Other Free Resources
A curated list for you
Kathy Steinemann has built one of the most practical free lexicon resources available to fiction writers. Thousands of categorized words for sensory detail, body language, emotion, and more. We use it. You should too.” Click on the Archive.PDF link at the top of Kathy’s webpage. We have Kathy’s books on the top of our writer’s bookshelf.
Claude Sonnet is the best AI resource we’ve found for fiction writers. It reads your work the way a sharp developmental editor would, pointing to what’s working, what’s pulling the reader out, and exactly how to close the gap. We’ve tried the others. This is the one we keep coming back to.
K.M. Weiland goes deep on story structure and character arcs. Not surface-level advice, but the underlying architecture of how stories actually work. Hundreds of free articles, plus a Story Structure Database that maps the beats of well-known books and films.
Janice Hardy has built a library of nearly 3,000 free craft articles at Fiction University, with a focus on the practical how-to. Not just what to fix, but exactly how to fix it. You will find strong coverage of POV, conflict, and revision.
Brandon’s BYU university-level lectures on plot, character, worldbuilding, and more — free on YouTube. The 2025 edition is now available. One of the best free craft resources anywhere, especially for speculative fiction writers.