Zoom, Flash Fiction, and What Does a Book Give You?

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Full report on my week at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School coming up in my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. Meanwhile, I celebrate flash fiction and share some ways in which Zoom has been so useful to me. Plus I ask a leading question for my Goodreads post this time!

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Hope you have had a good day. Came back from my Slimming World group to discover only a teensy weensy gain from my week at Swanwick last week. Given what I had, I thought this was a brilliant result and am feeling chuffed and nicely surprised! Lady is not at all sorry the weather has cooled down somewhat. Neither am I.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom tomorrow. Zoom has made genre groups possible for us, given so many of our members live hundreds of miles apart and could never get to an in person meeting. Zoom is one of the few good things to emerge from the pandemic.

It is also useful as an editing tool. How? Well, you can record a meeting with yourself where you read out your short story or flash piece, end the meeting, and Zoom will turn the file into an mp4 for you to play back later.

I’ve picked up clunky dialogue this way. What looks good written down doesn’t always read out well. I also use Zoom to practice my Zoom talks and help me get my timings right. (And for those of us of a certain age, Zoom was also a great ice lolly! – at least here in the UK it was!).

Use Zoom to record your stories and then play them back to hear them as a reader would take them in


Nice to see some rain here in Hampshire today – drizzle rather than heavy rain for most of the day. Less likely to cause flooding and will still freshen things up a bit.

Back to the real world after a fantastic week at Swanwick. It’s going to be a long week…! Having said that it was lovely taking Lady back to the park today (there are some green bits on it now – not many but there are some!).

I’ll be sharing my Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 for Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Looking forward to sharing that on Friday. I loved picking the pictures out for that one. I always take loads when at The Hayes.

My next event is likely to be the Bridge House Publishing one later in the year and it will be lovely to catch up with people there too.

What is nice though is this is where social media can come into its own – there are ways to stay in contact with writing friends throughout the year – and social media is at its best for this kind of thing.

Networking encourages your zest for writing


Hope you have had/are still having a lovely Sunday. Back to the writing desk and coming up later this week will be my Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 for Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up on Friday.

Looking forward to the ACW Flash Fiction Group Zoom meeting on Wednesday.

A big hello and welcome to the new subscribers to my author newsletter. The next one goes out on 1st September. Hard to believe we’re nearly three-quarters of the way through the year already. I share tips, story links, and news in my newsletter, especially relating to flash fiction. If you’d like to sign up, do head over to my website (landing page) at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Do I sign up to newsletters myself? Oh yes. They’re a great way of hearing the latest from your favourite authors, which is why I love reading the ones I’ve signed up for.

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Have caught up on some much needed sleep after a hectic and joyous and wonderful week at Swanwick.
Glad to share a link to the last flash fiction challenge I set for Mom’s Favorite Reads – and to one of the entries that came in as a result. Hope you enjoy.

Don’t forget MFR is free to download and there are wonderful articles and stories in there. Do check it out. (Glad to say a fellow Swanwicker, Maggie Cobbett, is in there too).

Screenshot 2022-08-23 at 20-03-59 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine August 2022 eBook Publishing Goylake Howe Hannah Smith Melanie Fae Sylva Jones Wendy H Macleod Sheena Symes Allison Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store


Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Trust you have had a good day. Looking forward to chatting about all things flash fiction related with the ACW Flash Fiction Group on Zoom tomorrow. And it was great to spread the word about it at Swanwick too.

Don’t forget Mom’s Favorite Reads has a flash fiction column every month, written by yours truly, and I also set a challenge here. Do check it out for FREE.

I was glad to pick up another anthology from the National Flash Fiction Day from the Swanwick Book Room last week. It is important to read in your genre as well as outside of it. You get a feel about what is out there in your field and I find it encourages the love of this form of writing even more. Win-win there.


It’s Monday. I’m back to the day to day tasks after a fabulous week at Swanwick. It’s definitely time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on my YouTube channel – Send a Secret.

 

The lovely thing about flash fiction is you can mix up the mood of your stories in a collection. I like to write a mixture of lighthearted tales and those on the darker side, encompassing everything from historical flash to crime ones to twist in the tale to ghost stories.

The word count for flash is limited but you don’t have to be with your characters and settings. I love that aspect. When it comes to putting a collection together, I try to group my tales so you literally do go From Light to Dark and Back Again, I do like to finish on a lightish note.

I usually focus on my character for my stories and then ask myself where would this character best be placed. Sometimes I know I want to write a historical flash immediately so it is then a question of who can I use to serve my tale.

But the character has to suit which is why I ensure I know them well enough by asking myself some pointed questions. It is about working out what you need to know or so I’ve found and then I can get on and draft my tale.

How do characters see themselves

The weekend after Swanwick is useful as it gives me a chance to catch up on sleep and time to start processing ideas etc which came from the courses and workshops. I was glad to spread the word about flash fiction too. I sometimes run a workshop on why flash fiction is useful for all writers, regardless of what else people do.

I hope to resume writing stories for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel from this week. Sunday is often when I draft those and it means I get two new flash pieces written a week. Does writing more encourage further ideas? I find it does – and the random generators are a great blessing here too. I know where to go to trigger other ideas I would not have thought of alone. They are so useful for that.

AE - Jan 2022 - Random question generators

Goodreads Author Blog – What Does a Book Give You?

This is a leading question is it not? Where to start! Well what does a book give me?

Books give me escapism, entertainment, educate me, and show me things I had not realised I needed to know. Books can and do encourage empathy with characters. I can see where characters come from and why even if I still disagree with the actions they’ve chosen to do. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is something you get to do all the time when reading fiction, regardless of story length.

Books take me away from my problems for a while – and sometimes that break is all which is needed for me to work out solutions to whatever I’m facing. Even when that’s impossible, just having the break away does my mental health the world of good. And I get to discover worlds and situations I would never face for real but that in turn leads me to wonder what I would do in those situations and why.

Books do act like a kind of portal then. And it was the classic fairytales that showed me girls could be heroes too (see The Snow Queen by Hans Christen Andersen for this).

Above all books and stories encourage you to keep on reading. That in turn fuelled in me the desire to write stories and books myself. I see it as a kind of giving back to the wonderful world of books.

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Interview – Val Penny – and Swanwick Part 2

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Many thanks to Val Penny for supplying the book and author photos for my interview with her on Chandler’s Ford Today. Photos from the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, including one of Val about to give her excellent Promoting Your Work talk (see CFT post), were all taken by me, Allison Symes. You do know who to blame! And a HUGE thank you to Jennifer C Wilson for taking the photos of me about to lead my session at Swanwick and of me signing my books. It is SO hard to take that kind of shot yourself!! Another lovely thing about Swanwick is we all happily do this for each other – the sharing and kindness here is amazing.

Feature Image - Val Penny - The Hunter Wilson Series and Blog Tours20220818_130622
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Safely back home after a fabulous time at Swanwick, I hope to report more on that for Chandler’s Ford Today next week.

Today though I share a great interview with Scottish crime writer, Val Penny, a fellow Swanwicker. Val shares news of her recent book release and we have a fab chat about blog tours, keeping notes about your characters’ main characteristics, marketing and other topics. Hope you enjoy it and it was lovely to catch up with Val again in person this last week. Until next year, Val!

Val Penny: The Hunter Wilson Series and Blog Tours

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Am pleased to share my latest blog on Authors Electric. Aptly I talk about Holiday Reading and Writing.

The four part course on Creative Non-Fiction ended today. So useful. I then went on to the Writing Comedy short course led by Rob Gee.

Later this afternoon, it will be time for the Swanwick Annual General Meeting. The main event on the last full day is the famous Swanwick Farewell and Awards evening which is always great fun. It was too!

Am I planning to be back next year? Oh yes!

