Essay and Resource Hub
Welcome to the Essay and Resource Hub!
The Essay and Resource Hub is the centralized location for informational pages written by members of the SCP community. Unlike the Guide Hub, the following articles are not considered required reading or official advice, but may still be interesting or useful.
Unlike the “guide” tag, the “essay” or “resource” tags can be added by authors to their own works, which you can then add here in the appropriate section (list works in alphabetical order). Essays are intended to offer advice and opinion on specific aspects of the SCP Foundation or SCP Wiki, while Resources list information about various aspects of the SCP Foundation setting, often as a collaboration open to new contributions. Hub pages containing useful information have also been listed below for ease of access.
This page is the responsibility of the Curations Team. If you have any questions or suggestions for changes we should make, please contact a member of the Collaboration Pages Subteam.
On the Setting of the SCP Foundation
Official and unofficial hub pages and resources, including compilation lists open to contributions from any site member. Note that even the official guides can be contradicted in articles if it serves the story - there is no canon that authors must follow!
- Foundation Universe Hub: An in-universe presentation of many of the following pages.
- Foundation Departments: A list of the Foundation's most prominent Departments.
- List of Internal Departments: A more comprehensive list of the Foundation's Internal Departments, translated from the Russian Branch.
- Semi Comprehensive List of Foundation Departments: An attempt at a complete list of the many Foundation Departments and the articles associated with them.
- Foundation Facilities: Sites and Areas run by the SCP Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Foundation Facilities: An attempt at a complete list of Foundation facilities.
- SCP Fronts - The original list of businesses and organisations used to mask the existence of the SCP Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Foundation Fronts: A more recent and much more comprehensive list of Foundation Fronts.
- Glossary of Terms: Definitions and explanations of technical terms used by the SCP Foundation, as well as other words used on the SCP wiki. Open to contributions from any site member.
- Groups of Interest: The main Groups of Interest encountered by the Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Groups of Interest: An attempt at a complete list of the many Groups of Interest and the articles associated with them.
- K-Class Scenarios: A comprehensive list of ways the world can end.
- Locations of Interest: Anomalous locations with a permanent population.
- Nexus Hub: The original Nexus and Free Port list.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Locations of Interest: An attempt at a complete list of the many inhabited anomalous locations and the articles associated with them.
- Mobile Task Forces: The Foundation's main Mobile Task Forces.
- A Comprehensive List of Mobile Task Forces: A complete list of all of the Foundation's Task Forces.
- Object Classes: A Guide to the main Object Classes used by the Foundation.
- Classification Committee Memo: An in-universe document detailing an updated classification format created by Woedenaz with help from djkaktus and friends.
- S7-APCS Classification System: The Site-7 Anomalous Phenomenon Classification System developed by the Russian Branch.
- Threat Levels: A complimentary system developed by the French Branch to estimate the danger posed by an SCP object in the event of a containment breach.
- A Comprehensive List of Esoteric Classes: Going beyond the Standard Object Classes, to list all of the Esoteric ones.
- Personnel and Character Dossier: A list of significant Foundation Personnel and Persons of Interest.
- O5 Command Dossier: The collection of contradictory reports on the people who have ultimate control over the Foundation.
- Tactical Theology Divine Dossier: A list of notable deities and abstract personifications documented by the Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Persons of Interest: A full list of Persons of Interest (PoI) known to the Foundation.
- Security Clearance Levels: Information on the Clearance Levels and Personnel Characterisations that govern access to information by Foundation personnel.
- Expanded Security Clearance Codes: A detailed overview on how the security clearances of personnel and documentation are recorded.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Foundation Bots: A full list of .aics, webcrawlers, and other 'bots used by the Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Species of Interest: A full list of anomalous species recognized by the Foundation.
- A Semi-Comprehensive List of Foundation Technology A full list of devices, automatons, equipment, vehicles, and other technologies used by the Foundation.
Essays on writing within the SCP Foundation Setting.
- Classified and You: A brief rundown of what classified means, and how access to classified material works.
- Containment Hazard Control: Information on the different real-life ways scientists and professionals deal with hazards.
- The Foundation and Evil: The Foundation is not cruel, but cold.
- GoIs and You Hub: A series of essays focusing on the various Groups of Interest on the wiki, including coverage of their themes and how the author would write an article featuring specific gois.
- GoI Field Guide
- GoIs and You: The Most Misrepresented (dado and Gamers Against Weed)
- GoIs and You: The Real Adventures in Crapitalism, or, Alignment Chart Nonsense
- GoIs and You: What the Fuck Is An Alexylva?
- GoIs and You: Government Alphabet Soup
- GoIs and You: Random Grab Bag I (Chicago Spirit and Nobody)
- GoIs and You: Holy Heck! (Horizon Initiative and ORIA)
- GoIs and You: On the Kinder Side
- Technical Words: Various science-y and engineering-y words and what they mean.
