What is your highest quality free resource for fantasy writing?

If you don't want to leave your house, Wikipedia. Will help you with all sorts of stuff.

If you don't want to open up your computer, the Dictionary.com app for your phone. You can buy it to get rid of ads/allow it to be used offline, but you don't have to do that. Then you'll have no excuse for using right click > thesaurus without knowing what the word actually means.

If you're cool leaving your house, then your local library. Read what's popular in your genre, and recent, not just what was published in the 70s, to get a good idea of what publishers and agents are looking for and what sorts of stories sell. Many libraries will be able to help you look up info if you hate Google for some reason. Many also have tool lending libraries: mine has stuff like stand mixers and my sister's even has video games. Like if you really, really need to know about making fancy cakes for a scene, borrow a fancy cake pan and make it yourself for the experience. Libraries also have eBooks, audiobooks, and you can borrow from other libraries, too, so you can get some really good research done.

 

Myself. My life, my experiences. What else can you base your writing on? You might imagine a good story, but you have to fill it with something, and that something can only come from your own experiences. Sure you can read up on things, but its your experiences of people in particular which will bring your world to life.

 

Insanity comes cheap, and I find it does wonders for story-telling.

 

Imagination, knowledge and life experience, and for me the work of other authors. To study their language, worlds, style and pacing can aid you much.

 

Youtube has a bunch of other writing related channels. A fair few of them are a bit shallow or really good at stating the obvious, but there's a few out there which offer good advise. jenna moreci has a pretty good one, although she might not be everyones cup of tea (also, just fast forward the first 2 minutes of her video's to skip the ad part...). "Hello future me" is another one. He has a bunch of writing related videos, mainly on worldbuilding which are pretty good (and a whole lot of not directly writing related stuff). Of course, if you want something a bit more lighthearted (and sarcastic) with a serious undertone, you have to check out "Terrible Writing Advice".

 

I learned the most about writing by reviewing others. Specially with those that were the most challenging to edit.

 

Thank you...

Might bring those back in a month or three, once things settle down (been insanely busy the past couple years)

 

That is exactly what I was going to say! I would mention imagination as the primary asset because I find pleasure in creating worlds and stories in my mind (I find designing adventures to be the most gratifying thing about gamemastering); and if practice makes perfect, I am getting there all the time (and hopefully will eventually get close enough) while doing the dishes, going for a walk or listening to music

 

tea, nature, music, hunting, being around and talking to very unusual people about very unusual things.

 

I haven't used this myself, though I understand that Terry Pratchett used it: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - Wikipedia

You can find it online: BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

OMG, I love this guy; how could I not know him before? I'm starting to watch all of his videos.
The first reply that came to mind when I read your thread was: imagining my family as fantasy characters. I set up everything in my mind, their outfits, personality, and superpowers. I try to guess who and how they would be in a fantasy world (exaggerating all of their actual characteristics, LOL).
Working as a virtual assistant from home and using my laptop the whole damn week, I try to stay away from it while writing.