CafeLit, Authors Electric, and Good Endings

Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

It has been a busy few days but plenty to share here including a new CafeLit story and blog post on Authors Electric.

IMPACT - Blogging. Pixabay

Facebook – General

Thrilled to be back on CafeLit with my story, Eyes Opened. What Liza wants, what she really really wants, is some appreciation but does she find any? Find out here!

Screenshot 2021-09-21 at 16-52-45 Eyes Opened


Am making good progress on presentations for use later in the year and sent off another story to #FridayFlashFiction for this week. Am compiling my next newsletter too. I send these out on the first of the month and share exclusive videos here as well as news and writing tips. If you want to find out more head over to my website (landing page) at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Have got blogs to work on this week and my two major projects to crack on with.

I had a check-up earlier today and I was asked what I do so I said I was a writer. It triggered a lot of questions including the classic what do you write? (Naturally I waved the flag for flash fiction here). Next time I’ll take the business card I think!

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Hope you have had a good weekend. Really feeling the change of the season now. Not that I mind. I like autumn. (And raking up our oak leaves every year is a very good workout!).

I’ll be talking about anniversaries for Chandler’s Ford Today this week and sharing some of my happy writing ones. I also look at why anniversaries matter and I leave you in no doubt about my views on “tat”. I look forward to sharing the link for the post on Friday.

Many thanks for the comments already in on Making Amends, my latest story on #FridayFlashFiction. If you haven’t had chance to check this out, do see the link below. And I am encouraged to see writing pals having work on here regularly too. More power to your imaginations, everyone!

 

Glad to say it’s my turn on the Authors Electric blog. This time I’m looking at fiction and non-fiction. I’ve loved the former for as long as I can remember (and that does go a long way back!). Non-fiction is a reasonably recent but very welcome development for me in terms of reading it and writing it.

Can you name a non-fiction book as a “must read”? (I’d nominate On Writing by Stephen King by the way though most of my non-fiction reading is history). I also ask if non-fiction is still seen as the poor relation to fiction. (I would hope not).

Screenshot 2021-09-21 at 20-54-41 Fiction or Non-Fiction by Allison Symes

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s lovely to be back on CafeLit with my story, Eyes Opened.

I’ll be talking about Anniversaries in my Chandler’s Ford Today post later this week and I do celebrate some of my writing ones, including naturally being published in flash fiction. That is a major writing anniversary for me!

With my blogging hat on, I also write a monthly post for Authors Electric and my most recent one was about fiction and non-fiction. See link (and post above). The nice thing now is there is such a thing as flash non-fiction (generally up to 500 words) and that strikes me as an interesting form to try at some point.

And a nice job for me in next day or so is to proofread my story which will be in the Bridge House Publishing anthology later this year. Always nice having to do something like that!


It’s Monday. We’re heading rapidly to the end of the day (at least here in the UK) and it’s story time again! Delighted to share Messages, my latest YouTube video. Hope you enjoy it.


I don’t always name my characters but I do make them intriguing enough to read about. (Else there is no point in writing their stories up!). I do use names to indicate likely social class sometimes. Names can also be a good indicator of age. There aren’t many twenty year olds named Gertrude, for example.

Where I do use names, it is to try to convey information about the character’s likely background without my having to spell it out another way later on in the story.

What would you make of someone called Helena as opposed to Ellen, say? I think you’d assume Helena to be of a higher social class than Ellen for one thing. And that can give an early pointer as to the likely setting Helena would be in. Saves a lot on the word count implying that!

Books of names still have their uses then. Classic names tend to come around in cycles too so a writer could use that to their advantage. My own name is very much of the 1960s/70s (in the UK at least) so I could use that if I wanted to write a story about an Allison either set back in that time or to show her age in a story with a contemporary setting.

 

Many thanks for the comments already coming in for my Making Amends on #FridayFlashFiction. Much appreciated.

Will be drafting more stories hopefully tomorrow. Though you can always check out my story videos over at my Youtube channel. See link below. Am having a non-fiction night tonight. Though I noted with interest from the latest Writing Magazine (and its enclosed competitions guide) there are competitions for flash non-fiction too. A welcome development and maybe something to try out at a later date.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA

 

Goodreads Author Blog – What Makes A Good Ending in a Book for You

I know – so much depends on the book you’re reading, right?

What matters for me is that the ending is appropriate to the characters and story. I do like happy endings but also appreciate that does not suit every tale told). Sometimes it is apt for a character to reach a point of understanding where you can sense if they carry on with what they have come to understand, they will eventually get their happy ending but for now this is the point where they’re at. And that is a worthwhile journey in and of itself.

Fairytales are often not the happy ever after fest they can sometimes seem to be. The original versions of The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid have violence in them. Certainly Disney could not have filmed the latter as Hans Christen Andersen wrote it. Yet the stories as originally written show well thought out characters, the situations they’re in are reasonable for the world in which they live, and the ending for The Little Mermaid is poignant to say the least. It was my wake-up call to the fact not all stories necessarily end happily as we would understand the term, though I like to think the mermaid at last found some peace in her life.

So what I really want then is a “good” ending which wraps the story up well. Perhaps it is up to us as readers to recognise “happy” doesn’t always equate to “good” here.

Screenshot 2021-09-21 at 21-11-37 What Makes a Good Ending in a Book For You

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