Month: February 2024

Caring for Characters

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo of a frog. Find out below why I needed one!
Hope you have had a good few days. The heavy rains have stopped but we now have strong gale force winds! Lady has got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal so all is well in her world. Am busy working on what will be author interviews for Chandler’s Ford Today (to go live a little later on in the year). I love the behind the scenes work on these. I’ve always loved research especially when it comes to writers and their works.

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Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Enjoyed my swim earlier. I did think when I took up swimming seriously I would use the time in the pool to think about stories, blogs, work out ideas etc. Not a bit of it! I do find my mind goes blank so when I come out I feel refreshed physically and mentally. Maybe that is the point of swimming!

Having said that, I do get ideas at odd times. I just write them down as soon as I can. It can’t always be immediately. I am thankful though I am never woken up by potential ideas. I’d be too grumpy for having woken up early for anything I then wrote down to make any sense!

I do have notebooks/post it notes all over the place. It pays. I’ve been known to email myself with ideas too. Smart phones are handy there. I wish I could train my brain to come up with ideas at times which are convenient to me but I suspect most writers wish for that.

Ideas, the spark for writing competitions, image via Pixabay

Not a bad start to the working week though we have had gale force winds in my part of the world today. Not that this stopped Lady having a riotous time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal today. Dogs like to keep things simple!

Don’t forget my author newsletter is out again on Friday. How are we nearly at March already? If you’d like to sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

The joy of author newsletters (and I subscribe to several) is finding out what is going on writing wise with your favourite authors and I always learn from the tips shared. I hope folk learn from the tips I share in mine. The goal is always to improve our own writing and newsletters are a great way to share useful information like this.

I chose to send out a newsletter once monthly

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Hope you’ve had a good weekend. Weather up and down though Lady got to see Coco again today. Both dogs pleased with that.

Reading Tip: I like to mix up reading novels and short story/flash collections. I also like to mix up moods of both kinds of book. I feel doing this immerses me in a wonderful world of books. Also I don’t want grim/dark all the time. Neither do I want light frothy fare all the time. Life is a mixture of things so I like my reading to reflect this. Taking this forward….

Writing Tip: I also like to mix up the mood of my flash and short stories. So, yes, there are darker ones but I make sure there are also plenty of lighter ones. I know what I like to read in terms of mood and try to reflect that in what I produce. Again I think it is a reasonably accurate reflection of life. I want my writing to move people and to entertain.

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Lady got to see her pal, Coco, today and the dogs had a good run around before the heavens opened.

Will be looking at Light Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Hard to believe we’ll be into March for that one. Still it does mean spring is getting ever closer, always a good thing! I’ll be looking at what I think light writing actually is and share my thoughts on it. I will say now though I don’t think it should be underrated. Link up on Friday.

I occasionally look up the random theme generators. Sometimes these trigger ideas for stories, occasionally for blog posts. I did so for this post but had to smile. The theme that came up? Well, I doubt if I’ll be writing on the theme of vampires for Chandler’s Ford Today or Writers’ Narrative any time soon!

Logically I could do so. I would look at the history of vampire stories etc., but it is not a topic I’m especially keen on and that is the reason why I wouldn’t do it. You do have to like the topic you’re writing about, I think.

For stories, you do need to care for the characters, even if you do want to see them fail and for me the sign of a “good” villain is where you don’t want them to win but have a sneaking sorrow they didn’t. Top notch villain here? The Sheriff of Nottingham as played by the much missed Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

And I guess I have got a post out of vampires – this one!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

What do I look for first and foremost in a flash fiction piece, whether I’ve written it or not? Impact is the simple answer. I want the story, whether it is six words, fifty words, or the full one thousand allowed in flash, to make me react, whether it is to make me laugh, cry, wince, or feel fear. (The theme for Jaws is excellent for the latter incidentally. Have never watched the film. Have no wish to do so. The music is scary enough but it is brilliant – also has made me react!).

For stories, I absolutely have to care about the lead character. If not, why read on to find out what happens to them? (Oh and I know they needed a bigger boat for Jaws. Assume they got one!).

sharks

Understanding where the characters come from can lead to understanding ourselves

It’s Monday. The rain has stopped. There are gale force winds where I am and it’s still Monday. Time for a story then. Hope you enjoy Stranger in Town, my latest on my YouTube channel. Moral of this one: be nice. Find out why here.

I like to mix up the way I open a story of whatever length. I do this to keep things interesting for me and hope it will prove to do the same for readers. Sometimes I will give you a scene setting first line. Sometimes I ask a question (which you know the story will have to answer). At other times, I use dialogue or internal thoughts.

But all are designed to hook the reader in and get them to keep reading until the end of the story. I’ll be talking about this in more depth for a future Chandler’s Ford Today post, but the opening line is so important when you consider if people don’t get past that, they’re not reading any further. No pressure then!

424975042_837174928422370_5819201919355738451_nMany thanks for the comments coming in on Facing the Frog, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Good fun to write.

Not quite an alliterative title but almost there! I try not to use these too often as I think it can look gimmicky but every now and again they can have a great effect.

For this story, I came up with the title first, knowing someone was going to be at the rough end of a spell against them, but I wanted a character who was determined to just cope with the temporary curse as best as they could. They would face up to being a frog for a bit. You can find out how they did at the link.

Let’s just say I came up with a character who is even more slippery than I first envisaged and I wouldn’t trust them either in frog or human form!

Image of frog below taken by me a while back!

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Goodreads Author Blog – Non-Fiction and Fiction – Where Worlds Combine

I love reading history, fiction and non-fiction. Just sometimes the worlds cross. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is one of my favourite books and is the only novel to have made me change my opinion about a historical figure – Richard III. The fictional story of Tey’s Inspector Alan Grant is woven with history beautifully but it is still fiction.

I’ve read Philippa Langley’s books on her search for Richard III’s remains and, her current book, The Princes in the Tower. I am sure Josephine Tey would’ve loved both of them.

But in this case it was a fictional work which got me interested in the actual history here. Fiction has led into greater non-fiction interest here and this is a good thing.

I love it when different types of book feed into each other. Fiction and non-fiction are equally wonderful things.

Screenshot 2024-02-24 at 17-19-40 Non-Fiction and Fiction - Where Worlds Combine

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Ways Into Creating Characters

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Geoff Parkes for taking the photo of me at one of my Swanwick Open Prose Mic Nights.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady and I have had a wet week -with many soakings! I am so glad writing is generally an indoor activity where I can stay dry! I share a flash fiction in Fairytales with Bite this time which I hope you enjoy. I also share how I wrote this. I look at character vocabulary too.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am pleased to share Ways Into Creating Characters as this week’s post on Chandler’s Ford Today. I hope you find it useful. I look at why stories are character led (I have good reason to think this given how many I invent over a year), and share various tips.

