Below are the printable versions of the tools found in our bestselling books.
You can download, share, and print these as needed.
And, if you keep scrolling, you’ll find even more handouts, lists, marketing swipe files, and more. We hope these resources help a ton.
NEW! Career Assessment Tool (PDF)
- Choosing a character’s career is no small thing…the job you pick will not only communicate their personality, skillset, morals, priorities, and interests to readers, it can also feed into their character arc and goals. Our Occupation Thesaurus assessment tool looks at all the important story factors to help you choose what career is the best fit for each character.
NEW! Occupation Speed Dating Tool (PDF)
- Oh boy, with thousands of careers to choose from, which one will you pick for your character? Decisions, decisions. Don’t worry, we’ve made it easy and fun, matching 124 iconic and interesting jobs from The Occupation Thesaurus with some of the most powerful Primary Traits your character might have. Start Speed Dating!
NEW! Occupation Thesaurus Job Entry Template (PDF)
- Were you unable to find the exact career you were hoping for in our Occupation Thesaurus writing guide? NO PROBLEM. If you’ve also checked these Contributed Job Entries and the expanded Occupation Thesaurus at One Stop for Writers, we’ve put our OT job template into a handy-dandy printable pdf so you can write your own!
Character Arc Progression Tool (PDF)
- Did you know that a character’s arc is tied to the wounding event from his past? Traumatic events are formative, impacting a character’s basic need, determining his story goal, generating sources of inner conflict, and more. The Character Arc Progression Tool can help you explore all the pieces and see how they fit together. For a deeper understanding of this resource, please reference The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma.
Backstory Wound Profile (PDF)
- This questionnaire can help you map out your character’s past wounding event and its aftereffects, giving you a clear idea of who he or she is in your current story. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma.
Setting Planner (PDF)
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Use this handy tool to organize the settings in your story while keeping track of the various elements (such as sensory details, weather elements, mood, and symbolism) that will bring them to life. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Rural Setting Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Personal and Natural Places.
Emotional Value Tool (PDF)
- Craft emotionally charged scenes by using this tool to determine which settings will have the most impact on your protagonist. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Urban Setting Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to City Spaces.
Setting Checklist (PDF)
- Build each setting in your story so they do double duty while setting the stage for your reader. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Urban Setting Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to City Spaces.
Setting Exercises (PDF)
- Hone your description skills and enhance your settings with these exercises. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Rural Setting Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Personal and Natural Places.
Character Pyramid Tool (PDF)
- Visualize your character’s FLAWS & associated behaviors. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws.
Character Target Tool (PDF)
- Organize and group your character’s POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES by category: moral, achievement, interactive or identity. For a greater understanding of this tool, please reference The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes.
Character Profile Questionnaire (PDF)
- Not your average character questionnaire! Get ready to dig deep into who your character is by exploring his backstory & personality (sourced from The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes).
Reverse Backstory Tool (PDF)
- Work backward to find your character’s wound, needs & lie. For a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws).
Weak Verb Converter Tool (PDF)
- Transform all those generic, boring verbs into power verbs
Scene Revision/Critique Tool Level 1 & Level 2 (PDF)
- A ‘light’ and ‘in-depth’ revision checklist for creating compelling characters and scenes
Emotional Movie Scenes (PDF)
- A list of specific scene examples from movies that showcase different intense emotions
Crutch Words (PDF)
- Those little, annoying overused words that hide in our manuscripts…finally a list for Search & Destroy during the revision process!
NEW: The Show, Don’t Tell Pro Pack
Want to strengthen your description but you’re unsure where to start? Or have you heard about our books from other writers and wonder what the fuss is about? This kit contains a descriptive thesaurus entry from each of our writing guides, tips on how that aspect of description will power up your story, and links to our top show, don’t tell articles.
MARKETING HAND OUTS:
Networking & Promo: Getting The Most Out Of Facebook (PDF)
Platform: Getting The Most Out Of Blogging (PDF)
Networking & Promo: Getting The Most Out Of Twitter (PDF)
Social Media Triple-play: Facebook, Twitter & Blogging (PDF)
Creative Book Launch/Event Ideas for Social Media Platforms (PDF)
“Inside a Book Launch” Swipe File: this PDF contains the email communications we sent out to our launch team, includes organized content for social sharing, marketing materials, and gives writers a great idea of how a book launch should be handled from the inside.
Also, check out the original post that links to an insightful Q & A that delves into this particular book launch. (LOTS of marketing help in this interview!)