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Well, the temperature has cooled here in Derbyshire. We have had rain! Nobody sorry about that.
I resumed the Creative Non-Fiction specialist course led by Simon Whaley and then went on to the Historical Fiction course led by Jennifer C Wilson. I write some historical fiction flash stories and it is an area I would like to write more in – the scope is huge!

I’m planning to finish my afternoon by going to the Cracking the Cryptic Crossword one hour workshop led by Vivien Brown. I love crosswords. I can’t get cryptics so I thought this could be useful for when I want to unwind with word games, as I often do. It was great fun and an eye-opener.

There’s a fancy dress evening later. Am not really into that myself but it will be fun seeing what costumes people come up with for the theme of Another Night at the Movies.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

So back at home and back to the writing routine. (I have to have one to get any writing done at all). I hope to resume writing for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel from next week.

Swanwick set a competition for us while we’re there. I did send in a 150 word story. It didn’t get placed but I loved writing it, will look at it again and see where else I can submit it – I do know there will be somewhere!

I’ve sometimes gone on to have work published that way. And I’m fine with the sometimes by the way, simply because nobody hits a perfect 100% hit rate in writing/being published/being placed.

Delighted to sign Tripping the Flash Fantastic for fellow authors while at Swanwick. It is always a special thing. When I first started writing anything seriously, I knew nobody in the writing world. It is now a great joy to have many writing friends, some of whom I’ve met in person and others I’ve met just online.

I’ve learned so much chatting to other writers, including finding out about flash fiction and I’ve never regretted discovering that!

 

My week at the fantastic Swanwick Writers’ Summer School went by in a flash. It always does. Fabulous fun, caught up with old friends, got chatting to people new to Swanwick, learned so much from the courses and workshops, and enjoyed taking part.

I did take part again in the Open Prose Mic Night. Again fun to do and flash fiction works well for this. Loved listening to the Open Poetry Mic Night too.

For the prose night, I picked my linked flash tales – Mishaps and Jumping Time from Tripping the Flash Fantastic this time. Pleased to say they did get laugh but then my hapless time travelling alien in these stories does have that coming. Honest!

 

One thing I’ve learned over the years is to not rush a submission to a short story or flash competition. You always do need more editing time than you think. So I factor this in to my schedule and aim to submit my work about a fortnight before the deadline, having carried out all editing necessary including that important final check to ensure you have got all the typos out etc.

Can a judge tell if a competition entry has been rushed?
Oh yes.

What you want is for your work to be so polished the judge knows you haven’t rushed at all and you’ve given yourself plenty of time to ensure all is as good as you can make it. The little details matter here too.

Planning does not have to kill spontaneity - just work out what you need to know, you don't need to plan everything

Fairytales with Bite – The Creative Arts

What kind of creative arts would your fairytale world have? Would it be an area where magic was banned? I can’t see how much fun it would be if you were allowed to whip out your magic wand, say a quick spell and, hey presto, you’ve produced a stunning picture or a brilliant book. I would want things to be created “properly”, else where is the joy of the creative process?

Naturally I think of stories and books first for the arts world, followed by music, especially classical, as my two big art interests are there. What are your arts interests and could you bring them in somehow to the world you’re creating in your stories? What would be different in your magical world in this sphere?

Often we think of fairytales as those stories we read as children/had read to us. What would your magical world’s equivalent be? Do they tell tales about dodgy humans getting their comeuppance thanks to a heroic magical character, say?

Life is made up of the basic necessity to survive naturally, but what about the other elements of a well rounded life, which include the creative arts? How are those represented in your stories?

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This World and Others – Values

What values does your fictional world have in common with this one? Which ones are literally alien and why have these values been established? (That may well shed a great deal of light on the characters of your aliens – do they agree with these values or not?).

Values get established over time so how long did it take your world to come up with the ones it has? Are there sections of the community which don’t hold with these values at all and what do they do about this? Passive resistance or something much more active? Are they right to take the view they do?

Bear in mind your characters, wherever they are set, do not need to share your values. I’ve written pieces where I am at odds with my characters and that’s fine. But you still do need to understand why your characters, of whatever species, hold the values they do. There will be reasons for this. Okay, they may not be great ones but they will make sense to your fictional world and characters.

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Swanwick Part 1

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Image Credits-:
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Many created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Photos of the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School and Val Penny were taken by me, Allison Symes.  A huge thank you to Jennifer C Wilson for taking the photo of me at my Lift Up Your Pens session at Swanwick. Having a ball at Swanwick as usual. Hope to write a more detailed post for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course but meantime please see these as the edited highlights!

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Facebook – General – Swanwick Week Part 1

It was easy to choose which course I was going to today – it was the one I led! I talked about Editing – Both Side of the Fence. Many thanks, everyone, for the support. Much appreciated.

I was torn about which workshop to go to after that – there were two specifically I wanted to do but in the end I went to Hit Submit! This was led by Ingrid Jendrzejewksi and was great fun. Managed to draft a story and jot down other ideas to work up later. (I managed to do this in the Lift Up Your Pens session I led on Sunday. I deliberately did not do the exercises I set until on the day itself. I love live writing like that).

Tuesday is a quieter day at Swanwick. You generally need it too so I walked around the lovely grounds and then came back to work on two of my long term projects before the evening dinner and speaker.

 

I led the Lift Up Your Hearts session today. This is a short devotional time just before breakfast and I talked about favourite words of mine from the Bible. I also had a hymn to share one of my favourite lines. I love these quieter times ahead of a full day of workshops and courses. I know they do me good mentally, spiritually and physically.

I also try to take time out to walk around the grounds here at Swanwick. The exercise is helpful (they do look after you very well indeed here!) and the grounds are lovely.

As well as continuing with my specialist course, I also went to Promoting Your Work by Val Penny (who I will have the pleasure of interviewing again for this week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post).

Promoting is something all writers need to know more about – there is always plenty to learn here (and things you need to be reminded to do!).

 

I ran the pre-breakfast Lift Up Your Pens today. These sessions are to get the creative wheels turning and I used ideas from random generators for my session here. People seemed to enjoy it and I hope they go on to write up their stories and get them out into the big bad world somewhere.

For my specialist course which is run over a few days, I’ve opted for the Creative Non-Fiction one led by Simon Whaley. For the two part short course today, I’ve opted for the How to Write a How-To Book run by Bettina von Cossel. Both were fabulous and I learned a great deal from them.

Finally for today, I went to Social Media for Writers, the excellent one hour workshop run by Jennifer C Wilson. All good useful stuff and it pays writers to think about their social media options. Which are you going to focus on and why? I must admit I find the support from other writers on social media invaluable.

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It is so good to be back at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School at The Hayes in Derbyshire once again. A huge thank you and shout to to the lovely #JuneWebber and her equally lovely husband,Mike, for being my chauffeurs today as I had to cancel my train tickets due to the strike.

I missed the train journey, as I do love travelling by train, but am just relieved to be here. And it was wonderful having a good chat on the way up! I can’t do that on the train! An equally big shout out to my lovely other half, Adrian, for being my chauffeur on Friday.

And what is there not to like when you arrive, go and unpack, drop off your books in the Book Room and then enjoy afternoon tea? That ticks a lot of writing boxes right there!

A fairly new addition to the Swanwick programme is what they call Birds of a Feather where writers in a genre can get together and chat. I can cover flash fiction, short stories, and blogging as my initial bases. So I will probably head off to that after the evening speaker. The lovely thing with Swanwick is you are made so welcome and you join in as and when you want to do so.

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you have had a good Tuesday. Beginning to cool a bit here at Swanwick. Nobody is sorry about that! Happily spreading the word about flash fiction where I can. Lovely to catch up with Linda Payne, a fellow Bridge House Publishing/CafeLit author here.

I’ve mentioned before I sometimes write the ending first. This works well for twist tales and funny ones. Occasionally I have ideas for what would make a great middle section of a tale. So I write them down. I don’t worry about necessarily writing in order. I can sort that out when editing.

