Taking on a creative work can be daunting. Whether you are gearing up for NaNoWriMo or looking for year-round support, these resources will help you work through the writing process for endeavors such as novels, novellas, and short stories. Specifically, these documents are useful for brainstorming, drafting, and organizing ideas for premise, plot, point of view, characters, worldbuilding, and dialogue. You will also learn scene blocking techniques and tips for finishing and revising your first draft.  

Materials designed by Autumn Frederick and Heesun Yoon 

This worksheet introduces you to premise, provides a breakdown of premise components, and helps you draft your own premise

• Find Your Premise Word Document 

• Find Your Premise PDF 

This worksheet reviews two types of story structure: the Three Act Structure and Freytag’s Pyramid. Space is provided to help you map your story out in both structures to decide which best fits your writing style

• Outline Your Plot Word Document

• Outline Your Plot PDF 

This worksheet discusses five points of view found in creative writing, notes tips for helping writers select a point of view, provides resources for writing and reading for diversity, lists questions to consider for character creation, and provides fillable character profiles

• POV & Character Creation Toolkit Word Document 

• POV & Character Creation Toolkit PDF 

This worksheet provides planning resources, an overview and list of decisions, and activity for delving into worldbuilding

• Worldbuilding Worksheet Word Document 

• Worldbuilding Worksheet PDF

This handout breaks down tips for improving your descriptive writing and provides examples and explanations for each suggestion

• Descriptive Writing Toolkit Word Document 

• Descriptive Writing Toolkit PDF 

This brief handout provides an explanation of what dialogue is and how it is formatted and provides space for practice

• Dialogue Practice Handout Word Document 

• Dialogue Practice Handout PDF 

This brief worksheet defines scene blocking and provides an activity for practice

• Scene Blocking Worksheet Word Document 

• Scene Blocking Worksheet PDF 

This brief handout lists good habits for finishing your project and outlines tips and resources to aid you in revising your first draft

• Finishing and Revising Your Draft Toolkit Word Document 

• Finishing and Revising Your Draft Toolkit PDF

Use these handouts and resources to understand the difference between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing as well as when to use each technique. 

Materials designed by Christopher Basgier, Katharine Brown, Amy Cicchino, and Megan Haskins

This worksheet will help you practice paraphrasing 

• Paraphrasing Practice Worksheet Word Document 

• Paraphrasing Practice Worksheet PDF 

This worksheet will help you write an annotation for a source for an annotated bibliography 

• Practice Writing an Annotation Worksheet Word Document 

• Practice Writing an Annotation Worksheet PDF 

This worksheet introduces you to the Chicago Style standard of writing and helps you practice paraphrasing and summarizing in Chicago

• Paraphrasing and Using Sources in Chicago Worksheet Word Document

• Paraphrasing and Using Sources in Chicago Worksheet PDF

This worksheet gets writers considering how to paraphrase and summarize a source 

• Using Sources Ethically Worksheet Word Document 

• Using Sources Ethically Worksheet PDF 

This activity asks you to consider whether or not something is plagiarized 

• What Counts as Plagiarism? Word Document 

• What Counts as Plagiarism? PDF 

This handout provides an easy reference list of common transitional words and phrases 

• Transitional Words and Phrases Handout Word Document 

• Transitional Words and Phrases Handout PDF