Month: February 2022

Geography in Fiction and The Light of the Moon

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
It has been a dreadful week news wise. I think the image below, which I used earlier this week, says it all.

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post. This time I’m looking at Geography in Fiction. A strange topic? I don’t think so. Geography plays a major role in so many stories and books. Can you imagine, say, The Lord of the Rings without it? Or Winnie the Pooh? Or The Wind in the Willows? And geography can help create stories simply by the problems it can cause, based on what we know here. Hope you find the post useful.

Geography in Fiction

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News wise, it has been a dreadful day. I wasn’t expecting war in Europe again, ever.

One of the roles of the creative arts, including writing, is, of course, to allow us to escape into what are effectively alternative universes for a while. They can make us reflect. Stories can show us the best and the worst of ourselves. They can console and cheer.

Yet, much as I love stories, I know they’re not the most important thing in the world right now. Despite that, I also believe they do have a vital role to play in emphasizing our humanity. I really cannot stress enough how important it is we don’t lose that.

So keep reading. Writers, keep writing. Stories matter.

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Hope you have had a good day.

I’ve talked before about drafting a story and leaving it for a while before coming back to editing it. Once edited, I take another break from it and then I do a final edit. What is the point of one break, yet alone two?

The first break is to enable me to check my story structure and character works after that initial thrill of creation. (And I do get a real buzz from that. Pity I can’t bottle that feeling really). Happy with that, I make adjustments to my story to strength my characterisation where I feel that is needed. It is also at this point I may well spot an element of the storyline that could be improved so I do that too.

The second break means when I come back to the story again I spot the typos and grammatical errors. There inevitably are some (nobody gets away with these things entirely scot free) but I know to look for them and to trample on the lot!

I want to give my story the best possible chance out there so going over everything and ensuring there are no errors takes time but it is worth doing. I remember in my early days not doing that and spotting a glaring error after I sent the story off. No surprises when I tell you that story didn’t get picked. I did rework the story and sent it off elsewhere and if memory serves me correctly, it ended up on CafeLit.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday. It’s story time again. Pleased to share Light of the Moon, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Not everyone enthuses about the light of the moon – find out why here. Hope you enjoy the tale.

Screenshot 2022-02-25 at 16-16-25 Light of the Moon, by Allison Symes


It is difficult to know what to write after a dreadful news day. But I do know it is important to write. To tell stories. Stories can unite us, whether we write flash fiction or epic sagas. And stories encourage the imagination and can help with empathy. If you understand where a character is coming from, you’re well on your way to understanding where other humans are coming from, given stories reflect on us.

 


What do I do with flash tales which don’t get picked for a competition win or placing? I look at said stories again, polish them up, and send them out elsewhere. I have gone on to have stories published on the second or third attempt.

But it has to be said, the break away from the stories has meant I can look at them again with a critical eye and try and work out why it might not have been picked. Sometimes it is a question the story is just not to the judge’s taste – and that’s fine. You learn to accept early on that not everyobdy is going to like what you do. There are styles of story I’m not keen on so that’s fair enough.

But sometimes you do spot a character portrayal didn’t quite work out as you thought, maybe it was a little weak so I look at ways to improve things and then get my story out again somewhere else.

Waste not, want not!

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Fairytales with Bite – Humour

I have a very soft spot for humour in any kind of fiction but especially in the fairytales. Many of them can be grim (some pun intended!) so something to lighten the mood a little I find helpful. While I’m not a huge fan of pantomime, I can understand it and the reason why roles such as the pantomime dame exist. Widow Twankey doesn’t have much of a role in the actual story of Aladdin. “She” does have a major role in the pantomime versions of the story.

I like the humorous one liners and these can work really well in short stories and flash fiction. (If anything they can have more of an impact because the forms are short). This is where creating your own characters and getting them to come out with those one liners is great fun! And they can make fantastic punchlines for your stories too. The key is ensuring that the one liner is something your character as portrayed would come out with. You can’t just tack a funny line on to them.

Humour should arise naturally so if your fairy godmother has a malfunctioning wand, then humorous situations would arise from that.

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This World and Others – The Value of Humour

Does your fictional world value humour or suppress it? I am always wary of anyone who cannot laugh at themselves (as it makes me wonder if they have any empathy with human foibles at all and we all have some!). Is humour encouraged in your creation or firmly kept “underground”? Are there any off limit topics for comedy?

I know I deeply appreciate humour. Something that makes me smile or laugh is bound to add a bit of a shine to my day. It does for most people but how do your characters see it? Does their reaction here show you more about them that you can develop further for your tale?

Perhaps your character likes one-liners but has no time for the longer funny monologues. Does that reflect on them just wanting to get on with things quickly in other areas of their life? Perhaps they appreciate quick wit rather than farce or physical comedy? Maybe they were clumsy (or still are) and find physical comedy with its emphasis on slapstick and falls makes them feel uncomfortable. How do they handle that discomfort if this type of humour is normal for their world?

Reactions to humour vary from person to person. You can show elements of that with your characters too. If someone finds something funny and their closest companions don’t, how does that then change how they get on? Does that change how their overall “mission” pans out?

If humour doesn’t exist as we know it here, what would your created world have instead? How would your people cope with naturally funny things in a world that doesn’t acknowledge humour? And what might happen if someone dares to laugh when all around them dare not?

Food for funny thought there, I think!

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Acrostics, Blogging, and Character Studies

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Recovered from Storms Dudley, Eunice, and Franklyn. Don’t like the way we’re getting through the alphabet so quickly for storms! Hope all is well with you. One lovely thing about writing is you generally stay in the warm and dry to do it – have really appreciated that these last few days!

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Facebook – General

Busy day again today though Lady had a lovely surprise when her best buddie, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, came to to play. It is quite something seeing the pair of them have the “zoomies”. You stand well back and enjoy the show basically!

Looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. I’ll be talking about Geography in Fiction. It may not have a starring role in many stories but it does play a crucial role and can inspire story ideas. For one thing your characters do have to live somewhere!

And I don’t know about you but I like to have a picture in my mind of the setting in any story I read. It helps make the story more real to me, a kind of if this place existed for real it would be exactly like this.

