Author: Dick C. Waters

Dick C Waters is a Contributing Author for Indies Unlimited and author of the Scott Tucker mystery novels; Branded for Murder, Serial Separation, Scent of Gardenia and Fragrance of Revenge (soon to be published). For more information please see his Author Central Page

Approaches to Building Suspense

gardenia Creating “Page-Turner Novels” was and still is my writing goal. In reviews, readers have complimented me for creating a good story and holding their  attention. (That is very satisfying.)

As I continue to improve my writing craft I have read several books. One that I would recommend is The Marshall Plan for NOVEL WRITING by Evan Marshall. He provides some excellent tools which helped me understand viewpoint writing and the proper sequence within the novel. I use a form of that now to plan my novels and to record the actual chapter detail and story progress. Here is what I do: Continue reading “Approaches to Building Suspense”

One Writer’s Guide to Flash Fiction Success

Flash fictionThe purpose of this article is to share my method for obtaining more votes in flash fiction competition. My hope is that this article will give other writers an approach to improve their results in competition, and the reward of continuing to craft interesting stories.

A little background first. When I learned about the Indies Unlimited site in early 2012, one of the things that interested me most was the weekly Flash Fiction competition. Many of the weekly picture and story prompts would beckon a story.

There was a feeling of accomplishment when I finally had complied with the 250-word constraint and had something I was proud of. However, after weeks of non-winning results in the weekly voting, I was ready to put my efforts elsewhere.

Life presents many opportunities and someone came to my rescue, and encouraged me to continue entering. I studied what I might have been doing wrong and realized it was not about the quality of my story; it was about not getting enough votes to win. Most of us know ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is not just about the three judges’ votes, it is about viewer votes. Realizing this Flash Fiction competition was about reader votes set me to having more supporting readers.

Here’s what I did that changed many of the stories into winning entries. Continue reading “One Writer’s Guide to Flash Fiction Success”

Building a Multi-Layer Table of Contents in MS Word

I needed to put a Table of Contents (TOC) into an existing Word document for my latest book, which is a collection of flash fiction (2013 Flash Fiction Anthology). My plan was to publish on Amazon in eBook format containing a TOC with hyperlinks to each story prompt and actual story.

However, I had a problem building the TOC. Then I used ‘help’ feature in Word without any success. Finally, I referred to some articles on the subject and still wasn’t successful. I finally worked through it, and thought others might be able to benefit from a post on my approach.

I’m sure those familiar with building a TOC will get a chuckle out of this post, but my approach does work. Continue reading “Building a Multi-Layer Table of Contents in MS Word”

Trick Question – How can you hold an eBook in your hand without a device?

Well that would be a neat trick to hold all those Ones and Zeroes without dropping any of them. I’m about to hold almost five times that amount, but they will be print versions.

I am in the process of using Amazon’s CreateSpace (CS) to publish all five of my existing eBooks into print versions. Originally I looked into CS and there was a fee involved. Recently, I asked an author friend, who had published his novel on CS, whether he spent a considerable sum. I was very surprised to hear that he didn’t spend any money. Maybe there are other authors who have existing eBooks who were considering printed versions, but were unaware as to how to accomplish this without incurring major expense. What follows is an overview of the CS publishing process I used. Continue reading “Trick Question – How can you hold an eBook in your hand without a device?”