Just get those ideas down – the nice thing with this thought is it applies to a 100 word tale every bit as much as a 100,000 word novel!

Fizzing with ideas - just get them down and then sharpen them up

There is no such thing as the perfect first line. This is good news funnily enough. It means every writer has to work on their stories and it takes time to come out with the lines you want your readers to enjoy. This is another reason why I think it is better to write your story first, then worry about editing. I see these as two separate and different creative tasks.

I get my first line down and then look at ways to strengthen it later. Often ideas for this will come as I finish the rest of the draft (or a bit annoyingly if I am working on something else) bit I just keep a note of these and come back to them later. Taking the pressure off myself helps a lot here.

Telling details matter in any story but they take on a greater significance for flash fiction writers simply due to the lower word count we have to work with. So it pays to take time out to work out what the reader needs to know and what telling detail can stress that point.

In such a tight word count you are likely to be able to have one or two telling details but make them count! I always say about going for impact but sometimes that impact doesn’t have to be a dramatic one. A character changing their mind about what direction they go in because the name of a street has resonance for them can be a minor telling detail or it can change the whole course of the story – entirely up to you but there is a lot of fun to be had here!

Flash Fiction Impact

Lovely to see From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic back in the Book Room at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. Always a pleasure to wave the flag for flash fiction (writing and reading it) at events.

One of the joys of flash for me is having to invent characters all the time. Characters drive a story, I think, regardless of its length, and it is always characters who interest me the most in any story. Who are they? What do they want? Who is trying to stop them getting that and what are their motivations for doing this?

Practicing inventing characters will stand you in good stead whatever your preferred form of fiction writing is as it will show you that you can do this repeatedly (always a good defence against the dreaded Imposter Syndrome which strikes most writers at some point and often repeatedly).

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Goodreads Author Blog – Writers and Books

When this post goes live I’ll be at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School once again for a glorious week in the company of fellow writers and where we celebrate all things relating to writing. Books a plenty are in the Book Room and I am sure I’ll go home with additions to be To Be Read pile. (No writer worth their salt ever has a Be Be Read list. It has to be a pile – a huge one too! Don’t even ask about the electronic version of that pile!).

What draws writers into writing at all? Simply It is their own love of books and wanting to produce their own. We’re inspired by those authors we’ve read over the years and ideas will kick start from what we have enjoyed reading. Books and writers are inseparable then. The two things most writes are advised to do is to write regularly and to read widely and well. All of that is a complete joy to do.

What every writer I know would appreciate (and this goes for me too) are reviews of our books on sites like Goodreads. It helps more than you know. It is useful affirmation of our ability to write (ignoring the one star reviewers who are clearly just trying to knock the author down rather than give constructive criticism which might be useful).

For stories to be produced for entertainment there has to be the writers producing them. I can’t imagine a life without books. Neither do I wish to!

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Short Form Writing

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many adapted via Book Brush to add on captions. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as are the photos from Swanwick in previous years. Looking forward to taking more photos of that lovely place this year!
Very hot again here in my part of the world but Lady is keeping cool. Probably doing a better job of that than I am right now! Off to my annual treat at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School tomorrow (13th August). So looking forward to it. Hope you are enjoying your writing. Getting together with fellow writers is always great fun!

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post which is all about something I adore – Short Form Writing. I look at the advantages and disadvantages of the short form and discuss working out which would work best for you. Do bear in mind the answer to that could well be both of them! I also look at how learning to write to a lower word count could help novel writers too. Hope you find the post useful.

Short Form Writing

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Two days to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School – hooray! Lady will be spoilt rotten while I’m away and mug me like crazy when I get back. It is what usually happens.

Writing Tips In Hot Weather: Do what you can. Don’t beat yourself up. Drink plenty of water. Keep water away from PC! Talking of which, keep your PC as cool as possible too (but definitely without the aid of water!). I have one of these wooden mounts for mine which comes in with a built in fan (and it is raised at the right level of me to work at so air gets in underneath as well).

My Short Form Writing post will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See link above.

Am happily progressing with my third flash fiction collection. And I hope one of the courses I hope to get to at Swanwick will also help me with a longer term project I’ve got on the back burner at the moment.

 

Phew, another hot day. Lady has spent a lot of it indoors, keeping cool. As have I. Hope you have too. Completed packing for Swanwick. That’s always a pleasurable task. Do need to pack up my laptop on Friday given I’m using it for a workshop but at least the rest is done.

Don’t forget my Chandler’s Ford Today post about Short Form Writing will be up on Friday. See above. Comments would be especially welcome from flash fiction and short story writers, also not forgetting those who write the non-fiction short pieces and fillers. Let’s celebrate the short forms of writing (especially as they often get people into reading and writing longer pieces. Nobody starts off with War and Peace for reading and/or writing after all).

I plan to post as usual while at Swanwick but times will vary. Am hoping to write up a piece for CFT on this year’s Swanwick in due course. Next big trip for me is likely to be the Bridge House Publishing event but that’s not until December. How quickly the time goes! Still at least it will be cooler by then! Meanwhile time to air this image again as it is still true!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the comments in already on my latest tale for Friday Flash Fiction – Not Wanted. I use an unusual character viewpoint for this one – and the story is loosely based on truth too! Hope you enjoy it.

Screenshot 2022-08-12 at 09-10-05 Not Wanted by Allison Symes

One advantage of writing short form fiction is when the weather is hot as it is for so many of us right now, if you don’t feel like writing so much, you will probably still get enough done to make good headway on a story or piece of flash fiction. Harder to say that with a novel (though it can help there to think of it as progress on scenes you will need).

Mind you, I am not enjoying peeling myself of my chair at the moment. Added reason to take regular breaks from the screen I suppose. Not quite so much peeling to be done after a short session sat down as opposed to a longer one!

I’ll be talking about Short Form Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow so naturally I sing the praises of flash fiction as part of that. Comments are always welcome over on the CFT page. Link up tomorrow. See above.

 

Sometimes I deliberately don’t name a character. What I want you to know about them is their attitude to life and a name wouldn’t particularly add anything to how a reader would react to my character.

In my Enough Is Enough tale from Tripping the Flash Fantastic, I have a character struggling with their weight. A lot of us will sympathise here. But it is the sympathy I wanted to draw out as a reaction from the reader. I also wanted to show what my character did and hopefully to have a reader rooting for them. Again didn’t particularly need the name there.

Where I do need a name is when I want to show age and/or indicate social status. I did do this in my Being Yourself where my character is a librarian. The name Jane Stephens came immediately to mind for this character. It’s apt, it should give readers a reasonable idea of what my character is likely to look like, and ties in with the job.

Two stories, one book, two approaches to naming or not but both appropriate to the stories.

Names can be used to indicate likely social background

Fairytales with Bite – Turning the Tables

T = Twists abound in the fairytale world.
U = Understand all is not as it might appear.
R = Reclusive characters are often more powerful than you might think.
N = Never challenge someone unless you are sure of your ground – being sure and being over-confident are not the same thing.
I = Intelligence and the capacity for revenge may well be hidden behind that withered face you despise.
N = Never assume age means loss of capacity – skills often improve with age.
G = Go softly through the fairytale world – you’re less likely to upset someone powerful that way.

T = Take time for find out about the world you’re visiting.
H = History repeats itself here too – and you can learn so much with some careful research.
E = Endings are rarely positive for the bossy, the boastful, and the arrogant.

T = That wizened old woman or man are likely to be powerful beings in disguise.
A = Arrogant attitudes are what they cut down to size.
B = By transformations you definitely won’t like.
L = Love may prove the key to setting you free but you will have to wait for this.
E = Easier not to get into trouble in the first place.
S = Save it would stop tales like Beauty and the Beast in its tracks, I suppose; but have no doubt, tables can be turned on you very quickly here if you upset the wrong kind. If you’re arrogant, you won’t even spot them until it is too late.

