Characters You Love and Loathe

July 19, 2022Leave a comment

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. Very, very hot here in the UK right now. Lady and I keeping things as cool as possible. Take care, everyone.

Facebook – General

Had a lovely swim earlier today. Came back to my car, parked beautifully in the shade and discovered the internal temperature was 38ºC! Am grateful for air con to cool things down quickly. Much quieter day for Lady today (and no car travel for her on days like this either). She has not been sorry about that. Am not a fan of excessive heat (due to the dog and being asthmatic myself).

Still it is relatively cool at my desk so I write on. Many thanks for the great comments which have come in on my Authors Electric post yesterday. It seems my dislike of a certain Jane Austen character has caused comments – good! See link below.

Do I dislike any of my own characters? Oh yes. There are a few I definitely wouldn’t want to meet for real. But that’s how it should be I think. I should be able to come up with unlikeable characters as well as the ones who I am obviously going to root for. Otherwise crime writers, for one example, would never to be to write up their villains would they?

For Authors Electric this month, I look at Characters You Love and Loathe. Many thanks for the great comments coming in on this one already. Let’s just say I make my dislike of one particular Austen character clear – what do you think about her?

I go on to look at why characters make or break a story and why I have to see where they are coming from. It doesn’t mean I have to agree with their actions though. But I do have to be gripped by a character to enjoy their story.

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Hope you’re enjoying a nice relaxed Sunday. Am looking forward to sharing my new Authors Electric post tomorrow. See above. Later on in the week will be my penultimate post in my In Fiction series for Chandler’s Ford Today. I’ll be looking at Your Lead Character in Fiction for that. I’ll also be including a mini quiz in the post. And yes I have thought of something for the letter Z when it comes around soon. Phew!

Looking forward to being back at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August. Will be lovely to catch up with friends and make new ones. I’ll be running a one hour workshop there on Editing – Both Sides of the Fence. Would like the weather to be nice but not so hot for all of that though.

And now on to some flash fiction writing – for me Sunday is story time. Hope to share the results later in the week.

Keeping as cool as possible here. Lady doing likewise. It’s about the only time Lady is sensible, bless her. I did go through the drought of 1976 and my abiding memory of that time is of the government appointing a Droughts Minister. Within the week, the heavens opened! Wonder if we’ll see that again.

A big thank you for the lovely comments in on Cookie Surprise, my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction. This is probably as close as I’ll get to writing anything connected to children’s literature. Am so enjoying using various random generators to trigger story ideas for FFF and my YouTube channel. The generators are great for making you think outside of your usual box and I highly recommend using them.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Even hotter here today. Lady and I are definitely not keen on it. The impact of the hot weather is being felt everywhere and I do hope those fires are soon put out. Take care everyone.

A more positive impact is the impact of your flash pieces on your readers. What do you want to make your readers feel?

If you want to make them laugh (always a laudable aim), how will you do it? Is your chosen character up to the job? They don’t need to be out and out funny in themselves but capable of producing laughter in others. This is where pompous characters work so well. They kind of set themselves up for a fall almost and that is where we get the laughs.

Equally serious characters who come out with unfortunate turns of phrase where everyone around them laughs but they themselves don’t can also work well.

Very hot in my part of the world today – Lady all okay but doesn’t like the heat much. Has spent a lot of the day chilling out.

I don’t tend to use the weather in my stories much. This is because I’m wary of imitating the old infamous beginning to a story “It was a dark and stormy night…”, which is NOT held up as an example of fine writing. Quite the opposite in fact! I really don’t want to go down that route for story telling.

I would also rather show you the weather by how my characters act. I would rather you saw my characters shivering or slapping on the old sunscreen. You can also use the other senses here – characters can be listening to the rainfall. They can taste snow on their tongues etc. They can feel the hail hitting them (and trust me I’ve done that a number of times when out with Lady, it can hurt).

There are ways to bring the weather into stories in ways which won’t switch your reader off or run the risk of you being put up for a bad writing award!

One lovely thing about creative writing is it can encourage empathy. I do have to understand where my characters are coming from to be able to write their stories up. I have to be able to imagine how they would feel, act, and/or react in any given circumstances.

But the nice thing with empathy is it doesn’t have to be confined to writing stories. The world could always do with lots of it!

The creative arts as as whole can be therapeutic for the people doing them but it can spread wider than that. I hope fiction does help spread empathy.

I’ve only written a couple of characters where I have no sympathy for them at all (these tend to be my darker tales) but even there I understand why the characters are the way they are. I don’t have to approve though! And this is one very good reason why you should never judge the author by their work! (This is just as well for the horror writers I think!).

Stories can encourage empathy. We understand the characters

Understanding where the characters come from can lead to understanding ourselves

Understanding what makes your characters tick

I occasionally use repetition in my flash tales. I know that sounds odd. A limited word count and you’re repeating a word or words you’ve already used, isn’t that a waste of your word count? Not really.

When I do this, I’m doing it for effect. I’m usually trying to get a rhythm going in my prose or the repetition is something important and I want the reader to pick up on that importance. I don’t use this technique a lot but sometimes it’s useful.

Whatever you write, you need to know why you are writing it in that way and does it suit the character and/or their situation? The answer should be yes, naturally.

Goodreads Author Blog – First Audio Books

I love audio books – really useful for long journeys. The first ones I listened to, and which are still great favourites, were the Terry Pratchett Discworld ones, narrated by Sir Tony Robinson. These were great for another reason. I got my better half into these stories thanks to the audio books and it mean for several birthdays, wedding anniversaries etc., presents for him were sorted! Alas no more because we’ve got the lot!

What was the first audio book you enjoyed? What made you go for it? Had you already read the paperback? I had with the Discworld ones but my other half had not.

I’m never worried about book formats. People find different ways into stories. There will always be a need for the printed book but I do love it when those who are not great readers, such as my other half, discover and love stories another way. Audio books are a fabulous invention.

liked Allison Symes's blog post: First Audio Books https://t.co/CQzVTGnSu1 via @goodreads I look at why I love audio books this week. Which would you recommend? Do you think they ever work better than the paperbacks? Comments welcome over on my Goodreads Author page. pic.twitter.com/NtAoeDd9Km
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 16, 2022

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Many thanks, @valeriepenny https://t.co/qiSLHNrC91 pic.twitter.com/kmJyP45NEr
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 17, 2022

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Authors Electric: Characters You Love and Loathe by Allison Symes https://t.co/OjhZaMfBTJ For AE this time, I make my dislike of an Austen character clear. What do you think? I look at why characters make or break a story for me. I have to be gripped by them to enjoy their tale.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 18, 2022

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(E)xcellence in Fiction

July 15, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated (though most are then put through Book Brush). Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

Has been very hot here in my part of the UK with more to come. Lady staying cool. And I found a suitable topic for X in my In Fiction series for Chandler’s Ford Today. It has been a good week! Hope yours has been too.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m pleased to share (E)xcellence in Fiction, my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post. Comments about what you think makes for excellence in fiction would be most welcome over on the post. As well as sharing my thoughts on the topic, I look at what writers can do to make their work as good as possible in the hope readers will find their work excellent. A good goal to strive for!

The writing journey is full of ups and downs but it should be a moving one. Sometimes it will be a case of changing direction. I did so with the switch to flash fiction and short form writing and then blogging. Also over time I want to get better at what I do. I should move on from where I started out as a flash fiction writer, say. Very much a case of continuing professional development then and I hope it leads to excellence in what I write.

I want to get each story I write as good as I possibly can and to always be open to the thought that, while no story is perfect, as it is written by fallible human beings, I should be able to see progress. Hopefully if I do, a reader will too. It is all about the reader, what they get from your work.

(E)xcellence in Fiction

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Looking forward to sharing (E)xcellence In Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Relieved to find a reasonable topic for X in this series! I’ll be looking at what I think makes for excellent fiction (and it’s not genre dependent either) and what a writer can do to help things along here. See above.

Are you finding it easy or hard to write in this hot weather (for those parts of the UK with the high temperatures)? I’m writing as usual but find I am “flaking out” earlier than normally do come the evening. Am getting around that by trying to start my writing sessions earlier! It is nice writing with the French windows open though. Nice breeze this evening is refreshing. Won’t be doing this come November! Having said that, and to prove there can be a positive side to a lot of things, I won’t be peeling myself off my chair come November either – it’s an ill wind and all that!

Am looking forward to going to see The Chameleon Theatre Group‘s latest production, Hoovering the Edge, later this month. It will be lovely getting together with my great CFT editor, Janet Williams, for this too.

