Month: April 2012

Best Resources For Fiction Writers

Search the Internet, and you’ll find hundreds of books and websites about how to write and sell fiction. I’ve scanned many over the years, but there are very few I go back to again and again. Here’s a cross section of what I’ve found to be among the best. As usual, your actual experience may vary.

1. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
Meant for beginning writers, The Art of Fiction contains insights even experienced authors may find helpful. Among other valuable tidbits, Gardner offers good insight into plot structure and fictional time versus real time. Although it was written some thirty years ago, the advice is still current.
Continue reading “Best Resources For Fiction Writers”

3 in to 1 Story Competition

The 2012 3INTO1 Competition is offering a £1,000 prize for a short story of up to 3,000 words.

There is only one rule: the story must incorporate and link these three items… a black queen chess piece, a bunch of fresh flowers, a £10 note.

Intrigued? Stories can be in any style or genre – comedy, tragedy, romance, mystery, detective, science fiction, ghost story – the possibilities are endless. Let your imagination roam!

First prize is £1,000, 2nd prize £500, 3rd prize £300, 4th prize £200 and the best 20 stories will be published in an anthology.

The entry fee is £7 per story. Competition closing date: 31st July 2012.

For more information, visit the website.

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Indies Unlimited is pleased to provide this contest information for the convenience of our readers.  We do not, however, endorse this or any contest/competition.  Entrants should always research a competition prior to entering. 

Sneak Peek: Guido Mattioni’s Whispering Tides

Today we have a sneak peek from Guido Mattioni’s book, Whispering Tides:

Whispering TidesWhen his beloved wife Nina suddenly dies – after 23 years of life together – Alberto Landi understands he has to leave Milan Italy, where he has always lived and worked. He leaves his friends, colleagues, a good job and the polluted big city he has never loved which has now become even more intolerable to him. He is fifty, he is totally alone and he is confused, but he definitely knows that he has to escape very far away, across the ocean, to the only place he and Nina had always loved together. He lands in Savannah, Georgia. There, in a natural paradise governed by the breath of the tides and with the help of many dear friends – colorful human characters as well as wise animals – he starts to rebuild his new life. His dream is coming true until the day he wakes up one morning and discovers that…

Whispering Tides is available at Amazon.com for Kindle as well as paperback. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Guido Mattioni’s Whispering Tides”

Plot-Driven Mystery by Arline Chase


Vacation for Two by Arline ChaseQuestion: Someone in a class I’m taking said my mystery needs to be more plot-driven. How can I tell if she’s right and if she is, how do I fix it?

Answer: Well there are two kinds of mystery. Plot-Driven means it’s all about what happens and the investigating character does not change. Most mysteries used to always be this way. Character-driven mystery is about characters that change and grow over the story, or even over the series.

The plot-driven mystery is all about the puzzle. Sherlock Holmes is always his superior, calculating, self. At least he is until he meets “The Woman.” And even afterward any emotion or resulting change in his personality is never part of a Sherlock Holmes story. Yes, it is important to have a good puzzle for the reader to solve. And your reader might be telling you that the puzzle might be a tad transparent. If that seems reasonable to you, lay some more false trails, leave some false clues to lead the reader to a false conclusion or two. Continue reading “Plot-Driven Mystery by Arline Chase“