And, as with so much else in flash fiction, you can imply setting simply by who your character is or by what it is they call their day job. After all, magical characters have to have a magical environment to come from, even if they don’t stay there.

 

Hope you have had a good Monday. Very hectic here – and still gusty out there. Hope things are settling down where you are.

I’ve used the topic of the moon for my Friday Flash Fiction story this week and for my YouTube video which I’ll share over on my book page shortly. See link further down. Good fun to do and I’ve always liked the idea of getting more than one story out of a basic premise and taking those two tales in very different directions. Outside prompts for writing are useful, whether you get them from random generators, books of prompts and so on.

Talking of the latter, I will draw your attention to Prompts 2020, Prompts 2021 and Prompts 2022. Is it me or is there a theme developing there?! Anyway, the books were compiled by #GillJames and many of the Bridge House Publishing/CafeLit/Chapeltown Books stable contributed to them, including yours truly.

I’ve used some of the prompts myself for CafeLit submissions and I do think prompts encourage you to “up your game” writing wise. I love the challenge of responding to the challenge with something that works and fulfils the criteria.

Let’s stretch those creative writing muscles then!

Screenshot 2022-02-21 at 19-41-28 Amazon co uk Prompts by Gill James

Not a great weekend weather wise – keep safe. (My crocuses were just beginning to make an appearance – I fear they’ve probably been battered!).

In more positive news, I have submitted two stories today and have already heard one of them will be appearing on CafeLit next Sunday. Looking forward to sharing the link then. Members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group who were at our Zoom meeting last Wednesday will remember the lovely #AnnmarieMiles set a ten minutes free writing exercise based on a name I came up with thanks to a random name generator.

It is the story I drafted for this exercise which will be appearing on CafeLit so am pleased about that. More later in the week. I’m not likely to hear about the other story for a while (and that is more usual I have to say for story submissions).

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Hope you have had a good day. Things settling down here in Hampshire after Storm Eunice yesterday. Tree debris all over the place, a few fence panels down etc – got off lightly I would say and am grateful.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Geography in Fiction for my post for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Hope by the end of the weekend to submit a couple of stories and catch up with some blogging I need to get on with (though I do have a good deadline on all of these. Where possible, once I’ve posted a blog somewhere, I am writing the next one for the same site, but it isn’t always possible to do that. So then as soon as I can I have a major blogging session where I play catch up. Those “spare” blogs come in very useful during particularly busy times. It is always worth having something spare in the “bank” whether it is a blog post or a story you can edit and submit).

If anyone knows of a way to stretch writing time, I’d be glad to hear it though! (Oh and while I don’t use any of the “switch off social media sites for so long” apps, I do just ignore social media until I’ve got my writing done).

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Flash can be a nice vehicle for short character studies. My piece, due on CafeLit on Sunday, is of this ilk and it was great fun to write. But of course for this kind of thing you need a strong character voice. I have to get to know my character a bit. When I was drafting this tale, I knew that I wanted my character to have hidden depths to them and they were not all they appeared to be. Knowing that was enough to get me started and away I went!

So when thinking of this kind of story, consider why you want to write about your character. What is special about them that readers have to know? What tale does the character have to share with us? It doesn’t have to be overly dramatic but something has to stand out about your character it is obvious to the reader why you absolutely had to write their story down.

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Many thanks for the response to my Storm acrostic flash piece yesterday. And it’s story time again now with my latest YouTube video called Decision by Moonlight. Hope you enjoy it.


I was chatting about acrostic flash fiction yesterday so I thought I’d share one for this post. Hope you enjoy it.

Storm

S = Shocking weather, isn’t it, and such a lot of it too!
T= Terrible winds and torrential rain; I’ve given up on my umbrella.
O = Orange with black dots on it; yes, the one you called an eyesore.
R = Romance isn’t dead but you have put it on the critical list; you know I loved that brolly from my old Nan.
M = Money’s not the problem; I don’t want a new boring brolly from you, but I will say I didn’t fancy becoming the next Mary Poppins!
Allison Symes – 20th February 2022

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I was chatting about acrostic flash fiction as part of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting the other night. They are fun to do but I have found the following tips useful.

1. Pick one reasonable length word OR a couple of small ones. I’ve used words like Guarantee and phrases like Talk The Talk.

2. Keep the story short – acrostics work best this way, especially as they are meant to be visualised. You want your chosen word to be fully visible to readers no matter what device they’re using to read your tale.

3. Once you’ve picked the word or mini phrase you want to use, give yourself plenty of time to work out ideas to come from them. Think about the character who will “serve” the acrostic story.

For Guarantee, my first thought was of a salesman trying to make a difficult sale to an awkward customer and of course one thing a salesman like that would offer would be a “cast iron” guarantee. (Of course whether it is or not is another matter!).

It will save you time in the long run if you work out different possibilities first and then go with the one you like best. It also means some prep work here means you have got a logical way to make your story work from the start.

4. Where possible, I have one sentence following the starting letter of the acrostic. Where not possible, I link with semi-colons, dashes, or whatever is the most appropriate piece of punctuation to use. It can vary. Where even that is not possible, I write two short sentences per line then hit return and go with the next letter of the acrostic but I do keep my tales to one line = one letter of the acrostic as much as possible.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Why Stories Matter

The problem with a post like this one is keeping it short! Where do you start on this one?

Well, stories matter for me because I can escape into other worlds for a little while. I’ve always loved that aspect. I also love following what the characters do and say and figuring out whether or not I would do and say as they have in the books and stories I read.

Stories can take me to places I cannot get to physically either because right now I can’t commit to the length of time to say, going to New Zealand would take (and that is on my list of things to do) or because they’re invented worlds and unless someone invents a portal which takes you to fictional places, I’m not getting to go there! Mind you, it could be argued the book is the portal here!

Stories can convey important truths without preaching and I find the theme of a story is far easier to remember. And I love the way stories come in different formats – books, film, audio etc. There is something to suit everyone here. Stories can pass down tradition and build communities and show you truths about yourself/the human condition.

Last but definitely not least, they are entertaining.

Let’s hear it for the stories!

