In tools, I’ll talk about some stuff on the net to help out anyone stuck in a jam.

http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/

The fantasy plot generator. Best used if you can’t think of anything better than restore the crystals to grace or if you want an idea for a side quest. This thing will randomly generate any number of basic plots at once so that you can interweave them. The site also has a link to a random plot twist generator, but it’s really only for silly games since by random they mean RANDOM. For example, I got: “At this point, a detective serves pizza.” WTF!?!?!

http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/

The only tool here I’ve used is this, the name generator. This thing is amazing. It can use a ton of different templates to generate names (even pokemon) and it has a code editor to make your own. I support this one fully and it’s saved me more than once. You just select one of the templates and hit generate- it’ll make around 50 or so names for you to choose from.

http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heromachine2/heroMachine2.asp

The hero machine- a flash app that builds images of superheroes if you make that kind of thing.

http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/storyboardpro/

This is a freeware program called Storyboard Pro and is basically an advanced version of Windows Movie Maker. It’s very useful for planning out the order of sequences and if you make cutscenes with image programs you can even put them in and watch the games events unfold in sequence or save certain ones as a compound video file for a trailer. The only reason I haven’t used this one yet is that I just found it. The download only takes a few minutes so I’m getting it now…

http://www.vocaloid.com/

This really isn’t a story thing but it’s useful for credits/cutscenes. Vocaloid is a text to speech program like no other- it sings. Although you’ll actually have to pay for this one, it’s really powerful and worth looking in to.

http://tinyurl.com/nenernenernener

Nener is a program I found for free that lets you create cool videos easily for cutscenes. If you check out any of these links, check out this one.

Well I guess I couldn’t provide as many tools as I thought. Well that’s because there just aren’t enough out there. Story writing isn’t the place for tools and gadgets to help, it’s for creativity and paper. Regardless, there are some things that can help and I’m doubtless that there’s so much out there I missed so if you have any PM me and I’ll add them to the article.

Disclaimer: I have not made any of this stuff nor do I claim so. Anything downloaded from this page is at the user’s own risk. Any publisher who wishes for their work to be removed shall have their work removed.