Writing Competition Tips

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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 few days. Weather becoming cold again but generally dry. Pleased to have finally submitted a long term project this week – if I don’t hear within a certain time frame, it’s a no. Continuing to get stories and blog posts done. All enjoyable, to write, which is how I like it.

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Pleased to share Writing Competition Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today and I hope you find it useful. 

I share why even if you’re not listed or win, it is still an invaluable thing to do to enter writing competitions regularly and discuss why following the rules to the matters is vital. You’d think this is obvious but I’ve had the privilege of judging some competitions and it isn’t always done.

I also look at checking word counts, getting word counts and online forms for submission correct, and much else besides.

Writing Competition Tips

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Today would have been Mum’s 91st birthday. She taught me to read long before I started school and my love of books and stories comes directly from her.

Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals and also saw the lovely Coco and Daisy as well. It was a lovely puppy party in the park today though it was a chilly one.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Writing Competition Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow.  See above. Hope it will prove useful.

The following week, I’ll be interviewing the lovely Joy Wood and she has a thing or two to say about competitions as well – more details nearer the time – and much else besides. All useful stuff for any writer. Looking forward to sharing that too.

Managed to finalise my long term project and submit it last night. If I don’t hear within six months, it’s a no. Meantime, I’ll crack on with other writing work.

 

Lady has had a great day as she got to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals again. She’s had a good week so far.

Will be sharing Writing Competition Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above.

Many thanks for the support re my newsletter. Next one will be out on 1st April and that isn’t an April Fool’s, honestly! To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Will also be having a piece on Authors Electric out in a few days time.

Over the weekend, I hope to look out for a couple of other story competitions to have a crack at as I’ve got an objective this year to try to enter more of these. It will make me produce more stories, if nothing else. Besides which it is fun coming up with stories and I’ve found it to be true the more I write, the more ideas I generate. I like that aspect too!

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Delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Picking a Favourite. I suspect many writers will identify with this one. Hope you enjoy it.
Flash fiction isn’t new, far from it. Its name may have changed over time (I know of micro fiction, sudden fiction, and many more names besides), but the format is an ancient one. Think about Aesop’s Fables or Jesus’s parables in the Bible – pretty much all of these come in at under 1000 words.

And the format is a brilliant one for punchline endings, twist in the tale endings, and if you want to get a message across in a succinct but entertaining way. This was especially important back when literacy was reserved only for the privileged few and when the majority would have taken in stories via the oral tradition. It’s much easier to remember a short story than a long one!

Most writers will encounter writing exercises in courses and workshops. You never get very long to have a crack at these things during the session as you usually get about five minutes or so. But the material you come up with here could be turned into polished and published flash fiction tales. Why not have a go?

Good questions to ask potential characters for a flash story:-

  • What is the one single moment you think is the most important? It should be clear from the answer why that is and there should be inklings of a story idea forming from this.
  • What would you say is your main attitude to life and give some indication of why it is this one.
  • What one thing would you never do and what would you do when faced with it?

Good outline right there – have fun!

Fairytales With Bite – Lines Never Said by Magical Characters but Should Have Been

Just sometimes, because my mind works this way, I think of lines magical characters could’ve said but didn’t. Hope you enjoy the following.

Red Riding Hood – My granny has never been that hairy, wolfie, and my eyesight’s fine. I’m not as stupid as you think. Yes, this is a shotgun.

Aladdin – And this piece of rug is supposed to keep me from certain doom is it? Tell me, how does it fly again? A few magic words, hmm? Do you mind if I walk?

Humpty Dumpty – I’m an egg. I’m oval. What could possibly go wrong if I fall from this wall? Hmm.. Think I’ll go somewhere safer.

Hansel and Gretel – Let’s put stones down to follow home rather than the bread. On the other hand, maybe we should find somewhere better to live. I don’t recall Father standing up for us that well.

Cinderella – So you’re my fairy godmother are you? Where the hell have you been?

Well, they would have a point, wouldn’t they?

This World and Others – Languages and Usages

In your setting, how many languages are there? Are they all spoken by many? Do they all have a written system? Are certain languages used for business/politics with others used for cultural or other reasons?

How did the languages develop? Was it a question of one species colonizing everywhere else and imposing their language or is there much more co-operation between your different peoples so languages are shared in a more friendly manner?

Are certain languages used for reading, entertainment etc? Or is there one overall language everyone knows and the others are then a question of cultural choice?

What is your literacy rate on your setting and are some languages encouraged and other discouraged? Why would that be? What would happen to anyone going against this?

How is the teaching of languages done? Are all encouraged to learn more than one language?

Where language represents cultures, are any suppressed and why would that be? Could you tell stories about an underground movement against this?

Story ideas there I think.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Writing Progress, Word Counts and Anthologies

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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 one image from the 2024 Autumn Gathering run by the Association of Christian Writers. The shot ties in nicely with my belief it is good to write first, edit later. See further down.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Lovely one here. Good weather, able to wear plimsolls and lighter coat rather than boots and heavy dog coat. Nice to see more flowers out. Plenty of stories submitted over the weekend too.

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Hope your Tuesday has gone well. Nice one here and Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler chum again.

Enjoyed a writing related Zoom last night. Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom later in the month. The use of Zoom was one good thing at least to come out of lockdown as it has given alternative ways of having workshops etc and I was especially glad to have these during that dreadful time.

I’m glad to continue to enjoy online and in person writing events. Certainly the Flash Fiction group couldn’t meet in person so Zoom has made more things possible writing wise which I welcome.

Hope you have had a good start to your week. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today and it has been another fine day too. So win-win all around there.

Writing wise, I’ve had a productive weekend. Got three stories off to various places. Hope to be drafting more later this week. Made progress on my long term project and I hope to get that submitted this week.

Also later this week, I need to put up a couple of blog posts for different places which are due to appear mid month roughly and latter end of the month respectively. Texts for both need editing and then I’ll create some pictures to go with them but, as with my stories, I draft the blogs and rest them. Then I can see where I need to improve things and there always is something to improve.

I never mind this. It’s the nature of writing.

Another nice day, more butterflies out, and I even spotted a very early bluebell (outside a neighbour’s place). Lady enjoyed her time in the park but this is where I am grateful she does not share one trait with my first dog, Gracie. The footballers were out today and Gracie would have wanted to go on to the pitch to join in. Lady gives them a casual glance and then resumes playing with her own ball, thank you!

Looking forward to starting flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly plus I hope to review and send in a longer short story. Did so too!