How can I judge when I’ve got the flash fiction word count right for my story? It depends on whether I’m submitting a piece of work to a fixed word count competition or market. Obviously if I am, I stick to the rules. If it’s an “open”word count (but still up to 1000 maximum), I go by what I need the character to do to bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes that is at 300 words, sometimes I need the whole 1000.

What I love with Scrivener is I can set the word count I want to write to and watch the bar at the bottom of the screen go from red to amber to green as I type. I do love a simple visual! Over time I’ve learned to judge what roughly looks like 500 words, say. When I then do a “proper” word count to check where I am, I find I’m usually within about 50 words of my initial estimate. You do get better at judging these things over time and the more you write.

I don’t always set my word count bar deliberately. I always do use it for a fixed word count market. Where it is more open, I just write and then worry about the word count later on. I find this works for me.

Part way through, the target colour has changed to amber

As I approach my target, the bar changes colour to green

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to share my latest Friday Flash Fiction tale. This one is called Cookie Surprise and I used a random noun generator to trigger a story idea. The words cookie and road came up and this tale is a result of putting those together. Hope you enjoy it.

Intriguing a reader to want to read on is vital for all forms of storytelling. With flash you do have to hit the ground running given you have less room and time in which to do that intriguing. This is why I find knowing my character and their voice from the start helps a lot.

I know my character has got something worthwhile to share so I’ll let them “get on with it”. I don’t want my author voice getting in the way because that is all it will do. It is the character’s story. I love powerful opening lines which make me want to find out what happens next as I figure a lot of readers will react the same way.

I love writing about characters who turn the tables on people (naturally said people deserve to have said tables turned on them!). What I need here is a character with a good reason to want to do this. There has to be something in their personality which flags up they are capable of turning those tables if they are pushed far enough. The fairytales show this kind of character time and time again – and I love them all.

What I don’t like are characters who are pushy, dominant, careless of the needs of others (precisely because they couldn’t care less) etc. If I write a character like that, you can be sure I will get another one to turn the tables on them. And that I will have written this with considerable relish!

Writing is so much fun. I once told my other half I had had an excellent day because I’d just finished bumping off a character and I’d got away with it! Fortunately by this time I’d been writing long enough for him to consider this as a normal day in my office… make of that what you will!

Fairytales with Bite – Using the Tropes of Fairytales

Every genre has its tropes. I see them as useful shortcuts that readers will expect to see in the kinds of stories I write. For example, if I mention a magic wand, I’m not going into details about what it looks like because most people will have their own ideas. Disney and Pixar will also have helped people form those ideas I suspect.

Also people will expect for these things to turn up in fantasy tales/fairy stories. Neither do I spell out what my fairy godmother characters look like though I usually give some indication of likely age range. The story she is in will have some indicator showing her level of experience in fighting evil etc and that will flag up a likely idea of age.

The other trope is that justice is expected to be done in some way so I deliver on that. I’m not reinventing the wheel here. What I will do though is turn things on their head. My sweet little old lady of a character turns out to be fearsome when confronting the latest monster in her world and so on.

I can keep you in suspense here too as you wonder whether she will deliver on expectations or not. The way she tackles it will be unique to her too. But you just know that somehow this lady is going to deliver because you expect unassuming characters to be more powerful than they look in fairytales – another trope here.

Think about what you’re going to use in your stories and why you want to use them. I won’t bring in a magic wand or fairy godmother character unless I have got a definite role for them to play. Everything in your story has to earn its place in it. The shorter the form you write in the more important this is, as readers will query why something being in the story if there’s not a role for it and they will remember.
Tropes are there to be used but with care I think.

This World and Others – Trips Out

In your fictional settings do your characters get to have days out for the sake of it? Or is travel restricted to only the high and mighty. What would happen if there was a public clamour for transportation to be opened up to everyone? Can people freely go from one village to another and have nobody think anything of it or does the approach of a stranger send everyone into mild panic and they get the government to intervene? Not everyone welcomes strangers after all.

If day trips and holidays are a thing in your setting, where would your characters go and why? What is the hospitality sector like? What would considered as a tourist trap in your setting? Do the locals welcome it or nor? And could one of your characters find out something important on a day trip that leads on to further things?

Also sometimes a stranger can see what a local does not precisely because the latter is too close to the situation in question. Would locals welcome having their eyes opened or not? Could that trip out for the stranger have unfortunate consequences?

Food (possibly takeaway!) for thought there!

(E)xcellence in Fiction https://t.co/B5YjDtgrCM I look at what writers can do to make their work as good as possible in the hope readers will find their work excellent. A good goal to aim for! Your comments on what you feel makes for excellence in fiction are welcome on CFT.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 15, 2022

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Cookie Surprise, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/4uV5XqOS2c Pleased to share my new FFF tale. This one is Cookie Surprise and I used a random noun generator to trigger the idea. The words cookie and road came up and this is a result of putting those together. pic.twitter.com/R2hlaoKo9V
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 15, 2022

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Opening Lines, Dialogue, and Persistence

July 12, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. I use Book Brush for captioning etc. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo of Lady.

Hope you had a good weekend. My part of the world is experiencing a heatwave at the moment. Lady and I don’t really “do” heat so won’t be sorry when it cools down again.

Facebook – General

What do I look for when reading a story by someone else and what can I learn from it for my own writing?

The main thing I look for is how the story made me feel. I then look at why it achieved that. I can then go back over the story (especially if it is a short story or piece of flash fiction) to look at how the author achieved this. It will inevitably be to do with how they portrayed the character.

I sometimes have fun trying to spot the turning point in a character. Sometimes the odd line will prove to be really important to the story later on and I like trying to guess what these might be. Sometimes I guess correctly.

A lot of the time I haven’t so I go back through the piece to see if I can work out whether I should’ve guessed correctly. You can learn a lot from doing things like this, including how to plant your own red herrings when the need arises!

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Wow! What a warm Monday! You’ll be glad to know Lady is fine, drinking plenty, and staying out of direct sunlight. It’s about the only time she is ever remotely sensible, not that I am sorry about this. She got to see her best mate, the Ridgeback, briefly this morning before it really heated up, which cheered both dogs up.

I suspect her buddie, like Lady, has spent the rest of the day curled up somewhere cool, pausing every now and then to get up and have a good drink. It truly is a dog’s life…

I mentioned last week I’d found a title for my “X” feature for this week’s In Fiction series for Chandler’s Ford Today. Drum roll please… it is going to be (E)xcellence in Fiction – now before you all start shouting at me and saying I am cheating here, let me just say one thing.

You’re quite right!
Am I sorry? No!

I did consider other options such as X-Ray Vision and Other Special Gifts In Fiction. Now I could have written a post on that but obviously It would be heavily weighted in favour of sci-fi and fantasy writing so I thought a broader topic more people can get more out of would be the better idea. Link up on Friday.

Writing Tip:

Keep it simple is a good maxim to go by for writing dialogue. I occasionally have a pompous character who won’t use contractions or will use complicated words and everyone else around them is wondering what on earth they’re going on about. Keeping the dialogue simple helps increase pace. Your characters can share information more quickly.

It is especially important in fiction for characters to get to the point – readers want to find out what happens after all. We all know those who “go around the houses” a bit in their speech – that’s fine for people we know. It’s not fine in stories. Readers will switch off. When you need a character like that, use the verbosity every so often. Readers will get the idea this character is like that but at the same time won’t be bored to ears by them either. They know to expect it.

I find the more verbose characters work best for humorous pieces (and ideally the story is on the relatively short side too. You don’t want to run the risk of the joke wearing thin long before the reader gets to The End).

Hope you have had a good Saturday. It was still well into the 20s temperature wise late last night. Thankfully Lady tends to crash out after a busy day and she loved her time down in the West Country yesterday.

The other half and I decided a day out would do us all the world of good and we had a fabulous time. Nice coastal breeze too. (We always carry water for Lady wherever and whenever we go out, including our local park, so she always has plenty to drink. She enjoyed some paddling yesterday – as indeed did I!).

Comments still coming in for Respect, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Many thanks, everyone. It seems people agree with my character’s attitude to nobody disrespecting her cat! See the link in case you missed the story – and beware the cat!

Do you have a particular kind of character you love to write about? I like the feisty underdog type of character. You know, the one most would overlook or dismiss as being unimportant yet who turns out to be the most important of all. I think this love comes from my love of fairytales and my faith too. (See Matthew 23: 12 – For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted).

Many stories revolve around a “turn around” in fortunes and so often with fairytales, the attitude of the main character will often dictate what happens to them. In Beauty and the Beast it was the arrogance of the prince that got him turned into a beast in the first place.