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In Fiction – Frameworks and Animals – and A Good Cause

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Somes images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you are all safe and well. UK currently experiencing Storm Eunice. Must admit I’m not impressed by her! Neither was the dog…

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today/Authors Electric

Authors Electric
Busy night on the old blogging front as I have two separate posts to share. First up is my Authors Electric post for this month where I talk about Animals in Fiction. This is something I talked about for Chandler’s Ford Today a few weeks ago but the topic bears repeating. I share my love of animal characters and talk about what I do when I write from the viewpoint of an animal character. I’ve written from the viewpoint of a mother dragon after all! Hope you enjoy the post.

Chandler’s Ford Today

And now time for my Chandler’s Ford Today post. This week I’m looking at Frameworks in Fiction. I look at why frameworks matter, share a few of the different ones I use (and why I like to mix them up), and what can be used as a framework, even when at first glance the device in question doesn’t appear to be a framework at all! I also ask if frameworks can be too constricting. Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

Frameworks in Fiction

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Lull between the storms in the UK right now. Take care, everyone, with Storm Eunice due tomorrow.
On a happier note, my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be about Frameworks in Fiction. I use a number of different ones for my flash tales and will be discussing these and why frameworks are so useful. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Don’t forget I send out an author newsletter on the first of each month with tips, news, prompts etc. If you’d like to sign up please head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Currently busy on story judging and editing as well as my own writing so am staying out of mischief well enough!

It was lovely catching up with everyone on the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group on Zoom last night. We all ended up with a new story to work on thanks to a free writing exercise set by #AnnmarieMiles. I used a random name generator to come up with the name of a character to write about and there were excellent and different approaches taken. All good fun!

 

The wind is already getting stronger here in Hampshire – take care, everyone, over what promise to be a wild few days in the UK.

Now I don’t use the weather in fiction at all (too many cliches etc and It was a dark and stormy night has been done!). But you can use the elements to help set mood including landscape as well as weather. Think about the detail a reader needs to know. You won’t need to spell everything out. The joy of flash is so much is inferred and the reader fills in the gaps.

I’ve always loved doing that when reading longer works but for flash writing, it is crucial. I may need to know your character is on a moor. I don’t need to know how wet, boggy etc the moor is because I have my idea of what a moor is like and that will be what I visualise when I read the word “moor”. What is more important to know is the season. Is your character there in the summer or the winter? That will make a huge difference to the conditions they face.

So it is the question of the telling detail then – select what readers have to know, what they cannot guess at, and let your readers fill in the gaps. We will – and it saves so much on the old word count! Nor do you irritate readers telling them what they can work out for themselves.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Now earlier this week, I shared my YouTube story called At Number 64  – see below – and I mentioned I had submitted a linked story to this for Friday Flash Fiction. Well, I am glad to say my second story on the same theme is now up on FFF and I am glad to share it here. Hope you enjoy A Good Cause (and many thanks for the fab comments in on it so far).

Screenshot 2022-02-18 at 19-20-44 A Good Cause, by Allison Symes


In a month’s time I’ll be on my way to the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference where I’ll be running a flash fiction workshop. Looking forward to that immensely. Never thought I’d be doing this kind of thing when I started out.

But I have a very soft spot for workshops anyway. You get to meet other writers. You get to learn something useful. And a good workshop should trigger ideas for you own stories too.

Best invention since sliced bread? The notebook and pen of course.

Still great for workshop/conference environments. And flash gives you potential for writing up your exercises from workshops etc into polished stories you can submit later. Every so often I will go back through my old notebooks and see if there is something I can polish up. Sometimes I will find something useful like that. Other times I’ll read something which will trigger other story ideas and that’s great too.


Screenshot 2022-02-18 at 20-54-40 Writing Workshops Conference 2020 Scottish Association of WritersI was talking about giving readers the telling details they need to know to make sense of your story over on my Facebook author page just now and I referred to the elements. But you need to think about telling details for your characters too.

I’ve mentioned before I like to know the character’s major trait as all sorts of things can come from that which you can use to bring your character to life (e.g. the character is brave, they have a tendency to be reckless because of it and that’s where the story is – in what that recklessness leads to).

So work out what you need to know to make the character work for you. (If the character works for you, they’ll work for a reader). If a character is poor, do you need to know if they have become poor or have always been less well off? What is their attitude towards it? Can that attitude be where your story is – if your character is bitter, do they do something against anyone they hold to blame for their situation?

Ask yourself questions about what you need to know. I’ve found doing that sparks ideas and soon an outline for a possible story emerges. I like that – a lot!

Screenshot 2022-02-18 at 20-57-33 (2) Allison Symes Facebook

Fairytales With Bite – Happily Ever After?

And they all lived happily ever after has to be one of the most famous endings to any story. Though it should be added the original versions of fairytales often did not have a happy ending or gruesome things occurred before the happy ever after bit.

I understand it being in the classic tales for children but it is not one I am comfortable with myself. I like most of my stories to have a positive, upbeat ending where you can see things would continue to be okay for my deserving characters long after the story has finished. But sometimes I write stories with poignant endings because that is appropriate for the characters I’ve come up with.

And that is what I am really after in the stories I read and write – appropriate endings for the characters.

One thing I do get from my love of fairytales is the wish for the villains to get their well deserved comeuppance. I’m actually more interested in seeing how that pans out rather than the happy bit (because with the comeuppance bit achieved, the rest will follow).

I also like to see happy ever afters “earned” by the characters concerned – it seems more realistic to me the characters (a) deserve to get their happy ever after ending and (b) contribute to achieving that significantly themselves.

So give some thought to how you want your stories to end. When it is a happy ending, have your characters be worthy of it. You want your readers cheering them on to the happy conclusion after all.

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This World and Others – Living In Peace

Does your fictional world live in peace with other creations around it? Do the inhabitants of your created world get along with each other? How many species live in your world and is there any “history” between them? Do they live in peace now after centuries of not doing so? Is your world one of those where peace is a rarity or where war is unknown and disputes have to be resolved in other ways?

What would your fictional world make of our real one? Answering something like that can give you insight into how and why your people behave and act the way they do. Could they live in peace with us? What do they make of our warlike ways? Some would despise that (and possibly because we’re not warlike enough in their view). Some would hate it because they cannot understand violence. Some would love it, possibly seeing possibilities of exploiting that quality against us.

Living in peace takes effort. How much effort are your characters prepared to make? What is the incentive for them to be at peace especially if their culture is one of war?