One Liner Tip: Ideally keep short and snappy. Think character and action in one short burst, which a reader will know has to led on to something. The reaction from a reader has to be somethlng like now what? Only way to find out – read on, so they do just that to find out what does happen.

For example, how about The dragon blew but no flame emerged. I know I would want to read on to find out what happens next and what does the dragon do?

A lovely sunny day. It was nice to wear lighter clothes, a body warmer and plimsolls (instead of heavy dog coat and boots, makes such a nice change!). I also spotted my first butterfly of the year (believe it was a Cabbage White). Lady loved the weather and her time in the park too.

Writing wise, I will be sharing Writing Competition Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today next week and then after that there will be a wonderful author interview with fellow Swanwicker, Joy Wood. More details on each of these nearer the time.

Have a couple of submissions I want to get out by the end of the weekend. Am also working on a presentation for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month.

Writing Tip: Think about how you can show us your characters in action, so to speak. Rather than get them to run quickly up a hill, get them to race up. You save on word count (important for flash writers especially) but raced is more definite than ran quickly. I can run quickly compared to a snail but that does not say much, I can tell you!

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Write first, edit later is one of those tips I wish I’d picked up sooner than I did especially since I now do this all of the time.

For flash especially I just get the story down, sort out any problems with it after having a break from it, and then worry about the word count. I know I have to get the story right first and then I can figure out what to do about the word count.

I often find, when I know I want to write 100 word stories, my first draft usually comes in at 150 or 160 or thereabouts. But usually better ways of phrasing things help me get that count down without losing anything important from the story.

It is the way of it though that I can’t find better ways of phrasing things until I do get that first draft down!

It’s Monday. It’s a lovely sunny one where I am but it is still Monday when all is said and done. Time for a story then, a darker one this time. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube called Book Ends.

Is Sheila the helpless old lady she seems to be and where do her book ends come into it when she is faced with an aggressive burglar?

 

Hope the weekend has been a good one. Nice one here.

Drafted a flash piece (a 500 words maximum piece) I hope to submit next weekend. Have stories to review and send in later on.

I am looking through the Flash NANO pieces I drafted last year. One or two I’ve already polished up and sent off but hope to come back to the others in cue course. Most I know I can use.

There was only one I know for sure won’t be seeing the light of day but that’s fine. A duff piece is a duff piece. It was a good exercise to try but nothing more.

How do your characters respond to the seasons? Today has been a lovely spring day where I am and it lifts the mood. How could you use this to help your characters achieve more than they might otherwise have done? Equally can you use geographic and climate conditions to get in the way of your characters and could magic and/or science be used to make this happen deliberately?

Flash Tip: Why not write four stories about one character but set the tales in the four seasons? Compare and contrast your character’s attitude and actions due to whichever season they’re in. Could be some interesting linked flash stories here.

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Competitions and Their Anthologies

I’ve been privileged to have stories of mine win competitions and appear in anthologies as the prize. Separately, I have had work in other anthologies brought out by independent presses (as these are a great way of highlighting what they publish).

Why mention that? Simply because I want to commend anthology reading. There is the obvious reason I’m in some of course, but I have found reading these books has introduced me to authors I would not have known about otherwise.

I’ve also found reading some of those authors’ short works has encouraged me to engage with their novellas and novels but all because I discovered their work in an anthology first.

Plus I want to encourage short story reading as part of an overall reading “diet”. We celebrate stories here in all their forms so why not check out the shorter forms in a convenient book form?

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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The Benefits of Writing Exercises

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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. Lady has – lots of puppy parties. Not been bad for me either – lots of writing done, which is how I like it. Will be having a smashing author interview coming up in the next couple of weeks on Chandler’s Ford Today. More details nearer the time.

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Drizzly today but Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and a lovely spaniel called Daisy whom we see from time to time. Not a bad way to end Lady’s “working” week!

Delighted to share The Benefits of Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I look at some of the different types available, the advantages of using any at all, and set one for you to try.

I also share some ways you can set your own writing exercises as well as examine how these things give your imagination a good old work out.

Hope you find the post useful.

The Benefits of Writing Exercises

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Lady is on a roll this week – fourth day in a row with nice weather and puppy partying with her best pals. They’re all living their best lives!

Look out for my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow on The Benefits of Writing Exercises. See above. This is a classic case of talk about what you know as I use these things all the time. I set them a lot too for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group and when I run workshop elsewhere. Many of my stories on Friday Flash Fiction started life as writing exercises I set myself, often using different kinds of prompt.

Themes come in to my writing a lot, especially for non-fiction such as my blog posts and articles. I also use them for my author newsletter. I’ve found that useful as it gives me a “peg” to write the newsletter around and I can target the hints and tips I share here in a better way.

 

Another lovely sunny day and another puppy party though only with the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback this time Again lovely time had by all.

Will be sharing The Benefits of Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I regularly use many different kinds of writing exercises and always managed to get stories from them. More later in the week. See above.

Character Tip: Names can reflect a good deal about a character, including likely social background and age.

But bear in mind names can come in and out of fashion. You can, however, use that to your advantage. The only thing you would need to watch for is to ensure if you use the name Ethel, for example, make sure there is something else in your story to indicate the era in which she is set. Mind you, I’m not sure Gertrude is coming back any time soon! So you could use that to good effect. It would indicate her likely era.

My name gives a good indication of my likely range of birth dates. So you can play with things like this too to give an indication of your character’s age without necessarily spelling it out.

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Sock It To Them. Every so often I will use a phrase or proverb as a title and then see what I can do with it as a story. Also thought it might be good to have a lighthearted piece this week given what is going on elsewhere.

The alert will notice I’ve used socks as a theme this week given my YouTube story on Monday is called Socks. So I haven’t just used a well known phrase for story ideas this week, I’ve used clothes too, making this an object prompted piece writing too.
I write some seasonal flash fiction (especially at Christmas time) but could, I know, do more with this. The problem is remembering to do it! I have written some more lighthearted pieces recently for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel.

I thought this was apt given the grim state of the news but also because we are going into lighter times seasonally, at least in my part of the world. It has been lovely seeing the lighter evenings so I thought lighter tales would go with these nicely enough!

I do look out for certain competitions or invites to send stories in for potential broadcast which work around the seasons. But do bear in mind you can use this as a theme anyway. Perhaps once a quarter pick a a story to reflect on the season you are in. Equally you can write a story say in winter but use it to look ahead to the more hopeful times of spring to come.

I love finding those moments which show a great deal about a character without my having to spell everything out. I can use names here (as I discuss over on my Facebook author page – see above). But you can also use things like style of dress, whether women were expected to wear hats or not (and if so you could indicate class by what kind they wore), and much else besides.

