im reading tuttle's book now and when i want to know a certain character, i don't want to reference the book. i want to search for it and the story/how to write will be displayed. is there such a site?

I'm not 100% certain what you are looking for but I will offer up my kanji search/look up tools. The second two sites are really only good for japanese but the first is originally intended for hanzi...
I use this one for stroke order and to find rare kanji: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/char...ese=1&zi=一
I use this one to look up pronunciations/compounds/uses:
http://tangorin.com/multiradical/?dictionary=kanji
And I use this one when I can't figure out how to piece a kanji together on Tangorin:
http://kanji.sljfaq.org/draw-canvas.html

....I hope this helps

thanks, but i'm mainly looking for the "story" part to the hanzi. for instance, i want to type in a hanzi, and it will bring me to the story so i can learn it.