Author: Stephen Hise

Stephen Hise is the Evil Mastermind and founder of Indies Unlimited. Hise is an independent author and an avid supporter of the indie author movement. Learn more about Stephen at his website or his Amazon author page.

How Well Did the Reader Know the Decedent?

Here is the situation: You have written a mystery, police-procedural, thriller, spy novel, western, or something of the like. Now you get to the part where there’s a dead guy. You killed off a character. Maybe your bad guy killed the person. Maybe your good guy killed the person.

It ramps up the drama. It gives urgency and purpose to the story. Maybe the good guy has to stop the bad guy before he kills again. Maybe the vigilante just wrought his first bit of rough justice. Continue reading “How Well Did the Reader Know the Decedent?”

2013 in Preview

2012 is over and thank goodness—not exactly a prosperous year for many of us. For Christmas this year, I gave the grand-kids a couple of plastic scoops and told them the cat’s litter box was a buried treasure game. Not only were they disappointed, but it looks like I wasted a lot of time making the cat swallow all those nickels. Sigh.

But now it is time to look forward to the new year with my proprietary blend of hopeful optimism and innate revulsion at change. I have fired up the old crystal ball. Remember, I’m 90% right 50% of the time. Here is my list of predictions for the coming year: Continue reading “2013 in Preview”

A Word From Ajax Thermal Ports

[Indies Unlimited is brought to you in part by the fine folks at Ajax Thermal Ports]

After the catastrophic design failures associated with the Death Star debacle, thermal ports got a bad reputation, and deservedly so.

Ajax has put together the best engineers in the galaxy to solve these problems and is pleased to introduce our 204-A “petite” line of thermal ports. Though just as efficient at venting plasma gas, the new 204-A is smaller and nearly impossible to hit with proton torpedoes.

Even in the unlikely event of a superficial penetration, we have taken the additional precaution of adding a P trap, to assure projectiles have no straight line to the reactor.

We are sure you’ll be satisfied with our new thermal ports and will join the many who are glad to proclaim, “It’s finally safe to build death stars again!”

Do Write and Fear Naught

In the community of authors, there are those for whom writing is in their souls. It is who they are, what they do. For some, writing is a calling. I respect that. I think there is something noble in it. I will leave it to those who share that level of passion for writing to explain it in their own words, because that’s not me.

My nature is that of an entertainer. I like to provoke discussion, thought, reflection or laughter in others. For me, telling or writing stories is one way to do that. In order to accomplish that, it is not enough to write; what I write must be read by others. On some level, I think that is why everyone writes. When someone announces that they wish to speak, they are not actually saying they want to utter words – they could do that anytime. What they mean is that they wish to be heard. Continue reading “Do Write and Fear Naught”