So what can you do with your characters that acts as a “had this coming” moment and can they redeem themselves or be redeemed someone else? Being redeemed I think for me gives a truly happy ending/happy new beginning.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am delighted to say I’ll be giving a flash fiction workshop online in September. Looking forward to doing that. I share news and tips on flash fiction writing via my author newsletter as well, which goes out on the first of the month. If interested, please head to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com where you can sign up.

I used a random noun generator to help me write my latest YouTube story, Crumbs! Link to video below.The words which came up were cookies and road. I love using the random generators as they’re great ways to get prompts for stories you might not otherwise have thought to write. I also like to mix up which ones I use and all of them are helping me to increase my productivity so win-win there.

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It has been a very hot Monday on 11th July 2022, hasn’t cooled down much since. Time to relax a bit. Hope you enjoy Crumbs! which is my latest YouTube video.

How many stories had I written before getting into print for the first time in 2009? I don’t know to be honest. I wasn’t keeping count of all those rejections! However, it would not surprise me if it was a considerable number.

Where I could get feedback, some competitions offered it, I always took it. I learned a great deal from that, as well as from reading writing advice columns in magazines and reputable websites. Listening to/reading author interviews was also enlightening here.

I was, and still am, greatly encouraged by those stories of people taking a long time to get into print and then they do it. I then became one of those people!

So it pays to persist, it pays to read up on your craft, go to writing events etc. The one thing nobody can give you is the determination to do all you can to improve what you do which greatly enhances your chances of publication. (It is a question of chances.

Always be wary of anyone guaranteeing publication – vanity publishers thrive on this – they’re trying to sell you your dream – and boy do they charge!).

This is where the support of writing friends is invaluable and why again going to writing events, and any opportunity where you can get to meet other writers is such a good idea. What is nice now is there are more opportunities out there – online magazines are now a “thing” as is the independent press. Then there’s print on demand, reputable self publishing services, and places to go to for advice (the Society of Authors and the Alliance of Independent Authors).

Good luck!

Don't jump right in without asking first

I first got into print back in 2009 with a re-telling of the Cinderella story in A Helping Hand in Alternative Renditions published by Bridge House Publishing. That was a standard short story but I have re-told fairytales in flash fiction too.

Sometimes I’ve taken a character from a fairytale and shown something of what has happened to them before the “big event” related in the standard fairytale. My Living the Lie is an example of this (Tripping the Flash Fantastic). It looks at the beast in Beauty and the Beast before he goes on to meet her. This kind of story is great fun to do.

And there’s a wide range of fairytales to choose from where you could do this. If you ever wanted to know what happened to a minor character in a story, here’s your chance to do so – you write that story!

Goodreads Author Blog – Opening Lines

When I have small pockets of time I jot down ideas for potential opening lines for future flash fiction/short stories of mine. It is a good use of time and the opening line is so important in hooking a reader in to reading your story and your books.

So it is worth jotting down ideas for me to work on at a later date. And it is opening lines which draw me into reading a book at all. Every writer knows they’ve got to polish these up and get them as good as possible.

It was a truth universally acknowledged – just that section of Jane Austen’s opening to Pride and Prejudice drew me in. Why?

Firstly, I wanted to know what that truth was.

Secondly, the word universally implies agreement but it also opens up the possibility someone somewhere won’t agree (and I wanted to find out if I might be that someone. I can only find out by reading on).

Thirdly, there is already a hint of irony here and in only six words. Now that is quality writing!

There has to be a sense you’ve got to find out what happens next. That’s how I know an opening line will work for me. If the opening line works, it is highly likely the first page, the first chapter will and so on and before I know I’ve read the book!

liked Allison Symes's blog post: Opening Lines https://t.co/eLXKAzCI2A via @goodreads I look at opening lines this week and share why the first six words of a very famous opening line hook me in – and I haven't even got the end of that line! pic.twitter.com/pCyTKvGcyL
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 9, 2022

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Many thanks @Val – my flash collections below. https://t.co/hT53qDDgvE pic.twitter.com/b7KAMqo4LV
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 10, 2022

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It has been a very hot Monday. Time to relax a bit. Hope you enjoy Crumbs! which is my latest YouTube video.https://t.co/xkMhu0loJY
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 11, 2022

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Writing Techniques in Fiction

July 8, 2022July 8, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:- All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots and photo of Lady taken by me, Allison Symes. Had a lovely day out (Friday 8th July) with better half and Lady – I think the photo proves she had a great time. (And yes we always carry plenty of water for her, wherever and whenever we take her out, even locally. The breeze down by the coast was lovely and Lady and I got to do some paddling. Now that’s the kind of Friday I like!).

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share Writing Techniques in Fiction, my new post for Chandler’s Ford Today. I look at show don’t tell, speech tags, and share thoughts about reading your work out loud, researching the market, mixing up your reading and learning not to expect to write a perfect first draft. I also look at the importance of giving yourself enough editing time. You often do need more time than you think.

I’ve found all of these things have helped me improve my own writing techniques, especially learning to give myself plenty of time to edit.

This is why for competitions I tend to take about 10 to 14 days off a deadline and make that new date my deadline instead. It will be at this point I go through my story for the final time and, guess what, that is when I spot the typos etc I missed on my previous edits. It happens, folks! Anyway, I hope you find the post useful.

Writing Techniques in Fiction

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Hope you have had a good day. I can think of one person in the UK today who definitely hasn’t. Moving swiftly on (unlike… you can fill in the gap here!).

Will be sharing my next Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow. I’m looking at Writing Techniques in Fiction where I’ll share thoughts on show don’t tell and speech tags amongst other things. It can only be an overview but it took me a long time to work out what show don’t tell is so I hope this post will prove useful. See above.

I worked out a long time ago that my best writing time is in the evening with no distractions, but where I can I fit in more writing during the late afternoon, I do. I see it as bonus writing. I often use those times to draft extra flash pieces and blog posts as I can do those fairly quickly and I know I’ll find a use for that flash tale or blog post at some point. Little is wasted in writing. Even when I can’t use a flash tale or blog post directly I can usually take something from them to use elsewhere.

Lady has had a fabulous week so far. Today she played with her favourite girlfriends, the Ridgeback, the Labradoodle, and the Hungarian Vizler. All four dogs went home happy and tired. Job done.

Amazon have an offer on both of my paperbacks – From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic. See screenshot. You can find my Amazon Author Central Page at http://author.to/AllisonSymesAuthorCent – all the anthologies where I’ve had work in are included here too. (Looking forward to being able to add The Best of CafeLit 11 and Evergreen, the Bridge House Publishing annual anthology, later on this year).

I like to catch up with my writing magazine over lunch most days and I will sometimes note promising markets and/or competitions from that. I believe this is where I found out about Friday Flash Fiction if memory serves me correctly.

It is worth taking time out to review things like these and see if there are possibilities for you out there. I would be very surprised if there weren’t any. The wide range of online publications helps a writer to build up publication credits too. And don’t forget the indie press markets for collections etc. There are opportunities out there.

Being aware of them and knowing where to look are the two biggest things to know (which is why I always suggest reading writing magazines regularly as it helps you build up your own industry knowledge as well as being entertaining and informative).

I think it is a fab way to do my market research – reading over lunch!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the wonderful comments in already on Respect, my latest tale for Friday Flash Fiction. This story is linked to the YouTube one I shared earlier in the week called Deterrent. Also see below.

I used a random clock generator for both so the times appear in both – but so does the lead character and you are left in no doubt about what she thinks about her cat. Hope you enjoy.

Earlier in the week I shared my YouTube story which involved my using a clock time generator. I wrote another piece using the same generated times which I hope will appear on Friday Flash Fiction tomorrow. Hope to share the link then, if it is on there. It did appear – see above!

Another way to use times is to have one which has a meaning to your character. Maybe a certain time on a certain day is a significant anniversary. You get to decide what that is of course. It may mean something to your character so that triggers a course of action in them with consequences for others. Just what could those be and what does those consequences do to/for the character who triggered it all off in the first place?

Deadlines can involve time as well as dates. Could there be a misunderstanding about a meeting time say? After all there are, for example, two eight o’clocks in one day? Could someone getting the meeting time wrong have hilarious or other consequences? Your call but there are good opportunities to use time effectively in your flash fiction.

Do you write seasonal stories including flash pieces at all? I must admit I do write festive flash but for most of my stories, the time of year doesn’t matter much. However, if I take an opposite view on that, I find it leads to a writing prompt idea.