Good story possibilities there I think especially since there is always someone who is prepared for various reasons to go against the status quo.

 

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Heading North Again Soon and Frameworks in Fiction

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Most images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos of the wonderful view as you come into Dundee Railway station and of my table at the Brechin/Angus Book Festival. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Went to see a live comedy gig over the weekend, booked my tickets for a very special event in March, and got soaked with the dog – so a mixed bag here!

Facebook – General

Lady and I had a soaking while out this morning at the Recreation Ground but other than that it has been a good day.

Am looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group Zoom meeting tomorrow night. I’ve mentioned before that one reason I think for the growth in the popularity of flash fiction is that people read more on screens now and flash works brilliantly for that. It is also easy to screen share on Zoom!

Now when it comes to thinking of topics for blog posts, I start by looking at what I think might interest other writers. (For the moment for Chandler’s Ford Today I am writing an In Fiction series). I then think about what might encourage people to join in with their comments and I also aim for my blogs to be both useful and entertaining. I do know from years of going to writing conferences etc that a topic which grabs one writer is likely to hook in others!

And for my fiction and non-fiction work, I ask myself one vital question. What will the reader get from this? It is crucial there is something in your writing that is of benefit to them, whether it is to amuse/entertain or to give them information which will be useful for their own writing. Do that and it is far more likely people will come back to you and read more of what you do.

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Hope you have had a good Monday and happy St. Valentine’s Day to all who celebrate.

Had a hilarious time at the Mayflower Theatre last night and it was good to see the entertainment industry coming back to life too.

Am pleased to say the February 2022 edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads is now free to download on Amazon.

Screenshot 2022-02-15 at 20-58-34 Amazon com Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine February 2022 eBook Publishing , Goylake , Howe[...]

Am looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom on Wednesday night. Meanwhile I’ll be enjoying meeting up with the History Writers on Zoom tonight. I’ve been very grateful for how Zoom has made things possible – with both of these groups I would not be able to get to these events in person (well, maybe once a year but that would be about it).

I’ve used a number generator as the focus for my stories for Friday Flash Fiction this week and for my new YouTube video which I’ll be sharing over on my book page shortly. See further down for the link. The number generated was 64. What could I do with that? Well, pop over to my book page in a moment and pick up the link for the video and I hope to share the second part of the answer to this on Friday!

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Am posting early today as am off with better half and other family members to see Jack Dee at The Mayflower Theatre later. Has been such a long time since we were last there.

A huge thanks for the fantastic response to my post yesterday about my forthcoming trip to the Scottish Association of Writers Conference. See below.

I’ll be looking at Frameworks in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today later this week – link up on Friday.

A big thanks also to the response to Misunderstanding, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Feedback always appreciated.

Hope this week proves to be a good one (though Lady and I were none too impressed with the weather today – let’s just say the bedraggled look is in!)

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Thrilled to say I have booked my train tickets for the Scottish Association of Writers Conference which takes place in March (18th to 20th). See link.

Now you may well be thinking that’s all very nice, Allison, but you’re a Hampshire lass so how come you’re heading north?

(Not for the first time either, missus. Quite right as I was at the Brechin/Angus Festival in November which was great fun and I must admit my breath was taken away by the stunning view as you come into Dundee Railway Station – see pic below!).

Stunning views as I came into Dundee station

Another view as I came into Dundee.

I thought Dundee Station looked rather splendid

I thought Dundee Station was rather grand.


Well, I joined the History Writers group who are part of the SAW and indeed I will be giving a talk to them very soon via the wonders of Zoom about historical flash fiction. Very much looking forward to that. Now you may be suspecting there is probably a common link somewhere amongst all of this and there is – the lovely #WendyHJones links SAW, History Writers, and the Brechin/Angus Festival.

At the Conference in March, I will be running a flash fiction workshop. I’m also one of the judges for one of the SAW’s competitions.

So lots going on behind the scenes for me right now, all very exciting, and I am looking forward to meeting everyone at the Conference in March.

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I need to know my character before I start writing up their story but I also need to know the framework of the story in which I am going to put them.

Will it be a linear narrative, a circular story, a twist in the tale, a diary format, or should I write the story in the form of a letter? (I’ve used all of those frameworks in my time and will do so again!). I’ll be looking at Frameworks in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week where I’ll discuss this further but I do find frameworks so useful. I like to have a rough road map of where I am going. And sometimes I know what the story is going to be and then have to decide which is the best way to tell it for the character I’m writing about.

I do usually write A to B but for twist endings/punchline endings, I write B to A because it is simpler to get that kind of ending down first and then work out what could have led to it. It is also a relief to know I have got my ending in place and just have to work out the starting point.

There are often several options there and this is why I use spider diagrams to help me work out which would be best. And when I say best, I am thinking best for the character and best for the future reader. It isn’t the same as what would be easiest for me, the writer, to actually do (and I always dismiss this anyway because the idea is to stretch myself and not make life easy for me or my unfortunate character I’ve chosen to drop right in it!).

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Hope you enjoy my new YouTube story, At Number 64. I’ve submitted a linked story to this for Friday Flash Fiction this week and I hope to share the link on that on Friday if I can. I am enjoying using the same theme generated for two stories per week but it is also great to have a story with connections to another one, yet both stand alone.

 

The joy of flash is having a completed bit of work to hand relatively quickly but there is a difference between “completed” and “first draft”. I can draft a story in about ten/fifteen minutes (for say a 100 to 150 word count) but I will spend considerably more time after that honing and improving that draft. And that is how it should be.

The first draft is to get the idea down. Then and only then do you look at ways of making that better. Guess what? There are always ways of making things better! But you yourself get better in spotting what can be improved and sharpened over time. You get better at knowing what your writing flaws are and then making a beeline on the first edit to get rid of those.


Hope you have had a good Saturday. I mentioned this on my main author page the other day but I will repeat it here – Amazon have a good offer on the paperback of Tripping the Flash Fantastic at the moment. See the link for more information.

Looking forward to talking about historical flash fiction at the History Writers group I’m part of on Zoom soon. Given flash is focused on characters there is no reason why some of those characters can’t live in the past! And you can use characters to explore that past too. It is something I am hoping to do more of in due course.

