End of Year Countdown: 5 Top Fives of 2016

Photo credit: Vicky Brock on Flickr

It's the last post of 2016! Which is a very strange and surreal thing to write, but also means it's time for Writability's annual tradition. Without further ado, here are my top fives of 2016. :)


Top 5 Most Popular Posts (On Writability) 

I actually finally figured out a way to use Google Analytics to show the most popular posts for this year, rather than the most popular posts of all time, which don't change much. Interestingly, none of the most popular posts of this year were written this year either. Also the kissing post got a huge boost this year for reasons unknown. Cool. :)

1. How to Write Awesome Kiss Scenes
2. Young Adult vs New Adult: What's the Difference?
3. Why Use Past Tense?
4. Why Use Present Tense?
5. Defining Author Voice

Top 5 Most Active Commenters

As explained every year, I use Disqus’s very nice widget on my sidebar to keep track of how many comments every lovely commenter makes. The system isn’t perfect and only keeps track of accounts, so if you comment on multiple accounts, it thinks you’re more than one person, but regardless, these five fabulous readers are the most active commenters of the Writability community—thank you!

Note: Those with one asterisk were on the top five list last year, three asterisks have been on the top five list for three years, and those with four asterisks were on the top five list the year before that! Thanks for being part of the Writability community, everyone!

1. Heather*
2. MK
3. Robin Red***
4. RoweMatthew****
5. Jen Donohue***

Top 5 Favorite (Writerly) Tumblr Blogs of the Year

I really love tumblr. I've learned so much from so many incredible people over there, and it also remains a great place to just find nice—and nerdy—awesomeness.

These are my top five favorite writerly and bookish tumblr blogs, calculated by tumblr off which blogs I reblog and like the most.

1. Corinne Duyvis
2. YA Highway
3. Leigh Bardugo
4. Nita Tyndall
5. English Major Humor

Top 5 Favorite Books of the Year

I've read a lot of really incredible books this year, and these especially stuck with me and earned their place in my favorites list.

1. Strong Signal by Megan Erickson and Santino Hassell
2. A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
3. Saga Deluxe Edition, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
4. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
5. Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman

Top 5 Favorite Twitter Accounts

I spend too much time on Twitter, but there are some pretty amazing people there. This favorite list has taken a political emphasis for obvious reasons—the following accounts are mostly all excellently writerly and political with a great balance between the two, except Judd Legum, who is just a great reporter. In no particular order, you should follow these amazing people:

1. @HeidiHeilig
2. @nebrinkley
3. @Celeste_pewter
4. @JuddLegum
5. @Bibliogato

So those are my top fives of 2016—do you have any favorites of the year you'd like to share?

Happy New Year, everyone!


Twitter-sized bites:

Writer @Ava_Jae shares her top fives of 2016—what are some of your favorite writing resources of 2016? (Click to tweet)