The biggest difference between winter and summer, for example, is the amount of natural daylight available (and that will vary even more depending on your character’s location). You could use that difference in light availability to make a huge difference to the success or otherwise of your character’s “mission” (especially if it is a criminal one).

My late maternal grandmother never used to liked autumn. She saw it as the season of dying. Ironically, she did indeed die in the autumn herself.

But you could use people’s views on the seasons, and indeed your own, to help round out your characters and encourage empathy for them in your readers. A character may dislike autumn because they’re frightened of spiders and you always see loads in the autumn (well, I do. They keep trying to come into my house!). A story could emerge from them having to overcome their fear because they’re trying to help someone they don’t want to let down and they have to find a way of coping with spiders. Just a thought. Good luck!

Fairytales With Bite – A Magical Shopping List

This is what I think could be on a fairy godmother’s magical shopping list.

One magic wand which does as I ask it to when I want it to do it. I don’t want “connection” issues causing havocs with my spells.
Anything BUT pumpkins. Have had enough pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup etc to last me several lifetimes. Wand went crazy on producing these, hence my first item on this list. I can’t stand the sight of them now.
A clearly legible spell book. I must have misread something or have been drunk to come up with glass slippers. I know I wasn’t drunk when I did that. I wanted to be when I saw what poor Cinders had to put on her feet. Oh those things can’t have been comfortable (though I did get a good deal from the chiropodists on corn plasters etc. Cinders knows where to come when she needs them. She will do). It must have been some dodgy calligraphy that got me here. Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Static objects to convert into transport etc. I still feel guilty about those rats. I still don’t understand why a chair couldn’t have done for that spell. After all you need something to sit on in a coach. It would’ve saved Cinders and I chasing around after those rats for another thing. Trust me, that was not a dignified look for one of my gravitas.
I want something I could legitimately use to take all calories out of chocolate though the big boss says it’s cheating. Says it is interfering with natural processes. And turning a rat into something else wasn’t? I can’t believe the hypocrisy of my world at times. But if I could find something natural to remove the calories she couldn’t stop me then, could she? It is worth a good look around the shops for that. Might even be able to share it with humans. There would be a lot of happy people then though possibly not the Tooth Fairy and dentists. Still one can’t have everything, can one?

This World and Others – Who Owns What?

In your created world, have you got a system for who owns what? Is your world based on a free capitalist like economy or is everything controlled by the government? If the latter, how good a job do they make of this? Is there any room for private enterprise at all? If so, how are things regulated? What would happen to anyone defying those regulations?

What range of facilities, shops etc do your characters have to choose from? Are they happy with what they can buy and where they get it from? Do shops and so on find it easy to keep a good supply range?
There is an old saying about he who pays the piper calls the tune. How does that work out in your stories?

Are the owners of businesses etc in political power themselves or in league with those who are? What happens when things go wrong here? Relationships can break down of course so there would no reason why that couldn’t happen here.

Also could someone from a lowly background go on to do well so they start owning property etc? Do they face resentment or prejudice because of that lowly background and what do they do about it?

Plenty of food for story thoughts there!

Writing Techniques in Fiction https://t.co/v0oRyYN84x I look at show don’t tell, speech tags, learning not to expect to write a perfect first draft, and giving yourself enough editing time. I’ve found these have helped me improve my writing. Hope you find the post useful.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 8, 2022

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Many thanks for the comments on Respect, my FFF tale. This is linked to my YouTube story, Deterrent. I used a random clock generator so the times appear in both. So does the lead character and her thoughts about her cat!https://t.co/2Jl5kkkYpS https://t.co/QiJMOb4ftw pic.twitter.com/cME3fiXcCR
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 8, 2022

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Characters, Conversation, and Chandler’s Ford Today

July 5, 2022Leave a comment

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. Photo below taken by Adrian Symes (though Lady still has work to do on her literary appreciation techniques!). Hope you had a good weekend and an equally good start to the working week. Lady is in good spirits as she has met up with her favourite dog pals this week already.

Facebook – General

For Chandler’s Ford Today this week, I’ll be looking at Writing Techniques in Fiction. Now that could cover several books but I’ll be taking a brief overview at things like show, don’t tell and speech tags amongst other things. It took me a while to get my head around the show, don’t tell one. Writing flash fiction helped me enormously there (and of course still does). Link up on Friday. (I think I’ve found a topic for the letter X but I’ll post on that next week!).

Am looking forward to resuming author interviews on CFT again later in the summer. More details nearer the time.

Will be off on another CFT works outing with my lovely editor, Janet Williams, when we go to see The Chameleon Theatre Group’s latest production Hoovering the Edge, which we’ll be seeing later this month.

Hope you have had a good start to the working week. I wrote two flash pieces over the weekend which have specific times in them. Yes, there is such as thing as a random clock time generator! I’ll be sharing one of these on my Facebook book page (From Light to Dark and Back Again) shortly with the YouTube link. See further down. I hope to share the other one later on in the week. Good fun to do this. And as with all of the generators I use, you can set the parameters that suit you. Will be using this one again at some point.

What is it about a book or short story or piece of flash fiction that grabs you? As you know, for me it is always the character. I have to find out what they’re doing/going to do. What is it about non-fiction that grabs you given you don’t have a character as such? For me it is the narrative voice and a good opening hook. Questions are useful here as you know by the end of the piece some sort of answer has to be given and that is what keeps you reading. You don’t necessarily need to agree with the answer!

I’m a big fan of reading blogs as well as writing them and what I love most is the way you have a “compact” article in 500 words or so. Great way to take in useful information and tips quickly. For my CFT posts, I see these more as articles given I aim for 1000 to 1500 words a time (as any longer than that, it becomes a two or three part series. Beyond this word count it works better as a series and you can hopefully hook readers into wanting to read Part 2 etc).

If you want a great read, why not download the latest issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads? You will find a great range of articles, including my monthly flash fiction column. This time I talk about Flexibility in Flash Fiction.

I discuss why flash is flexible with regard to word count (bar the the upper limit of 1000 of course), genre, and the use of first and third person. I’ve taken advantage of all of those things and created a wide range of stories as a result. You can too.

Best of all, the magazine is free! Time to put your feet up then, have a good read and have a decent beverage to hand I think. (For me that will always be tea!).

And check out the stories which came in as a result of my flash challenge – great tales all of them but don’t just take my word for it. Go on, it really is time for a read!

Screenshot 2022-07-02 at 17-26-39 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine July 2022

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I sometimes write all dialogue flash stories which are fun to do. I love getting my characters to talk so this is a good format for me. I limit these stories to two characters only and I find most of my stories of this kind come in at the 200 words or under mark. The challenge here is to ensure the dialogue does tell a story and keeps the reader hooked. It can’t just be conversation for the sake of it.

The secret here is to have two strong characters with distinctive voices. Getting them to use certain types of words here can be a great way to tell them apart – one can use slang terms, the other doesn’t. One has a posher sounding name than the other (and I repeat names every so often as well).

Give it a go and have fun with it. You will find out quickly if your characters are strong enough to carry a tale of this type. If not then the conversation will fizzle out and there will be no story. If they are strong enough, you’ll have no trouble sharing their story in conversation.

A classic way in is to have one character want something and the other is stopping them but the conflict here still needs to be resolved via the dialogue only. So it would probably pay you to work out how that could be done first, then work out what leads up to it. The classic writing from B to A again which I use for twist and humorous endings too.

It’s Monday once again and time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube. This one, called Deterrent, is based on clock times generated by a random clock time generator. Yes, really. Hope you enjoy it.

Flash fiction is a great format for those humorous pieces which stand alone well (but would not work if used to pad out a longer story. It would either seem like padding or would get “lost” in the overall story). My A Stitch in Time from Tripping the Flash Fantastic is an example of that.

This is another reason to love flash. It gives a vehicle for those tales which might not otherwise be told. For Open Prose Mic Nights, I like to have at least a couple of these funnier pieces in amongst the more serious stories. That in turn shows the range for flash – it can be funny, it can be tragic etc.

Whatever type of flash you write though, you do need to be able to get into your characters’ heads. Otherwise the reader won’t either. And it is the characters that readers want to find out about, whose story they want to read. You are your own first reader.

I like to keep an Ideal Reader in mind when I am going through my stories and to think about how this story would appeal, what would my Ideal Reader be likely to say to me about beefing it up where it is needed and so on. Having your audience in mind from the start has helped me not to go off on unhelpful tangents, which would only get cut out later anyway.

For the funnier tales, I have a fairly broad sense of humour so I try to aim my humorous tales to appeal to that kind of audience, someone like me with that kind of taste.