History is made up of so many stories, of course, and as long as you are accurate, I see no reason why you can’t explore history via fiction. After all one of my favourite books The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey led me to change my mind about Richard III and take more of an interest in his life and times. Flash illuminates briefly. Why not illuminate a small section of history?

 

Goodreads Author Blog – Visualising Characters

I started reading Dickens as a result of watching Oliver Twist on TV. The film version being shown starred Sir Alec Guinness and Oliver Reed (Fagan and Sykes). Both were brilliant and I absolutely had to read the book after seeing this.

And, again with Dickens, I loved The Muppet Christmas Carol (and still do, it’s a must see at Christmas) with Sir Michael Caine as Scrooge. What I loved best, with my reader’s and writer’s hats on, is where Gonzo acting as Dickens the narrator tells us all to go and read the original book. Quite right too!

I don’t need a film or TV adaptation to visualise a well portrayed character but where adaptations are thoughtfully done, those TV and film portrayals add something special to the book when I then go on to re-read it again. I do visualise the well cast actors. I can’t read a Poirot novel now without visualising Sir David Suchet in the role or a Miss Marple without seeing in my mind’s eye the wonderfully cast Joan HIckson.

So are there any adaptations that bring a book more to life for you? Or will you always prefer the book over any adaptation?

Scrooge is horrified to see how much glee his death will bring to others unless he changes his ways
Dark grey streets typical of Dickensian London

 

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Endings in Fiction – and Retreats as a Theme

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Image Credit:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Having been away at a retreat last weekend, I used the theme of retreat for my YouTube video earlier this week and for Friday Flash Fiction this week! Hope you have had a good week. Not bad here. Looking forward to being part of the Scottish Association of Writers’ conference in March. More news to come on that in due course (and I don’t think you can beat their website image – see below!).

 

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share Endings in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today. Memorable endings stay with you long after you’ve finished the book or story and make it far more likely you’ll read more work from the author concerned.

I also look at why I feel the “it was just a dream” ending only worked the once and why. I look at linear, circular, and twist endings. (I use the latter a lot for my flash fiction so am especially fond of those). I go on to discuss what I think a good story ending should do. Hope you enjoy the post and do share your favourite story endings in the CFT comments.

Endings in Fiction

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Brrr… after an almost spring-like day yesterday, it has turned cold again. Mind you, it has been nice to see the signs of spring appearing – I’ve spotted primroses out and my solitary clump of snowdrops is doing well.

I’m talking about Endings in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week and I’m looking forward to sharing the link for that tomorrow. See link above.

A classic ending reverberates long after you’ve finished reading the book. A weak ending lets whatever came before down and a writer risks having readers not want to take a chance on their stories again. Well, you’re not going to risk being disappointed again, are you? So it matters then that you get your ending right. No pressure then! But it is worth taking your time to get this right.

Think about the impact you want your story to have on a reader. Think about what you yourself would want to see in the ending as if you weren’t the writer.

Putting yourself in your Ideal Reader’s shoes is an invaluable thing to do because you want your stories to impact on your reader so they want to read you again and again and again. If you are thinking about them from the start, you are less likely to go off on unhelpful tangents because you are seeking to reach them so you are thinking of what they need to see from your characters and plot.

 

Hope you have had a good day. Very busy one here – from housework to taking the dog to the vet for her annual booster, it’s all glamour here – umm…. maybe not!

There is an offer on the paperback of Tripping the Flash Fantastic via Amazon. See the link for more information.

How did I come up with the title for my second flash fiction collection? Well, one of the stories in it is called Tripping the Light Fantastic but I wanted something indicating the book’s genre so it was an easy choice to just change one word here.

Titles are so important. A good title is your first “hook” to draw the reader in to read your story (and the second one is an intriguing opening line). It is worth giving yourself plenty of time to think of the title that will attract readers to your book. Try to put yourself in the reader’s shoes. What would intrigue them? If you weren’t the writer of the book, what would intrigue you about it? Does the title grab your attention?

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I was away at the ACW Committee Retreat last weekend and I used the theme of retreat for my YouTube video earlier this week. I also used it again for my story this week for Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you enjoy Misunderstanding and many thanks for the great comments in on it so far.

Screenshot 2022-02-11 at 09-39-13 Misunderstanding, by Allison Symes

Yet another advantage to writing flash fiction is you have a form of writing which is ideal for people who want to write but know they haven’t got the time or desire to write longer works.

And flash pieces are easy to share on your website, social media etc to help raise your profile (though do bear in mind this does count as having been published. I don’t worry about that because I do want to reach people with what I do and sharing a story every now and again is an easy way of doing that. I see this as part of my marketing work but you have to decide what you are happy to share here and what you want to keep back for submission elsewhere).

I would also say if the thought of writing a longer work is too overwhelming, do think small and start there. With online magazines and competitions for flash available now, you can build up publishing credits here and have something to put on a writing CV if you do decide to submit a longer work to an agent or publisher later on.

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Advantages of writing flash fiction number 999 (or so it seems to me!):-

You can use old writing exercises as the basis for creating new flash fiction pieces. Take what you scribbled down in a writing conference talk and see if you can turn it into a story. Most material produced by exercises like this are far too short for the standard short story market. No problem! Write, edit, polish, and send off to the flash one instead!

Dig out those old notebooks – what can you develop from those initial notes? It is worth doing. I took one of mine (The Balcony Seen) and edited and polished it and it ended up on CafeLit.
Screenshot 2022-02-09 at 20-07-59 CafeLitMagazine

Fairytales with Bite – Justice

One aspect to fairytales I’ve always loved is you know justice will be done – in some form anyway. Evil is generally thwarted. Good will prevail eventually. Simplistic, maybe, but even as a kid I knew real life wasn’t always like that and it was a comfort to see wrong being righted in fiction.

And another lovely aspect to fairytales is characters traditionally considered as villains don’t have to be. Think Shrek. The ogre is the hero there.

So how would justice be seen to be done in your fairytale setting? Are characters reliant on a helpful fairy godmother turning up and waving the old wand about or are they expected to do some of the work themselves and then call for magical backup? You can probably guess which approach I prefer by the way I’ve worded that!