I look at picking a trait, interviewing characters, and thinking of situations you want to write up (as from that comes the kind of character who would work best in those situations) just to name a few thoughts and tips. I also discuss why a writer needs to know their characters well enough.

What is “well enough” will change from writer to writer as so much depends on what you need to know to be able to picture your people/other beings of choice in your head but you should figure out what it is you do need to know. I have found that last bit to be invaluable.

Ways Into Creating Characters

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Lady and I had a real soaking this morning. She dries off far quicker than I do! Then I went swimming…. That soaking I didn’t mind at all!

I’ll be looking at Ways Into Creating Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today this week, link up tomorrow. Hope you will find it useful. Looking forward to sharing it. See above.

Am also looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom next week. Theme will be on the fact it is a leap year and how we can use that in our flash stories.

Am also busy working on PowerPoint presentations and enjoying writing these. I hadn’t used PowerPoint for years until Zoom came into my writing life. It is useful for this. Flash writing helps for this kind of thing too. The slides work best if you don’t put too much on them! Far better to have more slides than crammed ones.

409093199_10161745951532053_3758194475051098623_nHope you haven’t got too soggy today. Lady and I probably soaked up your share when we were out this morning. No ducking it today! Am glad rain doesn’t make you shrink otherwise we’d both be in trouble.

Newsletter out again shortly. Where does the time go? Having a monthly newsletter brings home how quickly it does pass. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Writing Tip: I work out my characters’ likely vocabulary as part of my outlining process. I have an idea of the kind of speech they would use (based on what I believe their educational levels would be) and, just as importantly, what they wouldn’t come up with unless under great stress.

So if I get a non-swearing character to suddenly change their mind on that, there has to be a great reason behind that change which plays out in the story. It does mean I would’ve dropped them right in it and the kind of situation they’re in is likely to produce this effect.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Time to end the working week with what I hope you will find is a fun story. Am delighted my latest piece is now up on Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you like Facing The Frog.

Screenshot 2024-02-23 at 09-53-30 Facing The Frog by Allison Symes

When I take part in Open Prose Mic Nights, I look for a mixture of flash pieces to read in terms of mood. I like to try and show what flash can be capable of and that it can produce moving, punch in the gut type tales as well as laugh out loud on a punchline ending ones.

I also mix up whether I read pieces in the first or third person. Flash works well for both. And yes when I am reading a first person piece, I do try to get “into” the character so it is almost a performance rather than a straight reading.

Why? Because I am showing the audience my character. Acting out their story helps me to get them across more vividly I think. And it is huge fun. I am being the “I” in the story after all even if I “just” read it so I may as well get right into the character’s head and “perform” their tale.

409093199_835375105269019_9075061831183394162_nI’ve mentioned before flash is great for twist and/or humorous punchline endings. It is also great for giving a character who deserves it their comeuppance fast. Is fabulous fun to do.

One of my favourite stories of mine here is A Kind of Hell from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Comes in at 94 words, excluding the title, and I paint a scene where my horrible character does get justice and in an appropriate way too.

With these kind of stories, again I work out what the appropriate justice would be first, write that out, and then work out how I could logically get to this point. It works!

Allison Symes - Flash Fiction Collections

Fairytales with Bite – Crossing Spells

Crossing Spells by Allison Symes
The great inventors always discover things by accident. Oh they write down what they think will happen but something always goes awry and either there is an explosion or they find something which is even more useful to us all. There is never any middle ground here. Same goes for us fairy godmothers with spells.

Happened to me last week. I looked up my spells, made sure I had all the ingredients to hand, and then what should have been a pumpkin turned into a coach, let’s just say she turned up to the royal ball smelling of squash! I don’t know what I crossed to get that.

Still I must say the pumpkin style coach did have something about it. My critics say yes, it had a strong pong and the rats, which had been turned into footmen, remembered their original form and started eating away at the coach before it reached the Palace.

I had cast the right spell. Miranda, my best friend at fairy college, tells me I mispronounced one word and hence the desired effect was crossed with the basic ingredient and it all went horribly wrong.

Still the girl got there. Neither she nor His Nibs seemed to care and they’re getting wed next week. So no great harm done. But it has had the effect of whenever I go out and about, people point at me and chuckle. Some wag keeps leaving pumpkins on my doorstep too.

Miranda swears it wasn’t her but why did she stink of squash recently? She tells me she’s taken up gardening. Well if she has, she has the cleanest hands of any gardener I’ve known!

On the plus side, I have been invited to give the annual address to the Pumpkin Growers’ Society this year and I get paid for it too. I just hope the payment isn’t my weight in pumpkins though!

Ends
Allison Symes – 21st February 2024

Hope you enjoyed that. One of my favourite forms of writing is taking a well known fairytale and coming at the story from another angle. It works best when kept short and, I hope, funny and flash fiction is ideal for this.

Here I took the idea of a well meaning fairy godmother not getting things quite right and seeing what would come from that. So start with your character. Who are you using and why have you chosen them? What could you get them to do to bring something different to the tale?

And have fun writing the tale up!

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This World and Others – What We Know as Science

What we know as science covers a wide field, of course, but what would it be thought of in your setting. Would science be seen as that or as a kind of magic?

I went to a medieval fair some time ago and spoke to the herbalist there. She was brilliant but told me that in medieval times, women who were renowned for their use of herbs were okay if things went well for their village because of that herb usage. If anything went wrong, they were likely to face accusations of witchcraft and a horrible death usually followed.

Yet in discovering you could cure headaches with the bark of a certain plant (which we now know led to the development of aspirin), that would have been seen as some kind of magic. What the herbalists had done was simply observe the effects of this bark. This had been observed repeatedly too as one or two spotting this would have just been dismissed. The fact that this was a known remedy meant this has had been tested and found to be true many, many times.

Observation and testing are core skills in any and every science.

So with this in mind, what would your characters make of what we call science? Are they accepting of it or suspicious? Has the practice of science (magic in your setting) gone wrong and led to suspicion of it? How could that be overcome?

Story ideas there I think.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Handling Rejections and Book Recommendations – Yay or Nay?

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Image of me at the Book Fair was taken by Richard Hardie. Makes an excellent publicity shot!
Hope you have had a good weekend. Not bad here. Writing going well and looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting next week. Love preparing material for that. Love meeting up with everyone on line. There is a great creative buzz. Hope your own creative buzz is going well!