Many thank for all the comments coming on on The Big Day, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated. This tale came about as a result of my deciding to write a story centred around an anniversary or a birthday. I knew cake had to be involved!

I also mentioned about a week or so ago that birthdays, anniversaries and the like can make a great structure for stories. Something happens at these events. You can also look at how your characters react to them, whether the events go well or not, and so on. Anyway, I took my own advice here!

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Collections

One of the earliest books I had (and still have) are the Reader’s Digest Fairytale collections. These are two huge books full of the classic tales by Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christen Andersen, and so on. You don’t want to drop these books on your foot is what I am saying here!

I spent hours as a kid looking at the wonderful colour illustrations and later reading and re-reading the tales. I loved The Snow Queen. For the first time I came across a girl as the heroine, the one doing the “derring-do”, and I loved that (and still do).

What I deeply appreciate here is the way people collected these old tales so we still have them now. Invaluable. I also appreciate it from the viewpoint that short stories are worth collecting – they so are!

My late mother collected the works of Dickens, I collected the works of Agatha Christie. Both Mum and I used a book club for these. (Mine was via Odhams Publishers but they set up an Agatha Christie collection kind of club and naturally I wanted the lot. Never regretted getting those).

What story collections do you treasure and why?

liked Allison Symes's blog post: Story Collections https://t.co/mF35FrLuI8 via @goodreads I look at story collections, including the collections of classic fairytales I had as a kid and still own, for this week's Goodreads post. Which collections do you treasure and why? pic.twitter.com/hEdE68vKSH
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 2, 2022

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It’s Monday once again and time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube. This one, called Deterrent, is based on clock times generated by a random clock time generator. Yes, really. Hope you enjoy it.https://t.co/QiJMOb4ftw
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 4, 2022

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Verbs and Verbosity in Fiction

July 1, 2022Leave a comment

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 week. I think I may have found my favourite title for a Chandler’s Ford Today post (see above and below!). Strange weather week here – had sun, gales, heavy rain and that was just by Wednesday. Welcome to the British summer!

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share Verbs and Verbosity In Fiction, my latest post for Chandler’s Ford Today. Hope you find it useful.

I look at the crucial role verbs play in any fiction and look at whether verbosity could be useful. Natural instincts would say otherwise. Surely you want to keep to the point, especially if you’re writing to a right word count as is required by flash fiction?

Generally, yes, but there is a place for well thought out verbosity funnily enough. See the post for more. I also share how I specifically use verbs to trigger story ideas.

Verbs and Verbosity in Fiction

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Had a lovely time at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group last night. Good to see everyone.

Writing wise this week, my Chandler’s Ford Today post will be about Verbs and Verbosity in Fiction. (Love it when I get some alliteration into a title!). Link above. Can verbosity be useful in fiction? Yes. Will share more about that in the post. Link up tomorrow. Also out tomorrow will be my author newsletter.

Writing Tip: I blog for various places as you know so I plan out what I’m blogging where and when. It’s a good idea to have a diary – great way to ensure I stay on track as well as helping me with that planning. I also aim to get a blog post up a few days before it is due out (earlier where and when possible) so I have time to go back in and do a final check on it.

For example, I will be carrying out a final check on my CFT post for this week shortly after I post this! Occasionally I pick up an odd error but at least I then have the time to amend it before the blog goes live. Did I pick up anything when doing this? Oh yes. And doing this gives me a final chance to check links etc are working properly.

Allison Symes - Chandlers Ford Today header

29th June – More than Writers
It’s my turn once again on More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. This time I talk about Working Out a Writing Schedule. I look at why I find these useful and why it is so important to build in flexibility.

Life does get in the way at times after all but I’ve found knowing what I’m going to be writing on any one day means I am more productive. I can get straight to my desk and get on with things and I like that.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

My latest story on Friday Flash Fiction is an upbeat one. Hope you enjoy The Big Day. I have every sympathy for my character, Janine, here. See what you think!

30th June
How is it the end of June already?! Time marches on (which makes a great theme for a piece of flash fiction!).

Don’t forget you can use time as a structure for your story (as well as a theme). How? Well, I’ve written the odd diary style story. (That one took me up to the 1000 words limit but that was fine. The story was great fun to do and you can find it in Tripping the Flash Fantastic – Losing Myself).

But you could also set a story which has to happen over a few hours and you put in time progression as the story goes on.

You could also show what happens to a character over a longer time period, which could work well as a series of linked flash stories. I’ve sometimes used Time as a character too.

Am posting earlier than usual today as I’ll be leading the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group on Zoom later on. Always good fun and much learned and shared. Always a joy to talk about flash fiction too!

My more reflective pieces (such as They Don’t Understand from From Light to Dark and Back Again or The Pink Rose from Tripping the Flash Fantastic) are hard stories to do. Why? Because I still have to ensure there is a story in there.

I have to ensure my character voice is strong enough to “carry” the tale so you want to read what they have to say. This is where planning out my character helps enormously because it means I’ve got to know them well enough to know where they are coming from and why they have got a story to tell. That in turn makes it easier to write said story.

Fairytales with Bite – Where Fairytales DO Bite

It has always annoyed me fairytales are considered in some circles as twee little tales for the kiddies. It does tell me one thing immediately though – the person saying that has not read fairytales in ages. They certainly haven’t read the originals which are often violent. Disney has had to water them down for family viewing!

Fairytales are unflinching in showing cruelty up for what it is too and that justice is often on the rough side. Think of The Red Shoes. The wicked stepmother in that has to dance in those shoes until she drops down dead. The Big Bad Wolf is boiled alive in The Three Little Pigs.

Twee – definitely not then.

I do love their robust honesty about what human nature can be like though. Fairytales don’t pull their punches. And that is how it should be.

This World and Others – Society Norms

Following on from Fairytales with Bite, I think fairytale reflected society norms (and can still do so). People were used to the idea of short lives and for their society to be often violent and unjust. Fairytales were a way of showing that justice could be done, even that too was rough at times.

Though, thankfully , we have moved on (at least in general terms – the UK no longer has the death penalty for example) there is still a deep down wish evil should not prevail. Injustice rightly angers us.

So when it comes to your own created world, what are the society norms there? Are people so used to the violence around them they just accept it? How do your characters seek to improve things (and I’m taking it as a given they are seeking to improve things – there’s a great story structure right there)?

What do they have to overcome? Who helps them? Is magic involved? What are the end results? How are society norms changed by what they do? And there should be change.

Story is all about change, conflict and resolution after all, regardless of genre.

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More than Writers: Working Out a Writing Schedule by Allison Symes https://t.co/FgyItZ9wyy I look at why I find a rough writing schedule helpful and the importance of building in flexibility for my turn on More than Writers this month. pic.twitter.com/CtoVlQyhCB
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 29, 2022

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Verbs and Verbosity in Fiction https://t.co/Fkl42MkcO7 Pleased to share Verbs and Verbosity In Fiction, my latest post for Chandler’s Ford Today. Hope you find it useful. I look at the crucial role verbs play in any fiction and look at whether verbosity could be useful.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 1, 2022

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My latest story on Friday Flash Fiction is an upbeat one. Hope you enjoy The Big Day. I have every sympathy for my character, Janine, here. See what you think!https://t.co/ZJzq0niHvr pic.twitter.com/aKnN7V8S0z
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 1, 2022

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Stories, Naming Characters, and Addictive Flash Fiction

June 28, 2022Leave a comment

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 had a good weekend. Nice to have publication news to share this week. Glad to share two links to two of my stories as part of that.

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good Tuesday. Loved a swim earlier on today and Lady got to play with her best buddies, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, and the Hungarian Vizler. Lovely dogs. Girls had a great time. Good day all round here then!

Looking forward to leading the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group tomorrow (so my posts may be up late or early tomorrow depending on what kind of day I have!). I’ve used PowerPoint more in the last twelve months or so (as it is so useful to use on Zoom) than I have in the last twelve years. That really isn’t an exaggeration.

Many thanks for the lovely responses (especially on Twitter) to Jubilee, my latest story on CafeLit. Link below. This tale was one where I knew the name of the character immediately (I don’t always). Here I anted an older lady, who is a little posh but well meaning with it – Dorothy it had to be then!

Publication News – CafeLit
Delighted to be back on CafeLit with my new story, Jubilee. I wrote this as a homework exercise I set for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group which I lead. Dorothy is one of those characters who grow on you – see what you make of her here. Hope you enjoy.

Today would have been my father’s 85th birthday. He is much missed by all the family. What was nice was my late Mum got to see my first story in print and Dad got to see my first book. Don’t think they’d be too impressed with the state of the world right now, especially since both of them were child evacuees.

