Writing Tools

I've been having some fascinating talks about writing with Aleksandr Voinov lately, and one of our recurring topics has been the research writers do (or don't do, or don't but should do) for a book. That got me to thinking about some of the tools I used to research Counterpoint--some of which I literally had open on my desktop for six straight months--and I thought I'd share some here for the writers among us.

1. The MVP of Counterpoint was the Online Etymology Dictionary. Given the texture and music of the book, I decided early on not to use any words that haven't been in circulation since at least the 1600s--with, I believe, two exceptions (Challenge: see if you can identify the exceptions!). Conservatively, I looked up a thousand words there. One of the more common editing notes on Counterpoint ended up being "etymo!fail," which was shorthand for "this word's too new; find another one." Oh, how frustrating that could be :p

Anyway, this is a great resource for anyone, even if you're not constraining your language like I did. It's a ton of fun (for word geeks like me, anyway) just to see where your favorite words come from and how they've been used throughout the years. Sometimes that even helps you to understand their nuance better. Check it out!

2. Another critical--and useful-to-everyone--site for Counterpoint was Thesaurus.com. I think this one's self-explanatory :)

3. A third site I visited often was the Norse-English Online Dictionary. Elves are a part of Norse mythology, and I went back to their roots to name people and places and create the slang of this world.

This probably won't be of any specific help to most of you, but it's good just to know that these kinds of resources are out there, for whenever you have a need for any foreign language (even dead ones :p).

4. Rooms In a Medieval Castle was also useful for helping to set the scene. I visited a number of other similar sites to paint the most complete picture I could, and I highly recommend that anyone working in this sort of setting pursue similar resources.

5. Since music was such an important part of Counterpoint's world, I bookmarked this Wikipedia page, and I visited it often. Even though I've been singing all my life, sometimes professionally, I still found this site to be useful, as I don't have much formal music training.

6. Speaking of Wikipedia, this one was invaluable too for determining the roles and titles of castle staff and courtiers. So was this one. And so were a great many of the links found on both of those pages.

Well, that about covers it! If you're giving some websites a workout in the process of your own writing, share the links in the comments!