And yes I do like to see characters contributing something to getting themselves out of trouble even if their efforts don’t succeed. Likewise, I prefer characters who try to act justly even if sometimes their actions are misunderstood or they “let the side down” briefly by those odd moments when, perhaps provoked too far, they don’t act justly. We’re not perfect. Our characters won’t be either.

The theme of justice is often tied up with another theme – redemption. A character hasn’t acted justly. They regret that. What do they do to try to make things right and does this ensure justice is done? All interesting possibilities to explore further.

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This World and Others – Law

How does the legal system work in your fictional environment? Is there a civil law, a separate military one, or is there just one? Who ensures justice is done (or do they like to ensure it isn’t done unless it is for them or their cronies)?

Are there trials as we would know them or is everything settled by armed combat? Do ordinary characters have easy access to the law for when they need legal help or is it dependent on whom they know?

As the law stands in your fictional world, what is the history behind it? For example, if people or other beings used to be able to vote but they can’t now, what changed and why? Did your characters try to bring the right to vote back? What stopped them?

How do laws get changed or repealed? Who works for the law (police, barristers, judges etc)? And when punishment is to be inflicted, what form does that take? What does the law in your world allow and what is the basis behind that?

Law underpins a society. Something of that should come through in your fictional world too. Your readers won’t need to know all of the details but they will need to know Character A can’t do this course of action because it is illegal in your setting and your character has to come up with something else instead.

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Retreats, Flash Fiction and Books You Treasure

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Images from The Hayes, Derbyshire taken by me too. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you have had a good weekend. It was lovely to catch up with my colleagues on the Association of Christian Writers Commitee as we plan ahead. I think The Hayes is probably going to be my second home this year – I am due to be back there two further times this year!

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Facebook – General

Am loving tonight’s Classic FM Concert – it’s celebrating John Williams’ 90th birthday. My favourite is The Raiders March from Indiana Jones. I think the best Williams has ever written is the Theme from Schindler’s List. The scariest? No contest – that’s the Jaws theme.

Moving on rapidly from that (and I am so glad I only ever swim in a swimming pool!), my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be Endings in Fiction. I’ll share some classic examples and look at what I think a successful story ending should achieve. Link up on Friday.

I’ve used the theme of retreat for my YouTube video this week (I’ll be posting the link on my book page shortly at https://www.facebook.com/fairytaleladyallisonsymes – see further down for the link).

I’ve used it for my submission to Friday Flash Fiction this week as well but the moods of the two stories are different. That’s a lovely thing about setting a broad theme – you can take it in many different directions and you can write up differing stories. So why not give it a go?

 

Many thanks for the wonderful responses in so far for Timing, my latest piece on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated though what my dentist will make of it is another matter. To find out why I mention that, check the story out at the link. Great fun to write – hope you enjoy it.

Screenshot 2022-02-04 at 08-57-53 Timing, by Allison Symes

Currently on way home from the ACW Committee Retreat. Had lovely time, we got plenty done, and it was so nice to see everyone.

As ever with these things, I took plenty to work on in my spare time. Did manage to do more than I thought but not as much as I’d have liked! Always the way of it, I guess.

Today must be a strange day for the Queen – sadness and celebration all intermingled. (6th February 2022 – the 70th anniversary of her Accession but also the 70th anniversary of the loss of her father, King George VI).

Emotions can be strange like that – and our characters shouldn’t be all sad, all happy, and nothing in between. For them to seem real to our readers, our characters should reflect the mixture of emotions we experience.

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I’m at The Hayes, Swanwick for the Association of Christian Writers Committee Retreat. So lovely to see my colleagues in person again rather than just on screen, even though Zoom is incredibly useful.

I’ll be back here again in June for the ACW WOWIG weekend (Worth Our Weight in Gold) and I’ll be running a flash fiction workshop here. The weekend celebrates ACW’s Golden Jubilee. It is a big year for Jubilees!☺

And I’ll be back yet again in August for the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. I think 2022 is when this lovely part of Derbyshire is going to be my second home!

Am also looking forward to running a flash workshop at the Scottish Association of Writers Conference in March.

So busy, busy but all in great ways and I adore talking about flash and trying to persuade others to give it a go. It’s fun, helps you improve your writing and editing skills, and if like me, you love creating characters, it is the ideal format for you.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you enjoy Retreat, my latest YouTube story. Am a day later this week due to being away at the weekend but the thought of my being on retreat then led me to take the idea of retreat as a theme. Also pleased I found such an apt audio track on this one and again a huge thanks to #DawnKentishKnox for letting me know about the YouTube audio library. It is useful!

 

Hope you have had a good start to your week. I hope to get a story off to Friday Flash Fiction this week and I plan to write a YouTube tale, hopefully to share tomorrow. I think the first part of this week will be spent catching up with what I didn’t manage to get done while away.

Having said that, I did manage to get some useful writing work of my own done while on the train over the weekend so was pleased with that. (And flash fiction is easy to draft on the ever useful Evernote!).

How do I start on a flash fiction tale? It depends. Yes, I know – helpful, not! But when I say it depends, it really does depend on whether I’ve got a theme in mind already or not. Sometimes I’ve got my eye on a competition with a set theme so I know I’m writing to that or I just know I want to write a funny piece and then I think about the kind of character who could be the star of said tale.

My outline then is either based on the theme and what I could bring to it or on the character – why are they funny? What do they do to make the situation funny? Does their personality increase the comedy? Characters almost always don’t think they’re funny or that their situations are – it is serious for them – it is the reader looking in who gets the laughs and that is how it should be.

But I must admit I do have a soft spot for the pompous character as it is great fun to set them up for a deserved fall. Writing can be therapeutic at times like that! If I’ve had a tough day, writing something to make me laugh is great fun but also takes me out of myself for a while and hopefully the story will do the same for a reader.

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Flash fiction is aptly named as a flash light illuminates a brief area and flash tales focus on one important moment for a character.

If the character grips you, there’s nothing to stop you putting them in other flash tales and showing other aspects to them.

And there is novella-in-flash where each chapter (up to 1000 words) is its own stand alone story but where succeeding chapters develop the character and storyline further. So that is always an option.
Bar the word count, flash is flexible.