On a happier note I am glad to say I will have a new story up on CafeLit tomorrow. Am looking forward to sharing the link then. See above!

And I think I may have found what may be my favourite title for a Chandler’s Ford Today post. My blog this week will be called Verbs and Verbosity In Fiction! Link up on Friday. (Wish me luck for when I get to the letter X by the way!).

My author newsletter will also be going out later this week so if you would like to sign up for that, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Screenshot 2022-03-01 at 20-14-12 Allison Symes - March 2022 - Northward Bound

Hope you’ve had a good Saturday. I’ve spent the day mowing the lawn, playing ball with the dog (and while mowing the lawn too – it is quite a sight!), washing, ironing, cooking etc. Now it’s writing time. I am one of those writers who can only relax into writing when I know the major things of the day are behind me.

So could I procrastinate with doing “essential” jobs while putting off doing any writing? Not really. I do have a saving grace here – I loathe housework! There is no way I’m using that as an excuse not to write! If anything the opposite is true in that I get the dreaded chores done as soon as I can to expand my writing time.

And talking of writing, I am glad to say I now have an author bio up on the Friday Flash Fiction site under their Authors section. See the link and screenshot. Also, a big thanks to all for the comments in on my new story here, A Picture Paints A Hundred Words.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It doesn’t take long to become addicted to writing flash fiction. I found after writing my first 100 word piece, I wanted to see if I could do it again (partly to prove to myself it wasn’t a fluke I think). Then I wanted to do another, then another, and then I tried to write to 50 words and then again to 500, and on to the upper limit of 1000 and all kinds of word counts in between. All great fun!

It has been lovely getting back to the drabble for Friday Flash Fiction especially since writing to that length was my way into flash fiction in the first place. There’s a pleasing symmetry to that I think.

So be warned! Flash can prove surprisingly addictive for such a short form of writing. I also wanted to explore (and still do) what kinds of characters would work well in such a tiny tale, whether I could write linked flashes (where the same character turns up in more than one story) and so on. Always plenty to try here and that too is part of the charm of flash fiction.

It’s Monday. It has been hectic (and stormy here in my part of the world). Definitely time for a story I think. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Many Happy Returns.

Interesting thought for a writing prompt here. Anniversaries, birthdays and the like can be sad or happy or a mixture of both, depending on exact circumstances. Is there a special day for a character of yours? What would be the story behind that being a special day? Does your character change their views on a special day and, if so why? Can other characters help them to see things more positively where that might be needed? Hmm…story ideas there I’m sure – good luck!

The challenge of writing to a specific word count (such as my drabbles for Friday Flash Fiction) is also in making sure that I am getting the maximum impact from my story. Every one of those one hundred words has to punch its weight to justify its place in my tale. This is where I admit I love it when the title is not included in the overall word count. I can use that title to give extra nuances and indicate the likely mood of the story without using up my “allowance”.

Ironically my story this week on Friday Flash Fiction is one of my rarer stories with a fairly long title – A Picture Paints a Hundred Words. I used that one because it is a play on the usual phrase (it’s usually a thousand words but I wanted to play on the fact the drabble is only one hundred words long. Because a standard phrase is being subverted a little bit here, that will help make it more memorable. My favourite word counts for titles are usually between one to four words. They’re even easier to remember as a rule.

Goodreads Author Blog – The Good Old Paperback

The good old paperback has long been my favourite book format. Easier to carry around than a hardback (and certainly less damaging if you drop it on your foot!). That love was intensified when my own flash fiction collections came out in good old paperback! Okay, I’m biased but it is a good reason to be biased!

The first paperbacks I remember buying were the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton in the days when you could buy books from your local newsagent. Southern TV had been adapting the books and of course the publishers brought out the books in an edition to match the TV series.

I then bought my own paperback of Pride and Prejudice by the wonderful Jane Austen. Later I went on to the paperbacks of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett and the P.G. Wodehouse books (though I haven’t got all of those. Still it gives me something to aim for!). All a joy to buy and to read and re-read (a sign of a good book is that is it one you can always re-read).

Which paperbacks are your favourites and why? Are there any you regret buying? (Sometimes you can find the answer to that one by looking at the books given to charity shops. Every so often a book is a big hit and then it just drops out of favour and ends up in said charity shops!).

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: The Good Old Paperback https://t.co/Y5tZljsy3x via @goodreads I chat about why I've always loved paperbacks (and always will) in my Goodreads blog this week. As for the image below, I'd drink good tea rather than coffee but the advice is sound! pic.twitter.com/XTvLAj7NkJ
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 25, 2022

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CafeLitMagazine: Jubilee by Allison Symes, cup of tea https://t.co/wjtvfVl0pn Pleased to be back on CafeLit again with a story which started out as a homework exercise I set for an online flash fiction group! Hope you enjoy. pic.twitter.com/G2t6n28vMz
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 27, 2022

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It’s Monday. It has been hectic (and stormy here in my part of the world). Definitely time for a story I think. Hoe you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Many Happy Returns.https://t.co/OldLa7JjWR
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 27, 2022

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Underlining In Fiction

June 24, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots and one photo were taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hope you have had a good week. Mixed bag weather wise (hot, cold, windy etc). Will be having another story on CafeLit next week and am looking forward to sharing that. Working away on further workshop material too.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post on Underlining in Fiction. I look at how writers can stress points without seeming to repeat themselves. Also I look at where repetition, carefully used, can be effective too in underlining an important point. I give an example of underlining that I use when running workshops. (It’s also a good example of show and not tell).

I discuss how characters themselves can do the underlining, whether they are conscious of that or not, and why it matters to pick the right thing to underline.

For example, I want my readers to pick up on my themes from what I show them through what my characters say, do and think. I don’t want to have to spell everything out (for one thing I think that’s boring – I love working things out for myself when I read other writers’ books. I just need the right clues).

The best underlining is subtle. You want your readers to absorb things and work things out and to have fun doing that!

Underlining in Fiction

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Cooler today though Lady, and her lovely gentleman friend, a wonderful Aussie Shepherd, were clearly happy about that as they ran around. It was a joy to watch them.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post (Underlining in Fiction) goes up tomorrow – I don’t know where the time has gone as I rapidly head towards the end of this series. Link up above.

I use a variety of ways to find ideas for my blog posts, as well as my fiction. Often the random generators (especially the theme and question ones) can be used to trigger ideas for a CFT post say.

For example this came up on the random question generator I often use – If you lost all of your possessions but one, what would you want it to be?

I could invent a character here and get them to answer the question (and that would be the story. Nice thing about that is I’ve got a basic structure in place immediately too. Questions always need answering!).

I could answer the question directly and frame a CFT post around it.

You get the idea so why not give the random generators a go if you are looking for non-fiction inspiration.

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Another hot day here though Lady was pleased to see her best buddies, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and a lovely Hungarian Vizler, today. Am looking forward to another swim tomorrow.

I’ll be talking about Underlining In Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today – post up on Friday. See above. Am busy getting my author newsletter ready for July. Do sign up for tips, stories, prompts etc at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com.

Do you find it harder or easier to write much in the hot weather? I must admit I flag a bit but this is where writing short pieces is a bonus as I still feel like I’ve got something useful done and that is enough for me.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday. It’s storytime. It’s time for Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you enjoy my latest – A Picture Paints a Hundred Words. Written in exactly one hundred words of course, barring the title.

Getting into the head of your characters is vital in any fiction but for flash, with the short word count, it is essential to do that from the get-go. This is why I outline what I need to know about a character before I start writing their story up. I need to know what their reactions to any situation would be at once – I can then decide which situation I’m going to throw them in! It is great fun dropping your characters right in it.

I read a wonderful short story ages ago in The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose (compiled and edited by the much missed Frank Muir) where the characters come to life and berate their author. Very funny – and a teensy weensy bit scary for any writer I think!

Knowing your character’s basic attitudes (and why they have them) is a good way in here. Fleshing your character out means you are more likely to write their stories up with conviction because you know your character is definitely capable of this. You’ve already seen how and why they would be like this.

I’m convinced a writer’s belief in their character does come through in the story. Certainly I can sense when a writer has fun with their character precisely because I do the same thing myself with mine.

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I have fun sometimes having titles which are capable of more than one interpretation. For example in my story Serving Up a Treat from From Light to Dark and Back Again, I can take that in a lighthearted way or not, as I see fit. (Not saying which way I did though – do check out the book! Yes, I know I’m bound to say that!).