Ends
Allison Symes – 10th August 2022

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This World and Others – Impact of Geography

Do you use your world’s geography in your story at all? How does its climate, terrain etc help or hinder your characters as they get on and do what needs to be done – or try to anyway?

This doesn’t just have to be for the quest tales. A simple trip to get advice from someone can cause a character no end of trouble if they have to cope with magically changing terrain, unexpected weather conditions and so on. What extra planning does your character have to do to allow for all of that? Does slowing down things to ensure they get the planning right make a difference to their success?

Wherever your characters live, geography (and how it changes) impacts everyone. How could you use that to add extra tension and drama to your story? Also cli-fi fiction (climate change fiction) is taking off – and is likely to keep doing so. Could you use changes in your fictional world to reflect on what is going on right here on our own planet?

How are trees, wildlife, weather patterns similar to what we have or are they something we could not know here on Earth? If you have a country made completely from sand, for example, you will need several ways to show how your characters survive in that kind of terrain.

Equally you could have another country which needs sand for its building materials so how could these two countries come to an arrangement or do they fight each other for possession of the sand?

Geography matters. It can trigger story ideas too.

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Swanwick Countdown, Networking, and Stories From A Petulant Goose

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you have had a good few days. I think I’ve surpassed myself with a title for a blog post here!

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Facebook – General

Cooling down nicely after a very warm afternoon. Lady happily napping.

I use Booklinker to create a universal link for my flash fiction collections. (It’s shorter as well than, say, the Amazon string). Booklinker have been revamping their website and I like the new look. Both of my books are available in various places so a landing page has been created on my Booklinker page for each of these – I like that too. For more information on them check out their FAQ page at https://booklinker.com/faq

Four days to Swanwick – there has to be a countdown! Getting together with other writers was one of the things I missed the most during the pandemic. Zoom helped a lot and still does of course) but if you can get together in person with other authors, there is just something special about that and you all get ideas and useful advice from each other too.

 

Hope you have had a good Monday. Lady got to see her two best girlfriends today so came home happy (and before it became too hot).

Am so touched comments are continuing to come in for Age Is Just a Number on Friday Flash Fiction. Many thanks, all.

Have started packing for Swanwick. Okay, so far, it is only my toiletries bag but it is a start! No. I tell a lie. I have packed my books to go in the Book Room there (From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic). Getting my priorities sorted, don’t you know!

Am happily working on my third flash fiction collection. Am hoping to submit that during the autumn. I’m later on this than I intended but good things, as well as life, have got in the way a bit but I am now back on track. These things happen and I don’t beat myself up on this the way I once would have done. What does matter is getting on with the book when all is said and done.

Talking of books, I have a little something to share with you regarding The Best of CafeLit 11. I hope you enjoy it.

 

It’s getting hotter again in my part of the world and the week ahead looks to be going the same way. Hope you can keep as cool as possible. Lady and I intend to though I must admit this week for me will mainly be a countdown to Swanwick!

Looking ahead, my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be about Short Form Writing. Well, they do say write about what you know! I’ll be looking at the advantages and disadvantages to the short form – yes, am being strictly fair here. There are advantages to novels the short form can’t hope to match. Mind you, the short form is not meant to do so. Its strengths are elsewhere. Link up on Friday.

After that I’ll be interviewing the lovely Val Penny, Scottish crime writer of the DI Hunter Wilson series. Looking forward to sharing that too. It’s nice getting back to interviewing again.

Now I’ve mentioned before I have been known to interview my characters. I use a simple template for this and work out what it is I think I need to know about them. Usually I need to know their major trait, whether they generally get on well with others or not and so on.

I usually discover all sorts of other things as a result of asking questions like that and I get a fuller picture of said character. I find it well worth doing, but it does pay to work out what you think you need to know. I know I don’t necessarily need to work out what they look like. I can figure that out later. I do want to know what they’re capable of doing/saying, especially when pushed.

I like to know my character's major traits

Hope you have had a good Saturday. Lady got to see a pal over the park today which was a unexpected surprise. She and the Labradoodle had a fab time together. Always nice to see.

One week from today I shall be at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. Am looking forward to packing next week. This is my big annual treat and it will be lovely to catch up with many friends, make new ones, and enjoy the workshops. I’ll be posting as usual during that week but at different times. Hope to do a write-up for Chandler’s Ford Today on my return. In the meantime am busy scheduling posts for CFT and going over what I need to take with me for Swanwick.

Benefits of networking: it’s fun; you learn tips from other writers; other writers get what you do and your need to do it; you often pick up useful information from other writers and in turn are able to share information you know (which is lovely as it’s a great way to pay back).

Not to mention coming back from networking events feeling inspired and encouraged – that has helped me so many times. And don’t forget there are all manner of writing events – one day courses to week events, to online ones. There is bound to be something to suit. Worth looking out for.

Networking encourages your zest for writing

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the views coming in on The Hiss Factor, my latest YouTube story. It was fun to write and I must thank #GillJames for encouraging me to turn my goose story into a story. See below for video.

(I only hope the fox that came into my garden a day after the goose turned up didn’t get to turn the goose into dinner but that’s a story I won’t know the ending of!).

Do you struggle to write in the heat? I find I am more likely to get off to a slower start but once I am into a piece of writing, away I go. It’s a question of doing what you can and staying hydrated, I think.

I’ll be talking about Short Form Writing for my Chandler’s Ford Today post up on Friday. Naturally flash gets a good mention!

 

You remember the story of the petulant goose I mentioned a few days ago? Well, in the end I had to get a story out of it. Hope you enjoy The Hiss Factor!

 

I’ve sometimes used a random picture generator to trigger ideas for my flash tales. I don’t describe the landscape in my story but I do give enough of its essence so people can work out where my story is set.

For example, just now I generated a picture of a remote Scottish castle on the beach with the tide out. Here I might get a character looking out of a window wondering if someone will be back in time ahead of the tide. I can use the character’s thoughts and worries here to help a reader to conjure up the right image.

When giving Zoom talks, I will use the pictures directly as illustrations, quite literally, of what can be done using these as a prompt. I find landscapes work better for me because I can then think of the type of character likely to live there, the problems they would face and so on. As ever, I just need a way into my story.

Random generators of all kinds are great for this.

May be an image of 1 person and text that says "Write lots. Write more. You will find out how you prefer to put stories together and you can then build on that. KNOWLEDGE EXPERIENCE SKILS COMPETENC ABILITY TRAINING G-ROWTH"

Many thanks for the comments continuing to come in on Age Is Just a Number on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated.

No writer can ever know for sure how a story will go down before sending it in, as even reports from beta readers etc will give a general guide of what they think and there will always be someone who loves what you do regardless. Sadly, there will always be someone who loathes what you do regardless.

You learn to accept you can’t please everyone all the time and you keep on writing to be true to yourself and your characters as you see them. You apply the writing advice that you know can genuinely help you improve. Not everything is appropriate or comes at the right time. When I was starting out flash fiction advice would not have been applicable to me as I didn’t write it. It is applicable now though!

Goodreads Author Blog – Soothing Reading

I read for all manner of reasons. I read for entertainment. I read to escape. (And with the news so grim everywhere you look, this is an important one!).

I read books by friends because I want to find out what they’ve come up with and to support them. Given they write outside of my genre of flash fiction, I expand my reading tastes doing this and ensure I get plenty of contemporary reading done too so win-win here. I read non-fiction to find out things in, hopefully, an entertaining way.

And I read comfort books when life is especially grim. My go-to here is humour. Who doesn’t need a laugh? Another advantage to networking with fellow writers is I also get useful ideas to add to my reading list. There is always plenty of room for more books on there.

