- Science Fiction Writers of America is an essential first stop for anyone wishing to write speculative fiction. It includes member pages, FAQs, articles, contract law resources, and the Writers Beware! service.
- Forward Motion is an online writer's community founded by Holly Lisle. It features all kinds of places to ask questions, collect critiques, or simply get yourself motivated to write, as well as some expert advice on the business end of things. It also features many writers' resources, including:
- Evolution is another writer's community, a hatchling of the Forward Motion community with similar offerings but a different group of people.
- Other Worlds Workshop is an email-based critique workshop, and a good one.
- Critters is another email workshop, famously good, although it does tend to be more short-story oriented.
- Preditors and Editors is a comprehensive listing of agents and publishers which lists their reputation, whether they charge fees, whether writers hace complaned about them, et cetera. Affiliated with SFWA's Writer Beware!
- Ralan's Webstravaganza is the listing of speculative fiction markets, both short story and novel. Regularly updated.
- HollyLisle.com contains a wealth of articles about writing, workshops for better writing, and commonsense advice on the business end of writing.
- Robert Sawyer is the president of SFWA. His site includes many helpful articles on writing as well as an agent list.
- The Evil Overlord Lists will make you laugh - and wince, as you recognize bits of your own writings - and give you ideas. Whether for fun or as a checklist against mistakes or as inspiration, cliche lists are valuable, which is why it's also worth checking out
- For those looking for more serious inspiration, there is The Instant Muse, a random story generator. Of course, if you're looking for more humor, try
- The Secret Diaries of Writers and Editors, which is just fun.
- The Random Name Generator and Seventh Sanctum's Description Generator can be useful resources, especially for those pesky minor characters who badly need some filling out but who you don't want to spend that much time on.