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Fantasy Writing Sources and Resources

I first decided to write a novel when I was 17. I had nothing more than a dictionary, a thesaurus, and my imagination. I thought it would be enough. I thought I would become the next Steven King or Dean Koontz or Terry Goodkind. Unfortunately, I had little to no experience when it came to writing or storytelling.
I had my father look over my first draft, and asked for his honest opinion. Thankfully, he was honest with me, and told me that I needed to strengthen and broaden my vocabulary and work much harder on my spelling and grammar. The honesty was disheartening, but it gave me direction.

The next year, after completing my last year of high school and receiving my diploma, I entered a writing program at a local college. I took grammar courses, entry level English, and a few other writing related subjects. After my first year, there was a marked improvement in my skills as a writer. I would suggest to anyone who intends on becoming a writer, to take at least a few grammar courses and a few English courses. They make the world of difference.
After my first year of college, I began writing again, and scrapped my first draft. I started from scratch, but I kept the general concept from the original. My idea was starting to form and weave even tighter together, instead of the mass of gibberish that it once was. That's also around the time that I began creating a time line of events and back histories for my characters. By creating the back history, I created my own reference guide. I could then refer to it whenever I was uncertain as to how my character should or shouldn't act to a particular situation. I also bought a dictionary that had Etymology and learned of Dictionary.com. Both were valuable resources for me.
Nearing the beginning of my second year, I started looking for a publisher, for I had finally finished a rough draft of my novel. This is when I noticed a resource section below the submission guidelines on a publisher's website. They had suggestions for books, and I picked up two of them. One of the two books was a Character Naming Source book, put together by The Writer's Digest. The other was a Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference book. Both are indispensable. From these books I gained new names for my characters, and a greater understanding of the medieval world.
My etymology dictionary and Dictionary.com, a thesaurus, an education in writing, a character naming source book, and a fantasy reference book have all guided me in my writing, but there are more than just source and resource books. There is also your imagination, and the imagination of other writers. Read books in the fantasy genre. See how others have written. Try and incorporate your own personal beliefs into the workings of your fictional world. You never know what you might create.

Here is a helpful list of sources and resources that you can use to improve your writing skills to become the next Fantasy Author:

Education in Writing, Grammar, English, History
Fantasy or Science Fiction and Fantasy Source or Resource books
A dictionary or two, and Dictionary.com
A Thesaurus
The three core rulebooks to Dungeons & Dragons for inspirational purposes or for generating ideas.
Books by your favorite authors
Suggested readings by Publishers
Wikipedia
Comic books, again, for ideas and inspirations

And my absolute favorite your imagination

Learn more about this author, Bj Frost.
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