I see nothing wrong in having reading materials specifically to sooth. There is plenty of room for the challenging books. I find you have to be in the right mindset to appreciate those. But soothing reading is always welcome. There is never a wrong time for that kind of reading.

Screenshot 2022-08-06 at 20-48-18 Soothing Reading

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Quizzes and Word Games

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Photos of The Hayes, Swanwick, were taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Mine started with a petulant goose but has ended without one (it has literally waddled off) much to Lady’s relief. Best of all, my copies of The Best of CafeLit 11 arrived. Always lovely to open something like that.

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share a lighthearted post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I‘m looking at Quizzes and Word Games, favourite things of many a writer, including yours truly. I have a soft spot for Scrabble in particular.

What are your favourite word games? Do share your thoughts on the CFT comments page.

Next week I am interviewing the lovely crime writer, Val Penny and looking forward to sharing that.

And the goose continues to keep away so Lady is well pleased. From her viewpoint, an odd week has ended well, especially as she got to play with her best buddy, the Rhodesian Ridgeback this morning.!).

Quizzes and Word Games

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One thing I never tire of… drum roll, please… is opening up my new arrival of books! Pleased to say my copies of The Best of CafeLit 11 arrived today. I was especially pleased as I wasn’t expecting these until next week so that was nice.

Nice and quiet here without the hissing goose.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is a fun one on Quizzes and Word Games. Apt for writers. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Has playing word games helped my vocabulary? Oh yes. Especially playing Scrabble. Have any of the words I’ve learned made it into a flash fiction story or blog post from me yet? No. Give it time!

In breaking news… NO goose turned up today. I have a much happier dog! A much happier me come to that. I haven’t checked what my broom feels about it but it too has had a quieter, less eventful day.
Now that goose was clearly a bit out of place so how about a writing prompt to come from this?

Have your character out of place. There has to be a good reason for it. Show how they got into that state and how they got out of it again. Good potential for funny or sad pieces here I think. I may well have a go at this myself later on in the week. Will keep you posted. Have fun with it.

Characters have to have good reasons for their actions, even if they’re the only ones who think so. Your readers should be able to see where your characters come from but they don’t have to agree. I often disagree with my characters but that’s fine. I know where they’re coming from. I just don’t want to be there with them! And if they get poetic justice, as often happens in my stories, I relish writing every word of it!

The writing life can be great fun at times… I’m just glad there isn’t a Character Protection From Their Own Authors Society. I can think of several of mine who would want severe words with me.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to share my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction which is Age Is Just a Number. A huge thank you for the comments coming in on this one already. I suspect I may have hit a nerve or something here.

Screenshot 2022-08-05 at 09-15-22 Age Is Just A Number by Allison Symes

Hope you have had a good day. My copies of The Best of CafeLit 11 arrived, the goose has gone, and I’m settling down to an evening of what I love most – writing – so it’s been a good day here.

Looking forward to going to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in just over a week’s time. Will be so wonderful catching up with friends and being immersed in the world of writing full time for a week.

I’m running a one hour course there on Editing – Both Sides of the Fence and taking part in Lift Up Your Pens (early morning writing) and Lift Up Your Hearts (the latter is a short Christian devotional). Naturally I shall be waving the flag for flash fiction as well.

There is something about being with other writers that encourages and inspires. I am glad Zoom helps here too and it is also a great medium for sharing the joys of the mini stories.

Now a couple of years back a writing exercise I did at Swanwick as part of a course ended up becoming a published story online (CafeLit). I wouldn’t mind that happening again!

 

Hope Wednesday has passed off well. No hissing goose here today so Lady and I think the day has gone well!

Writing Prompt for you: What is the one thing what would make your character think a day has gone well and why? Think that could make a nice piece of flash fiction, say 300 to 500 words. Good luck.

I also followed my own advice here. The prompt idea came about as a result of my preparing this blog post so I jotted it down immediately and realised there would be a story prompt here. So something to add to this blog post too!

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Fairytales With Bite – The Purpose of Fairytales

I love stories that “just” entertain. To me, there’s nothing “just” about it though I do wish some would not look down on genre fiction and indeed fairytales for doing that. They’re doing their job!

Fairytales do serve another purpose – they serve as warnings about behaviour affecting outcome. There are consequences for rotten behaviour in fairytales. The baddies generally do not get away with it.

Fairytales also show there can be poetic justice (and sometimes rough justice). They warn against arrogance. Also to not look down on the poor. And given so often in fairytales, the Rule of Three crops up, the important points are emphasized to ensure they stick in the memory. That was vital when most could not read or write.

Fairytales can be enjoyed by most ages and are usually the way into stories as a whole for children. They were for me. I still have my Reader’s Digest collection of fairytales, a huge two volume set of books with beautiful illustrations.

They’re a great way of getting a message across without being preachy. Readers/listeners pick up the message from the story. From a writing viewpoint, they show characters in action and how to get a story across without the tale itself necessarily being a long one. Lots to learn from that, especially if you go into flash fiction with its restricted word count, as I have done.

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This World and Others – Characters Seeking a Purpose

All characters in any story should have a purpose to justify them being included but of course they themselves may need to find out what their purpose is as the tale progresses. Do other characters enlighten them? Do they find clues? Do circumstances force them to find out what their purpose is?

Most heroes in stories don’t set out to be a hero – they are pushed into it – it is a do it and survive or not as the case may be! When faced with that kind of choice, you’re going to get on and be a hero, aren’t you?

How do your characters react when they find out what their purpose is? Do they handle it well or badly? Not everyone would take well to suddenly discovering they’re a royal, a wizard, a fairy godmother or what have you.

Do the characters go on to accept their purpose or do they reject it and try to get their life back to “normal” (or what they thought of as normal anyway)? Even if they accept their purpose, what do those closest to them make of it? What further complications could that put in your lead character’s way?

Characters seeking a purpose may find the one they end up with is definitely not one they would have chosen! What does this do for them/to them? Do they find they’re better as people because of it? Can resentment from friends and family erode that purpose, even lead to the lead character failing?

A story can be about a purpose that does not work out and the consequences of that failure (though it would be difficult to have an upbeat ending here).

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Writing Time, Lines, and a Petulant Goose

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you have had a good few days. It’s got off to an odd start for me as the title above confirms.

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Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good Tuesday. Had a most enjoyable swim earlier. When I started swimming more often I thought I’d be using the time in the pool to work out story ideas, dream up further ideas and so on. Not a bit of it. My mind tends to go blank when swimming! Make of that what you will!

I’ll be looking at Quizzes and Word Games for my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. I’m fond of word games so this post was a particular pleasure to write. I suppose it makes sense that a writer unwinds by playing with words!

Many thanks for the continuing comments in on Moving On, my latest Friday Flash Fiction tale. The feedback on this site is so helpful.

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Glad to say the August edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads is now out. Treat yourself to a free read. Plenty of fascinating articles and stories here. I talk about Funny Flash Fiction this time and share useful tips here. As well as setting a flash fiction challenge in my column, I respond to it myself so you get a story from me here too – and do check out the wonderful tales that came in as a result of the challenge.

Screenshot 2022-08-01 at 19-26-15 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine August 2022

Is there ever enough writing time? Probably not but I suspect the answer to this dilemma is working out how to make the best use of the time you have got. In my smaller pockets of time, I’m jotting down blog ideas, story titles, possible opening lines etc. In my longer pockets of time. I’m writing those ideas up! I also plan my week around my Chandler’s Ford Today post. Generally I have that written and scheduled by Tuesday. I then start work on the one for the following week.

I plan my monthly blogs so I have them ready in good time. I like to have those scheduled at least a week before due date. Now life gets in the way sometimes but giving myself this leeway means I still have a few days to get something in and I like knowing that I have this safety net. I rarely have to use that safety net. It is a relief to have it when I do.