- Understanding Memetics: Explaining what the hell memetics and memetic effects are in the context of the SCP Foundation Universe.
User-Created Essays on the Writing Process
Walkthroughs
- Greenlights Made Easy - An Essay On Communicating Elevator Pitches and Central Narratives - How to pitch an idea.
- Essay on Structuring Idea Crit And You - How to crit an idea.
- Ideation: A Guide To Making Good Ideas Out Of Nothing: This essay will explain how to make good ideas out of bad ideas.
- SCP Walkthrough: How to write an SCP for the first or tenth time. Written in understandable language for ease of access.
- Zyn's Co-Authoring Tips: Information on co-authored pages, how to seek co-authors, and the process of multiple people writing together.
Series
- Essays By A Hack:
- Sentence Clauses: The construction of simple and complex sentences!
- Writing Tales: Let's talk about writing tales.
- Terror: Let's talk about terror. So, how do you achieve it in a story?
- Aelanna’s Words to the Wise
- Common SCP Pitfalls: An outline on common recurring problems seen in bad SCP articles.
- Containment Protocols: Guidelines for how to write up plausible and concise containment procedures.
- Documentation Tips: Helpful tips on how to approach writing a story in a clinical SCP style and what to consider when planning your article out.
- Glossary of Terms: A thorough glossary of wiki jargon you will encounter here.
- Ayers’s Journey of Your First SCP
Writing Club Seminars
- Writing Club: Dialogue analysis: A deep dive into dialogue technique and structure, how it functions and how you can craft or analyse it. Colour-coded too!
- Writing Club: Plot vs. Narrative: A look at Series 1 articles and how they work. And by analysing that, we'll find the difference between a narrative and a plot, and how they together make a story!
Characters
- Let’s Talk About Character For A Minute: The key issues with supernatural Agents and Doctors in the SCP universe, a brief discussion of wish fulfillment characters overall, and how to avoid common pitfalls in your own writing.
- Let's Talk About Writing Characters For A Minute: A simple process to start creating characters within the Foundation universe.
- So You Want To Write A Humanoid SCP Object: An essay that aims to give advice on the approach one should take when writing a humanoid SCP object.
- Overdone humanoid clichés, and how to avoid them: A more modern rewrite of the above essay in order to categorise the most overdone tropes in humanoid SCPs, and some tips on what to try instead.
Narratives
- An exercise in narrative based SCPs: Leveritas presents an overview on some ways to approach SCPs with narratives/backstories.
- How Not To Walk Your Dog: Poor Pacing In The SCP Format: Captain Kirby tells us about how to make a story unfold in an SCP article.
- untitled essay regarding scps, narratives, and how they can share a page: Different methods of introducing narrative into your SCP article.
- Cascading Story Arcs: A guide on how to understand and write narrative arcs that continue throughout multiple works. Learn how in just three easy steps!
- To Step on Stones: Taking a Concept From Idea to Draft: A near step-by-step guide on developing out a basic concept into a workable idea and draft.
- Narrative Hooks: How To Reel In Your Audience: An essay on how to identify narrative hooks in your writing, how to tell bad ones, and some examples; both good and bad.
- Enay's Essay on Story, Character and Planning: The Basics: An essay that walks through some general writing advice about the aforementioned topics, using examples from SCPs and the outlines used for them. It even has templates! You know, to get you started.
Tone
- Conservation of WTF or, ‘Why does the rabbit need two brains?’: The mindset one should take when approaching anomalies while writing. How weird is too weird?
- Clinical vs Complex: A short page about how to write with precision, and not use too many words.
- Clinical Tone: Declassified: tips for getting that ever-elusive clinical tone in your articles.
- How to be Scary Without Saying Anything: Exactly what it says on the tin. Elision and the Five Deadly Phrases.
Things Not to Do (And What to Do Instead)
- A Few Examples Of Things Not To Do In An SCP And What To Do Instead: Common mistakes and how to fix them.
- Essay On Common Newbie Ideas + How To Better Ideate Your SCP: Reasons why newbies choose these things as their first foray into SCP, and why they (typically) don't work.
- Sensitive Topics and You: An essay discussing the ways one can (hopefully) avoid mishandling sensitive topics.
- 'Things what do a thing'- An Essay On Anomalies That Are Things That Do A Thing: Nico talks about different ways to handle writing the most classic, popular, overused SCP formula.
- Talk it Out - An Guide on Writing Dialogue: Ori goes over tips and tricks on how to approach dialogue within the SCP format to make it feel more authentic.
- Magic, the SCP Wiki, and Other Musings: A few words on how to write magic well, especially in the context of the SCP Wiki.
Other Essays
- Essays on Style: a great compilation of insights from various authors about their writing process, tips, and tricks.
- Poetry As Distillation: Tips, tricks, and general thoughts about writing poetry.
