Category: Staff Articles

Writing advice and insights from the staff of Indies Unlimited.

A Helping Hand…Shortcuts

Reviewer Cathy Speight

As well as reviewing books, I have taken on a role as an editor/proofreader. It’s something I really enjoy doing and a task from which I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction. It’s like renovating an old relic. I get quite a frisson from unearthing a pristine and shiny new treasure.

When an author and I discuss how best to approach the task with regard to the proofing options, I am often greeted with, “Oh, I’m not a techie, I can just about manage to switch the computer on!”

I have gone on quite a number of Microsoft courses in my working life and I had to prepare and edit countless geological reports for a slightly dyslexic geologist. I therefore know my way around Word (along with Powerpoint (many, many presentations) and Excel) quite well, so I just wondered if I might point the ‘L’ (learner) plate authors to a nifty little site that explains those rather handy shortcuts that will make your word-processing life a little easier. When I say ‘learner’ authors, I do mean in a word-processing capacity. (Phew! That was close).

Anyone who knows that CTRL C is a shortcut for Copy and has that Duh! expression can look away now! Continue reading “A Helping Hand…Shortcuts”

The Three Rs – Rules of Riting Revisited

Illustration: Andrzej Krauze
Illustration: Andrzej Krauze

So, after flirting with anarchy in my last blog post, I’m now going to continue to obsess about rules, just like that lady who didth protest too much.

In my defence, rules are kind of fascinating, even when we disagree with them. I mean, how was it decided, for example, that in the English city of Chester, you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls after midnight? Not even sure which part of that rule I disagree with most, especially since it’s apparently okay to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow in York at any time of day or night. Except Sundays. (Oh, that’s alright, then. And no, I promise I’m not making any of this up, you can check.)

But, back on track. My purposes here are to highlight a really cool link, in which the Guardian newspaper, following an excellent response by crime writer Elmore Leonard to a similar request, asked a bunch of accomplished writers to list up to ten “rules of writing” of their own. It really is an impressive list. Now, I could simply point you there and hope you go read them, but not only would this be a very short blog post, but the piece itself is very long, is in two parts, and honestly, even I am not that naive. So instead, I’ll grab a fairly random handful of these rules, and hold them up for inspection. As well as mockery. Okay, not mockery; some sporadic light teasing, perhaps. All done in a spirit of affection, of course. Continue reading “The Three Rs – Rules of Riting Revisited”

Ed’s Casual Friday: In Defense of Infodumping

dumpLadies and Gentlemen, if it pleases the court, allow me to say a few words on behalf of the condemned – the much maligned and detested “Infodump.” Just a few final words before “Dumpy,” as he is known among friends, is marched off to his execution by firing squad.

First, I’d like to repeat the assertion that what we have here may in part be a case of mistaken identity. It was not so long ago that “infodump” was a very specific term, meaning only the particular type of exposition where two or more characters are telling each other stuff that they should already know. It was most common in play- and screenwriting, and actually is pretty much how Anton Chekov starts all his plays, The Cherry Orchard included. Though nobody bats an eye when Lyuba is walking toward the door and Lopakhin tells Dunyasha, who have both known Lyuba their whole lives: “She’s lived abroad for five years…She’s a fine woman. Easy, straightforward.” Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: In Defense of Infodumping”

The cost of free – Experiment #1?

I have decided to try an experiment. I don’t remember the steps of the scientific method – something about a hypotenuse – so, it will be a very qualitative experiment. Here’s the deal. I recently published my second novel, The Biker, on Kindle. My first novel, Joe Café, still sells here and there, but it’s not flying off the shelves. I plan to release The Biker on Smashwords and Createspace, but, for now, I’m happy with leaving Joe Café on Kindle. So, I met at the crossroads with some marketing folk from Amazon and we signed some KDP Select documents in blood.

Continue reading “The cost of free – Experiment #1?”