Influencer Hot Sheet (PDF): Struggling to reach your exact reading audience? Maybe you should connect with a few people who have influence with your market. this handout guides you through the process of finding the right influencer, learning from them so you can engage with your audience better too, and how to reach out and create a relationship with them.For the article that accompanies this Hot Sheet, visit Jane Friedman’s blog here.
How Authenticity Attracts Readers for a Successful Book Launch (Podcast): If you are trying to understand how to build up your website and online platform to attract readers through your brand, this will help. We also discuss finding your ideal audience, and how to launch a book effectively, encouraging people to participate in your online events.
And because we like to save the best for last…
ONE STOP FOR WRITERS
Writers Helping Writers is proud to bring you One Stop For Writers®, a powerhouse library packed with unbelievable tools and resources, including the largest fiction-focused description database available ANYWHERE.
If you like what we do here at WHW, then get ready to have your proverbial socks blown off. Explore One Stop for Writers for yourself by activating our generous 2-Week FREE TRIAL.
Hello, I work at a library and we are starting a writing group, could I share these PDF’s online to our group?
Congrats on starting a group, Linsey! Of course, the tools on that page are free for you to share as needed. We hope they come in handy! Good luck on getting things up and and running.
A major character in my story, “Blue Cottage” frequently speaks in very simple to understand language. Consequently, she uses a lot of adverbs. I use Grammarly rather frequently, but it loves to suggest that I not use adverbs. However, it does not suggest any alternatives to the adverbs (I’m using the free version). Could you make a PDF for adverbs in the same vein as the Weak Verb Converter Tool? Thanks, this place is great!
Sorry Tom, we have to agree with Grammarly on this one. I can understand in your case you might have good reasons for using adverbs but generally we don’t want to encourage writers to overuse them. It’s much better to think of a specific verb that conveys exactly what it is needed rather than a weak verb + adverb. 😉
Grammarly flags **every** single adverb. I try to not use them because I know that Grammarly is going to give me this headache. But my MC is identified by her use of adverbs. To be more specific she loves to use the word “really”. I beg you to reconsider. I was checking my third chapter last night. My protagonist, Cassie Carter, loves to talk. But Grammarly won’t allow my characters to sound as I write them. Readers would be able to tell Cassie was speaking because she uses the word “really”.
It’s not like the story is peppered with the word. Grammarly won’t allow any. All I’m asking for are *alternatives* to adverbs so I don’t tear my hair out. Right now, my characters really don’t “sound” the way I want them to. Grammarly is re-writing a bit too rigidly. Thanks and stay safe in these crazy, mixed-up times.
I get this for your character it’s important. You should be able to google “adverb list” and find what you need. I would still encourage you to challenge yourself to minimize use. There will be other things that identify her as a speaker beyond her love of adverbs. If she loves “really” maybe that’s her thing and she only uses that one. Not every dialogue line, but just here and there, and have someone make a point of noticing that she really (har har) likes that word, and she can explain why she’s connected to it if needed, so readers get a bit of a heads up that this is her quirk, not you overusing adverbs unknowingly.
I would love to see a networking help section for Instagram. I personally do not use Facebook and have a very strict view on never wanting to use it. I also do not have a twitter and don’t really have the want to use it. I would love to see some help/information in regards to an Instagram platform and ways to help aspiring authors & writers who use this platform.
Hi Amy,
I would love to provide a section for this, but it’s just not in my wheelhouse beyond the basics, and there are just so many great blog posts and free courses on how to use instagram and be successful at it out there, I usually point people to those. You can do a bit of googling, but here’s a good starting point: https://shaylaraquel.com/blog/instagram2020 and this one, too: https://prowritingaid.com/art/514/How-to-Win-Instagram-If-You-Are-a-Writer.aspx
Good luck! 🙂
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Several of the tools above, listed as printable versions, print with a black rectangle or square in the center, the apparent watermark. How does one print the forms in useful format?
That’s quite strange – can you give us a bit more information, such as whether you have a mac or PC, and your process to print (do you save it to your computer first, or print directly from the PDF?
Not the original commenter, but I’m still seeing this. The watermark on the Backstory Wound Profile is not transparent, so there’s a big grey square where that image is (does not appear to be an issue with any of the other PDFs). It’s really distracting.
Hi Anne,
I’ve tried re-adding the watermark if you’d like to give the download a try again and see how it looks?
02/20/2021: When I print from the link, my Mac fills the watermark in all black.
I discovered if you download and open the PDF, you should be able to print the worksheets without black squares interrupting text.
