For this week’s #52Tech post, I’ve collected a few reference type webapps and/or posts which are bookmarkable for many writers.
This listing is kept short. More will be detailed in Part 2 next week.
Editing and Revision
10 Words to Cut from your Writing – this post at Entrepreneur lists ten words, which you can add to a MS Word macro…- Omit Needless Words with a Macro – this post has the script for a Word macro, using a word list by Janice Hardy.
- Misused Words – a large list at Daily Writing Tips.
- Commonly confused words – at Oxford Dictionaries
- Common Misspelled Words list – at Daily Writing Tips
- Pro Editing Aid – use the free version to check for overused words etc. Premium options allow you to do this through MS Word.
- Word Frequency Counter at WriteWords – rudimentary but helpful. <<- I pasted to this point, to find I used the words “writing”, “macro” and “list” three times each.
More Word References
- A Glossary of Science Fiction Jargon – Eric S. Raymond
- Gangster Words (direct PDF download) – from a themed party website.
- Flapper Speak (direct PDF download) – word lists from the 1920’s and 1930’s.
- Sensual Words – Annette Blair
- British English Words (which of course, I use daily as does several billion other people)
- Canadian English at Wiktionary.
- The origins of our language – French Phrases, German Phrases, Russian Words, Spanish words used in English
- Word Hippo – Word Hippo lets you find similar or opposite words.
- Online Entymology Dictionary – the history and derivation for just about any modern English language word you can think of. Scroll down for a link to an Asian one also.
Eras, Nature and All Sorts of References
- Words, music lyrics, fads and top tens – from the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s.
- Geographical Reference Charts – visual charts for nature.
- What the Font – if you also design, upload an image, and this website will try to work out what font is used.
- This to That – tells you what adhesive to use to attach this to, er…that.
- Lots of references relevant for writers are gathered by many of us on Pinterest. Take a look at my own Writing – References and Research board, and the other writing boards. I’ve just this week organised out over 3000 pins into relevant sub-catergories, and watch many other user boards for fresh pins.
Cool Tools
Title Capitalization.com – confused by where capitals should appear in your title? Yeah, me too – blog titles appear to be altering as we go. Use this quick webapp to input your title and it will capitalise all you need using rules from The Chicago Manual of Style: 16 ed. paragraph 8.155- Now Do This – input your todo list in natural language and it will set a timer for you. So, input “Write for 1 hour” and it will count down for you. Uses Quicktime for alarm sound.
Canvanizer – digital sticky notes on a board. Collaborate, brainstorm and organise your ideas. The canvas templates you must choose from are very business orientated, but the kanban and a couple of others may be useful. There appears no blank one to start off from but it’s still currently free!- Fake Name Generator – choose a name set, country, gender, and this webapp delivers you not only a character name, but all sorts of details like weight, height, blood type, address in that country, and things like UPS Tracking numbers and GUIDs that I never knew existed.
- Strip Creator – like to create storyboards for your plot but can’t even attempt a stick man? Then this webapp may help you out. Don’t spend too much time perusing all the other shared strips, though.
- Date to Date Calendar – I’m always creating characters with birth dates, then wondering how old they are when I hit them with a certain plot point. Date to Date calculates this out. You can even input time fields, to work out just how long that particular scene takes to get through in real time.
#52Tech: This was Week 37 post in the #52tech goal – to investigate and share one technology post once a week for 2014. You can find all the posts indexed via the #52tech tag, or top menu option at hunterswritings.com