I refer to these things as the telling details. Next time you read a novel or a short story look out for the telling details you think the author used to show something about their character. Agatha Christie does this brilliantly with Poirot. All the little details showing his fastidiousness confirm this trait and add “layers” to his character portrayal. Doesn’t necessarily take a lot of words either.

For flash fiction, if you write linked flash, you could do this over the course of two or three flash pieces.

Fairytales with Bite- Spells and Their Usage

In your setting, are there limits to what spells can be used when? Also are there limitations as to who can use them? Does training have to be carried out? Now there are renowned fictional magical schools of course, but thinking beyond that, where could your characters go to develop their skills and spells further? Are there codes of conduct? Who drew them up and why and what would happen to anyone breaking this? Plenty of scope for stories there.

Also give some thought as to what the spells can do? Is there anyone trying to extend or modify what they can do here and is this for good or sinister purposes?

Now I’ve always imagined that any magical being would drain their powers every time they use a spell, the amount depending on how powerful/important the spell was. I think this is reasonable given anyone using any kind of power is likely to find themselves drained after using said power a lot. Even if they’re not drained as such, the equipment used to carry out the spells will be – the equivalent I suppose of us needing to recharge our mobile phones, computers etc after heavy battery usage.

But having some kind of limitation will be a means of giving non-magical or less powerful magical characters a chance to survive in the world in which you’ve set them. It would also be good if spells didn’t do everything. What about characters who invent things to complement magic or do something magic alone cannot? Would they see this as the equivalent of our science?

This World and Others – Science and Magic

Following on from Fairytales with Bite, do science and magic co-exist in your setting or are they in conflict with each other? Can the conflict be resolved? Who would do so and why? What are the strengths and weaknesses of both in your setting? Sure to be story ideas there.

Give some thought too as to what developed first. Did science spring from magic to resolve those things magic cannot do? Or did science, as we understand it, come first and magic developed either as a sideline or in opposition to it?

Have you got characters who love both and happily use both? Do they use their skills in either or both to help their home world or are they just interested in any form of power and what do they intend to do with these things?

Also can good come from both to benefit the setting and characters? Can they feed into each other, for good or ill?

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Writing Tips and Characters and Development

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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. Lovely to see some sunshine out. And more proof spring really is on its way. Lady has loved that too. Writing wise, have been submitting stories, am prepping another one for a competition, working on blogs and am working on a author interview which will be on Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. All good! Hope your week goes well.

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Another lovely sunny day and again Lady had another puppy party with her best pals. All dogs went home tired but happy. Enjoyed my swim too. Good to see more spring flowers out. And yes it is good to be reminded the natural world is far better than anything else, especially at the moment.

The other thing which is better is creative writing, of course, or indeed any form of creative art. Hats off to those who can draw anything because I can’t! Enjoying classical music more than ever at the moment – it does calm.

Writing Tip: Dialogue in fiction has to resemble natural speech but cannot be an exact replica of it. Why? Simply because we all um and ah too much and that would so boring to read in print! The odd one or two, yes, but no more.

Hope your Monday has gone well. Another lovely sunny day today and Lady got to have a puppy party with all of her best pals – the Rhodesian Ridgeback, the Hungarian Vizler, and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. All of them had a great Monday! They had a great Tuesday too – see above!

Had a good writing weekend with plenty of work done. Looking forward to the week ahead. Creativity of any sort is good for you, I think. It makes you focus on something positive.

Plan to review a story later this week and then hope to submit it by the weekend. The story is pretty much there but a final review before submission pays off. I see this as my final, final check. Usually it is just to confirm all is okay. Occasionally I pick up an error (the lesser spotted typo!) and I can then amend it, of course. But I factor in time to allow myself to do that and this is another tip I picked up from years back which I continue to use.

Lovely sunny day. Was good to be out and about with the dog, both of us enjoying that.

I’ve picked up a lot of writing tips along the way, as you do, and most of them I still use regularly. Most transfer happily to all forms of writing such as write first, edit later. That one has been a game changer for me.

I remember trying to get each sentence right before moving on to the next and all I managed to do was hamstring myself. I found myself enjoying writing much more when I knew it was okay to write a rubbish first draft, it is what the first draft is for, and it was fine to come back and sort it out later. I’ve not looked back since.

Having enough time away from a piece before judging it properly is another tip I use constantly and again I find it pays off. You can‘t judge something properly the moment you’ve finished writing it.

I found I either I thought it was the greatest thing ever written or, much more often, this is total rubbish, neither of which was true. It was work with promise which needed tidying up, pruning etc. And many of those pieces have gone on to be published thanks to going through that process.

1st March – Newsletter
Glad to say my author newsletter went out earlier today. I know. How can it be March already? I looked at titles as my theme for this one. I sometimes use those pockets of time we all get to brainstorm ideas for title, opening lines etc. I review them later after a suitable break and write up the ones which still make me feel I have simply got to write this one up.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at The Benefits of Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Link to go up on Friday.

Character Tip: We all have certain attitudes towards things, based on personal experience, to an extent how we were brought up, faith (or lack of) and so on. But there will be reasons behind those attitudes so what reasons do your characters have for the attitudes they have? Can anything/anyone make them think again or are they right to take the view they do? Plenty to explore there for story ideas.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Despite the news, it’s not been too bad here.

Flash Fiction Tip: Focus on the lead character and what they do because that is your story. You have to focus on what is the most important thing. I can’t give you chapter and verse in any flash tale, there isn’t the room for it, but I can show my lead character doing one particular thing and that having a pivotal impact on them.

Naturally that will make the reader react but what is fun is deciding what that reaction is likely to be and then working out how to achieve it through your character. So if I want to make a reader smile, I’ll probably get my character doing something a bit daft.

This is one reason I went for a lighthearted story on YouTube yesterday (Socks) aside from feeling we could probably do with some lightheartedness right now.

It’s Monday. It’s a cold but sunny Monday where I am but nothing takes away from it being Monday. Time for another story on YouTube from me then. Hope you like my latest here – Socks. Time for a light hearted one I think!

My character comes up with one plausible explanation for why socks go missing, though it doesn’t seem to please her husband. Find out why here.

Almost time to start my flash fiction Sunday! Have picked a random word from a generator to use as my prompt for this afternoon’s stories. I like doing this because I can often get more than one story out of one generated prompt (or any other kind of prompt come to that) and I can change the mood of the stories too. So I may end up with one funny one, another will be a deadly serious tale, and all from the one prompt. I call this a win!

