A lovely mixture tonight, I think!
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Facebook – General
When you edit your stories, what are you looking for first and foremost? I look for the impact. Does the character make me react the way I want them to make me react? The way I thought they would when I drafted the story?
Of course, I check for typos and grammatical errors too. Yes, I’ll inevitably find some. We all do! But it is the impact of the character that is the most important thing for me. Why?
Simply because if the character doesn’t make me feel something, I, as a reader, am not going to care that much about the perfect grammar and the exquisite spelling!
Grammar and spelling do matter (and this is where writing buddies can be so helpful if these things are not your strong point. They will see things you do not etc). But I would argue get the story right first and then tidy the other matters up.
It will be the story and the characters readers remember.
Incidentally when people don’t notice the spelling and grammar, that is a very good sign. It shows you’ve got these things right. It also shows people were so gripped by your story and characters they had to keep reading.
Where spelling and grammar do matter is when people are enjoying your stories, you don’t want them to have their reading flow interrupted by an annoying typo. But get the story straight, then polish the spelling and grammar up.
Hope you’ve had a nice weekend. Lovely to have family around in the garden yesterday. Weekends are starting to feel a little more like weekends.
Writing wise, I’m working on a new series for CFT. Details later in the week. It is going to be one of those series with plenty of tips and advice which I, and my lovely guest contributors, all hope you find useful.
And naturally I’m itching to reveal the book cover for Tripping the Flash Fantastic so am looking forward to when I can do that.
Am also working on “homework” as a result of pieces created during the creative writing workshop on Zoom I “went to” on Wednesday. That was good fun as I mentioned yesterday. Definitely liked the haiku challenge.
My longer term projects, including a non-fiction one, are on the backburner at the moment but I hope to get back to those before too long.
I also need to find another short story competition to try and polish up those entries from earlier in the year I now know didn’t get anywhere in the competitions I submitted them for.
But I’ve sometimes had success with a reworked story submitted to another competition or market so this is worth doing. Occasionally I find I can’t do anything else with the story but the character really grabs me (and I would hope other readers) so I see if I can do something else with them.
Must admit though I am also looking forward to when the writing conferences etc come back and I can meet up with friends in person. Zoom is an asset but it is not/cannot be quite the same. (For one thing, whether I’m drinking tea or prosecco, I much prefer to do that in company!).
Hope Monday has not been too tricky for you. Lady has had a cracking start to her week. She got to play with her best doggie buddie today. Tonight she is zonked (and I suspect her pal is too). There’s a link there somewhere.
I’ve started my writing week by updating the blurb which appears on this author page. It’s about time I had something about the flash fiction in there! Ooops. Still sorted now.
It’s easy to forget, I think, there is a whole wealth of things going on behind the scenes for most writers. Updating websites, profiles etc., takes time but I see this as part of the marketing work. I try to do something on that side of things most days even if it is just joining in with a writing topic of interest somewhere on the web. I see that as engaging with other people and THAT is a big part of what writers do. We want people to engage with our stories, of course, but they’ve got to know we write them in the first place!
Bit of good news today. I should be able to book swimming soon. I have missed that. But it is good that this aspect of life is coming back.
I had thought I’d use my time in the pool to think out story ideas etc. As with walking the dog, not a bit of it, but it is wonderful “down time” and I always go back refreshed. So there’s the mental benefit I think.
I swim the front crawl. It IS going to be a crawl for a bit I should think!
Am catching up with some reading on Kindle and thoroughly enjoying that. Hope to post a couple of reviews by the end of the week. (Reviews matter!).
I read inside and outside of my genre, flash fiction, and I love the mixture of what I read. My absolute go-to has to be humour though. And if ever there was a period of time in my lifetime where a laugh from a good book has been a blessing, it really has been over the last few months.
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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
This week has been a very exciting one as I’ve worked with the cover designer from Chapeltown Books on Tripping the Flash Fantastic. I’ve also checked the text for the final time. So a busy but productive week and a lovely way to go into the weekend.
