I think we should compile a list of books, websites, software, and other reference material that we individually have found good or helpful to our writing so that we can share them with others.

If you have something that helped you that you would like to share with everyone just post it with a little description about why you like it and how it helped you, or something like that.

I am gonna try to keep editing this post with the entries so someone doesn't have to dig through all our posts for a list for suggestions.

Books:
"Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need" by Blake Snyder.
"The First Five Pages" by Noah Lukeman. [From Sion]
"The Planet Construction Kit and the Language Construction Kit" by Mark Rosenfelder [From Sion]
"On Writing" by Stephen King [From Zero]
"The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr & E.B. White [From Zero]
"On Screen Writing" by Edward Dmytryk [From Zero]

Websites:
Reliable and interesting Name Generator
"How To Create A Plot Outline In 8 Easy Steps" Article [From Sion]
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Podcast [From Sion]
Endarra A fantastic website, especially for world building. Also includes a podcast called Shakespeare and Dragons. [From DavidBGoode]
Online Writing Workshop An online community of writers. Costs about $50 a year, but much more prestigious. May open the door to some helpful relationships with budding authors who have gone on to become pros. [From DavidBGoode]

Software:
yWriter - Nifty word processor for Novels [From Saragon]
Celtx - Free Script writing software
Google Docs - Online word processor, great for sharing stories (Just as the Writers guild members who use it for that purpose) [Thanks to Saragon]
Open office - Another Word processor, similar to Microsoft office or Google docs. No special story writing features but it works offline and is free.
Libre Office - From the makers of Open Office, but supposedly better and still free (unlike Microsoft Office) and works offline (unlike Google Docs) [From Bai Shen]
Do - An organizational tool for any projects but helps keep a distracted procrastinating writer on task. [From Jahaili]
Scrivener - It's a program which apparently does something for writers. From it's website it looks like it has a note card thing and it says it is "a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents" and also claims it's for getting to the end of your first draft, but it apparently won't work on all computers (or so I'm told). So maybe for you, it does nothing! I dunno, J suggested it so I put it up here. It also costs money. [From Jahaili]

I wanted to start us off with the book that taught me a whole bunch about writing for an audience and coveyed the information in such an interesting way that I WANTED to keep reading it. It also quantify Story structure for me rather than a very vague "Act 1-We meet people Act 2-Stuff happens Act 3-Finale". It also has tips on how to write your work to "sell" it to someone (In particular they are discussing scripts but I am sure some of the advice can be used for shopping around a book too) so they will help distribute it.

I also wanted to suggest something that I find REALLY helpful. When I started writing all my characters were named Allen, Max, Sam, and other generic names like that because I couldn't think of names. Other name generators are only some what helpful as they spit out generic or too odd sounding names neither of which were helpful. The Generator at "Be a Better Writer.com" (Which by it's name I assume I should probably take some time to explore what other goodies I might be able to mine form it some point) actually spits out a pretty interesting name every time you ask for one. Not many options but It's effective.

yWriter - nifty writing software
Google Docs

Software is a good thing too!

I'll throw out Celtix then. It's the program I use for script writing and it does the formatting automatically

And Open office... cause why not!

Actually, you want Libre Office. When Oracle bought Sun the developers forked OO and created a version not beholden to Oracle.

Scrivener. I've heard that it works AMAZINGLY well for those whose computers it works on. I loved what little I was able to use, but my computer just hates the program.

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
A good "how to write book". I believe that to get good at writing you have to write but these books do help. I like this one because it doesn't go into the writer's philosophy of writing. It is straight forward, to the point.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Five-Pages-WriterS-Rejection/dp/068485743X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345317574&sr=1-1&keywords=the+first+five+pages

The Planet Construction Kit and the Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder.
http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345318999&sr=1-1&keywords=the+planet+construction+kit
This guy is a Nerd God. Not only has he created all this content but he has taken the time to write about the process. If you struggle with creating a large history for your world then you have to read the History section in the Planet Construction Kit.

http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/plot-outline.html
This article taught me how to write plot outlines. I like it because it could of been a rehashing of the three act structure and the stupid pyramid with the climax at the top and BLAH BLAH BLAH! It actually goes into the needed ingredients for the soup that is called the story.

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Podcast: This show is where I learn most of my history from. Dan Carlin certainly has a style to his history. As he often mentions himself, he is not a historian, he's a fan. But that allows him to say things that historians wouldn't say. He brings history to life and in high def! Not only will if help you with your world building, but it will teach you about history, and also history is just the narrative of mankind. Find it on iTunes.

My wife is a huge fan of Scrivener. It's very helpful for organizing your thoughts, plot, characters, and the like, but not so helpful on my little notebook pc.



A really fantastic website is http://enderra.com/, especially for worldbuilding. Paul Stark created a series of podcasts called Shakespeare & Dragons which Enderra has available (I can't find it on iTunes anymore). He has some very thought provoking ideas helpful for writing or gaming.

My wife (who is leagues ahead of me as a writer) was a member of the Online Writing Workshop. It costs about $50 a year, but really helped her to hone her craft, and also opened the door to some helpful relationships with budding authors who have gone on to become pros - Ilona Andrews, Rae Carson, Jodi Meadows, Elizabeth Bear, C Finlay. http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/

Topic bookmarked ^.^

I would recommend Two General Books- Stephen King's On Writing

This is an amazing book in my opinion, and I often give it as a gift to writers or recommend it. It takes about some of the most basic pieces and fundamentals of writing, like the writer's toolbox, and provides examples from Stephen King's life to demonstrate.

Strunk & White's The Elements of Style

I'm a big believer that you need to know the rules in order to break them most effectively. Even if you want to write really exotic literature or very stylistic, this book is good because then you will understand what you are choosing not to do.

And For people specifically interested in writing scripts- On Screen Writing by Edward Dmytryk

This book was given to me as a birthday gift by a friend of mine who went to school to become a director/film editor, and it's very good. I of course, got him On Writing in return.

Okay, this is more of an organizational thing that's helpful for me, but I'm going to recommend Do. I like it because it's let me organize what I need to do with each book into sections - so, say, Draft One, Draft Two, Draft Three, etc... - and then within that create tasks (so I can have Draft One: Write Chapters 1-2) and pick a date to have them completed. And then I just mark it as done when I've finished it.

Then again, I might be one of those crazy people who loves being super organized.