So yes I outline my writing time too and have found doing that pays off.

Also my next author newsletter goes out tomorrow. To sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Newsletter has gone out but new subscribers are always welcome.

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Hope you have had a good Saturday. Looking forward to catching up with some Swanwick friends on Zoom tonight ahead of seeing them in person again soon.

Many thanks for the comments in on Moving On, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Don’t forget comments are welcome over on my Chandler’s Ford Today blog post pages as well.

I do enjoy getting my monthly posts together for Mom’s Favorite Reads and am just putting the finishing touches to my piece for September. My piece in the August edition, which is due soon, will be about Funny Flash Fiction, which is is also a joy to write.

Screenshot 2022-07-29 at 09-28-29 Moving On by Allison Symes

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Further to yesterday’s post and in breaking news, the goose came back!

Again I was hissed at. The dog turned tail and ran (back into the house). Yours truly scared the goose off into the wooded bit of the garden with the aid of a garden broom. Am not having my dog too scared to go out into her own garden. My herding skills were okay (I have clearly learned something from my collies over the years). Most annoying thing of all – I can’t write this up as a story. It’s a bit unbelievable, isn’t it?!

The goose is fine, Lady is fine, I’m fine, but I still don’t get why this bird isn’t flying – it isn’t injured and its attitude – well it would have that anyway. There is no sign of injury or anything like that. Have shut the garden gate on it so hopefully that will send it back to where it should be at the lakes about a mile away from where I live where there is a colony of geese and ducks.

They say you can’t make it up. Well, as a writer I would dispute that. It is a question of whether you can use the material at times!

In other news, am looking forward to getting my copies of The Best of CafeLit 11.

CafeLit11 Small

It’s Monday. It has been a long, hot day. It has been an odd Monday. I got hissed at by an irate lost Canada Goose in my own garden this afternoon. There are a group of them on nearby lakes and it clearly had got lost. I am betting it is male and didn’t want to ask for directions!

Why the barking of Lady didn’t persuade it here was not a good place to be I don’t know but it did wander off eventually. (Lady would happily have chased it off but one slightly bonkers dog and an annoyed goose did not seem like a good combo to me!).

So as I say it has been a long day. It’s Monday when all is said and done. Definitely time for a story. Hope you like Acting Your Age, my latest on YouTube.

 

PS. Will keep you posted if anything odd turns up here tomorrow. Am hoping not though I suppose I can always get a flash story out of it. See above – The Goose Came Back! Not a typical day or two in the life of a flash fiction writer, I can tell you!

Understanding what makes your characters tick
Wow, another month gone. It won’t be long before I’m writing my festive flash pieces!

Am not kidding. For the short story market, you have to work on these much earlier in the year than I need to on my festive selections. But it still pays to give yourself plenty of time to write and hone your festive flashes so around summer/early autumn is not a bad time to start on that.

I find having a rough schedule to write to means I produce more finished writing. I like that aspect.

While flash is shorter prose, it still takes time to edit and hone. I can get a draft down relatively fast but it is the editing that takes the time. And that is how it should be too, no matter what you write. The writing is in the re-writing.

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Opening lines have to intrigue the reader enough to make them want to read on. This is even more important in flash where you do have to hit the ground running. You don’t have the word count room to expand on things later. In my The Silence (Tripping the Flash Fantastic), I start with It was the perfect way to shut up Mr Know-it-all.

I imply questions here – hopefully the reader will want to find out what the perfect way is, did it work, and who is the character behind this. Sometimes I use questions directly as opening lines but implying them also works well. It is key to provoking reader curiosity, that have got to find out what happens here moment. And then the tricky bit – delivering on the promise to answer here!

This is a key reason why I outline. I set up the question. I want to know in advance what the possible answers could be. It means I know where I am heading as I draft the tale. And I always go for the answer that makes me go “wow” – If I do that, it is likely someone else will. Naturally my hope here is that someone else will be a publisher, editor, or a competition judge!

Tripping The Flash Fantastic - by night

Goodreads Author Blog – Reading Between the Lines

I write as well as read flash fiction and implying happens all the time here. You do get your readers reading between the lines all the time. You just give them what they have to know to be able to do that.

With my reading hat on, I love having to read between the lines. Crime writers do this constantly too – give us clues to work things out and you accept some of them will be red herrings. All great fun.

I don’t want tonnes of description. I just need enough to be able to picture the character and the setting. Specific details often work better anyway. A moth-eaten chair conjures up a stronger image than just saying an old chair. (Well, how old? Are we talking antique here or something that is only 30 years old?). ]

Specific details matter. Whenever a writer put them in, I am looking to see how important these things prove to be later on in the story. They usually are important. At the very least they have significant meaning for the lead character and that’s the important thing (if only because their opponent could use that against them).

I love reading between the lines then. The great stories encourage this I think.

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Zest in Fiction, Advice to a New Writer and Publication News

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you are all okay. Great week here as I have further publication news to share. The buzz of being published never diminishes! Given the writing life is full of ups and downs, it is lovely when the “ups” arrive!

Facebook – General – Chandler’s Ford Today and More Than Writers

29th July 2022 – Chandler’s Ford Today
I don’t know where the last 26 weeks have gone but I wrap up my In Fiction series for CFT this week with Zest In Fiction. I celebrate the joys of zestful writing and look at ways we can keep our enthusiasm for writing going when all we seem to receive are the “pips” rather than the zest of creative writing itself. Every writer goes through it – and more than once too.

I also look at how the discipline or writing regularly can help with keeping that zestful spirit going. I know it sounds a bit of a contradiction but it isn’t. See the post for why.

Many thanks for the comments in already on this one.

Zest In Fiction

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29th July 2022 – More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers

It’s a busy day on the blog spot today. My second post tonight is to share my latest blog post on More Than Writers. This month I talk about Advice to a New Writer.

Do you agree with my suggestions? What would you add to the list? I also think I’ve found the cutest ever teacup for this post – as you do. Head over and see what you think.
Screenshot 2022-07-29 at 09-15-25 Advice to a New Writer by Allison SymesTwo blogs out tomorrow – Chandler’s Ford Today where I’ll be looking at Zest In Fiction and More Than Writers where I’ll look at Advice to a New Writer. The latter is my monthly spot for the Association of Christian Writers. Links above.

Talking of whom, it was great fun on the ACW Flash Fiction group last night – many thanks to those who came to it.

Writing Tip: Don’t forget you can use things like the random theme and question generators to trigger ideas for non-fiction posts as well as for fiction.

Having a quick look at a random theme one, the topic of innocence came up.

For fiction, you an always write about a framed character or where someone’s innocence is questionable.

For non-fiction, you could look at how the idea of innocent until proven guilty underpins the criminal justice system and how that came about. You could also look at a historical figure’s innocence (Richard III is a key figure here, as is Anne Boleyn).

A quick search on the random question generator I use came up with the topic of What’s your favourite book?

Now that can make a direct non-fiction post as you look into why you’ve chosen the one you have (and a bit of history about the book itself would be a nice addition here).

For fiction, you could invent a book for your character to treasure and show how that affects their actions and reactions to events around them.

AE - March 2022 - random generators encourage you to ask questions about your characters

Hope you have had a good day. Am about to host the monthly meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group. Always good fun. Zoom is a wonderful thing!

Many thanks for the support shown with the announcement yesterday concerning The Best of CafeLit 11. It is good to be “between the covers” with friends once again!

Last not but least. Don’t forget I send out my monthly newsletter on the first of each month so another one is due soon. To sign up head over to my website (landing page) at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday. It’s Friday Flash Fiction time. My latest story here is called Moving On. Hope you enjoy it. (Also fabulous to see some familiar names on here this week – well done, all!).

Screenshot 2022-07-29 at 09-28-29 Moving On by Allison Symes

Hope you have had a good day. Very pleasant with the French windows open and enjoying the evening sun.