I also see this as giving my imagination more room in which to work. Proverbs and well known sayings come in handy here. And guess what I just found? Yes that’s right – a random proverb generator! Will take up less room than the old book of proverbs I suppose but this will prove to be another useful tool to use to trigger story ideas. Hope you have fun with it too.

Fairytales with Bite – Character Development

I am partial to character development in any story, regardless of what genre it is or its word count length. Indeed I don’t think you can have a story without it given something has to change and often it is the character that does the changing. Sometimes it is forced on them if they are going to survive. Sometimes they are happy to change. Maybe they have been waiting for the chance to do so and escape something.

In fairytales, I think this is even more important. I don’t think a wave of the magic wand should be the cure to all ills. Where’s the drama in that? Even when the fairy godmother turns up to help out, I still want the main character to have done something to merit that help and to still have problems to sort out after the wand waving!

To avoid the old problem of character cardboard cut-outs, your character does need to have some sort of back story which has a bearing on their story now but which they overcome. That is the kind of development I love to read and write.

So think about how your characters will develop over the course of your story. Where is the moment when they have to change and go on to better things? How do they make themselves face up to what has to change? Great conflict can come from a character’s internal struggle as well as external circumstances.

This World and Others – Formative Experiences

One of my earliest formative experiences is that of my late mum teaching me to read before I went to school. Back in the day, she got told off for that. (These days they’d probably give her a medal). Apparently Mum taught me in the wrong way. Have I felt the lack? Not a bit of it. Am I grateful to Mum for giving me my life-long love of books and stories (and from there the wish to write my own)? Oh yes!

What kind of formative experiences have shaped your characters? What impact are they having on your characters’ lives now for the purpose of your story? I don’t always put such things into my stories but I need to know enough about my characters to be able to envisage what they would do and how they would react in any given situation. Knowing what drives them including formative experiences is so useful here.

Also bear in mind a society’s formative experiences as well. A society which has had to face continual threat of invasion is likely to have a reasonably strong military to try to counter that and/or seek alliances with other threatened worlds. So their attitudes towards diplomatic relations will be different from a strong, isolated kingdom which feels it has no need of anyone else. Their people’s views and attitudes will be coloured by things like that.

It’s Friday. It’s storytime. It’s time for Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you enjoy my latest – A Picture Paints a Hundred Words. Written in exactly one hundred words of course, barring the title.https://t.co/Eh5si2vB6z pic.twitter.com/PN0qVgMa2G
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 24, 2022

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My CFT post on Underlining in Fiction looks at how writers can stress points effectively. I look at how careful repetition can be so useful in underlining a vital point. I discuss how characters can do the underlining, whether conscious of it or not. https://t.co/7IZOoTrHUl pic.twitter.com/KYMXVhXSBn
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 24, 2022

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Flash Flexibility, Writing Workshops, and Supporting Other Writers

June 21, 2022Leave a comment

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. Summery weather at last which Lady and I have loved. I have publication news too so it’s a good start to the week in that department too.

Facebook – General

Lovely day today and Lady is very happy because she got to “boop” her best mate, the lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback. Usually the Ridgeback boops Lady. For dogs, it really is the little things in life that bring them the most joy (oh and dinner of course!).

Delighted to say I can now reveal I will have another story on Cafelit on 27th June. Looking forward to sharing the link on that then. The piece comes from a homework exercise I set for members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group.

Will be off to the theatre again in July with my lovely editor from Chandler’s Ford Today, Janet Williams, Looking forward to seeing the latest production from The Chameleon Theatre Group. Will review in due course. I should’ve finished my In Fiction series for CFT by then – wish me luck finding something suitable for the letters V and X! I hope my years of Scrabble paying might help here!

Hope your Monday has been okay. Busy as ever here though the weather was lovely. Glad to say I’ll have further publication news to share soon so that’s a smashing start to the week.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is about Underlining In Fiction. I’ll be looking at how to stress points to a reader without needless boring repetition and talking about planting the right clues. Link up on Friday.

Amazon currently has offers on the paperback of both From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic. See the link.

Writing Tip Number 3,004 or something like that but one I’ve found incredibly useful: time away from a piece of work is crucial. You do need the distance in terms of time away from it so you can see where it has strengths and, more importantly, where it hasn’t!

With my judge’s hat on, I can spot those stories where an author has clearly given themselves enough time away from their story as they have then edited it effectively too.

The trouble with editing a story immediately is there tends to be two responses to it – this is a work of utter genius, no work needs to be done to this deathless prose, or this is a work which I really shouldn’t have bothered with, everyone will loathe it. Neither are true. The truth is your story will have promise but needs polishing up and sharpening to show bring its potential out.

Many thanks for the comments in on Time Off, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Some smashing feedback, all appreciated.

Going back to my Authors Electric post yesterday on Writing Workshops, I can’t stress enough how important it is to support other writers (something Friday Flash Fiction does very well, as does CafeLit). Nobody produces a perfect bit of work immediately (and is there any such thing anyway? I can look back at my earlier stories and see immediately how they could be bettered but they were where I was at during that time of my writing life).

We all have to start somewhere. We can all improve on what we do. It takes time and practice. There are no shortcuts for anyone.And people remember those who support them. They also remember those who were unsupportive. Which would you rather be known as – a supportive writer or not? I know what camp I want to be in! (That thought is assisted by the old saying make your words sweet as you never know when you’ve got to eat them!).

Screenshot 2022-06-18 at 11-10-59 Writing Workshops by Allison Symes

Screenshot 2022-06-17 at 15-15-41 Time Off by Allison Symes

18th June – Authors Electric
It’s my turn on the Authors Electric blog and this month I’m talking about Writing Workshops. I discuss what I love about these, whether I run them or go to them, and look at how old school pen and paper can come into their own at these things. Hope you enjoy (and I’m looking forward to running another workshop at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August).

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Flash has more flexibility than you might think. Yes, there is the word count issue but I’ve written stories in the first person, the third, as diary extracts, as well as setting my characters backwards and forwards in time. I’ve written fairytales with bite, crime tales, the odd ghost flash piece etc.

What influences all of this are the kinds of story I’ve loved reading over the years and which I continue to love and read. It really has paid off for me to read reasonably well and widely (I don’t think anyone can claim to be perfect here. Why would you want to be anyway? You want there to be other books and genres to discover after all!).

Many thanks for the views on my YouTube tale last week (or should that be tail?) – The Unexpected. But it is Monday once again and time for another video. Hope you like this one – The True Picture. I used a random verb generator which triggered the word picture and here is what I came up with for that prompt.

Sometimes I have an idea for what I think will be a flash piece but the story really does deserve a larger word count. So I simply write that piece for the short story market instead (and my stories tend to come in at 1500 to 2000 words for that). Sometimes what I think could make a good short story really does work better as a shorter, tighter flash piece. And that’s all fine.

It’s why it has paid me to ensure I have a foot in both camps when it comes to short form storytelling. What matters is the story is right for the character (and vice versa) and the story has a proper beginning, middle, and end. The story ends with a proper resolution to the dilemma the story is about and sometimes that will come in at a longer or shorter word count that you might have originally anticipated.

I’m chatting about Writing Workshops for Authors Electric this month (see my author page on this – https://www.facebook.com/allison.symes.50) and one advantage to flash fiction here is these are easy to share when you want to discuss elements of story writing. They don’t take too long. They also demonstrate the points you’re trying to make. (And it’s another way of spreading the word about flash fiction so win-win there!).

I’ve found flash pieces are especially useful for demonstrating the old advice of show, not tell. Precisely because I don’t have the word count room for description, I do have to get my characters to show the readers what matters. And showing a point gets things across more clearly I find. I’ve been on the receiving end of that benefit many a time from workshops I’ve been to and have always appreciated that.

Goodreads Author Blog – Book Covers

For a book to grip me, I have to be gripped by its characters, but the right book cover is what is going to get me to look at the blurb, the opening page, and then go on to buy said book. I want the cover to show me something of the mood/genre of the book, to be attractive, and to intrigue me enough so I do pick the book up in the first place. Not asking much. Hmm…. No wonder book covers are so difficult to get spot on.

My favourite quote on the topic comes from the wonderful P.G. Wodehouse who, in a letter to a friend, said “God may forgive Herbert Jenkins Limited for the cover of……… But I never shall!” Book title deleted here to protect the guilty. I highly recommend the Wodehouse books of letters by the way – there is a wonderful one edited by Frances Donaldson (Yours Plum, the Letters of P.G.Wodehouse which is where I came across this quote) and another which was edited by Sophie Ratcliffe (Wodehouse: A Life in Letters). Both are fascinating reads.

