Category: Staff Articles

Writing advice and insights from the staff of Indies Unlimited.

A Reader’s POV – Chick Lit

This is probably one for the girls…I can’t imagine there are many male Chick Lit readers out there – it’s a genre written by women for women. So, do we love it, do we hate it, or do we love to hate it?

There is no doubt it is very popular. Why? Well, it’s an effortless read, and it’s easy to identify with the main female lead; she’s like a best friend. She’s got man problems, she’s probably on a diet, she probably hates her legs, her bum or her hair, she probably lives in a bedsit or small flat, anguishes over the zit that appears just before a hot date, she’s probably got an annoying cat whom she adores, and you like her because she’s not quite perfect.  She’s actually quite normal. Continue reading “A Reader’s POV – Chick Lit”

The Book Was Better

“I just saw the movie, wasn’t a patch on the book.”

If I’d stuffed my face with a deep-fried Mars bar every time I heard this sentiment, I’d probably lose a weigh-in with an elephant seal, have a mouthful of teeth with the average consistency of a sea sponge, and skin the overall texture of pepperoni by now. I’ll bet every last one of us has said something similar, though. Which makes every last one of us a bit weird, really. Not quite stupid, but getting there, you know?

Let me explain my thinking. (I find I have to do that a lot, which says nothing good about me whatsoever.)

It’s actually quite simple. A book is a book. A movie is a movie. And Popeye is what he is… an extremely odd-shaped sailor with a fetish for canned green vegetables.

Seriously, though, “the book was better” has become one of those irksome knee-jerk phrases that are stand-ins for something else entirely. See: “it’s political correctness gone mad!” which actually means “damn, the world doesn’t condone my bigotry any more, so I’ll just have this here tantrum instead”. Or: “I knew them before they were famous” which translates as “I am an unctuous hipster and will drip oily, corrosive scorn on, you know, like, everyone not in the inner circle of me, dude.” Continue reading “The Book Was Better”

Ed’s Casual Friday: The One-Star Match Game

Heck with it, let’s just have a little fun. Listed below are 26 excerpts from one-star reviews off a popular website. If anyone would care to kill some time before getting back to work on their present MIP (Masterpiece In Progress), try to match them to the books they describe. I’ll post a key later as a comment, and if there is a winner they will receive, and I can’t stress this enough, absolutely nothing. Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: The One-Star Match Game”

Shadows

Writing is different for everyone. When I am rolling, I am disconnected from the world around me. My brain is a white hot fire. My fingers sprint over the keys – the kind of sprint where you are running so fast that you are convinced you are moments from toppling over, yet the fingers land. When I am taken OUT of this reverie I become unreasonably angry. I do not act on the anger. But I seethe. The sharp teeth of retribution whisper in my ears.

Continue reading “Shadows”