- Rules of Thumb: Short and snappy writing tips compiled and collected from experienced members of the site.
- Random But Useful: Style Sheet, Editing Tips, Classes, IQ, How to Post an SCP.
- The Toasty Guide to Mixed Sources: A guide to the licensing of assets derived from multiple sources.
Tools and Technical Tips
Hubs and Essays to help you customise your articles.
- Advanced Formatting and You: Instructions for how to do fancy things with wikidot coding!
- ListPages Magic and You: How to use this Wikidot module that selects and displays pages within a site.
- Advanced Formatting Manual: A walkthrough introduction to CSS, translated from the French Branch.
- Anomaly Classification System Guide: Information regarding the use of the ACS header and classification system.
- Components Hub - A hub for pages meant to be imported onto other pages via the [[include]] syntax to add new design, style or functionality.
- CSS Theme Preparation Tool: For the creation of simple CSS Themes.
- Sigma-9 Themes: All themes based on the Wiki's default theme, Sigma-9.
- Black Highlighter Themes: All themes based on main alternative to Sigma-9, the Black Highlighter Theme.
- Exploiting Foldable List Containers: A guide for advanced usage of the foldable list container element.
- Helping Us Help You: A guide to asking for help so you can get useful answers with less time and effort.
- Photoshopping Your SCP: An essay/tutorial for easily creating illustrations for your articles with Photoshop.
- SCP Wiki Usertools: Extensions, tools and scripts to alter and hopefully improve your site experience.
- Black Market Licensed Resources: An overview of lesser-known license-compatible resources, such as public domain icons, sounds, and visual tools.
- Fish's Absolute Beginner's Guide To CSS: For new authors who have never touched CSS or the wiki before and have no idea how these two things interact; this is for you.
Critter Resources
Various resources from site reviewers (critiquers, crit-givers, critters, etc.) on how to approach the review process.
- Abolish The No Vote, Downvote Your Friends, and Other Musings: Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the critics.
- A Dime A Dozen: An Essay On Critiquing Ideas, Community, and Making The Most Out Of Nothing: RockTeethMothEyes provides advice on how to approach critiquing different kinds of concepts.
- Conceptual Critique and Burnout, A Guide: Shanor provides tips on how to critique concepts and how to avoid critiquer burnout.
- How to Become a Better Critic: Things to keep in mind when leaving reviewer comments and feedback.
- Zyn's Crit Tips
- Zyn's Crit Tips I: Reviewing Long Drafts: The Captain of the Forum Crit Team (aka Butterfly Squad) talks about how to power through reviewing long works.
- Zyn's Crit Tips II: Reviewing Overhaul Works: How to approach drafts that need a lot of revamping without giving you or the author a headache.
- Zyn's Crit Tips III: The Quick Crit: How to write helpful critique at a relatively quick pace!
History of the SCP Universe
Various essays detailing the history of the SCP wiki.
- History of the International Branches
Interviews
One-on-one conversations with prominent community members. For additional interviews, see the Site News and the Podcast Hub.
- Interviewing Icons Hub
- Interviewing Icons - djkaktus
- Interviewing Icons - Tanhony
- Interviewing Icons - Rounderhouse
- Interviewing Icons - Ihp
- Interviewing Icons - Djoric
- Interviewing Icons - The Great Hippo
- Interviewing Icons - Decibelles
- Interviewing Icons - The Exploring Series
- Interviewing Icons - The Administrator, FritzWillie
- Interviewing Icons - DrClef
- Interviewing Icons - Kain Pathos Crow
- Interviewing Icons - Dr Gears
- Interviewing Icons - daveyoufool
- Interviewing Icons - A Random Day
Joke Essays
These are meant to be silly and not taken seriously, but might still be helpful!
- The Big List Of Overdone SCP Cliches: Things we have enough of already.
- Cliches And You: An Educational Film: A more serious analysis of cliches.
- Dr. Mackenzie's Guide to Author Stereotypes: Don't be like this.
- ROUNDERHOUSE EXTREMELY GOOD AND OFFICIAL GUIDE TO BEING A SHITTY CRITTER: How to leave critique that's both hurtful and unhelpful.
- Standard Form For Downvotes: Why your article was downvoted.
- This page doesn't exist yet!: Creating a new page.
- Your Very First SCP!: Meet up with your new friend and SCP-Helper, Skippy, as he takes you through writing your first SCP article!
Miscellaneous
- Hornby’s Audio Guide: A rather thorough explanation on how to construct an audio drama.
- Hub Hub: A hub page for listing all other hub pages, in case you're not sure how to find something.
- What Is A Promotional Post And How You Can Get Yours On The Wiki's Social Media Pages: An essay about every aspect of promoting your article on social media, including how to get your work on the Wiki's social media pages!
page revision: 105, last edited: 21 Jul 2026 21:34