Writing is a skill that can be self-taught. There are many successful writers out there who never took a single formal class yet managed to learn all the necessary skills for their chosen careers. However, learning something from a third party source of information will always be a big advantage, and there’s no reason to avoid them if the online learning sites are completely free. If you find yourself in this situation, you may want to check out these 5 free online learning sites every writer should visit:
1. QuickandDirtyTips.com/grammar-girl
Mignon Fogarty’s section at QuickandDirtyTips is a great site for writers who want to get authoritative clarification on a wide variety of issues related to grammar (toward vs. towards, fish vs. fishes, etc) and learn a few tidbits of grammar and vocabulary-related information along the way. The articles at the site are written with as little jargon as possible, and use a casual slightly humorous tone, making them ideal for novice writers who wish to learn but don’t want to get bogged down by punditry and semantics.
2. TheWritePractice.com
Started by Joe Bunting, the clue as to what The Write Practice is about is in the name – encouraging writers to practice their craft and giving them the right tools to do so. The site is jam packed with great articles covering topics which amongst others include how to write stories, plots, settings, and characters. Many articles are also self-development related and help writers to increase their confidence in themselves. Uniquely, at the end of each article, there is a 15 minutes practice where you can develop the skill taught in the article.
3. WritersHelpingWriters.com
While targeted more towards novelists, Writers Helping Writers is still a good site to visit for any writer regardless of genre. The site is home to a writing community that offers solid craft advice, unique tools, and friendly support. The founders of the site also created a unique thesaurus that includes character traits, emotions, setting, physical attributes, symbolism, and more. Writers helping Writers is run by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
4. WritersBucketList.com
A Writer’s Bucket List is a community that marries two aspects of the writing industry that are frequently at odds with each other – the craft side and the business side. The community managed by Dana Sitar, will allow writers to get peer reviews and to gather feedback from other expert writers, as well as get tips from freelancers, entrepreneurs, and marketers in the writing industry.
5. TheProcrastiWriter.com
As the title of the site implies, The Procrastiwriter is geared towards writers who are having trouble squeezing writing into an otherwise busy schedule. The site run by Shanan Haislip, provides tips, tutorials, expert advice, and articles that will help writers find the time to write or manage their time better, so that they can pursue writing as a fulltime career.
The sites provided above should have enough material and help to last you a while, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more online learning sites geared towards writers, and people who wish to delve deeper at the cost of a little bit of money can check out universities that offer online writing courses. Most of the online courses might not be useful if you want a degree that is credited by colleges, but they work well enough if you just want to better your craft.
Image credit: Denise Krebs on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]