Are you buckling in for NaNoWriMo this year? Every November, National Novel Writing Month kicks off, and writers all around the country challenge themselves to write a book in a month.
The traditional approach is to start a new novel and write 50,000 words in the course of the month, but you can use this time for your own writing journey. You can set your goals, make a plan, and then join in this awesome community so that you and your fellow authors can cheer each other on.
I posted last year to explain in more depth, but this year, I want to focus on the craft a bit and share some resources that have helped me. This is a list of YouTube channels for writers that can help you when you get stuck or edit when you’ve finished your first draft. Let me know in the comments below if you have any more that have helped you in the past (or if you want to plug your own writing channel).
Disclaimer: Some of these have some rough language or discuss adult topics occasionally. I’ve noticed it especially in 1 & 4 on the list.
Top 10 Channels
This channel is mostly for broad strokes, like world-building, but each video is very thoughtful and thought-provoking.
This one isn’t a “writing channel” per se, but it is about storytelling. It dissects stories to find out what makes them work or not, and it analyzes various characters, often from a philosophical perspective.
This animated channel discusses tropes, summarizes literature and historical events, and more. It packs in a lot of information.
He’s a professional author who really knows his craft. He’s posted a lot of his lectures on his channel, and they’re more of a time commitment than most of these channels, but they’re worth it when you have the chance to tune in.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Chris Fox. With brief tips and talks, this channel is perfect for anyone who wants good advice but doesn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to a topic.
This channel gives writing advice by sarcastically telling you to do terrible or cliché things, and the advice is given with illustrations.
This channel has short essays on aspects of storytelling. It mainly focuses on movies and TV show, but a novel writer can glean a lot from here, too.
This one’s similar to JustWrite.
This mainly has videos on narrow topics, especially weaponry, of interest to people writing fantasy stories or books set in Medieval times. They’re good for background research, so if your book involves one of these settings, it’s a great resource for you, since it’s done a lot of work for you.