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Facebook – General

Many thanks for the wonderful comments on my post yesterday when I talked about having a story turned down and then what I plan to do as a result. See below.

One good thing – the rejection has led to a positive and, I hope, helpful post on Facebook so I count that as a win! I have often had stories turned down – it does indeed happen to all writers – but again have often reworked a piece and had it accepted later on.

I’ve also got on and written more stories, many of which are published now, some still not. It is very much a case of onwards and upwards and can I make this story better and get it out somewhere else? The important thing is not giving up.

As I write in the short form, I always have to invent characters. I’ll be looking at some ways of doing this in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week called Ways into Creating Characters. I do love self explanatory titles! I’ll be discussing why stories are character led and why a writer needs to know their characters well. Link up on Friday.

 

Had a story turned down today. Will look at it again (probably over the weekend), see if I can improve it, and try and find another home for it. Sometimes I’ve gone on to have work published that way.

This is all part and parcel of the writing life and it doesn’t bother me now the way it would’ve done when I started writing seriously. This is because I know now, in a way I didn’t way back when, this happens to all writers, you have to be submitting material to have any chance of acceptances, and there is nothing to stop me trying again with the turned down piece. Waste not, want not.

Do bear in mind there are all sorts of reasons for a piece to be turned down. Sometimes it is because a market (including things like the online story websites) have just had stories in and accepted on a similar theme to yours. You can’t know this. But you can get your story out again to somewhere suitable that hasn’t been inundated with stories on said similar theme.

Sometimes your story doesn’t suit the mood an editor/publisher is looking for at the time you submit the piece. That happens too.

Best thing is to carry on writing, review your turned down piece and see if you can find another home for it. It is very satisfying when you can.

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It’s my turn once again on Authors Electric. This time my topic is Book Recommendations – Yay or Nay?

I discuss my policies on reviewing books and what I do with books on writing I’ve found especially useful. I also look at getting into a book after hearing it read on radio, adapted for TV etc., as these can be great means to introduce the original books to people.

Hope you enjoy the post.

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Hope you are having a good weekend. Don’t forget the next issue of Writers’ Narrative will be out before long. Meantime, you can catch up with the current issue below.

Reading quality writing magazines is a huge help to your own writing. I’ve learned so many tips over the years doing this and every single one has helped my writing in some way. I also love finding things out about other areas of writing I’m not involved in at all.

This is partly because I love everything to do with creative writing but also because you never know when those areas of writing might become relevant to you after all.

I hadn’t heard of flash fiction when I started writing seriously for publication. I found out about it, gave it a go, two books later (and with a third in the pipeline), I am glad I discovered it!

But this is where a good quality writing magazine comes into its own. It can show you these aspects of writing. It’s then up to you whether you explore them further or not. Even if you don’t do so immediately, you may come back to these later but you have to know about them first.

And from a reader’s viewpoint, you get to discover authors new to you too.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

One of the most overlooked jobs when putting a flash fiction/short story collection together is sorting out the index. It is a vital job though and worth taking your time over.

I was changing my running order for both of my flash collections (From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic) so this was the last thing I did before sending my manuscript off. There were further changes after that but thankfully mainly on the text. But having the index worked out meant it was easier to change things around when I still needed to work on that. The art of indexing is much underrated I think!

With the books published, those indexes are still handy to me to remind me of what I’ve had published where. The indexes were also useful for helping me ensure my story titles weren’t sounding all the same. I didn’t want them all starting with the magic word “the”! It is easy to do that. I like variety in my titles in how they sound, word count length, and the kind of hook I hope they deliver.

Allison Symes - Flash Fiction CollectionsIt has been a long tiring Monday. The forecast isn’t great. It’s still Monday. Time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – A Good Margin. Never cross old ladies is the motto of this one – find out why here.

 

After a very wet start to the day, Sunday has brightened up nicely. Many thanks for the comments coming in on Wrong Turn, my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom later in the month. Always good fun. Coming up with topics is a great brain stretcher for me and, yes, I do have a go at the prompts I set. Sometimes I will do the odd one or two in advance and use as examples. I’ve found, when I’ve been on the receiving end, I’ve appreciated examples being set. It encourages my imagination to get going.

Many of the prompts I prepare for these meetings, though, I write on the night with the others. I love live writing exercises and want to join in myself. I find it gets the adrenalin and the imagination flowing. Nothing to dislike here! Tidying the draft up etc can happen much later (and does).

Raw writing if you like but there is a joy and energy to just creating something like that and knowing the other work can be returned to later on. Right now I am just letting my imagination play and I love that.

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 09-51-34 Wrong Turn by Allison Symes

Flash fiction takes away one reason people can give for not reading – they don’t have the time! Hmm…

I would hope the development of flash fiction encourages more reading in fact. Why? Simply because the authors, including yours truly, are not asking people to commit to too much in one go. I would hope that would encourage people to read more flash fiction across the word count ranges, go on to read short stories, novellas, novels etc.

From a writing viewpoint, flash has taught me the meaning of show, don’t tell. I can’t waffle on either because I’d use up my word count too fast. So it is an excellent discipline to practice writing flash even if it is never your main form of writing.

Flash Fiction focuses on THE important aspect of a character's life

Goodreads Author Blog – Series Books or Stand Alones?

Do you prefer series books or stand alones? Naturally, I am sure most of us would say we love both of these forms of novel. I certainly do. But both have their own advantages.

In series books, you have the advantage of following characters over the course of several novels and see them develop. My favourite example is the Discworld series by the much missed Terry Pratchett. The Vimes books within this show him going from a drunk to a phenomenally brave man with a wife (the brilliant Lady Sybil, who is a great role model) and child and how he transforms the City Watch into a decent police unit.

But there are some books where a writer says all they have to say about a character in one gripping story and they’re right not to carry that on.

I don’t know if this series/stand alone debate particularly refers to crime fiction (as the Vimes books are crime novels set in a fantasy world so cross crime/fantasy/humour and to fabulous effect). Certainly if an author is new to me, I will only read one book of theirs, see how I get on, and then go on to read the others in their series or not as the case may be.

If you have series or stand alone recommendations, do share!

Meantime I carry on very happily reading both kinds.