I hope in due course to post a cover reveal and I plan to hold a cyberlaunch. More details to follow.
This is the lovely side of writing. So much goes on behind the scenes and often for a long time at that. When you get to the point that the book is shortly going to be “out there”, then that’s the exciting and lovely pay off for all that hard work behind the scenes.
Yours truly and some of my collected works! Image by Adrian Symes
Back cover for FLTDBA
I’ve been drafting some haiku this week as part of a Zoom creative writing workshop I enjoyed this week. Can you tell a flash fiction in haiku I wonder? Let’s see, shall we?
1. The bear squashed the chair
To stop Goldilocks, that mare
Revisiting house.
2. Spinning wheel needle
Pricks the girl’s finger and then
Extended nap time!
Allison Symes
18th July 2020
Hope you enjoy!
If you have a scene with a character that can’t go into a story, why not turn it into a stand alone flash fiction tale?
The most common reason for a scene not making it into a story is that the scene doesn’t add anything so what’s the point of having it in there?
That’s the right response incidentally. Anything that doesn’t move your story on should be cut.
I’ve had an issue since the new look Facebook came in re posting pictures to my FLTDBA page. Have reported it. No response as yet! It is a pity as I like the new look one but if not sorted out, may have to return to the old. Still I CAN post pictures for you good people here!
It may seem an odd mix to be both a flash fiction writer and a blogger but I like the contrast. I like making things up for one and sticking to the facts for the other. I’ll leave it to you to work out which way around that works out!
One thing on my fairly long To Do list is to have a crack at writing what I’ve heard called flash non-fiction. I do wonder if that is just another name for blogging which is 500 words or under. Any thoughts on that? It is interesting there are calls out now for factual pieces kept to a tight word count.
I can see the point of that. Short, sharp pieces to encourage people to read further into a subject later – yes, I like that idea.
1. The click of the mouse
Means I am writing again;
I still love my pen.
2. A flash fiction tale
Often has one character
With one main focus.
Allison Symes – 21st July 2020
I really DID enjoy the haiku challenge set on the Zoom creative writing workshop I was on last week. There is a follow-up session tomorrow which I am looking forward to but the point in the second haiku here remains!
Oh and it proves I can count to 5, 7, and 5 again so I guess that’s a bonus!
Flash is remarkably open to form. I’ve written flash in poetic form (and there will be some examples of that in Tripping the Flash Fantastic). I’ve also written flash in diary format too (and again see the next book when it is out). I’ve written flash in all sorts of genres. It is a great vehicle for strong characters and having fun with said strong characters.
Goodreads Author Blog –
First Books You Chose For Yourself
Do you remember the first book you chose for yourself?
The first single book I chose was Jane Austen’s Collected Works. It is handy having them in one volume!
The first book series I collected (and still have) was the Agatha Christie series published via Odhams Books. Remember them? The nice thing with that series is it covers all of her major characters from Poirot to Marple to Tommy and Tuppence. Great stories.
The first fantasy book I chose for myself was The Lord of the Rings.
The first history book I chose was Simon Schama’s History of Britain which tied in with his TV series of the same name.
The first comic series I went for was P.G. Wodehouse’s wonderful works. (I don’t have them all but do have a fair number). I started with Jeeves and Wooster, thanks to the fab TV adaptation where Stephen Fry played Jeeves and Hugh Lawrie played Bertie.
I then went on to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. I started with Jingo and then worked backwards to the beginning with The Colour of Magic.
Oh and I mustn’t forget Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series. My local (at the time) ITV network, Southern TV (sadly long gone), produced a great adaptation of these and the books were reissued with the covers showing the child actors in their roles. Sadly Southern lost their franchise and I believe the series ended. I don’t know what happened to the books I managed to collect (I used to be able to buy them from the local newsagent – how times have changed!) but loved the stories.
So can TV and film have a great influence on book buying? Oh yes!
Allison Symes: Collected Works 