As a graduate of Writer's Digest's Novel Writing Course some years ago, I feel confident in recommending the many online classes now offered by WD through Writers Online Workshops. My experience was entirely positive, from the information-rich materials (which I still use) to the helpful advice I received from the course mentors.

Thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, William Stukeley in the eighteenth, Madame Blavatsky in the nineteenth and Robert Graves in the twentieth (to name but a few), and to a number of sixteenth century writers who wanted to captivate readers with thrilling, hair-raising tales (and thereby increase sales of their books!) we now have all sorts of incorrect 'facts' about the Celts floating around.

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make about the Celts reveals intriguing facts about:

• Celtic society and law;
• religious beliefs and practices;
• the Druids - who they were and what they did;
• what the Otherworld meant to the Celts;
• how they felt about death; and
• the main characters and themes in the literature of the Irish Celts.

Mother Nature’s ways are always complex and often confusing. And although all of us are part of the environment, interacting with it daily, few know the true extent of the interwoven connections. If you want to write novels with backgrounds that are just as 3dimensional as your characters you should start exploring Nature with this comprehensible overview.

Here's why:
Many genre writers do not give a second thought to the ecology of their novel. After all they are living in an ecosystem themselves. They think they know enough if only they get the culture of their characters right. Do you want to know more than they do?

Fantasy writers create amazing worlds of great detail that often enough seem to be detached from the every day experiences of their characters. Do you want to avoid this mistake?

Writers and readers of Science Fiction know much about physics and astrophysics but more often than not once their astronauts land their worlds falls flat. Do you want to create ecosystems with aliens that could really have evolved there?

If your answer to any one of these questions is “Yes,” you need “The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Mother Nature.”...[more]

Writing good dialogue is trickier than it seems. If you've ever said the words...

"What My Characters Say On The Page Never Sounds As Good As What They Say In My Head!"

...then help is here.

In THE WRITING CRAFT: Dialogue and Subtext, you will learn:

• What subtext is, and what it isn't---and how this simple definition opens the doors for you to create rich, multilayered characters in stories that interweave suspense, hidden action, deception, triumph, hopes and dreams with depth you've never achieved before.
  
• How to break apart subtext into its three elements---thoughts, words, and actions---and how, once you have the whole thing in pieces, you can easily adapt each piece to do different things for you. Talking about the weather will no longer just be talking about the weather.
  
• How to put the pieces back together again in four ways that will allow you to use subtexts in any situation where you need it: from a character sitting alone in a room to a group of characters enmeshed in a heated argument. Get EXACTLY the effect you want from every dialogue---internal or external, solo or group---your characters have.
  
• Finally, you'll put everything you've learned into practice. Using the provided worksheet, you will begin writing dialogue with subtext today.

Would-be writers have a multitude of reasons for not writing:

• I don't have time.
• I'm afraid I won't be good at it.
• I don't want to embarrass anyone.
• I get started, but then I lose interest.
• I keep having new ideas that seem better than the old ones.

Holly's How To Motivate Yourself course includes:

• seven videos
• the course transcripts
• mindmaps for each section
• a course outline
• and worksheets to help you drill down to the core of what motivates you.

You want to keep your readers hanging on your every word, but every time you relax your vigilance, your characters start lounging around, talking about the weather, drinking coffee and leaning against walls.

Or perhaps you get fascinated by your own worldbuilding, and when you look up from writing, you discover what you've done is a twenty- page infodump.