Screenshot 2024-02-17 at 17-15-16 Series Books or Stand Alones

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Writing Themes and Saints’ Days

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week so far. Mixed bag weather wise. Hope you enjoy the three line flash fiction story I share below based on love (given it was St. Valentine’s Day this week, it had to be the theme, yes?). The very short flashes are great fun to do. One or two lines then conclusion. To the point and often good for a smile or two. Give them a try. They make for a great writing exercise too.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share my latest post for Chandler’s Ford Today on Writing Themes and Saints’ Days. I look at how you can develop topics to write about from the latter for fiction and non-fiction.

Odd sounding topics can be great for encouraging you to think laterally and to come up with ideas for stories, blog posts etc., you would not have thought of otherwise. In the case of the saints I refer to in the post, you can also look at using the flowers associated with them for further ideas.

Hope you enjoy the post.

Writing Themes and Saints’ Days

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Flash fiction is great for turning the tables on characters. You have to deliver on the twist quickly and the impact is immediate. Over the course of a novel, you have longer to see a twist might be coming. You may guess what the twist might be. I have to say this is one of my favourite things about crime novels. I am always looking out for twists and turns and have great fun finding out whether my guesses were right or not.

But in a flash story you don’t have the time to ponder for long on whether your guess was right or not. In my story The Terrified Dragon from Tripping the Flash Fantastic, the idea here is to entice the reader in to find out why such a beast is terrified. Fear is not what you would usually associate with them – you would expect them to be the cause of the fear!

So do I deliver on the why terrified bit here? Oh yes and then I flip things around with the reaction of those who find said terrified dragon. The reaction, particularly from one, is not what you would expect. Great fun to do. Done in a couple of hundred words or so too.

There always has to be a good reason for the twist though. I work that out first and then what can lead to the twist happening so everything happens organically within the story. Nothing is coincidental.

I find planning encourages creativity rather than kills it

Hope you have had a good day. Happy St. Valentine’s Day if you celebrate (though I like the thought of celebrating love in general and that could and should include all). I’ve used the theme of saints’ days to help inspire my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. I’ll be talking about Writing Themes and Saints’ Days. See above.

I hope you will find some of the thoughts and tips I share here will act as writing prompts. Also I share ideas as to what you can write about linked to saints’ days, including non-fiction. Link up on Friday.
In the meantime here is an “instant” flash fiction love story for you.

Home Time
She couldn’t wait for him to get home so she could lick him all over. She was a black border collie. She believed in love.
Ends.
Allison Symes – 14th February 2024
Hope that made you smile. Lady, naturally, was the inspiration for this one.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Glad to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with Wrong Turn. Many thanks to those who have already commented on this one. Find out what lies in store for Alice when confronted by a group of middle-aged, scowling ladies.
Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 09-51-34 Wrong Turn by Allison Symes

Repetition can be used to good effect in flash fiction. This may seem odd. You only have so many words, why would I want to repeat one (other than the little words we all repeat)? I do this from time to time to set up a rhythm. This is where flash can have some links with poetry – words chosen for deliberate effect and the use of repetition to strengthen said effect.

In Watching Myself from From Light to Dark and Back Again I start with the lines Experiments happen. Experiments go wrong. In five words, two sentences, I have set up the scene for you. The task then is to find out what experiment went wrong and what the consequences were but that is for the rest of the story to unravel. But starting two sentences with the same word gives a strong emphasis I wanted to kick start this tale and to keep readers reading on.

Flash with Amazon and Barnes and NobleSt. Valentine’s Day is about love of course and it is a major theme for stories. But bear in mind it is a huge theme and can be broken down into various categories. Love doesn’t just have to be about the romantic kind.

For big themes, I like to split things down in to sub-categories. Love, for example, can be broken down into romance, the love between friends, love for pets and the love they show their owners, the love for parents for children and vice versa (especially when dealing with older parents and the adult children have to give more support).

For any theme, I do know I have to care about the characters I’m creating to be able to write their stories up at all so this is another reason why I outline them so I can find out if I do care enough. If I don’t a reader is unlikely to do so.

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Fairytales With Bite – Love in the Magical World

I am writing this on St. Valentine’s Day so there could only be one topic. Love comes in many forms and, logically, that must apply to the magical world too. So how do your magical beings find love? Are what we would think of as marriages set up, and everyone is expected to go along with this, or are your characters able to make their own choices? Is your world encouraging of relationships between different types of magical being or are they expected to stick to their own kind only?

Is love appreciated in your setting or is it just tolerated because the powers that be accept there has to be a way of reproducing more fairy godmothers etc? What would happen if anyone defied cultural expectations here? Would that defiance be punished? Would it lead to a loss of magical powers and/or exile? Love can come at a price sometimes. How could your magical characters reflect that?

Fairy godmothers, especially, intervene to help the course of love along – see Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella etc for more on that – but what if they come across a client they don’t want to help, a client perhaps not worthy of that help? What would they do? Would their love for practicing their craft “properly” overcome any reluctance to do what would be expected of them? If they are prepared to be defiant, what would happen, if say, the equivalent of Cinders did not go to the ball?

Interesting story ideas there I think.

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This World and Others – Relationships

They say love makes the world go around but does it do so for your fictional world? Linking with Fairytales with Bite above, what kind of relationships in your settings are (a) expected, (b) approved of, and (c) forbidden on pain of death?

In the case of (c), why are these relationships forbidden? Does the populace accept this or is there a hidden world, away from the prying eyes of your authority figures, where these relationships do happen? I would expect there to be some restrictions on relationships between magical and non-magical beings here on the grounds these could prove to be grossly unfair to the latter (how would they fight back when needed, for a start?).

Give some thought as to the kind of relationships your characters have. Which are the most important to them and why? Remember love doesn’t just include romantic love. The love of friends is a major theme (and for me Sam Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings is the ultimate example of this. Mind you, I do love the way friendship develops through the book between Gimli and Legolas, some of which is so funny).

As with any relationship, there will be ups and downs. How do your characters handle these? Could you get funny/sad stories here?

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Resting Stories and What ARE your characters like?

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Image Credits:- All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Had one of those lovely weekends where I was out in the garden and managed to get lots of writing done. Lady has had a good start to her week, seeing her two closest girlfriends on Monday. It is smashing to see them get on so well. When we’re leaving the park, it does look a bit like “the girls are back in town” as the three dogs walk together!

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Facebook – General

Drizzly all day. Never worries Lady though she didn’t get to see her chums today.

In happier news (Lady misses her pals when they’re not in the park), I’ll be running a two part course on editing at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in August. So looking forward to that but I will also be offering 1:1 sessions during that week too. My topics are flash fiction and editing (general tips). See screenshot for more information. Looking forward to this too.