BookBrushImage-2021-10-27-20-718BookBrushImage-2021-9-17-20-3426Where will your fiction take your readers and will it make them laughGENRES - Character studies are best kept short so work well in flashAE - July 2021 - Great characters will keep you turning the pagesGENRES - Writing flash means I can set my characters anywhereAE - July 2021 - A great character drives the plot

One thing I bear in mind when writing flash is how many characters I want to write up.

For flash tales under 500 words, I find two characters work best though I often only use one and get them to refer to another character who is effectively “off stage”.

For between 500 and the 1000 words maximum, I will use two, sometimes three, and again there will be references to others.

Whenever I use references to other characters, it is to add depth to my tale and the information in the references always moves the story on.

Everything in the story has to justify its being in the story.

Goodreads Author Blog – Books You Treasure

I treasure all of the books I have, of course, but some are just that bit extra special.

These include books left to me by my late mother (a beautiful collection of the works by Dickens is the highlight there) and the first book I bought for myself in my teens.

That was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and I still have it. I collected many of the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton in my younger years too.

I still have the Louisa May Alcott books – Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men and Jo’s Boys.

I will always have a soft spot for Jingo as that was the first Discworld novel I read. I eagerly read the rest of Terry Pratchett’s fabulous and fantastic series after that.

So which books do you treasure and why?

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Dialogue in Fiction

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you have had a good week. I hope to be on a train on my way to Derbyshire by the time this goes out (and it will be lovely to meet up with members of the Association of Christian Writers Committee once again, I’m their Membership Secretary). I’ll be at The Hayes, Swanwick – and I got to book my place for that in August this week so it has not been a bad week at all!

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I look at Dialogue in Fiction for my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. I also include internal dialogue (aka thoughts in this and discuss the use of dialect. I also share my policy on whether a character should swear and list what I think the functions of dialogue should be in any kind of fiction. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Dialogue in Fiction

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Hope you have had a good day. Has been a bit mad here. Glad things are winding down a little. Posts from me over the next couple of days will be at differing times as I am away on Association of Christian Writers business for a couple of days.

Before you ask, Lady isn’t coming but she will be spoiled rotten while I’m away. She always is! She’ll sulk a little when she knows I’ve gone (she tends to look around my side of the bed just to double check I’ve not sneaked back during the middle of the night) but will mug me for all she is worth when I do get back.

Now what is it that you like best about books? Yes, I know. It’s a question of where to start on this one, isn’t it? For me, it’s where I’ve got to the point in the story where I’m rooting for the character to succeed or fail because I know the book has now gripped me and I will just have to read on to find out what happens. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m reading a flash piece or an epic fantasy trilogy, that point doesn’t change for me.

My next favourite bit is getting to the end of the tale and finding the author has made good on their promise – the character has succeeded or failed, as is appropriate for them and the story they’re in. I must admit I do feel so disappointed if I’ve read a story with promising and interesting characters and then find the ending falls flat. But the best ending in the world won’t work for me if I’m not gripped by the characters in the first place.

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Many thanks for the views on No B Gratitude, my latest YouTube story. This is a short and fun tale and I manage to get a pun in on the choice of music for this too. I’m off at an ACW Committee Retreat soon so I may well be putting up a video later than usual next week. Will just have to see how things go. Likewise for getting a piece in to Friday Flash Fiction but I am really enjoying producing something for both of these things once a week. Keeps me on my toes and I am finding more uses for the random generators I love so win win!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I hope by the time you read this I will be in lovely Derbyshire on Association of Christian Writers business for a couple of days. (I’m their Membership Secretary). But right now it is the end of the week and time for my weekly drabble. Glad to share my latest on Friday Flash Fiction and this one is called Timing. Again I used a random generator for this and the question behind it was what was the most recent silly thing you did? So I got my character here to answer that one! All great fun and I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/timing-by-allison-symes

Screenshot 2022-02-04 at 08-57-53 Timing, by Allison Symes

Screenshot 2022-02-03 at 21-31-38 Friday Flash Fiction

 

Your first audience for any story you writer is, of course, you. If you’re not gripped by the characters and the situation they’re in, nobody else will be. This is why I outline my character so I can get a “feel” for who they are, what they’re capable of, and as a result I can determine whether they really do have a story in them that should be told.

With flash fiction I reach that “yes, got to write this character up” stage very quickly indeed and you get better over time (and with practice) at spotting promising characters earlier. I don’t always know the length of the story at this point unless I am writing to a specific word count market such as Friday Flash Fiction, but I don’t let that worry me. I get the story down. I edit it. I leave it for a bit and then look at it again and read it as a reader would. I ask myself tough questions particularly of the “do I really need this in here” variety! That question is useful because you have to be able to say an emphatic “yes” to that one.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her best pal, the Rhodesian Ridgeback today. Two tired and happy dogs went home again. I do sometimes write flash pieces based around dogs. One of them is Jumping Through Hoops from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Let’s just say I am very much on the side of the poor dog in this one!

Fairytales with Bite – Dreams and Nightmares

Most of the classic fairytale characters go through a nightmare stage before their dreams come true (though it is always useful if you have a kindly fairy godmother turn up armed with a large wand and bigger pumpkin!).

In your fictional world, are your characters able to make their dreams come true and is this dependent on magic (whether it’s their own or someone else intervening to help them)? What would count as a nightmare situation for your characters and how do they overcome that?

Of course one person’s nightmare could be someone else’s dream – the villain wants their schemes to succeed, it would be their dream come true. How can you ratchet up the tension between Character A trying to make those schemes succeed and Character B who desperately needs them to fail? There should be plenty at stake here – just what do your characters have to lose or gain?

In a magical world, is the meaning of dreams taken seriously? Who interprets them? Do they do this honestly and do your characters act on what they have been told? What are the consequences of that?

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This World and Others – Interactions

Fiction is dependent on interactions between characters. Story is dependent on conflict and resolution (even if the latter is not a happy one) so there has to be a case of a character wanting something and something/someone else getting in the way of them obtaining that.

Sometimes the conflict can be an internal one – the character wants to change some aspect of themselves and struggles to do so. You see glimpses of this with Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. There are times Frodo’s more positive attitude towards Gollum seems to be paying off and other times when Sam’s cynical view of Gollum is justified.

