Saturday, July 2, 2011

Writing Worksheets and Other Tools

cohdra100_1413I’m doing something a little different today, since it’s the July 4th weekend here in the States.

I’ve tweeted some writing worksheets I came across lately and they received good play on Twitter. I thought I’d link to them here, too. Just in case you’ve got writing planned for your long weekend and enjoy using worksheets. :)

The Diary of a Trainee Paranormal Romance Writer blogger, Catherine Pawsey, has really outdone herself, digging up resources for writers. She rounded up some very useful worksheets. Among them:

The Novel Notebook The novel-writing diagram

  • Planning a story
  • Plot Tree Worksheet
  • Plot/Character Movement
  • Scene Chart
  • Scene Outline
  • Setting Worksheet
  • Story Plan Checklist
  • The Complications Worksheet
  • Please check out Catherine Pawsey’s site because she also links to other resources, including workshops on various topics like pacing. If you scroll to the very bottom of her blog, there will be a list of tools.Link

    Manon Eileen has a great worksheet--the Main Character Survey. You can find it here on her site. You fill it in online, then you can print afterwards.

    These worksheets are excellent and are from our friends at the Adventures in Children’s Publishing blog (but are for all genres):

    The Scene Conflict Worksheet - Developing Tension in Your Novel Plotting Made Easy - The Complications Worksheet

    Character Worksheet Part 1

    Character Worksheet Part 2

    Character Worksheet Part 3

    Character Worksheet Part 4

    Writer’s Digest worksheets—from story idea maps, to scene cards, backstory, cliffhangers, research…you name it.

    Jody Hedlund has a Character Worksheet

    Heather McCorkle’s Character Arc Worksheet

    A show-don’t-tell PDF worksheet by Toni Buzzeo

    Worksheets don’t work for you, but still need some direction? Try these posts instead:

    Kaye Dacus’ series on Creating Credible Characters

    Janice Hardy on plotting.

    Janice Hardy on creating characters.

    Outline your novel in 30 minutes

    Worksheets can help some writers organize their story, and can give others a helpful push in the right direction. I don’t always use them, but sometimes they can get me thinking about new directions for my story. See anything that might be helpful? Do you know of any to add?