The Backstory Wound Profile will have watermark black background but will not mask the text.
The watermark needs to be saved and applied as a PNG format so whitespace is created instead of black space. I’d research the technique used to apply the watermark on the docs too.
Thanks very much for this information, Vili. We’ll look deeper into this.
I have just completed the first draft of my first single room novelette, thanks to your invaluable direction, without that advice I couldn’t have done it. Now, I have set myself another new goal – I am trying to pen a “Time Loop” story, I am watching all these films and studying online, but still, I couldn’t get my head around it. SO, here I again seek insight on how should I be approaching to write a “TIME LOOP” story.
Regards
I think we would need more information on what you mean by a time loop story?
Movie like – Groundhog Day, Looper, Predestination, Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow, Triangle, A Day, Run Lola Run. The main problem I am experiencing is conjuring up the “Main Reason” which is making the repetition of the events over and over again. Also whatever resetting the time, why is it doing so? How can I connect these with story’s theme? Inside my head I am feeling foggy of these things.
These are all great questions to ask, but answering them is personal to the story you want to tell, so I don’t know how much help I can offer. The “why” behind the reset is key, and will direct everything else. Is there a disruption of some kind outside the character’s control that causes the reset (a rift in time, a time displacement, a thin spot in between realities, etc.) or is it another causing it (god, technology being part see by someone, etc.). Either answer forces you to look at what: what caused the loop to form and what will end it, or what is the motivation of the person causing the loop and what goal of theirs will close it? Start here so you can move onto the other questions.
Thank you and lots of love & Thanks again for this christmas gift!
Wish you all a very good christmas eve.
Regards
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Dear Sir:
I just wrote a memoir, and am looking for a literary agent to represent me. Please notify me, if there are agents where one of their specialties are memoirs, and I will Email them my query.
Hi,
I am struggling with a writing project. The goal is I need to keep the whole story exactly in a single setting. I need advice & guidance. Please help.
Try to think about where your character is, what they need most, and how the setting itself they are in and things within that place are keeping the character from the thing they want most.
Thanks a lot for your advice, I am going go to give it my best shot.
Looking at this site, is like listening to a handful of marbles rattling around in a five gallon drum!
Is that a good thing or not? 😉
[…] For more character arc help, check out these useful resources, many of which can be found on our Tools for Writers page: […]
[…] Download a character worksheet. […]
[…] Download a character worksheet. Sometimes a story goes sideways because the character has changed, and the writer is no longer solid on what the protagonist wants and why. The answers will be in the character’s backstory, so grab the Reverse Backstory Tool, The Character Questionnaire, or the Character Arc Progression tool. Do some brainstorming (and save everything so you can apply it to your wordcount). Once you understand what is driving your character, writing the story will become easy again. […]
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[…] friends over at Writers Helping Writers have a character profile questionnaire, a character arc progression tool, and many other amazing resources that may help you get to know […]
[…] Download a character worksheet. Sometimes a story goes sideways because the character has changed, and the writer is no longer solid on what the protagonist wants and why. The answers will be in the character’s backstory, so grab the Reverse Backstory Tool, The Character Questionnaire, or the Character Arc Progression tool. Do some brainstorming (and save everything so you can apply it to your wordcount). Once you understand what is driving your character, writing the story will become easy again. […]
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I love this site! Just shared on my blog: http://www.martacweeks.com/2018/05/what-heck.html
Thank you so much, Marta! That’s awesome!
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Thank you for providing such helpful information. After reading the first 52 pages of a manuscript, my wife encouraged me to hurry up so she could see how the story ends. She purchased The Emotion Thesaurus, The Positive Trait Thesaurus, The Negative Trait Thesaurus, and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus and eagerly handed them to me because, as she put it, I’m too hard on myself when it comes to my writing.
I have found them very helpful and would recommend them to any aspiring writer. Even though I have a very strong understanding of my protagonist, who turns out to be an antihero, the tools have helped hone certain character attributes for many of the other characters in the manuscript.
Thanks again! I look forward to receiving the other two Thesauruses, which have already been ordered.
Sincerely,
Rob Mason
This is such a nice note to receive! I’m really happy that the books are helping you. Big hugs to your wife, both for her purchase and her words of wisdom and encouragement to you. We all need those honest cheerleaders in our lives. Keep up the good work!
[…] Here’s a nice, inclusive list of Writing Tools from Writers Helping […]
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[…] Writing Tools | Writers Helping Writers […]
[…] Angela Ackerman gave us generous permission to share them here. You can also find them at Tools for Writers: […]