So yes a character can interact with themselves and Gollum does that a lot. Not necessarily to his own benefit either. For the record, I see Gollum as a tragic, evil character whereas Sauron is just evil. There is a huge difference here. I don’t like Gollum but the possibility of redemption is there – whether he takes it or not is another matter.

How do interactions between your characters play out? Does on character always seem to get the upper hand or is there more of a balance? The problem with dominant characters, as with dominant people full stop, can be they cause resentment (and rebellion) in others. Interactions matter – they fuel the conflict which is the heart of any story.

So give thought to what you want your characters to do and why they are the way they are. With Gollum, you can see what led him to become the creature he became. Your readers need to do that with your characters – and indeed with mine!

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Starting and Finishing and Creativity

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you had a good weekend. Nice quiet one here but lots of exciting news to report this time plus I hope a useful blog I prepared for the Association of Christian Writers on Starting and Finishing.

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Facebook – General

You know how sometimes there is no news and then all of a sudden there is loads to share – well today is one of those days for me.

Delighted to say my new author newsletter is now out there (for more do see https://mailchi.mp/22ec1b09a6da/allison-symes-february-2022-newsletter).

Many thanks also for the comments in on Tears Before Lunch, my most recent Friday Flash Fiction story. See https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/tears-before-lunch-by-allison-symes for more.

And I’m delighted to share the link to the brand new edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads which is free. See https://moms-favorite-reads.com/2022/02/01/moms-favorite-reads-emagazine-february-2022/ – the range of articles in here is amazing. Do check it out.

Has also been a good day for another reason – I’ve booked my place for the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August. Can’t wait to go and there is plenty to look forward to before then.

I’ll be at the Scottish Association of Writers conference in March and running a workshop on flash fiction there. So looking forward to that – https://www.scottishassociationofwriters.com/workshops-speakers/

 

Hope Monday hasn’t been too trying. Newsletter out tomorrow, new story video out (will share link on my book page shortly), and pleased to have submitted a new story to Friday Flash Fiction. I’ll be discussing Dialogue in Fiction for my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday.

I use more dialogue in my short stories (1500 words plus) than in flash though I am counting thoughts as internal dialogue and I do use that a lot in flash. It’s a great way of taking you straight into a character’s head and showing you their thoughts and attitudes. You see things as they see them and I think it a good way of developing character empathy. Okay you may not always agree with them but that’s another matter! You at least see where they are coming from.

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Hope you have had a good weekend. Lovely to catch up with writing friends on Zoom last night. Always such a morale boost. Am getting my next author newsletter up together ready for sending out next week. If you would like to sign up for tips, prompts, news, stories etc., head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

What would you say was your favourite kind of story? I suppose mine comes from my life long love of fairytales in that I love to see wrong being righted and the underdog to do well. Mind you, that does open up a lot of possibilities for reading material as well as for writing stories. Wrong being righted is a common theme to crime stories after all. And the underdog aka the hero nobody expects to be a hero is a common theme in fantasy.

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I talk about Starting and Finishing for More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers, this month.

I discuss how I often get into starting a story by using a random generator and share why spider diagrams are so helpful too. As for the other end of the story, I look at how for twist in the tale stories, it is a good idea to write that twist down first and then look at what could lead to that point.

I also look at whether planning your work out kills off spontaneity.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

The new edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads is out and you can download it for free. See the link at https://moms-favorite-reads.com/2022/02/01/moms-favorite-reads-emagazine-february-2022/ for more.

In my column this month (see Page 42), I talk about Creativity. I look at some of the different ways I use to trigger story ideas and fuel my own creativity (and I discuss picture prompts and random generators amongst other things. I hope to talk more about random generators for a future column as these are so useful). My theme for people to write to this time was What Creativity Means to Me and the responses to that were wonderful but don’t just take my word for it – go and treat yourself to a good and free read!

 

Hope you enjoy my new YouTube story – No B Gratitude. This story was inspired by something that came up on a random question generator – the question was what was the most recent silly thing you’ve done?
So I got my character to show you! (There’s also a pun in the choice of music chosen for this one – I was so pleased to find it available to use from YouTube’s comprehensive audio library which is the audio equivalent of Pixabay for photos).

Just to flag up there is an offer on From Light to Dark and Back Again at the moment over on Amazon.

What do I love most about reading flash fiction by other writers? Firstly I learn a lot from seeing what other people do with the format. Secondly, I love to see what writers do when writing to the same theme and word count.

The Waterloo Art Festival Writing Competitions held in the last few years were a great example of this – the fifteen winners for each year, including yours truly, all wrote to the same theme and word count yet the stories were so vastly different.

Last but not least, it encourages me to “up my game” and see what I can do better. Why is that a good thing? Because it fuels the old creativity “grey cells” and helps me produce (a) more work and (b) better work because I have tried to stretch myself a bit.

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Twist endings work beautifully in flash fiction precisely because you don’t have to wait long for the pay-off! I’ve always loved that aspect of things. And the nice thing here is you don’t have to limit twist endings to crime stories, though that is the obvious home for them.

Twist endings can also be punchlines so will work well for humorous tales. And a monologue can be enlivened by a surprise ending too. For this kind of tale, I always write the twist first and then work backwards to get to the start. It seems an odd way of doing things to begin with but you do get used to it. It also means you have a logical plot leading to that final twist. You don’t want your twist let down by a weak start or flabby middle.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Books and Trains

Books and trains are a match made in heaven (especially publishing heaven!). As well as stories inspired by train (and my favourite here is Murder on the Orient Express – the ultimate train, yes?!), books are the best form of portable entertainment and a fabulous way of passing the time.

I must admit I wait to read until I know I am on the train I want otherwise there is the risk I will still be reading at the platform long after the train has gone! (It helps a lot if I know I’m going somewhere like London Waterloo which is the end of the line as I know I can’t miss my stop either!).

It is no coincidence that the major stations have bookshops on them. For me the perfect way to escape the cares of the world is to read, ideally while listening to classical music via my headphones. (If there’s a cup of tea or hot chocolate to hand, even better!) And if I’m not reading stories while travelling, I am writing my own so I love that too.

It probably helps that I write flash fiction which a dear friend described as a “bus stop read”. It works well on trains too!

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