My attitudes to editing became far more positive on realising good edits make all the difference to being published or not. Prior to that, I’d just seen it as a chore. Now I see it as part of the overall creative process but do find I have to get the story written (or blog post) and then edit later. I can’t do the two tasks at the same time. That just doesn’t work for me.


Hope you have had a good start to your week. Lady got to see and play with her two best buddies, so she has had a good start to her week. Crocuses are starting to spring up. Lovely to see that.

Writing Tip: Think about what your characters like in terms of what they like to eat and drink, do they appreciate the natural world, what kind of music do they like etc. Also think about what they loathe.

Now put them in a situation where they have to put up with what they loathe, they have no choice. How do they handle this? How do they get out the situation which has landed them in it? Good story possibilities there. Could also take this in a humorous way or a more serious one so give some thought as to what mood you want to convey here.

422035451_828776429262220_1929857604074121295_nToday has been lovely. Nice church service. Sunny, a bit warmer than recently, and more signs of spring on the way. Love days like this. Lady does too.

Don’t forget my next author newsletter will be out on 1st March. How quickly February whizzes by! To sign up for news, tips, links to stories etc., do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and I will just say many thanks to all of my subscribers. Support much appreciated!

Writing Tip: I’ve talked before about resting stories before editing them but how long should a rest period be? There is no one straight answer to this but I’ve found a couple of days is another for a flash fiction piece.

I tend to rest a longer short story (1500 words upwards) for a week or so. The advice I’ve come across for novelists is to leave your work for at least a month. The reason for resting any kind of story is so you can “escape its world” for a while and when you come back to you will see the tale with fresh eyes, as if coming to it for the first time. That is the way to be objective about your stories.

Newsletter with envelope imageHope you have had a good weekend so far. At least it’s dry today in my part of the world. Managed to get out and do some gardening. Had a lovely task today – to proofread my three stories which will be in The Best of CafeLit 13. That was a joy to do!

I’m looking at Writing Themes and Saints’ Days for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. What on earth is the link there and how can writers make use of it? I will share all on Friday. Looking forward to sharing that. Ideas come from a wide range of sources and this post is an example of one that came as a surprise to me but I trust the post will prove useful to other writers.

Have had a good week. I’ve submitted another story to a different market. Will say more assuming I hear more though this may not be for some time. I followed my own advice and, having checked things out and being happy with what I found, I figured I had nothing to lose. Didn’t cost anything either. There are good reputable free to enter competitions and markets out there. It is just a question of finding them.

In this case, it was from a tweet I saw and I then followed it up. Have done this kind of thing before but previously, on checking things out, I found something I wasn’t comfortable with so didn’t go further with it.

Never be afraid to walk away from a market or competition if you are not entirely happy with it. There are others out there with which you will be happy. You need to think a little longer term here and think along the lines of would I be happy with my work appearing here. If the answer is not an emphatic yes, do walk away.

Writing Advice

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the views coming in on Likely Story, my latest YouTube story which I posted yesterday. (See below). Much appreciated. Subscribers to my channel are always welcome.

I love creating the flash tales here. I use Book Brush to help with creating the video itself and then use YouTube’s own vast library of audio tracks (free to use etc) to add music. But I create and edit the story itself first. Sometimes I have to think laterally to come up with a suitable video background but that is always a good challenge!

It’s Monday. It’s slowly getting lighter in the evenings where I am. Hooray! More spring flowers emerging. Double hooray! Still Monday though. Still time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Likely Story.


I’ve occasionally started two flash fiction pieces with a similar opening line. See Mishaps and Jumping Time in Tripping the Flash Fantastic. These stories were written together, are meant to follow on from one another, and were fun to do. It meant I could take the character I created for Mishaps, the first story, and get even more use out of him for the second story!

As both of these are humorous tales, there was more fun to be had with two tales rather than just the one. They also worked better as two stories rather than one, there was a natural end point for the first story, which gave me a good start for the second one.

I had in mind from the start how these two stories would look on the printed page later, naturally hoping they would make it into print! It is no coincidence one is on the left page and the other on the right either. Layout can sometimes help your stories have more of an impact too.

So this is another aspect to flash fiction you could use. If you have a character you love, put them in more than one story. Use that to help you sort out your running order for your book in due course. It will flag up to a publisher and future readers this is a deliberate use of the same character.

Also to get the most impact from two or more stories with one “star”, that impact will be the greater for keeping the tales together.

BB - Flash with a Dash for TTFFOne of the things I love about writing for Friday Flash Fiction is that I am effectively given a weekly challenge to produce new writing to a 100 word count. So I do! The themes I can set, it is just the word count which is fixed, and I know now, after a lot of experience, 100 words looks like two to three short paragraphs. You can see what I mean via the link.

I find being able to visualise what the word count looks like enormously helpful. I know I’ve got two paragraphs and the second one of those has to wrap the story up. The first one, of course, reveals what the story is so there, straight away, I have a story structure in place. Love that too.

 

Goodreads Author Blog – Themes in Stories

Do you have favourite themes for stories? I think mostly this is an unconscious thing. I know I like to see justice done, to name one example of a theme, so this is one reason why I love the classic fairytales, where it generally is done.

I also like crime novels where justice is done. (It is one reason why I love the Agatha Christie books).I don’t like the ones where justice is perverted. But I pick the fairytale or crime novel to read based on what I can read of the plot outline and then decide whether it is for me or not. It is funny though how favourite themes do come out time and again in what I choose to read.

As for themes I like to write to, I do like the character who turns out to be more than what others expected. Again I’ve got fairytales to thank for that one, especially The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christen Andersen. It is a good lesson in not judging by appearances, another theme I love reading about/writing for.

The best stories do have timeless themes behind them. Writers will always have something to say about these things. These themes will always have resonance with readers. Certain things about us as a species will not change which is why these themes resonate and why they make such great stories.

Screenshot 2024-02-10 at 17-25-53 Themes In Stories

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Planning Out Your Writing

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Strong winds and heavy rain where I am, snow elsewhere in the UK. Keep safe, everyone. Great week overall with news that three of my stories will be published in The Best of CafeLit 13 later this summer. This is a personal best. It is also huge encouragement to keep writing and to submit my stories to CafeLit!
Am working on other stories where I know they will need other homes but I love creating characters and discovering how they get out of the situations I put them in – great fun. May you never lose the joy of creative writing!

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m pleased to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post on Planning Out Your Writing. I discuss why I find planning useful, even when life throws spanners in the works, as it so often does. I also discuss whether planning kills creativity (and why I take the attitude it doesn’t).

