ers can use Book­sie to cre­ate and pub­lish nov­els, sto­ries, poems, and other writ­ten works. It allows users to track read­ers, receive and respond to com­ments, build an online pro­file, and com­mu­ni­cate with a fan base.
3. Duotrope – Free resource site listing more than 3000 fiction and poetry publications. Writers can find a home for their work using a search by genre, style, length, payscale and even response time.
4. Ever­note- This free note tak­ing sys­tem helps writ­ers out­line, write char­ac­ter notes, or quickly jot down ideas for later use. Ever­note can also be used to clip and share notes on the web.
5. Glypho- A prac­tice site for writ­ers. Users can jot down a story con­cept, get plot and char­ac­ter ideas from peo­ple around the world, and work with others to cre­ate a col­lab­o­ra­tive novel.
6. Gram­mar Girl- This pod­cast is per­fect for writ­ers who want to improve their gram­mar and sen­tence struc­ture. Each pod­cast episode fea­tures a sim­ple trick for remem­ber­ing the most pesky gram­mar rules.
7. Loos­eS­titch- A place for writ­ers to brain­storm, cre­ate out­lines, fine tune ideas, and get feed­back from edi­tors or friends.
8. Merriam-Webster — America’s fore­most pub­lisher of language-related ref­er­ence mate­ri­als pro­vides one of the best dic­tio­nar­ies and the­sauruses avail­able for free on the web. The site also has other resources writ­ers will enjoy, such as a vocabulary-building word of the day and free word games.
9. Mind­meis­ter- A free mind map­ping tool that can be used to brain­storm and cre­ate visual outlines.
10. My Writ­ers Cir­cle- An online forum for writ­ers offering a place to chat, ask ques­tions, find jobs, get cri­tiques, and more.
11. OpenOf­fice- An open source suite of office tools for writ­ers including a word proces­sor, spread­sheet maker, data­base cre­ator, and more.
12. Preditors & Editors – Free online guide of publishers. An alphabetical listing of companies that also provides addresses as well as comments on the reliability of the company.
13. Rough­Draft- A free word proces­sor for writ­ers. Fea­tures include a built-in gram­mar checker, spellchecker, instant back-up, a sim­ple print sys­tem, import­ing capa­bil­i­ties, short­cut keys, a com­pre­hen­sive help sys­tem, and spe­cial modes for plays, screen­plays, nov­els, arti­cles, and short stories.
14. The Imag­i­na­tion Prompt Gen­er­a­tor- This free gen­er­a­tor for writ­ers prompts the imag­i­na­tion with a start­ing sen­tence, phrase, or idea.
15. The Story Starter- Features more than 300 mil­lion “first sen­tences,” to help writ­ers get new ideas and writ­ing prompts.
16. Urban Dic­tio­nary- Unlike most dic­tio­nar­ies, the Urban Dic­tio­nary focuses on defin­ing slang words and terms.
17. Visu­Words- A graph­i­cal dictionary/thesaurus for peo­ple who love words. It defines words and dis­plays asso­ci­ated words and concepts.
18. Write­board- A web-based white­board that aids col­lab­o­ra­tive writ­ers. It can be used to col­lab­o­rate on copy and com­pare dif­fer­ent ver­sions of a document.
19. Writer’s FM- Cre­ated specif­i­cally for writ­ers, this online radio sta­tion broad­casts music, author inter­views, and tips to get published.
20. yWriter- Designed specif­i­cally for novel writ­ers, this writ­ing soft­ware splits your man­u­script into scenes and chap­ters and has an easy-to-use inter­face. Free to download.

Do you have a favorite technology site or aid not listed?