I have found it to be true the more you write the more ideas come to you. I see this as working the old imagination muscle and it is fun to do. Writing exercises, as I will be talking about in my Chandler’s Ford Today post next week (The Benefits of Writing Exercises), are a great way to work that muscle and are great if you don’t know where to start with your writing. Find a set prompt and give it a go.

Hope your weekend is going well. Pleased to see more daffodils out in my garden and more crocuses emerging too. I have always loved spring but am finding it especially cheering this year to see things like this emerging and reminding me there is a better world out there – the natural one.

Looking forward to Flash Fiction Sunday afternoon – I get quite a bit done in this and it is a highlight of my writing week.

Flash Writing Tip: I find it useful to work out who my character is (broad brush strokes here). For example, I know my character is a lady of a more mature age, likes certain colours in her clothes and other colours for her handbags etc. I then work out the kinds of attitudes they are likely to have.
In this case my character is likely to hate certain colours and won’t wear them.

From there I can work out what kind of events those attitudes could lead them into. Again in this case, I could put this lady into a situation where she must wear a hated colour and cannot get out of it so how does she handle this? Good potential for humour here too but you can mix up the mood as well here.

I can decide if I am going to get a laugh out of my character or take a more serious view in getting her to see how her attitudes can cause conflicts with others and over something relatively silly too. Does she change her ways?

Goodreads Author Blog – Characters and Development

One of the things I love about reading series novels is you can see how characters develop over time. The master on this for me was Sir Terry Pratchett with his Discworld novels. The development of Sam Vimes is magnificent. Start with Guards! Guards! and work your way through to Raising Steam. Men at Arms is an excellent police procedural as well as a funny fantasy and I think it is where you see Vimes come into his own so much more.

Now for short stories and flash fiction this kind of development is harder to do because you literally have far less of a word count to do this in but it is possible. You can have linked flash fiction/short stories where the same character turns up in more than one story, for example. Each flash piece/short story must stand alone but when you read the two more more together you should be able to see how the character has developed, whether it is for good or not.

The advantage to the novel is you can see how the character develops over the course of one novel. A lot can and does happen over one book and even more in a series.

But whatever type of fiction you go for, it should be the characters who grab you and make you keep on reading. I know they do for me. I want to see how they develop and change even if I don’t always agree with how they do so.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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The Writer’s Wish List

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Hope you have had a good week. Lady has seen friends and I’m spotting more spring flowers out. Writing is going well too. Hope to edit a story for another competition over the weekend.

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Hope you have had a good Friday. Lovely to see some sunshine and more spring flowers out.
Pleased to share my latest post on Chandler’s Ford Today – The Writer’s Wish List.

I share five things I would wish for and this includes my thoughts on AI, tiredness. and finding out useful writing information plus much more.

Hope you enjoy the post. Comments always welcome on the CFT box.

The Writer’s Wish List

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler friend again today and I am spotting more crocuses out both cheery things to celebrate I think!

Will be sharing The Writers’ Wish List on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Had a lovely session of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Zoom last night. Good to see everyone.

I’ve been revisiting some of my Flash NANO stories from last year and sent a couple of those out to competitions, having polished and edited them. Now to wait and see.

Also happily working on future articles and a long term project. Hope to get that submitted soon.

Writing Tip: Even if you’re happily reading everything fictional you can get your hands on (and why not!) with the aim of writing plenty of fiction of your own, don’t forget to include non-fiction in your reading. Not only are the articles etc interesting, I’ve known non-fiction works spark off ideas for stories for me. Why not see if it can do the same for you?

Mixed bag weather wise today. Lady and I got wet this morning though we did see her Hungarian Vizler friend which cheered us up. For this afternoon’s walk, there was glorious sunshine. I guess that is proof – spring is on its way! In further good news, my first daffodils are out in the garden.

On Friday, I’ll be sharing The Writer’s Wish List on Chandler’s Ford Today.  See further up. And I hope to bring another smashing author interview before too long. More details nearer the time.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting his evening on Zoom. Will be looking at Using Popular Themes as a topic. Glad to say the session went well. Nice to welcome new members to it too.

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It’s Friday once again and I’m pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Memory Issues. You know how you can see a face and swear you know from it somewhere, well so does my character here. Is he right or wrong though? What could be the consequences of being right?
The Bridport Prize has described flash fiction as “the art of just enough” which I think is a brilliant description of flash fiction. (Their competitions are open again incidentally. Deadline is the end of May).

It’s a great challenge to respond to and I’ve found it has helped my other fiction and non-fiction work. How?

Simply because I’ve got into the habit of thinking does the reader need to know this? I’ve got used to justifying every part of my stories and/or articles and/or blogs etc being included and ruthlessly cutting out anything which isn’t. Writing flash so regularly has helped sharpen my editing skills (and indeed has helped me lose all fear of that).

Other than for Friday Flash Fiction, where I always write 100 word tales, I do like to mix up the word count I use across the flash fiction spectrum. I do this to keep me on my creative toes but also because certain markets and competitions have specific requirements here.

I can think of markets which ask for strictly 75 words only, including the title, and another one which asks for 53 words. There are all kinds in between too all the way up to the 1000 word limit. And it is a funny thing how often I gravitate to the 1000 words mark.

For my Writers’ Narrative articles, these always come in at around the 1000 words mark. My shorter Chandler’s Ford Today pieces come it at about the same limit though my longer ones (such as author interviews) can be double that.

Word count then plays a huge role in my writing life though I like to mix it up. It keeps life interesting!


Fairytales with Bite – Turning The Tables

One of the things I’ve always loved about fairytales is you know things will work out all right in the end, usually with some magical assistance from a benign magical being. Turning the tables on the unkind and cruel can be guaranteed. Just ask Cinderella!

But we need to know early on in the story that such magical assistance is going to be possible. So we needed to know Cinders had a fairy godmother though she had been unaware of it until the lady deigned to turn up! I’ve always thought I would’ve understood Cinders if she’d greeted the lady with something like, “Where the hell have you been? Do you know what’s been going on here?” Well, you just would, wouldn’t you?

For tables to be turned, we need to know then that such a thing will be possible. Hints and clues need to be planted to the alert reader to pick up (and for the less alert ones to go back through the story later and then spot them – we all do this at times! It’s no bad thing either. You always pick up more on a second read and writers can learn so much from that).

With fairytales, there is the general expectation tables will be turned but you do need to see how this happens. In the case of Cinders, we know things will become better once that fairy godmother does turn up (and that magic will be the way forward here).

In other stories, look for the pivotal moment of change. Study what leads up to it. There will be things here we can apply to our own fairytales and magical stories. Often there is an early hint when we discover the setting is not of this world so that too is a huge clue magic or some other force for good will turn up at some point.