How do you evoke atmosphere in a flash tale given you haven’t got the word count room to go into much detail? It is a question I think of choosing the one detail to focus on here. For example if I wanted to show a stormy night, I would probably show a character looking out of their house, moaning about the guttering overflowing while watching the trees swaying.

Specific details are more useful in painting the right image in your reader’s mind. Given my example above, I wouldn’t need to say that leaves were coming off the trees because people already know that happens when a storm brews up. They’d expect twigs, small branches etc to be flying about too.

The reader just needs to know the storm is happening and the guttering overflowing and the trees swaying are enough details to give them that picture.

So choose what you think a reader absolutely has to know and then consider what detail can best convey that. The rest can be implied (which is flash fiction’s great strength).

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Thrilled to be in print once again with The Best of CafeLit 11 out yesterday. Will have some nice admin to do on this such as ordering my copies, getting it added to my Amazon Author Central page, ALCS, Goodreads and so on.

About to head off to run a flash fiction group for the Association of Christian Writers. Always fun and we all learn a lot from this. I especially encourage sharing market news given no one author can know it all so if you have the chance to take part in groups in your genre, go for it. You may well learn loads, and have lots of fun. Win-win. You get to write more flash as well for the flash group I lead.

 

Fairytales with Bite – Transformations

The fairytales have plenty of transformations from arrogant princes into beasts and suspiciously bright red applies into something nasty and so on. There is always a good reason behind them. In the first case, the arrogant prince needed cutting down to size. In the second, the wicked stepmother wanted to poison Snow White. Nobody said a transformation necessarily had to be for a good reason.

So with that in mind, think about what or whom you want to be transformed in your stories. What is the reason? How are the transformations going to happen? Does magic necessarily have to be involved? Can whatever is being transformed be restored to what they were again?

Where the transformation is a positive one, how does that go on to affect the character’s life? Do others around them welcome the change?

Not everyone would. Especially if someone has come out from someone else’s control, there will be one character definitely unhappy at the change! What would they try to to to reverse the situation and do they succeed? Or are they transformed too? If so how? What makes them see the error of their ways?

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This World and Others – Changing the Guard

In your setting, how would regime change happen? Revolution or reform? Who or what is the catalyst for this? I must admit I prefer reform generally because fewer people get hurt. Does your fictional world learn from its own history or does it make the same mistakes time and again?

The old saying about not throwing the baby out with the bath water comes into mind here. When it comes to changing the guard, are there aspects a new ruler or system of government would want to retain (or copy and adapt for its own use)? And how do the “ordinary” people take to the changes being imposed on them? They are rarely asked about these things in advance!

Where changing the guard is a good thing, what system of government or ruler had to go first? And does the change of regime delivery on its promises to make things better for the people?

Changing the guard can be a good or bad thing – so much depends on perspective. What would your character’s perspective be?

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Publication News, Flash Fiction, and Impact

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Am thrilled to be in print again in new release, The Best of CafeLit 11. More details below. The thrill of being published does not dim!

 

Facebook – General

26th July 2022 – Publication News – The Best of CafeLit 11
Am thrilled to say The Best of CafeLit 11 is now out. I have a story in here, Flying Too High. I love collections like these, even when I’m not in them, as they’re a great way to try out authors new to you. You also get a real mix of stories and moods too.

I am also thrilled about this for another reason – I am on the front cover as one of the editors. Each editor had a month or two to work on but naturally did not edit our own work.

You never want to do that anyway. Why? Because you really do need another pair of eyes to assess what you have written. You are too close to your own work to be able to judge objectively. But it is lovely be on the front cover as an editor for the first time. It was a joy to work on this book and to be in it.

Many congratulations to the other writers in this new collection. It is always wonderful to know you have work in a book out! And it will be lovely to celebrate in person with you later in the year – I do hope you can get to the celebration event. Always good to meet up with old friends and make new ones here.

 

Hope you have had a good Monday. Not bad here. Lady got to see one of her best pals, the lovely Hungarian Vizler. Good time had by both, especially now the air is much cooler.

Will be sharing Zest In Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ll also be talking about Advice to A New Writer for More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers again on Friday. Will put up separate posts with links. I know – no blogs for ages and then two come along at once.#

My current story on Friday Flash Fiction, called Tomorrow, is loosely based on real experience though I will say I haven’t done a sky jump. Nor do I intend to – the birds have enough to contend with in the skies without strange women jumping out at them – and I hope that has got you wondering. Story link here.


Screenshot 2022-07-22 at 09-05-01 Tomorrow by Allison Symes


Am enjoying writing with my French windows open now we’ve got a decent breeze to go with it. Most refreshing. I must admit I did find things pretty hard going on Tuesday when we had a record breaking high temperature in my part of the world.

I felt sluggish and it was hard to focus (except on thinking things like this is too hot, is the dog okay etc etc!). And yes Lady was fine but she is much happier now things have cooled down a bit. I do always drink plenty of water by the way which does help with concentration but on Tuesday I think it was a question you couldn’t drink enough of it to overcome the wave of heat that hit most of us here in the UK.

Will have two blogs out next week. My Chandler’s Ford Today weekly one will be out on Friday as usual. It will also be my turn on More Than Writers, the blog for the Association of Christian Writers, again on Friday. I write for them on the 29th of each month so this means I get every three Februaries off! So must remember to do a double Facebook post on Friday.

So looking forward to Swanwick next month and the Bridge House Publishing event in December. Had been looking forward to going to see our local theatre group’s summer production but they have had to cancel unfortunately. I hope to get along to their autumn show though (and before we know it, it will then be panto time again!).

Writing Tip: Every so often go through your old notebooks and look at exercises you took part in during conferences etc. Revise those stories and see if you can submit them. I’ve done this and had work published that way but I also know it is far too easy to forget what is in your notebooks.

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Hope you have had a good Saturday so far.

It’s hard to believe I’m almost at the end of my In Fiction series for Chandler’s Ford Today. Next week I’ll be looking at Zest In Fiction. Where did 26 weeks go?!

I sometimes use the random generators for ideas for topics for posts. The random question and theme ones are great for this.

For example, a random theme I generated a moment ago came up with the idea of sliver of hope. I can immediately think of some fiction ideas for that but for a blog, I could write a factual piece about where a sliver of hope changed the life of a famous historical character. Or even speculate where it might have done had it happened – two sides of the same coin there basically.

A random question I just generated came up with If you lost all of your possessions but one, what would you want it to be?

Interesting question and this could make a great article simply by my answering this myself.

So for non-fiction fans, the random generators can be useful for you too.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the views coming in on my latest YouTube tale, Enough Is Enough. If you would like to subscribe to my channel, you can do so at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA – new subscribers are always welcome.

I usually post a new tale here once a week unless I’m away, ill etc. Good fun to do too. It is proving to be a great way of encouraging my flash fiction productivity and it is fun to think visually – to work out what videos would best suit my stories.

Screenshot 2022-07-26 at 20-40-16 Allison Symes

It’s Monday, It has been a long day. It is definitely story time. My latest tale on YouTube is called Enough Is Enough. Hope you enjoy it.

F = Focus – flash is a great way to sharpen your writing as you must concentrate on what matters to your character – no room for waffle!

L= Liberating, as despite the word count restriction, you can write across genres, in the first, third persons etc.

A = Acrostic flashes can be great to do – pick a relatively short word to use as these work best.

S = Story, story, story – it is all about the story – flash has to be a complete tale in and of itself.

H = Historical flash, humorous flash – have fun exploring genres here.

Advantage to flash is setting characters anywhere

I’ve talked before about the impact of flash fiction and that’s because it is one of the genre’s strengths. You haven’t got a lot of words to play with so you do have to make a great impact with the ones you have got!

