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.
Busy but fun week. Went to see Curtain Up performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company. Review to follow on Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. Lots of writing done. Plus will be having a family do at the weekend – the dog loves these so I expect a very tired Lady on the Sunday!
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today
Hope you have had a good day. Quiet one in the park but Lady and I had a lovely time. Gorgeous autumn weather at the moment too. We’re making the most of that.
Lovely to catch up with my editor from Chandler’s Ford Today last night when we went to see Curtain Up staged by The Chameleon Theatre Company. Review to follow in a couple of weeks.
Talking of CFT, I’m pleased to share Reading Feeding Into Writing for this week’s post. Given this combines two of my favourite things, writing and reading, you can imagine this was an especial joy to write. I look at past inspirations, love of stories (as this is the gift which keeps on giving), and analysing stories written by others so you can work out what you like and dislike and apply that to your own creations. I also suggest some useful questions to ask yourself here.
Hope you find the post a good read and useful.
Happy reading and writing!
Hope you have had a good day. Lady had a fabulous time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal today. Both dogs had a great run and came home tired but happy.
Writing wise I’m sharing Reading Feeding Into Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on that tomorrow. See above.
Next week I’ll be meeting again with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group and the next issue of my newsletter will be out (I know, I know, how can it be so close to October already?).
Tonight though I’m off to see The Chameleons perform Curtain Up. Looking forward to this. They always stage excellent productions and this is a comedy, which ticks all of the right boxes for me. I could do with a laugh basically!
Hope today has gone well. Quiet one in the park though a lovely autumnal day, the kind Lady and I like best.
Writing wise, hope to get various bits and pieces written tonight as I won’t be writing much tomorrow. I’m off tomorrow night to see The Chameleon Theatre Company perform Curtain Up, which looks fun. Will be nice to catch up with my lovely editor at Chandler’s Ford Today here too as we usually see our local amateur theatre company’s productions together. It makes for a great evening out. Review to follow in due course. Watching plays is another fabulous way to take in stories too!
Talking of reviews, every author including me greatly values these. As well as the obvious validation aspect, we can use quotes from the reviews in further marketing. I hope to do this soon with some of the fabulous reviews I received during the blog tour for Seeing The Other Side though I suspect this may need to wait a week or so.
The next few days will be especially busy but I would put a call out for more reviews to go up on the usual sites because this is the second best thing you can do for any writer, other than buy their book.
The great thing is reviews don’t have to be long – a line or two is fine.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Busy but fun family day coming up tomorrow so will get back to flash fiction writing on Sunday. I suspect I may have to have a crack at further competitions from later next week. I have a definite one in mind, which I usually have a crack at, that I definitely want to do before the end of the year, which is racing towards us. (I know!).
Flash Fiction Tip: There is lot to be said for keeping it simple. It helps with word count. Keeping it simple will mean going for two direct words rather than five, for example.
Having said that, I sometimes want to write a character who does go “around the houses” when they speak. I can show them being long winded in the first couple of lines of dialogue they say. After that I can get them to “tail off” or have another character interrupt them (because by that time the other character will get how long winded this character is and will want to interrupt them or risk being bored by them all night).
I’ve had one of those days today where I’ve not had time to do much, I’ve had lots of things on, and the front door would probably have been better as a set of revolving doors. It is, to quote my dear mum, one of those days where I’m meeting myself going backwards.
So not much time to write today either but this is where flash can come into its own because I can either write about it as I am here or get a couple of lines down which might be a promising opening to a new story. Snippets of time to write mount up so it is worth using them to write something.
Years ago, when I had some caring responsibilities, I found ten minutes writing here, another ten minutes there could often be the only writing I could do in a day. But over the course of just a week, I found I could get a story drafted, maybe two.
And I found because I knew time was limited I just got to my desk and hit the ground running so to speak. Sometimes a lack of time can do wonders for your focus.
Am looking forward to catching up with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. We’ll be looking at various ways in which to get our flash pieces “out there”.
Building up publication credits with your short form writing can also help when submitting queries for longer work to publishers and/or agents because it shows them (a) you take your writing seriously, a track record does mean something, and (b) someone else decided they liked your work enough to publish it. Well worth doing.
I’ve been pleased over recent years to see more flash competitions about and even some of the short story ones allow submissions at 1000 words so there are options. The biggest issue is picking which competitions to try because you’re unlikely to get to do them all.
But as ever always check out the background of the competition and make sure you’re happy before sending anything. It pays to do your homework there. Once you’ve found the competitions which are right for you and are “sound”, good luck! You to have to be in it to have any chance of winning it after all.
Fairytales With Bite – Guest Lists
Guest lists and who should/shouldn’t be on them are not the easiest things to handle. Even in the fairytales, this isn’t always correctly done – see Sleeping Beauty for the classic example of that. Even when right not to invite someone, as in that case, surely basic precautions should have been taken to avoid the “revenge of the uninvited” scenario! Mind you, I guess that would have meant no story…
Thinking about your characters, who would they want to have on the guest lists of their special events? Who would they never invite and why? Bound to be story thoughts there.
Also what kind of special events would your characters have or like to be able to have? If they do manage to have their events, what would they do if the uninvited turn up? There’s bound to be someone wanting to cause a scene for your character here – what is behind all of that? Is your character right to feel the way they do or not here? Could the uninvited have justified reason to be upset with your character?
For important state like events, who would be on the guest lists for those? Who would your governing authorities not want to see turn up?
Also who gets the job of compiling guest lists? It’s not an easy one. It’s too easy to upset someone without meaning to either with this. So could your character be given this job as a test for them? If they can handle this well, could they then go on to handle even more important jobs?
Plenty of story thoughts there, I think.
This World and Others – Ceremonials
In your setting, what kind of ceremonials does it have? Does this depend on the “country” in your world or is it a one world government kind of system? Are the ceremonials used to commemorate things deemed important to remember (such as our Remembrance Day events)?
Ceremonials tend to be stately and formal but could your setting have a kind which is less so? I’m thinking along the lines of a “friendly ceremonial” for, say, youngsters becoming adults, doing well in exams etc, and all done publicly deliberately to encourage others to follow the same route in life.
What is the history behind the ceremonials? Does anyone object to them? What would happen to them if they did so publicly? Would they be going against general public opinion or are they on track with the public but not with the government and they are the ones prepared to speak out, no matter what?
Again, story ideas there, happy writing!
MAILERLITE – ALLISON SYMES – NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK
ALLISON SYMES ON SUBSTACK
AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES