As always, the latest chapter of Loyalty Fallen Book 2: The Desert Crossing is now live. In this chapter, Parr gets attacked by two men who seem to work for Illian, and Lenore may be the only one who can save him. If you’ve yet to start reading, you should know that Loyalty Fallen is a four-book fantasy series about a princess who is accused of her husband’s murder on their wedding night.

On to the blog post. If you are a writer, unless you fill physical notebooks or use your voice to write through DragonSpeak or another speech to text software, you are most likely first of all a typist. So if you’re stuggling to write more than a few sentences a day or you feel like you’re not able to get down all you want, or worse still you’re losing parts of your story because you can’t type them down fast enough before they’re gone, you need to get faster. Here are some tools you can use to do that.

Top free tools to learn to type

I used a combination of multiple typing curricula when I was learning, some paid and some free, but the focus here is on free typing websites you can use to learn to touch type (typing without having to look at the keyboard).

1. TypingClub

TypingClub.com gives a clean, structured learning experience that gradually builds your muscle memory with interactive lessons and hand position guides. Its gamified system rewards progress, making it feel more like leveling up than grinding through drills. You can start as a complete beginner or jump ahead to more advanced material. One of the things I really like is that you can learn to type in more than one language. I used TypingClub to learn to type in Spanish.

2. Typing.com

Typing.com has a really nice dashboard and built-in games that make practice feel less like work. It includes units on speed, accuracy, and ergonomics, and it even has separate tracks for coding and professional typing. There’s clear feedback after every lesson. It’s free, though there are some features that you may want to pay to unlock.

Top free online typing tests

If you just want to see how fast you can go, or type for timed assignments so you can get faster, these sites offer typing tests that can help in those areas.

3. TypingTest.com

TypingTest.com is one of the oldest and most reliable platforms for quickly measuring your typing speed and accuracy. It offers multiple test durations and text types, including business-related passages and casual text. There are also lessons for new typists, but I haven’t spent a lot of time using those on this site, so I chose this category instead.

4. Typing Core

Typing Core has a simpler interface that gets straight to the point: helping you test and improve your speed with clean metrics and customizable text. So there’s no lessons; nothing but tests. However, you can paste in your own content, so if you want you could type out passages from your works-in-progress or favorite books for targeted practice (and also to improve your editing and look for typos and errors). It’s a good way to improve your skills if you’re already a pretty good typist.

Typing platforms for advanced typists

If you’re already fairly advanced (40 words per minute or more) and you want to get faster still, there are some options for you as well. The following options let you type out longer scripts in plain language.

5. Entertrained

Entertrained lets you work on speed, accuracy, and entertainment by getting you to practice your typing skills on full-length books. It’s built for people who already know how to type and want to stay sharp with real-world content. You can find stories in multiple genres, so you can both become more familiar with your niche and practice your typing at the same time. Pretty cool for genre novel writers!

6. AgileFingers

AgileFingers is an advanced training platform that includes lessons, games, and custom text exercises. The standout feature is its ability to store your own text passages, so that way you can practice with your own stories or work through your writing backlog while training your fingers to keep up with your thoughts.

7. TypeLit.io

TypeLit.io turns books into typing practice, letting you retype entire novels or your own uploads line by line. Note that it charges a small fee ($5 per month) to let you actually upload anything. The free version only gives you access to some pretty limited classic literature. Still, it’s another option in this category.

Free typing games for fun learning

If you’re like me and learning to type faster seems incredibly boring, here are some options that should make it a lot more fun to get through your practice. Note that some of the options I’ve mentioned above have games, especially typing.com, but they’re not specifically focused on games the way these websites are.

8. TypingGames.zone

TypingGames.zone hosts a pretty sizable collection of browser-based games. Whether you’re dodging asteroids, shooting zombies, or solving puzzles, you can spend just a few minutes to get better at typing. Note that not all of these games will involve typing full words; some will just be letters, which I don’t think are particularly valuable, even if they are fun.

9. TypeRacer

TypeRacer lets you compete in real-time typing races against players from around the world using famous quotes, song lyrics, and even meme text. For writers, it’s a fun way to push your speed while playing with language you already know and love.

10. Nitro Type

Similar to TypeRacer, but in my opinion with a better interface and feel, Nitro Type turns typing into a car race in which accuracy and speed are the fuel. You earn virtual cash, unlock new vehicles, and compete against friends or random players. It’s casual, colorful, and has regular seasonal events and unlockables. The only downside is that races are pretty short.

11. Mario Teaches Typing

A more nostalgic option, Mario Teaches Typing was one of the first games to make typing fun for kids in the ’90s. While it’s no longer officially supported, you can still find online emulators or downloads if you want to revisit the old-school charm of jumping over Goombas while learning to hit the home row.

12. KidzType

KidzType offers colorful lessons and games designed for younger users, but honestly, the content is good for anyone looking to add a little fun to their practice. The standout game “Dance Mat Typing” combines rhythm with key accuracy, which is surprisingly challenging even for advanced typists.

13. FreeTypingGame.net

As the name suggests, FreeTypingGame.net has a lot of games, lessons, and typing tests, with no account required. It’s not the most modern-looking site, but the games are varied, and the lesson structure is solid. You can jump straight into a game like “Meteor Typing Blast” or run through a drill if you’re in the mood for something more structured.

14. ZType

ZType is a space shooter where you destroy enemy ships by typing the words that appear on them. The faster and more accurately you type, the more enemies you destroy. Words come in waves and gather speed as you go. Again, I think you’re best served by using sites that require you to type full sentences, but this may be still be fun for some writers. I personally love it.

15. Bonus: Epistory

Unlike the other options, Epistory isn’t free and it’s not browser based, but I had to mention it. It’s a really lovely RPG where you play as a girl riding a giant fox through a magical origami world. You fight enemies, solve environmental puzzles, and unlock new areas, all by typing. Honestly I just thought the origami was gorgeous, plus the music is pretty nice and the story is simple but lovely. You can find it on Steam.

Final thoughts

I’ve spent a lot of time on many of these sites over the years. For some context, my typing speed is around 120-130 words per minute (WPM), and I recently wrote an 80,000-word book in a single month, so it is absolutely worthwhile to spend time bringing up your speed and accuracy. Hopefully some of these free typing sites are useful!

If you’ve used any of these or you have another option that I should add, let me know in the comments. In the meantime, follow the blog to get notified when the next post goes live, and enjoy Loyalty Fallen!