Image Credits:
1. A huge thank you to Stuart Wineberg and The Chameleon Theatre Group for kind permission to use their photos for my CFT post. As ever, captions for the photos appear on the CFT post.
2. Unless stated otherwise, the rest of the images come from the marvellous Pixabay as usual.
Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today
My CFT post this week is a review of the latest Chameleon Theatre Company – Chandlers Ford production My Husband’s Nuts.
I discuss farce (well, with a title like that, this wasn’t going to be a serious documentary now, was it?!) and what it is meant to do.
I also research the background of plays etc that I review. Putting this title into a search engine produced some interesting results, including a link with candied almonds! See the post for more.
Also a big thanks to the Chameleons who seem to like the review!
Fantastic review of ‘My Husband’s Nuts’ by Allison Symes on Chandler’s Ford Today. Thank you, Allison! :
Am revamping my Word Press website (this very one!). Enjoying doing so and looking forward to sharing the results once I’m done. (Mind you, I bet there’ll be something I’ll have forgotten to add and then remember later but hey, that is the way of things!).
My CFT post this week is a review of the latest play put on by the wonderful Chameleon Theatre Group – My Husband’s Nuts. I’ll refrain from further comment other than to say the link will go up on Friday. Fans of serious documentaries may wish to skip this one… titles DO give clues!
Many thanks to all who’ve given great feedback on my latest Cafelit story, Humourless. I will have more work up in November and look forward to sharing that. It’s hard to believe it WILL be November on Friday! I get a sense of how fast the year is going by every time I schedule a CFT post as I have to know the dates!
I do wonder what that blue tit is telling the other one in the first picture below (from Pixabay as ever). Any chance is it’s nagging the other one to get up earlier to give it the best chance of getting the worms, do you think?
I hope it’s a good story the blue tit is relating here! Pixabay
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Reviewing is not the easiest thing to get right. You want to give a flavour of whatever it is you’re reviewing without giving away all of the “best bits”. It was good fun going to see The Chameleons’ My Husband’s Nuts and reviewing it this week for Chandler’s Ford Today though.
This play’s title confirms the importance of getting your title right to reflect the mood of your play, story, book etc! You just know this play isn’t going to be a serious documentary.
So how do you decide which title is right for your latest flash fiction story, say? The methods I use include:-
1. I use my titles to reflect the mood of the story.
2. I use my titles to reflect something of the main character.
3. I often keep my titles open so they can be taken in a humorous or other mood (e.g. Time Waits For No Man can be a funny story, could be a very sad one but the title flags up to the reader that the mood of the tale could go either way so that’s fine).
4. I sometimes use a pun as a title.
5. I’ll often use proverbs of famous sayings as titles, again because they can be open to interpretation. What I hope to do here is hook the reader’s curiosity so they want to find out which way the story goes.
If a better idea for a title occurs to me as I’m writing or editing the story, then I switch to that. You do get gut instincts that a title would be better if you went from Title A to Title B and I’ve learned to trust my gut instinct here. It’s rarely wrong.
Aside from writing flash, I, of course, read it, but I also like turning to longer works of fiction and non-fiction as something completely different.
It pays to mix up what you read to keep your reading life interesting AND ideas spark from all over the place so reading widely helps widen the areas where those sparks can originate from! And of course it is so much fun…
(One of my great joys is having books on my shelves at home written by friends. Always lovely to add to my collection there).
What do I look for when reading flash fiction by other authors?
1. I want to be hooked by the character(s).
2. I want to be surprised by the ending. (This does not mean it has to be a twist in the tale funnily enough, though I love those. I want to be able to foresee a good ending for the story and then discover the writer has come up with something better!).
3. I want to half wish I’d writen the story!
Why only half wish? Because I learned a long time ago I’m not in competition with other writers nor are they with me. Why? Because I write in my voice and they write in theirs. They are not the same.
You can take a dozen authors, give them the same word count and title and there will be a dozen different takes and styles.
The Waterloo Art Festival’s ebooks (produced by Bridge House Publishing) have proved that. My entries in To Be…To Become and, for this year, Transforming Being, are very different in style to the other tales. And that’s how it should be. Makes for a wonderful eclectic mix too.
Am revamping my Word Press website as I mentioned on my author page. I am hoping to have a specific flash fiction spot on this. Will share when it’s all ready. There is something creative in doing this though and I am enjoying it. I just feel that possibilities are opening up… (I do hope I’m right there!).
Flash fiction was known as postcard fiction and I can understand why. A story you can fit on the back of a postcard makes sense as a definition. Doesn’t really work for me. My handwriting’s tiny. I could get a three volume trilogy on there!😉😉😃
Flash has also been known as sudden fiction but I’m not keen on that definition. There can be some very poignant pieces written in flash and you’d hardly describe those as “sudden”.
The biggest challenge in flash fiction writing isn’t actually the word count – honestly. It’s coming up with different, interesting characters for each and every story you write. Mind, I love doing that. For me, it’s where the creative juices flow.
Fairytales With Bite –
How to Tell If Your Fairy Godmother is Out of Warranty
- Her wand keeps misfiring. You will get a lot of pumpkins but think of all the lovely recipes you can use those for!
- Her spells will only last for so long and always expire at midnight. This may well prove not to be convenient but tough. There is nothing she, or you, can do about it.
- She proves to have a bit of a thing for changing animals into human characters – rats a speciality – despite knowing such a spell cannot last and it is going to really confuse the animals when they truly become themselves again. What memories will they have for a start?
- If she uses a sleeping spell on you, beware! Her alarm clock is stuck to 100 years, not a minute less. Again this may prove to be inconvenient. On the plus side, you’re never going to beat this for a lie-in!
- Your fairy godmother, if she is on the ball so to speak, will make herself known to you early in life so her arrival doesn’t come as a huge shock to you later on… ah… I see you’ve only just met her… ooops. Good luck. You’ll need it but you probably are in for an entertaining and unforgettable evening. Have fun!
This World and Others – Foundations
What are the foundations for your stories and the worlds in which you set them? Mine are:-
- I’ve got to know the characters really well, especially their major traits. I don’t necessarily need to like them but I do have to know how they are likely to react to events and why and whether anything could throw them.
- I then visualise the setting in which these characters would fare best, work out why that is, and flesh out details of what the characters would face here. Not every detail will end up in the story but I will put in enough so readers can conjure up images of what the world is likely to be like.
- I like to get a sense of how the world is governed (as that may well be the direct cause of conflict in my story. Even where it isn’t, I need to know what my characters could expect to face in terms of authorities, how they might interfere with what the characters are doing etc).
Allison Symes: Collected Works 