The fun thing here, of course, is you get to decide what clues to plant where. Then you can get your characters to reveal more. It’s why I love writing, as well as reading, what I call fairytales with bite. They’re a great source of entertainment and a small comfort in a world where justice is so often not done.

This World and Others – Accountability

With great power comes great responsibility (or should do!) and there should be some accountability as to how a character uses their powers. This isn’t meant as a commentary on what is going on right now but it perhaps reflects on us that accountability is always needed, I think.

In an ideal world (which ours definitely isn’t!) the most powerful have to have some restraints on what they can do otherwise there is no story. They would just get their own way all the time. There is no story in that.

I’ve long believed there has to be some hope in any kind of story (e.g. justice will be done in crime stories in some way) and I feel this should be just as true for science fiction and fantasy tales. Perhaps especially so since there is access to powers we don’t know here.

We understand power struggles here so can relate to those going through the same thing in the fantastic worlds we create. It is the characters, I feel, which draw us into reading the stories.

I rooted for Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings and the details of The Shire, Mordor etc were fabulous but without those characters drawing me in would I have gone on to read the rest? Possibly not. Having said that, having sense of the setting in which they were travelling added to the story. Knowing Sauron could be brought down (and I refuse to believe that is a spoiler after all these years) gave hope. I was rooting for those hobbits to ensure Sauron did face his accountability even though it took an unusual way of doing it. It was vital Sauron had a weakness that could be used against him – therein the accountability and that evil would not triumph.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

Two issues here this time – the February one as we leave the month behind and the March one as we go into that month. Happy reading!

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Story Endings and Why I Love Creative Writing

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Hope you had a good weekend. Wet and stormy again here though crocuses are emerging in my garden. Plenty done writing wise which I’m very pleased about. Hope the rest of the week continues to be productive.

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You know I said yesterday Writers’ Narrative was due out soon (see below!), well I was right. It’s out now! Do check out the magazine below.

The theme this time is historical fiction. Plenty of wonderful articles in here sharing useful insights. Time for a good drink and a great read I say. You can find my piece on pages 16 and 17 where I look at how historical fiction can be written for the shorter forms of writing too.

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Hope you have had a good start to the week. Park so muddy this morning. Lady didn’t worry thought (she never does!) and focused on having a nice time with her Hungarian Vizler pal. Quite right too.

Writing wise, I had a lovely weekend, submitting stories and picking others to edit for competition entries later. Also drafted articles and got on with my longer term project (well, one of them anyway).

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again on Saturday. Yes, it is almost March already! To receive news, tips, story links, prompts etc do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Also Writers’ Narrative will be out again soon. I was right – see above!

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Hope your Sunday has gone well. Nice quiet one here though the wind is getting stronger. Storm due later.

Why do I love creative writing, fiction or otherwise? There is no one answer to that but my love of reading made me want to write stories of my own. Basically, I wanted to see if I could do it and I soon discovered writing is addictive (albeit in a good way).

My love of reading non-fiction has led to me wanting to and then going on to write non-fiction articles and posts. And, of course writing is a creative outlet. I suspect most people have at least one way of being creative and I soon found that writing was the one for me.

Best of all has been getting to make so many writing friends. All of us understand the need to create stories and articles without having to explain why. When we get together in person or online, that is lovely. We do pick up from where we left off!

It will be a little while before I go to my next writing event though, as well as running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group this coming week, I’m going to attend an event ACW are putting on in early April, which I’m sure will be encouraging and useful.

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Had some sun today which is lovely and have potted the first crocus emerging in my garden.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing The Writers’ Wish List for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. (Well, it will be this writer’s wish list but there will be plenty to agree with and maybe add to via the CFT comments box on Friday!).

Delighted to be Editor’s Choice on Friday Flash Fiction this week with my Best Advice tale. Link here in case you missed it yesterday and a huge thank you for all the lovely comments coming in on this so far.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon tomorrow too. I have been submitting a number of stories recently which is great. I need to take some time out to look for other possible competitions and I hope to do this tomorrow too. I make a point of checking out the competition background just to reassure myself all it as it should be before I send anything anywhere.

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Hope today has been good for you. Lovely to see some sunshine. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and an old friend, Daisy, whom we haven’t seen for a while.

Writing Tip: You can show something of your characters’ general attitude to life by showing how they react to minor annoyances, you know the kind we all have.

Do they swear like the proverbial trooper when they stub their toes or do they express their annoyance in a less fortnight manner?

How do they react in certain weather conditions? What brings out the worse of them here (and bear in mind in a fantasy story you could have another magical character deliberately make them face this situation knowing it will cause them to react badly).

It’s Monday. It’s been stormy (overnight) and so muddy in the park. Definitely time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – People Watching.

Just another woman working away in a cafe over a chocolate brownie and tea or is there something more sinister in her work? Find out here.

 

Finding topics for my flash fiction and short stories varies. I use the random generators. I use books of prompts (some have been published by Bridge House Publishing. I’ve contributed to those and there is now a Big Book of Prompts available – see link below).

I also use story cubes. Sometimes a topic is set by the competition I want to have a crack at and sometimes I use a competition theme even if I don’t enter it. (This is usually due to my having discovered the competition a bit too late to enter it but I can still use the topic and get a story out of it. I can find another home for it later).

I like having a variety of methods to “get into” a story (though my all time favourite is working out who my lead character will be and then finding a lovely situation to dump them in – great fun!).


Flash can be punchy, moving, funny, and anything in between those things. You can set your characters anywhere and everywhere including in time, in this world and others you make up. The word count can vary from a few words to a few hundred but as long as you don’t go over 1000 at a time, it’s fine.

You can bring out flash collections, share individual pieces on websites like Friday Flash Fiction, and there are competitions specifically for the form. And you wonder why I love flash fiction! (The fact it is responsible for me finally having books to my name has a great deal to do with it too!).

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Goodreads Author Blog – Story Endings

A story doesn’t keep its implied promise of a good read until a reader reaches the end of it and then even the magic words The End are no guarantee it was a satisfying read.

A great story ending ties up loose ends and has an appropriate conclusion for the characters involved. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a happy ending but it does have to be “right” for what we have come to know of the characters and the plot line. It has to “fit”. Otherwise a reader will feel “jarred” by that ending and will wonder whether the book or story was worth their time reading it after all, something no author wants to encourage.

Sometimes when I write my short stories and flash fiction, I have the closing line immediately. I have sometimes entered competitions where they give you the closing line and you then work out what must have come before that.

