Additional Resources such as books, guides, and social groups.

Books/guides:

I highly recommend Brandon Sanderson's Creative Writing lectures on youtube (they're long, but lots of takeaways, especially for sci-fi or fantasy writers.)

The Emotion Thesaurus an excellent guide for those trying to convey emotion.

How to Use Universal Fantasy to Seller your Books to Anyone is a book I highly recommend for people trying to tap into themes that spark people's daydreams)

The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr is an excellent book that touches on the human mind and why we tell stories and why we want to hear them. If you like psychology, you'll probably like this.

'How to Write a Damn Good Novel II' was good, particularly for giving tips on putting your hook in the first 3 paragraphs, some plotting advice, a bit on keeping your writing active and interesting, and 7 beginner mistakes. (Pantsers, for the 2 chapters on Premise, because we don't know our ending, you can save that for an editing step).

There are a number of writing guides in my Odds and Bobs reading list, and I highly recommend zoe_Blessing's How To Write Stories People Will Love.

For people who love plotting, 'Save the Cat! Writes a Novel' is a good read. (I'm a pantser, so not overly applicable for me).

Here is a decent site about verbs (and includes a lot of replacements for walked or ran, which is one of my stumbling blocks): dragonwritingprompts.blogspot.com/2009/02/1000-verbs-to-write-by.html

Alternative words for said (has a nice printable version) www.spwickstrom.com/said/

For Grammar, 'Eats, Shoots, and Leaves' wasn't bad, but grammar can really vary by country, and rules shift almost every year when it comes to things like comma use. Google can help you with most of it (as can Grammarly's help pages), but if you want a solid historic read, it's a good start.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a guide I WISH I would have bought years ago to help me with comma and grammar rules. It's a hefty paperweight, but definitely worth buying if this is the writing style you choose to follow.

Writer's Beware is a good place to check if a publisher/site is legit or predatory. They also have an information center for things like manuscripts, copyright, writing techniques, workshops, etc. www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/information-center/

For those looking to query, here is an awesome outline on how to write a Coverage Synopsis:  www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/04/17/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis/

Social groups:

If you're looking for a group of writers to hang out with, there are many places around. Feel free to search Google for writing forums or discords, or ask a friend or a fellow author for referals. There are many that specialize in certain genres.

Some basic ones include:

· Dreamland: A Wattpad book-club-based server with 1000 or so members who love to talk about writing. They have a lot of writing clubs, collaborations, story-sharing opportunities, etc. discord.gg/EjFqMbvrHK (Lots of newer writers)

· Wattworld: 1.7K users. The largest Wattpad discord. Lots of Wattpad ambassadors and such here. discord.gg/2RSgecq

· Literary Lounge: a lot of non-Wattpad authors, many of whom have published. If you're after a broader look at authors, it could be a worthwhile one to check out. discord.gg/UD7t7pN

· Wacky Writers forum similar to the old Wattpad forums with readers, writers, editors, cover makers, etc. (forum.wackywriters.com)

If you're a Facebook fan, you can search for groups like 'Wattpad is Life', 'Wattpaders', 'Wattpad and Inkitt'. These three groups also have lots of promotion activities and options if you're looking to expand your audience.