Month: July 2015

Which “Not What It Seems” Flash Fiction Story Gets Your Vote?

Vote5It’s that time again…time to choose your favorite flash fiction story of the week! The judges have whittled down the entries to a select few, and now it’s your turn: time for the public to have the final say. It’s super easy – choose your favorite and cast your vote below for this week’s Flash Fiction champion.

Remember, the winning entries will all be included in the next edition of the IU Flash Fiction Anthology.

Check out this week’s entries here – we’ve even labeled the finalists to make them easier to spot. Make your decision, then use those share buttons at the bottom of the post to spread the word.

Voting polls close Thursday at 5 PM Pacific time.

Which "Not What It Seems" story do you think should win publication?

  • S.B. Smith (46%, 18 Votes)
  • Zack Lester (33%, 13 Votes)
  • ?wazithinkin (21%, 8 Votes)

Total Voters: 39

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NOTE: Entrants whose submissions are not relevant to the prompts and/or exceed the 250 word limit are eliminated from the poll. ONE VOTE PER PERSON, please. Duplicate votes will be deleted. The results displayed above are unofficial until verified by administration.

What Readers Want – On Short Story Collections

what readers want logoAs an author, do you ever struggle with a decision about your book and wonder, “What would a reader say?” You probably aren’t the first author to wonder about that same thing. Indies Unlimited has two reviewers on our staff, the fabulous Cathy Speight and venerable Mr. BigAl, who are here representing readers. In this series, we’ll pose your questions to them for their take and encourage other readers to weigh in with their thoughts.

First the question from the author: Continue reading “What Readers Want – On Short Story Collections”

BookLikes July Likefest

Booklikes logoBack in February, the amazing Lynne Cantwell introduced us all to BookLikes. BookLikes is sort of a cross between Goodreads and Tumblr – a book review/giveaway/blog site with lots of functionality. So how about we get to know each other on BookLikes better with a like-fest?

Today you can share your blog page and find new friends. Grab that URL which should look like this: http://ksbrooks.booklikes.com/ and paste it in the comments below.  (Not sure where to find your URL? See the image below.) The “follow” button is found in the upper right-hand corner.

booklikes shelf page
Click to enlarge

[Don’t forget, if you right-click the links, you can choose to have them open in a separate tab so you don’t have to worry about navigating back and forth to pages.]

PLEASE be sure to reciprocate by following those who follow you. This is give and take. If everyone plays by the golden rule, we all benefit.

Pronoun Confusion: Who Is the Sentence About?

grammar tip pronoun confusion All right, boys and girls, it’s time once again for your friendly, neighborhood grammar police report. Today we’re going to talk about Pronoun Confusion, those times when we have multiple characters of the same sex in a single scene, and how we keep track of them.

One of the chronic issues that we as authors have to be aware of is the fact that we have all the details of our stories in our brains, while our readers only have as much as we’ve given them. When I’m writing, I’m actually watching a movie in my head. I see my characters move, I hear them speak, and of course I know their motives and feelings. Having all this information sometimes translates into complacency; I know what my characters are doing, so it should be obvious to the reader, right? No, not always. Continue reading “Pronoun Confusion: Who Is the Sentence About?”