I enjoy this exercise. It makes me think from B to A rather than A to B. I deliberately make myself start stories this way first every so often to encourage my own creative thinking. The huge advantage of course is I know what the ending is going to be. I have an outline (a very rough one) from that alone.

I like to read books and stories where I feel the ending couldn’t have been different from the ones which have been given. To me that is a successful story.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

As the March issue is hot off the press (see above), so to speak, I thought I would share the February issue again here. Double bubble here, folks. Hope you enjoy both magazines. Do subscribe. Link above and in the magazine itself.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Making The Most of An Author Interview

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Hope you have had a good week so far. Lady has seen plenty of her friends so she definitely has! Writing wise, I enjoyed an online book launch for a Bridge House Publishing colleague and am happily busy editing and writing. Have also spotted first crocuses out and that has cheered me up immensely. Spring is on its way, honestly! Oh and to finish the working week nicely my story on Friday Flash Fiction this week is the Editor’s Choice. More below on that.

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Lady had a fabulous start to her Friday by getting to play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, and her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal. All three went home tired and happy and well managed to beat the rain.

Delighted to share Making The Most of An Author Interview for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Hope you find it useful. I share thoughts and tips on preparing for text interviews and appearing on podcasts/radio. I also look at how preparation is key and sharing your story amongst other things here.

Making the Most of an Author Interview

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Damp and murky day again today but it didn’t stop Lady from having a good run around this morning and a good long walk this afternoon.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Making the Most of an Author Interview on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. I share thoughts and tips and hope you will find it useful. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Received some lovely writing news which I can’t say too much about now but hope to do so later in the year. Cheered up a wet Thursday for me I can tell you.

When you get moments like this (and note I say when!), cherish them. They help a lot. Doesn’t matter if they seem “small”, they’re not to you! And these things can mount up over time. It is often the case one thing will lead to another. I found flash fiction thanks to writing short stories. And a lot has come from just that discovery!

 
Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and, separately, got to play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Lady is having a smashing week so far!

Looking forward to supporting a Bridge House Publishing online book launch later. Also next week will be when the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meets again.

Will be discussing Making the Most of an Author Interview for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday. And I hope there will be more author interviews here before too long. Plenty going on.

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Delighted to be on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest story, Best Advice. Also thrilled to be the Editors’ Choice this week. Nice way to end the working week! Find out what happens when Kate asks Mel for advice and is Kate pleased with the outcome?
I’ve used objects before as prompts for flash fiction. Sometimes I’ve used a random object generator to come out with those.

The great thing about using that is I have no idea what can come up until I’ve actually generated it and then there’s the challenge of well, what can I do with this?

I find this a great way to challenge myself and highly recommend it. You can change the parameters on generators like this so there’s nothing to stop you having two or more objects to put into a story.

The advantage of using objects like that is (a) you’re not going to run out of things to choose to use here and (b) you can then think about who owns/has owned the object and great stories can just come from answering that.

When I enter competitions, I assume if I haven’t heard back within two months, its a no. I will then review the story, see if I can make any improvements, and, often sent it back out somewhere else. I’ve had work published that way.

I must admit this is where I find joining in with Flash NANO especially helpful as I know by the end of November each year, I will have thirty new draft flash stories to look through and polish up. I hope to get at least some of them out into the open market.

Fairytales with Bite – Over the Rainbow

Naturally in coming up with this topic my first thoughts turned to The Wizard of Oz but how would it be if you had characters who were so “over the rainbow” when it came to magical powers etc? 

Could any of them willingly give these up to make a new life for themselves elsewhere without magic and, if so, how would they get on? Would they be tempted to resume using magic to make their new lives easier to cope with and could there be consequences from that? Potential for humour here I think.

As for those who live “over the rainbow” what are their lives and settings like? Would we want to visit or be only too keen to stay away? Story ideas there too I think, especially if you take the views rainbows are lovely to look at (as they indeed are) but what is behind them?

Could there be something less pleasant lurking and the residents of beyond the rainbow know this only too well? Could they even envy humans because we do not face the things they do?

This World and Others – What is Fantastical Anyway?

Just how would you define fantastical? If we look back in time it is not too hard a stretch of the imagination to visualise our ancestors seeing the things we do and have (especially in technological terms) as fantastical.

When we look at what we know the word could do with and doesn’t yet have which would benefit humanity (and indeed the whole of creation ideally as well), we could consider inventions to sort these things out as fantastical precisely because we don’t have them now.

A magical world would not consider magic to be particularly special unless there are new developments in the field, so to speak. A scientifically based one would take the same vie on science. And when you have visitors to other worlds, what would they consider to be fantastical but the residents do not?

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Popular Themes – Is There Anything New To Say?

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Hope you had a good weekend. Lady did – she got to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback again. I managed to get plenty of writing done, which always pleases me. Full steam ahead for the week to come, I hope!

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Delighted to be back on Authors Electric. My post this month is called Popular Themes – Is There Anything New to Say?

I thought it would be an apt topic given a certain saint has just had his renowned saint’s day and there are more than a few love stories around at the moment!

I share my thoughts on the importance of bringing something new to the mix and share how my way in to this is via the character(s).

Hope you find the post useful.

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Hope your Monday has been reasonable. It’s not my favourite day of the week by any means but what was lovely this morning was Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and her Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. A great time was had by all.

It seems the scammers were especially busy earlier today as I spotted a couple within the space of a few minutes. Tiresome, tedious and a reminder, I suppose, we all have to be careful. The golden rule of if it seems too good to be true is right here.

Writing wise, had a smashing weekend getting plenty done with story and article submissions achieved. Hope the rest of this week follows a similar pattern!

Lovely church service this morning. Enjoyed that. Lady also got to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal unexpectedly after that and both dogs were so pleased to see each. Very sweet to see.

Sent off a story for a competition. Have picked another one to try (and have got a rough edit of a potential story for it too). Had a good evening writing yesterday!

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again before too long. I share news, tips, story links etc. To sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I’ve found adding bits and pieces to my newsletter throughout the month is the best way to write it. I also allow a few days before it is due to go out to check it and to make sure there is nothing missing. I usually pick a theme for the month. The one for March will be titles, a great form of advertising for your stories if you get them right.

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Hope the weekend is going well so far. Still grim, weather wise.

Writing wise, I’ll be discussing Making the Most of an Author Interview for Chandler’s Ford Today next week and plan to share tips I’ve found useful. Hope you will do so too. I also hope to have further author interviews (more news as I get it) and hope you enjoyed the great one with Gill James, which I shared yesterday.