I also look at the risks of using planning as a procrastination technique and what I do to ensure this never happens to me. Hope you find the post helpful. Oh and great news – you don’t have to plan out everything. You figure out what you need to know. More in the post.

Planning Out Your Writing

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My Planning Out Your Writing is on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Hope you will find it useful. Link up on Friday. See above.

When do you think you know your characters well enough? I would say when you know what they are likely to do and how they would react to any given situation. Answering this is a great example of how a little forward planning makes your task as a writer easier too (note I didn’t say easy!).

If I know my character likes biscuits and is a petty thief, I am likely to combine those two things in their story and then it will be a case of working out who catches them out and what happens then. But knowing those two things immediately gets me off to a good start when writing their story.

I can also then decide if this is likely to be a lighthearted tale or a more serious one. Does my character prove to be sorry and stop doing it or, conversely, do they go on to steal more important things and have to be stopped at a later date with more serious consequences resulting from their actions? But just having that starting point gives me those options.

 

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her best pals, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback, today. Fabulous running by Lady and her Ridgeback friend. The Vizler as “pack leader” watches indulgently but is so pleased to be with her two pals. It’s sweet to see.

Writing Tip: It pays to read your stories out loud so you hear them as a reader takes them in. If you need to focus on one thing, read the dialogue out. What looks good written down doesn’t always read out well. If you stumble, a reader will and you don’t want anything switching them off. I’ve found this has paid off for me.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Horizons. Is Simon’s mother right in wanting him to broaden his horizons? Will he ever do so? Find out here.

Screenshot 2024-02-09 at 09-56-05 Horizons by Allison Symes

Little details in a story can add so much depth to your characterisation. From my Pen Portrait in From Light to Dark and Back Again, my character Mary is described as someone who brushes her hair once a day whether she needed it or not. Now that gives me an instant picture of Mary in my head.

For one thing she’s not vain. There are more important things in her life than her personal appearance. I’m visualising Mary as being on the scruffy side when it comes to her hair and, by extension, her clothes just on the strength of this line. The story goes on to show why Mary does this and I’m not giving the game away here.

But that one phrase conjures up a whole image for my character. Flash is fantastic for this and it helps you make much more of your word count. Flash teaches you to simplify description here. It can also lure your readers in so they will want to find out whether their expectations of the character are correct or not (and if the latter, why not as well. My story does give a very good reason for Mary being the way she is).

From Light to Dark and Back Again - by nightSomething to consider is that many of the writing festivals have competitions to go with them. Some of these, as well as offering short story competitions, have flash fiction ones too. So do bear these in mind.

A good rule of thumb for any competition is you should be able to check the background out of the competition easily. Also any entry fees should be proportionate to the prizes on offer.

Flash fiction competitions come up often but are not always labelled as such. Writing Magazine offer a 750 word story competition and a 500 words all dialogue one. They’re not labelled as flash fiction competitions but they are of course.

Entering (reputable) competitions is good practice in writing to deadlines and if you get shortlisted or better, it is something to put on your website, author newsletter, writing CV, query letters etc. Also if a story doesn’t do well in a competition, have another look at it. Polish it up and send it elsewhere (which would be suitable for your type of story).

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Fairytales With Bite – Tooth Fairy Rules

Every profession needs its guidelines. Here are some which would be useful for a trainee Tooth Fairy to know.

  1. You only collect from those customers who are on your daily client list.
  2. You do not, repeat not, need to make up numbers. See 1 above.
  3. Pliers are not regulation equipment. See 1 and 2 above.
  4. Do not expect gratitude from your clients. They should be asleep for a start. If they see you, something has gone horribly wrong. Report back to HQ immediately.
  5. When leaving the correct money, also leave toothbrush, toothpaste and the fun comic we issue showing the benefits of looking after your teeth, even the baby ones, for as long as possible. Never leave sweets. You are not to speed up the natural process for when the next tooth is due to come out.
  6. If you suspect the client has sped up their own natural processes for losing baby teeth, report to HQ and don’t leave any money. The boss may well send superiors in to investigate further. Don’t get in their way. They will be the ones the kid will be allowed to see. They will tell the kid off. Kid can’t report to parents. Who’s going to believe them when they say they’ve seen the Tooth Fairy and they’re not nice? What matters here is the cheat doesn’t get the money. They won’t do it again.
  7. Look after your own teeth. You are meant to set a good example. Don’t eat sweets when on duty in case someone sees you. It is not a good look for the Tooth Fairy.
  8. Stay away from dentists’ kids. You shouldn’t get these allocated to you but if you suspect you have been report to HQ. Dentists’ kids won’t believe in you. They’ll have had all the “facts” from their parents here. So why visit? Save your time and effort for those who do have some belief, even if it is based on the wish to gain money from having lost a tooth. We gain their teeth, we have their belief, they get some payment. Those are the rules. No belief. No payment.
  9. Report back to HQ when you finish your nightly rota. Most of the time this will be a simply check in and check out. Did you get all the teeth expected? Yes. Were there any problems? No. You’ll then be issued with your rota for the following night.
  10. When out on your rounds, ensure you are not followed by vampires. They too look to extract from humans but they’re nowhere near as nice as we are. Be wary of politely spoken gents wearing big capes and who seem reluctant to smile. Any sign of fangs from anything, get the hell out of there, but this is good advice for all species to be honest.

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This World and Others – Health Matters

In your setting, and assuming you have more than one kind of creature living in it, health matters will vary. So think about how your creations are made, biologically speaking, and then work out what health issues would concern them.

If you have winged creatures for example, do they have to keep wings and the muscles supporting them in good working order and how would they do that? Would they suffer from wing rot if they don’t look after themselves, for example?

If you have characters who are known for their speed, are their feet especially developed here and how would they differ from human feet? Again, how would your creations look after themselves here?

Does your setting have doctors etc to take care of health issues that do crop up? No creature is going to be totally invincible. Even immortals can suffer from problems (if they’re dependent on a kind of climate to be immortal, if there are changes there that will have a knock-on effect).

Can other characters take advantage of known health weaknesses here and how that would change the outcome of your story?

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Publication and Course News

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Great start to week with publication news.
On the other hand I was sad to hear of the deaths of Ian Lavender and Michael Jayston (Pike in Dad’s Army and young Gwillam in Tinker Tailor Solider Spy respectively, the 1970s’ TV version with Alec Guinness). Both did much else besides but these are probably what they will best be remembered for. Wishing the King well too after his cancer diagnosis (but believe it is a good thing he has been open about it).
Lady has had a good start to her week too, getting to play with her best girlfriends.