Maybe your scenes race by so fast that when you read them back, you find the barest sketch of the picture you had in your head while you were writing....[more]

This comprehensive, sane, and fun writing course is the answer to the question "How do I write a novel?"--from coming up with ideas all the way through to publication. Gifford, a writer, editor, and associate publisher, and the owner of the Forward Motion Writers' Community, guides you one logical step at a time through every step of writing your novel. From making sure your idea is a good one (or coming up with a new idea), through developing your characters, building your world, outlining your story, writing your first draft, rethinking and reworking your second draft, doing final edits, and finally sending your work off to an editor or publisher, Gifford makes sure you'll never need to ask the dreaded question "What do I do now?"...[more]

This second book of Zette's comprehensive, sane, and fun writing course completes the answer to the question "How do I write a novel?"--from coming up with ideas all the way through to publication. Gifford, a writer, editor, and associate publisher, and the owner of the Forward Motion Writers' Community, guides you one logical step at a time through every step of writing your novel. From making sure your idea is a good one (or coming up with a new idea), through developing your characters, building your world, outlining your story, writing your first draft, rethinking and reworking your second draft, doing final edits, and finally sending your work off to an editor or publisher, Gifford makes sure you'll never need to ask the dreaded question "What do I do now?"...[more]

You can create a novel, short story, or screenplay plot from beginning to end, even if you don't know what you want to write about yet. Want to write fiction but don't know where to start? Do you have a stack of 30-page novels that have stalled? Are you stuck in the vast morass of your novel's middle? Don't know how to figure out your ending? Or do you have the whole first draft done, with the sinking feeling that something's wrong with the story, but you don't know what, or where?...[more]

In Create A Language Clinic, you'll learn:

• To create a distinct sound for your language
• To build names that fit your cultures
• To use your languages to shape your fictional cultures and characters
• To generate story plots from language-building
• To develop concepts that do not exist in the English language (or any other)
• To work your languages into your fiction in ways that that will not alienate your readers
• To create working spoken and written languages

• Novelists
• RPG Gamers, Game Masters, and Game Designers
• Conlangers and other language ethusiasts
• And anyone who ever wanted to see how a language was put together by taking one apart, and then putting a whole new one together from the pieces...[more]

Create religions and philosophies, governments and lifestyles that are different than your own, that work together, and that feel real. Avoid cliches. Begin using your new culture in your writing.... All in about five hours. ...[more]

In Holly Lisle's Create A Character Clinic, you'll learn:

• What makes a character interesting (and what doesn't)
• Techniques for giving your characters compelling needs that resonate with readers
• How to use the seven critical areas of character development to prevent "cardboard characters" and address areas of your characters' lives you've never considered before
• Techniques for developing characters' individual voices
• Three ways of presenting your character to the reader, with proven techniques in each
• Fifteen huge sins writers commit with their characters, and how you can avoid them -- or better yet, turn them to your advantage and use them to surprise, excite, and delight your readers...[more]

In this book, you'll learn:

• How to plot under pressure
• How to set realistic, workable writing goals
• One way to approach writing short stories
• How to sharpen your talent and organize your research
• Several ways of making your characters more real
• A dozen approaches to plotting
• How to see the world you're writing in as if it were real, and how to make it breathe for your readers
• How to decide if that story that is making you crazy is salvagable, or if it must die
• How to resurrect old stories, how to revise your novel in one take, and much more

Life ain't gentle.

It can kick the wind out of you, drain your creativity dry, leave you rolled up in a ball under the table sucking your thumb. And sometimes it comes at you so hard and so fast that all you can do is grit your teeth and let it, and pray for better days.

If you write for a living, though, or want to, you need to know how to get out from under the table as fast as possible, to kick-start your creativity, and to turn whatever it was that just ran over you to your advantage....[more]

A Three-Day Plus 20 Minute Do-It-Yourself Writing Bootcamp
You want to write.
You've always wanted to write.
But you:

• Can't find the time
• Can't find the initiative
• Can't find the discipline

If you're currently making it through the day with a roof over your head, keeping yourself (and those who depend on you) fed and out of trouble, you already have the discipline you need to write and complete books....[more]

Beat Your Writer's Block!
Make Writing FUN Again, Today

You can be:

• Fully committed to breaking your block in ten minutes
• Discovering how to get past what was stalling you in ten more
• Generating fresh ideas and exciting twists and turns for your blocked story or a brand new one ten minutes after that
• Learning how to stay focused in under ten minutes more
• And writing your story, and having fun doing it, five minutes after that

Are You Writing? Just As Importantly, Are You Having Fun When You Write? ...[learn more]