Character Thought: What would a character of yours usually see as nothing out of the ordinary but another character shows them otherwise? What has brought about the chance of perspective and is the second character right in bringing it to attention of the first character or not? What is the impact of the change of perspective on the first character? Do they handle it well or not?

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Lady hit the jackpot this morning in that she firstly got to play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, and then, separately, with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal. Lovely time had by all. Lady tired but happy. Definitely a good day in her books.

Talking of which, what would be a good day for your characters and could you get some stories from that? A day in the life of can make an interesting take for a story. Works best when kept short so what better format than flash fiction for that?

It’s Monday. It’s cold BUT the sun came out today, hooray! Note to anyone not in the UK – most of us have had several days of grey, murky weather. Okay not unusual for February but it is so nice seeing the sun again! Still time for a story though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Listening to Reason.

What do you do when you are fed up with some jerk being incredibly rude to you and in a crowded shopping centre where people are laughing? Well, when you’re in my character’s shoes, you have options you know will silence the jerk and the laughter. Find out what these are here.

 

Will be working on another flash story for a competition which isn’t advertising itself as a flash one but is because it wants a maximum word count of under 1000 words. It pays to look out for these. There are more of this kind of competition than you might think. Also several of the short story competitions have a minimum word count of 1000 words so flash fiction writers could go in for these too if they wished.

It pays to practice reading flash fiction (and indeed other stories) aloud. It is so easy to stumble over something you know well (and even easier on material you don’t!). I use Zoom to record myself when I’m preparing for an Open Prose Mic session or anything like that. It means I go into the event more relaxed than I might otherwise have been simply because I do know I have prepared all I can.

Separately I’ve found reading work out loud, even if not an event, to be useful because it means I can hear how my dialogue comes across and so on. You can hear where the prose seems “heavy” or too complicated and I can then edit accordingly.

Goodreads Author Blog – Flash Fiction

My main writing work is in the field of flash fiction where the longest any story can be is 1000 words. You can pack a lot of characterisation and drama into that limit. As well as having individual pieces published online and in print anthologies, I have two collections of flash fiction books out with a third in the pipeline. The advantage of flash fiction is you get a short sharp read and it can have a huge impact on you because it is so short. It is undiluted fiction, if you like.

Probably the best known of all flash fiction stories is Ernest Hemingway’s famous For sale: baby shoes, never worn. There is a world world behind those few words. Very much punch to the gut storytelling there.

I make a point of reading flash fiction and short story collections in between reading longer works. I want to read from as wide a field as possible and I will always put in a huge plug for the shorter forms of fiction, just as I am doing here! It isn’t just because I’m published in these forms, honest.

Do check out the collections. There are so many fabulous stories to find out there and word count shouldn’t come into your reading choices, I think.

I also think reading long and short forms of writing makes for an interesting reading “diet” for you. I know I love mine!

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Author Interview – Gill James – Natascha’s Story

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Hope you have had a good few days. Still no sign of any sunshine here, I’m afraid. Writing wise, am busy preparing blogs and a presentation as well as my usual fiction work. So glad to be able to do that indoors!

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I’m delighted to welcome back author, editor and publisher, Gill James, to Chandler’s Ford Today for an in-depth interview about her latest book, Natascha’s Story. This is aimed at the younger end of the children’s market and Gill wrote this book with her daughter, Ashleigh James, illustrating the book.

There is plenty of interest for all writers here with useful thoughts and tips we can all use, especially on marketing and writing.

Oh and do discover what domestic object Gill uses as a portal in this story. It’s not something I would have thought of!

Hope you enjoy the post.

Author Interview – Gill James – Natascha’s Story

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Another cold and murky day but Lady did get to play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, today and both dogs had a riotous time running around the park, which was great to see.

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing a wonderful interview with Gill James about her latest book, Natascha’s Story, on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow and there will be plenty for all writers to enjoy from this. See above.

Writing Thought: A question all writers need to be able to answer, regardless of what form you write in, is the classic What is your story (book) all about? The ideal is to be able to reply in one line. This is worth practicing as a writing exercise.

I usually say I write flash fiction and short stories, with flash being up to 100 words. If I’m asked about a specific story, I will share something about the character “star” of that tale.

Hope today has gone well for you. Still grey and murky here though Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal today which cheered both dogs.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later this month. Am also working on articles for Chandler’s Ford Today and Writers’ Narrative, as well as the flash fiction and short stories.

I love the mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Am never short of things to work on either. Over the course of a week, I end up spending about the same amount of time on each. My reading reflects my love of both types of writing too. Always keep it interesting!

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It’s good to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with another story. It’s a great way to finish the standard working week. Hope you like my latest here – Judging It Right. You can find out if my character, Beth, did judge it right after all (and many thanks for the comments in on this one so far).
When asked about what I write, the next question I often face is just what is flash fiction. I say it is any story which is 1000 words or fewer. I also then share the advantages of writing it.

It has to be character led but you can set those characters anywhere and at any time you want, so this means you can have a great deal of fun with genre here, including setting tales back in time. I also set them forward in time so I can have some fun with science fiction and fantasy here too.

What can often start off as a writing exercise (because you never get time in a lot of workshops to write more than a couple of hundred words or so at the time) can be polished up to become published stories. Nothing to dislike there!

A huge advantage to flash fiction writing is because it tends to be character led, you can not only put them where and when you want, but you can change their moods too!

I’ve written grumpy characters, sad ones, ghost ones, and characters who will put a smile on your face, amongst many others. All fun to do.

But taking one character and changing their mood in the course of a story could make a good structure for a tale or several. Why do they change? Is the change a positive one? Can they change back again? You get to decide but I know as a reader I am always fascinated by what makes a character change. I have to find out how and why and whether this is for the best or not so I keep reading.

So think about what would cause your character to change their mood – you will often a theme emerging from this too.

Fairytales with Bite – Love Is In the Air but Is It Magical or For Real?

I write this with St. Valentine’s Day fast approaching. With regard to your magical setting, do your characters have an equivalent day for celebrating all things love related or is something which simply isn’t done there and they would find us a bit odd for doing this?

Is magic allowed to be used to get characters to fall in love or is this banned? Where it has been allowed, what have been the consequences (and could there be funny ones here?).

Equally where magic is banned from this, how would your characters meet and form attachments with others? Are some things like love meant to be kept “real” with no suspicion of magic having been used to compel people?

Also, whichever way the rules work in your setting, could you write about characters who defy the rules? Again think of the consequences here because there could be some great stories resulting from that idea.