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Facebook – General

Firstly, may I just a huge thank you to the wonderful response to my post yesterday about The Best of CafeLit 13. See below. The response was fantastic. Will share details later on in the summer when the book is out. Looking forward to that. The CafeLit anthologies are a fabulous read and I would say even if I wasn’t published in many of them, honest! If you want to find out more do head over to The Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop.

Secondly, I’ll be looking at Planning Out Your Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I share thoughts and tips and hope this will prove useful. Link up on Friday.

 

Publication News (and a personal best!)

So delighted to hear I will have not one, not two, but three stories in The Best of CafeLit 13, which will be out in the summer. This is a personal best for me. I have sometimes had two pieces in one book but never three before. Thrilled to see many familiar names in the list of acceptances here. Congratulations to all!

The lovely thing with the CafeLit books is that the stories are voted on by readers of the website so nobody can know their work will get in, yet alone how many pieces might make it into the books. Every reader on CafeLit who has had a story on there in the past twelve months has a voting right and I was pleased to vote. Naturally nobody is allowed to vote for their own work.

Pleased to say what I voted for made it in the book too. Am looking forward to a great read! And in the meantime, why not check out the fabulous stories available at the website.
Screenshot 2024-02-05 at 19-35-10 Read our Stories

Course News

Pleased to say the details of my two part course for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick are now up on their website. So looking forward to Swanwick in August (and do check out the other courses and workshops. There is a wealth of wonderful information on offer here!).

Have been busy sending in stories for competitions. Have another ready to look at later today. Have ideas for where to submit that. Will be working my way through the Writing Magazine competition guide from next week as there were several possibilities of places so send in work. Some are charging a reasonable fee and others are charging no fee at all, but, as a rule of thumb, I always check out the background of a competition (and the organisers) first.

If happy, I go ahead. The reputable ones make it easy for you to find out their background, their terms and conditions and so on. Most of the competitions I’ve highlighted for myself I have already heard of, a few are new to me, but all are worth my checking them out.

Screenshot 2024-02-06 at 20-14-10 Short Two-Part Courses Swanwick School

Hope you are having a good weekend. Looking forward to sharing Planning Out Your Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Planning out writing is one of those topics which has huge resonance for me as my writing has progressed considerably since I started doing this.

Will be sharing thoughts and tips on how to make this work for you as each writer will need to figure out what works best for them to make the most of the time they have available to write. A bit of forethought here pays off considerably or so I’ve found.

Writing Tip: Give some thought to themes you like to write to and then work out what could come from those. For example, with St. Valentine’s Day coming up soon, an obvious topic would be love. But there is more than one kind of love to write about. It doesn’t just have to be about romantic love, though obviously that can be written up into stories too (and will be for always given it has such meaning for us).

So if I was thinking about writing a story based on love, I would then work out whether it would be romantic love, the love between friends which can lead to incredible acts of courage, sacrificial love, which can lead to a character going well out of their way to support a loved one, and so on. It pays to jot down what can come from strong themes like love. Doing that can throw up interesting angles to write about.

 

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you have had a good day. Lady and I didn’t see any pals today but she had a great time (give her a toy and she’s well away) and hopes to see her friends tomorrow. Don’t know why it is but there seems to be roadworks everywhere right now in my area.

Talking of which, how about this for a writing prompt? Put your character in unexpected roadworks. How do they react? What difficulties does it cause them? Does it show something of their character to another character and are they impressed, or not, by what they discover here? Have fun but this is not one to write up if you’re stuck in roadworks!

Oh and bear in mind if you write fantasy, you can still use this prompt. What would their equivalent of roadworks be? Does magic help them get out of their traffic hold up or does it make things worse? Good possibilities for humour here.
The best writing prompts of all
It’s Monday. It’s time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Being In A Hurry. Suspect this may ring true for some of you! I know it does for me, the title alone has resonance for me.

 

When I write a humorous flash tale, I often know the ending first and then work out what led to it. Sometimes I know the kind of humorous scrape a character of mine would land themselves in and the humour arises naturally from how they get out of the situation I’ve dumped them in.

Sink or swim – my characters do have a choice, albeit a limited one! Both kinds of tale are great fun to write and I happily wave the flag for all humorous fiction. I do think it is underrated. I wish it wasn’t.

I like a mixture of story moods when reading and writing. I don’t want everything to be grim all the time. We get enough of that in the news!

421978905_823380589801804_7777162819593090925_nOne lovely review I had for Tripping the Flash Fantastic referred to the varied collection of characters and settings in the book. This is one of the things I love most about flash fiction, in terms of reading and writing it. I love being able to set characters wherever and whenever I want.

I get to focus on the single most important thing in the character’s life and hone in on that. It can deliver a powerful impact whether it is to make a reader laugh or cry or think. I like to think of it as undiluted fiction! I get straight to the point and that’s it. From a writing viewpoint, flash has shown me how to work out what is the most important thing to focus on and to get rid of waffle.

The advantage of the longer forms of writing is you can show more, all of which is relevant to the story. I love reading novels and discovering their layers. In series such as the Discworld one by Terry Pratchett, I love reading how established characters develop over the course of several books.

In flash fiction, there can only be one immediate layer but a good short piece will leave a reader thinking.

My The Pink Rose shows a relationship between mother and daughter and while there are not many words in this story, each one shows the depth of the relationship between these two. Little snippets of detail give information such as the mother not remembering teaching the daughter to read but the latter being so grateful she did. I like to think of that as layers within layers.


Screenshot 2024-02-06 at 20-26-43 Tripping the Flash Fantastic Amazon.co.uk Symes Allison 9781910542583 Books

 

Goodreads Author Blog – Stories in Other Forms

No huge surprises here, folks, when I reveal my favourite forms of story are always in the pages of a book! That goes for ebooks too as that is a case of electronic pages! However, I love taking in stories in other forms too.

As well as audio books, I love taking in stories through the radio. My favourite here was a broadcast unabridged reading of Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. Having heard the story, I then went and got the book.

Film can be another way of getting stories across (and is how other members of my family discovered the wonders of The Lord of the Rings. They would not have sat and read the trilogy but adored the Peter Jackson movies).

Recently I’ve reviewed a performance of The Sleeping Beauty, staged by my local excellent amateur dramatic company, for my weekly column on an online magazine (Chandler’s Ford Today). Naturally I know the fairy story well. I love pantomime, a wonderful British theatrical tradition which is thought to date back to the 16th century. Pantomime is brilliant in bringing the fairytales to life literally in front of your eyes. It is fun, produces huge laughs, and is a superb way of getting the stories to people. People remember these too.