It is some comfort to me as a writer that even the big names didn’t/haven’t always liked the book covers they’ve been “given”. I’ve been fortunate here in that my small indie publisher has ensured I have had some input into my covers which is something I’ve appreciated.

The author ought to have some idea of themes etc that their book cover could draw on though, rightly, the publisher should have the final say given they know what has worked for them already and can drawn on that kind of knowledge one author is simply not going to have.

So then what works for you with book covers? I don’t like over-complicated ones. Indeed my Agatha Christie collection (good old Odhams Publishers) are simply red hardbacks with gold lettering – simple but effective. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has Gandalf striding out in bad weather and again works well (I know immediately this has to be a fantasy quest).

Authors Electric: Writing Workshops by Allison Symes https://t.co/Veez9sZTPB I discuss what I love about workshops, including how old school pen/paper come into their own here. Hope you enjoy (and I’m relishing running a workshop at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August). pic.twitter.com/G9H2Yppf2b
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 18, 2022

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liked Allison Symes’s blog post: Book Covers https://t.co/oRwDco3bAF via @goodreads I discuss what I like/dislike about book covers. I look at how big names haven’t always had book covers they’ve liked. I ask what you like in a book cover. Comments welcome on my Goodreads page. pic.twitter.com/3MQFyTnzca
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 18, 2022

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It is Monday once again and time for another video. Hope you like this one – The True Picture. I used a random verb generator which triggered the word picture and here is what I came up with for that prompt.https://t.co/b3oq0sSYjn
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 20, 2022

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The Rule of Three in Fiction – and Workshop News

June 17, 2022Leave a comment

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.

Very hot in my part of the world right now. Lady keeping cool (and probably doing a better job of it than I am!). Thrilled to have more workshop news to share and I look at the Rule of Three in Chandler’s Ford Today this week. It’s something we come across all the time but just how often are we aware of it and can it stifle creativity?

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

First of two posts on my author page tonight. Am pleased to share The Rule of Three in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today. I look at the links with fairytales, plays, and non-fiction and ask if the rule stifles creativity. It is one of those rules most of us take in all the time without really being aware of it. Hope you enjoy the post. Comments, as ever, are welcome over on the CFT page and many thanks for those which have come in already.

The Rule of Three In Fiction

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17th June – Bonus Post – Workshop News
Quick bonus post tonight to share exciting workshop news. I’m thrilled to say I’ll be running a one-hour workshop at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August. I’ve called this one Editing – Both Sides of the Fence. Really looking forward to this. Link here and see screenshots.

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How to tell when it is really hot outside? Easy. It’s the only time the water in my local swimming pool feels lovely! Lady was a shady lady today – and rightly so. If you’re flagging with the heat as you try to write, you have my deepest sympathies!

Don’t forget my Chandler’s Ford Today post is up tomorrow, followed by an Authors Electric one on Saturday. Yes, I am glad I have a writing diary – it helps a lot! I also issue my author newsletter on the first of the month – to sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

When is the best time for you to write? For me, it is in the evening when most things are behind me for the day (though when I can squeeze in extra writing time during the afternoon, I do). Lady is pretty good and leaves me to it, which is handy!

Lovely day today. Lady got to play with her best buddy, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, today before things became too warm. Both dogs went home tired and happy. The nice thing with Lady is I don’t have to persuade her to drink water – I did have to with my other two – and Lady is sensible about keeping her fluid intake up. I note that as sensible and Lady don’t usually make it into the same sentence, to be honest.

Looking forward to sharing The Rule of Three in Fiction, my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Link up on Friday. Three crops up so often in fiction and not just in that rule either! Link above.

And on Saturday it will be time for my next Authors Electric blog where I’ll be discussing Writing Workshops.

I enjoy the balance of flash fiction and blogging – it is nice to have a foot in both the fiction and non-fiction camps.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday evening (well at least it is in my part of the world!) and it’s time for another story. My latest on Friday Flash Fiction is called Time Off. Is my character Marion being kind or chilling? You decide!

I love flipping things around. For example, in Tripping the Flash Fantastic, I have a story called The Terrified Dragon. Not normally a creature you would expect to get a bad case of the nerves!

But that is the point and this premise also gave me my story structure. I had to show why the dragon is terrified and what could be done about it. A story like that is best kept to the point so it makes a perfect flash piece. You don’t want the novelty of an alternative point of view (and my dragon is definitely in that category!) to wear thin.

And talking of dragons…

I sometimes have fun with perspective in my flash tales. In The Truth from From Light to Dark and Back Again, my character is annoyed by what could be called a “social untruth”. Something everyone knows is untrue is still being taken as gospel and this has got to him. The perspective change here is that my character is not human. Why should the things we find annoying be confined to us? Why shouldn’t other species feel the same way about the same things? Interesting prompt idea there possibly, I think.

What could you do to “flip things around”? Stories show us much about ourselves through the actions and thoughts of our characters. They don’t have to flatter either. What could you do with that for your tales?

Fairytales With Bite – Customer Service in the Magical World

You know how we all have a hard day in the office. Well, it happens in the fictional magical world too. Here are some typical complains received from a much put-upon magical shopkeeper.

Complaints
‘Faulty oil lamp, you say, sir? No genie came out of it, sir? Well, yes, they do have a tendency to do their own thing once they’ve been set free from the lamp. Did not you not read the terms and conditions? No need to take that tone with me, sir. Correct. No refunds, ever.’
‘And what happened when you recited the spell, madam? The shoe was made out of glass, rather than fur? Interesting. Not known that before. I’ve never had a problem with my other wands. I suspect you mispronounced a word, madam. Easily done. No need to take that tone with me, madam. You’re supposed to be a lady too. Correct. No refunds, ever.’
‘Oh it’s you again, madam. No. My policy on refunds has not changed. I don’t want a huge pile of pumpkins outside my front door, thank you. But I do know someone who does. My cousin will take them off you wholesale. Can’t say fairer than that.’
‘Right, young pipsqueak, if your boss tells you he wants the floors washed manually, that’s what you’ll do. I’m not selling someone under age any magical equipment or books. I’ve had that happen before and I got caught out. The wizard was most indignant. I only just avoided being turned into something unpleasant. Off you go. Don’t want your sort here.’
Ends.
Allison Symes – 15th June 2022

Ah! The joys of selling to the public, especially a discerning magical one!

This World and Others – Engineers and Manufacturers

My story above was triggered by the thought that someone somewhere in a magical world has to supply the equipment and, inevitably, maintain/service it. So who are the manufacturers and engineers in your created world? Who does fix the equipment? Who does everyone call when they’ve got a problem?

Where do they get their supplies from (and can those supplies be threatened by outside situations)?

If you have species which can travel across universes/dimensions, which good ideas do they take back with them from, say, Earth? Is there anything we have which they laugh at (and with good reason)? Is there anything in which we’re superior?

And are your fictional engineers/manufacturers respected or are they looked down on? Not everyone appreciates the hard work behind creating and maintaining equipment after all.

What materials does your fictional world have and does it have to trade/steal from other worlds to get what they can’t supply themselves? Is the danger of running out of something crucial propelling them to attack other worlds including ours? And how do engineers work in your fictional world? What kind of technology and/or magic do they have and how good are they at using these things effectively?

What do you find the most difficult thing to write? Dialogue? Description? What I have to watch in my longer stories is indulging in conversational ping-pong! I love getting characters to talk but they must shut up if what they’re saying doesn’t move the story on in some way. pic.twitter.com/wI4vT1ZY7m
— ACW (@ACW1971) June 15, 2022

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Once I’ve edited my story to ensure it all makes sense, I then edit again. I’m looking to check everything in the story really does have to be in it. If there is any doubt, out it comes! I have to be able to answer a definite “yes” to that check. pic.twitter.com/jTi7rT5Mmj
— ACW (@ACW1971) June 16, 2022

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Every writer has flaws. None are entirely the same. Just one more reason to get together with other writers so we can chat over a cuppa to help each other deal with said flaws! It was good to see so many of you at the ACW WOWIG weekend which gave the chance to do exactly that! pic.twitter.com/G7JzO4mjn9
— ACW (@ACW1971) June 17, 2022

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The Rule of Three In Fiction https://t.co/jJOZyVzvv6 I talk about the rule of three this week for my In Fiction series on Chandler's Ford Today. I look at the links with fairytales, plays, and non-fiction and ask if the rule stifles creativity.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 17, 2022

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My latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction is called Time Off. Is my character, Marion, kind or chilly? See what you think here. https://t.co/kNIK7PYgyP pic.twitter.com/EgrMugi2Yo
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 17, 2022

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