Artists, it is said, are only as good as their tools. With good ones, they can soar. With bad ones, they can't leave the ground.
Writers are no different. Though it is possible to produce quality works without the tools of the trade, it is difficult. It's a lot more difficult.
Since publishing my first novel, The Mine, in 2012, I have relied heavily on a handful of tools. Available on the free Internet, they are as indispensable to me as typewriters are to old-school novelists.
My favorite, Thesaurus.com, is the digital version of a staple that has been available in print for nearly 170 years. Comprehensive, versatile, and easy to use, it is one of two tools I can't do without.
The other is OneLook.com, a dictionary search engine that indexes more than 19 million words. Though the site draws from hundreds of dictionaries, it highlights results from the most important ones, such as Webster, Oxford, Collins, and American Heritage.
If OneLook.com is useful in finding the words of today, the Online Etymology Dictionary and Google Books Ngram Viewer are vital in finding the words of yesterday. OED, a "map of the wheel-ruts of modern English," explains what our words meant and how they sounded six hundred to 2,000 years ago. The Ngram Viewer displays the occurrences of words and phrases in books dating to 1800.
On occasion, I will consult grammar resources. Both Grammarly, a powerful proofreading tool, and the Hemingway App, which evaluates writing for clarity and simplicity, are excellent and easy to use.
I touted a few of the tools above in an April 2016 blog post. Go to Touting the tools of the trade to learn more.