Acting out stories is wonderful when done well. It keeps the stories alive. I would hope it would encourage people to go and check out the original tales in their written form too.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

Screenshot 2024-01-31 at 14-34-15 Writers'Narrative eMagazine January_February 2024 Issue

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Review: The Sleeping Beauty and Publication News

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. A huge thank you goes as ever to The Chameleon Theatre Company for supplying the photos for my review of their pantomime for Chandler’s Ford Today this week.
Hope you have had a good week. Author newsletter out this week, as is the super duper bumper issue of Writers’ Narrative for January and February 2024. Plus I review The Sleeping Beauty pantomime for Chandler’s Ford Today. Lady has seen her friends all week so she has had a great time too and I’ve spotted first daffodils out. Spring is on its way at least here in the UK.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

So pleased to share my review of The Sleeping Beauty recently performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company. Great show. Wonderful performances and The Chameleons prepare all their own sets too.

My review looks at the classic ingredients for a perfect pantomime. Did The Chameleons deliver on these? You can find out via the link – oh yes, you can!

Review: The Chameleon Theatre Company – The Sleeping Beauty

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Author newsletter out today, I’m glad to say. Given it is a Leap Year this time around I shared 29 tips/prompts which I hope my subscribers find useful.

Will be sharing my review of The Sleeping Beauty as staged by The Chameleon Theatre Company on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow (see above) and I hope the review reflects the fun of pantomime. It was a great laugh when I went to see the show last week. This is always a sign of a great pantomime wonderfully performed.

Have two stories to work on and submit over the next day or so. Have also got a number of possible competitions to check out in the Writing Magazine guide that came with the February issue. Looking forward to checking these out.

Screenshot 2024-02-01 at 17-32-50 Allison Symes - February 2024 - Leaping Into FlashDelighted to say the super-duper double issue of Writers’ Narrative magazine is now out covering January and February 2024. Lots to read with plenty of superb interviews and advice. Hope you enjoy it (see link below).

I have two pieces in here. I talk about New Beginnings for Characters on Page 14 and ask Flash Fiction Romance – Is It Possible? on page 40. But to find out the answer to that question, do check out the magazine.

If you haven’t already subscribed, there are links to do this within the edition itself. It means you won’t miss an issue and it will come straight to your inbox. Happy reading!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Down Time. Find out why a robot would like to dream here and what it tries to smuggle into its shed on its down time.

Screenshot 2024-02-02 at 09-52-13 Down Time by Allison Symes

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her youngest friend, Coco, the small Labradoodle today. Both dogs happy. Coco did not want to go home. I guess that’s a good sign!

Flash fiction has many joys to it, including being able to write in different genres and moods with it, but it is also adaptable when it comes to working out what you do with your finished pieces.

Some of mine are reserved for future collections. Others are sent in for competitions. Others go to Friday Flash Fiction and still more on to my YouTube channel. Flash is easy to share as part of your marketing. It shows what you do and, hopefully, gives some entertainment for potential/actual readers. I find the dribbles and drabbles (the 50 and 100 worders respectively) work best for this.

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Pleased to be talking about flash fiction again in the double issue of Writers’ Narrative magazine where I look at Flash Fiction Romance – Is It Possible? (Check out the link to find out more).

One of the joys of flash fiction is it has to be character led, as you haven’t got the word count room for lots of description, and you can set said characters wherever and whenever you want. I love doing this. I’ve written crime fiction, historical fiction, monologues, fantasy flash fiction etc. I’ve written from the viewpoint of a mother dragon and from an alien curled up inside a ping pong ball! Had a ball writing both of these two as you can probably imagine.

The only limitation is that upper word count limit of 1000 words but there is plenty you can do effectively up to that word count. Some of my most poignant stories come in at this count or under (see They Don’t Understand in From Light to Dark and Back Again and The Pink Rose in Tripping the Flash Fantastic).

Fairytales with Bite – Character Ambitions

What ambitions do your characters have? Where magic is involved in your setting, is it a question of your characters getting any magical powers at all or is it a case they wish to top up on what they already have?

Would their ambitions be easy to achieve because they’re expected to have ambitions like that and there is a clear career path, or would they have to fight to get to where they want to be? If magic is restricted to only those of a certain background, how would those of other backgrounds get access to magic? Who breaks the barriers and how do they do it?

If your characters fulfil their ambitions, does this bring them what they were looking for, or are they left feeling let down, frustrated even? If the ambition is a “good” one, what is your character hoping to do by achieving it and are they seeking this “good” ambition for its own sake, for others, or just for themselves?

Are character ambitions limited to whatever class your characters are in? Is there only so much a character could hope to achieve because of their background? When it comes to limitations, who brought them in and why? Were there logical reasons for stopping a certain kind of character achieving something others are allowed to achieve?

Good potential for stories there! Characters who break the moulds set on them by others are always fun to write and there is no lack of tension and conflict, which means there has to be some sort of resolution as well. Pretty much an inbuilt story structure going on here.

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This World and Others – Types of Character

One of the fun sides of world building is working out what kinds of character you will have populating it. Are they based on human biology or on something different? Give some thought as to whether your characters will determine the kind of geographical location they can live in or whether the latter dictates the kind of the characters you have to invent who can live there.

A water based world, for example, is likely to have aquatic creatures, which may or may not be the stars of your stories or may threaten/be helpful to your other characters who are the lead, as the case may be. In a water world, would your characters, assuming they are roughly humanoid, be expected to swim and do they have features we do not? For example, would they have gills and fins attached to a human like body?

Also give some thought as to type of character based on intellectual ability or the complete lack of it.

What kind of characters to you need to bring your setting to life? For any setting to seem plausible to a reader, you need to show something of how it works and one great way to do that is by showing your characters at home in their environment as part of the story.

If they’re on a journey, what transport would they use, for example? In showing, say, they can hire flying cars, readers will assume there is a whole industry behind producing said flying cars, which immediately highlights your setting as being reasonably well developed.

Where you have different types of character, you can also show how well or otherwise they get on, what the politics between the different types are and how this affects your characters, amongst other things. (There will be a history behind whether types of characters get on with each other or not so you can imply/show some of that history. If an outsider queries why Character Type A does not get on with Character Type B, a third one can reveal it was because of the war in the year 18,006 and Character Type B’s people committed atrocities. You don’t have to give a lot of information. My example here would be a line or two in a conversation between two characters).

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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