This is why I think about the emotional response I want my story to have on a reader. I then think about what kind of character could fulfil that and the likely setting for them. Then I draft my tale.

When I know what my twist ending is (because I’ve drafted a few possibilities to use at a later date) I will know from what I drafted what the emotional impact is going to be already. I can hit the ground running here (which is another great reason to draft ideas for writing up later!).

Sometimes a story ends up being longer than I initially thought. That’s okay. If it works better at 300 words rather than 100 words, I leave it at the larger number and find a different market for it.

What matters is the story and its impact. You don’t want to dilute a powerful story for the sake of a word count. You equally don’t want a wordy story which could genuinely be cut and sharpened up. This is why I ask myself whether this is really necessary as I go through my draft. I’ve got to always be able to say yes to that.

AE - July 2021 - A well rounded character will show us something of ourselves

Goodreads Author Blog – Light Reading

Light reading is something I do all year round. When the world is being especially grim, as it is right now, then that’s the time to turn to books that help you escape. I was not surprised the sales of Wodehouse rocked up during the pandemic. People need an escape and lighter reading can be a great way to have that escape. (Especially if you really can’t go anywhere to get that escape another way!).

Light reading for me also includes reading short stories and flash collections, no matter what their theme. I just love short reads (and getting plenty of value for money by having lots of stories in one book!).
I do wish genre fiction wasn’t looked down on by some. It is snobbery. Genre fiction helps subsidize the more literary works and everyone has different tastes in books anyway.

Screenshot 2022-07-26 at 20-49-39 Light Reading

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Your Lead Character In Fiction

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Image Credits:- 
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Weather has cooled down somewhat as the week went on, much to the relief of both Lady and me. Trust all well with you. Glad to share an exclusive new story from me for this blog – see further down under Fairytales with Bite. Hope you enjoy it. Plan to include it in my third flash fiction collection which I’m working on at the moment.

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share my latest post for Chandler’s Ford Today – Your Lead Character In Fiction. I set a mini quiz as part of this to show how important characters are – see how you do. I also look at qualities of the lead character and whether it is necessary to always root for them or not. See what you think and do leave comments over on the CFT page. I go on to discuss what a writer needs to know about their lead character and share some different ways in working this out. Hope you find the post useful.

Later in August, I’ll be sharing a fabulous interview with a great crime writer for whom their lead character is especially important! Well, when you write a series you do have to have someone to lead that series…! More details nearer the time.

Your Lead Character In Fiction

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Glad the weather is continuing to be cooler. I much prefer it at about 23/24ºC and so does Lady.
Have booked my tickets for the Bridge House Publishing event in December. Will be good to see friends old and new there. And I hope to catch up with writing pals at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School which is rapidly approaching (next month – yippee!).

Will be sharing a brand new “fairytales with bite” story in my round up blog post which will also go out tomorrow via my website – see https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com – new subscribers always welcome. I will be sharing the link to this post via Facebook tomorrow too. You can also sign up for my author newsletter here – the next one of those will go out on 1st August. Story further down.

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Much needed cooler weather today (though the forecast looks like this might be a temporary reprieve). Lady and I made the most of the cooler weather. Both of us were much happier for it!

Looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. I’ll be talking about Your Lead Character In Fiction. There will be a mini quiz as part of this and I’ll be looking at whether it is necessary to always write likeable characters or not amongst other things. See link above.

I have a soft spot for those characters who back the lead up and without whom the lead cannot succeed in their story. My favourite here is Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Even Gollum knew not to underestimate Samwise!

Whatever position your character has in a story in terms of importance, there should be a definite role for them. If your story would work without them, they shouldn’t be in there.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday once more and time for some flash fiction. My latest story on Friday Flash Fiction is simply called Tomorrow. Hope you like it.

Screenshot 2022-07-22 at 09-05-01 Tomorrow by Allison Symes


Hope you have had a good day. Can’t believe we’re rapidly approaching the end of July already.

Now I sometimes use time in my stories, with characters going forwards and backwards in it and with dubious results. See Tripping the Flash Fantastic for that (Mishaps and Jumping Time). I have great fun with these kind of tales as they give me opportunities to drop my characters right in it. There is no clause anywhere which says an author has to be nice to their characters. I checked, okay.

But you can take time and use it for more sombre stories too. I did that with The Pink Rose which shows the ravages of time.

So time can be a useful device as a a setting, it can be used as a character, and you can have reflective pieces on it too. How will you use time in your stories?

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… and breath! Thankfully cooler today. Lady and I made the most of it too.

I sometimes start my story with a question in its opening line. In my The Truth, from From Light to Dark and Back Again, I use this and I finish the tale with my character’s thoughts connected to it though the question itself is not directly answered. This is because I’ve used a metaphorical question and my character is aware of that (at a subliminal level at least) They also know they’re not going to change attitudes here. Sometimes your character is the only one to see through something. See The Emperor’s New Clothes for more on this – the kid there was right!

With metaphorical questions, your character is unlikely to be able to answer it fully but their conclusion should be a reasonable one based on the premise of the story.

Flash with Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Fairytales With Bite – A Fairytale by Allison Symes

Thought it might be nice to have an example of what I call a fairytale with bite this week. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Once a Rat by Allison Symes

I can’t remember all the details to be honest. I was happily being a pain in the neck to all and sundry. I was king of the pickpockets, see. Made a good living at it until I managed to annoy some biddy who happened to be a fairy godmother, and the next thing I know I was zapped and became a rat. I remember her speaking over me.

‘Since you are a rat in human form, you can be a rat in rat’s form and save everyone the bother of having to avoid you. They’ll do so willingly. Most folk hate rats.’

How I survived I don’t know. Even other rats avoided me. I’m sure they knew what I was really. Just a shame every fox I met tried to eat me but I always did have a good turn of speed. Came in handy I can tell you.

And then I lost concentration for a moment and ended up in a rat trap. This girl came to fetch me indoors and then I saw her again. That wretched fairy godmother. Boy, did she laugh when she saw me. Said she never forgot a client.

I never knew such fear as when I saw her take out that magic wand of hers again. What would she turn me into this time?

I couldn’t believe it when I saw I was now a coachman, kitted out in a decent uniform too. I was to take the girl to the Palace for the grand ball. First time in my life I had a job. A proper one too.

The godmother whispered to me not to wreck things this time. I could keep the job if I did well. The pay was good and food and lodgings were thrown in. I might even meet someone nice in the Palace staff. I did too. Mary and I have been married thirty years this year. Got three kids and six grandchildren. It’s been a good life. A funny one too. And she does know about my past. Always ensures I get a decent amount of cheese – bless her.

How long have I been serving Cinderella and Prince Charming now?

Oh, it must be a good thirty years now. Their kids are okay too.

The one thing I can’t resist though is setting the caught rats free when the other staff here aren’t looking. Well, it could be someone I once knew in my past life or one of their offspring.

I got a second chance. Maybe they should too. A rat isn’t always just a rat – and I should know!

Ends
20th July 2022 – Allison Symes

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This World and Others – Poetic Justice

Hope you enjoyed the story. One of the things I’ve always loved about fairytales is they have a strong sense of right and wrong about them and almost always justice is seen to be done in some way. There is usually a chance for redemption too. Love all of that. Always have done.

Is there such a thing as poetic justice in your created world? How does it manifest itself? If magic is involved, is it used to correct a problem initially caused by someone else’s magic for example? (Best known example of that is the fairy godmother modifying the spell for Sleeping Beauty so she doesn’t die but just falls asleep).

Is there any character in your work who deals with justice overall? Does an underdog character come through to ensure justice is done by the end of your story?

What about the characters who deserve to have poetic justice done to them? What did they do? Did they irk someone they really should not have done as my character did?

Now this can be a great vehicle for a humorous tale (and it is where I generally use it) but how will you take the idea of poetic justice and use it?

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