This World and Others – Relationships

Romance may not be uppermost in your mind as your write your fantasy stories, (I write this with 14th February almost with us once again), but could it form an interesting back drop to your main storyline? Even if not, what kinds of relationship do exist in your setting and between which characters?

Do any of your characters defy conventional expectations here and, if so, how and why? It’s always easiest to go with the flow rather than against it, especially if it isn’t just the immediate people around you who are against you. Why would anyone be prepared to defy what their whole society expects?

What other kinds of relationship exist in your setting? Are there families as we know them or are the makeup of these things literally alien from what we know?

When the relationship is a friendship rather than a blood relationship, how did the friendship come about? How is it going to be tested to the limit in your stories? (Should be too. Good example set here by Sam Gamgee and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings!).

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Publication News and Character Voice

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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 had a lovely weekend. Good one here despite the weather. Managed to get some stories submitted for competitions. Hope to look at a good competition guide I have to pick others to have a try at soon. All good for encouraging the imagination.

Facebook – General

Hope you’ve had a good day. Murky and grey again today but not as cold as yesterday. Lady and I weren’t sorry about that.

Don’t forget I’ll be interviewing the great Gill James on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday to discuss her new book, Natascha’s Story. Gill is author, editor, and publisher and is the brains behind CafeLit, Bridge House Publishing, Chapeltown Books and more.

As well as discussing writing for the younger end of the children’s market. Gill will be sharing thoughts and advice which will be useful to any writer so do check this out when the post goes out later this week.

Writing Tip: If you’re thinking of having an author newsletter, think about what you would want to see in it if you were receiving it rather than writing it. Seeing things from the viewpoint of your audience is so useful (and for your fiction and non-fiction writing elsewhere too).

As well as the content itself, think about how you would want the newsletter to look. Keep it uncluttered but with plenty of interesting things for your reader such as text boxes, bullet points, photos (suitably sourced of course so either use your own or use a free to use photo site such as Pixabay), and white space to make it a pleasure to read.

Gaps (white space) matter because what you don’t want is a huge block of text hitting your reader in the eye. Trust me, it’s off putting and won’t make readers want to read on.

Publication News – 10th February – Freedom on CafeLit
It’s a lovely start to the week for me as I have a new story up on CafeLit called Freedom. Hope you enjoy it. Find out here if Goldilocks really is a reformed character or not.

Hope the day has gone well for you. Busy one here so it is now especially nice to be back at my desk and start writing. Have a couple of stories to review this evening ahead of submitting them for competitions.

Character Tip: How do I know when I have got my character’s voice right? It’s when I can write their dialogue knowing this is exactly what they would say given the circumstances I’ve put them in. Everything rings true.

Sure, later, I’ll tidy that dialogue up as there will be things to strengthen and correct but I will know I’ve got the voice right. This is another reason why I need to know their major trait because a lot of their attitudes and therefore what would say and think comes from that.

Another grim and drizzly day. Lady and I made it around the park in record time. Even she wasn’t sorry.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing a fabulous author interview with Gill James on Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Amongst other topics, we’ll be discussing the joys and challenges behind her latest book, Natascha’s Story, which is aimed at they younger end of the children’s market. Plus Gill will be sharing wonderful writing and marketing tips plus much more besides. Do look out for this next Friday. Plenty for writers of all genres to enjoy.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to have got stories reviewed and submitted over the weekend. This coming weekend, I hope to look through and pick a couple of other competitions to try.

Plus I will need to think about stories for competitions I usually enter soon too. With competitions coming up in May, June etc it is about now I will look through stories I’ve already drafted and check to see if any are suitable. Often I find something which is and so polish that up and send it in.

Sometimes I will think not and create something new but I do make sure I write new stories throughout the year so I always have a stock to refer to like this. I’ve found it pays (and it is lovely when I find a story which will suit a competition theme – think square peg and square hole here! Very satisfying whether or not it goes on to do anything in the competition itself. You can only give these things your best shot and you do have to be in it to have any chance of winning it).

It has been a grey murky Monday,. But I was cheered by having a story up on CafeLit today (see my other page for the link to that – see above). But of course I am also cheered whenever I share another YouTube video. Hope you like my latest on here called Proportion.

Has Glenda blown things out of proportion or have she and Dave really got a witch stuck in their chimney, broomstick and all?

 

I enjoy submitting stories regularly to Friday Flash Fiction because it has (a) got me back to writing 100 word stories regularly and (b) I like having a deadline (to be in for the following Thursday) to stick to as I find having any deadline means I am more likely to get something written and submitted. 

Competition deadlines are useful for the same reason. You know you have to meet the date to have any chance at all.

Many thanks too for the comments in on my latest story on FFF – Come Back.
It’s going to be flash fiction Saturday afternoon for me this week as I’m out at a village/church event tomorrow. I do hope the weather picks up a bit in time for that!

The challenge of flash fiction is in coming up with so many different and interesting characters. It is the bit I enjoy the most as I’ve always loved creating people for stories.

The first thing I need to know is what makes my character tick because from that I can work out whether they’ll be interesting enough to write about. It is a bit like casting the right person for the right role in a play. Get it right and it will work seamlessly. If you don’t, however, readers/audience members will find your character hard to believe/get behind. (And you as the writer will find to harder to write the story up with any enthusiasm).

When I know what makes my characters tick, I want to feel like I cannot wait to write their stories up. This is a great sign. It shows you that you do have something to work with here and you will be more inclined to get on and do it.

Certainly this has been my experience. So a little time taken out to work out the character first pays dividends, I find.

Goodreads Author Blog – Books, Books, Books

Of all the inventions created by mankind, books are one of the best. I cannot imagine a world without books. Nor do I wish to be able to do that.

Books entertain, educate, inform, can show us plenty about this world we won’t get to find out any other way (not all can travel as freely as they’d like for example), and take us to worlds which will never exist but which are fun to visit for the purposes of a story. I’m thinking Middle Earth and Discworld amongst many others for that!

I never mind about the book’s format. I just want a good story for fiction. For non-fiction I want an interesting narrative which keeps me gripped by the subject. Most of my books are paperback (my favourite format) but I cherish my hardback, audio books and ebooks just as much. All have their advantages.

I have various books I re-read during the course of a year, though for some if I have the story as a film, I will take the story in again that way. I often rewatch Hogfather by the late great Sir Terry Pratchett. I can then read another book by him or another author, having taking in a story I know I will want to take in again at the right time of year, in this case just ahead of Christmas.

But I fervently believe you have to have the books in the first place!

And if you want to check out books and authors new to you, why not check out what your local library has to offer? They are full of the most marvellous books, books, books!

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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