Tag: Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group

Quizzing Your Characters and Autumnal Writing

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Was horrified to hear someone chopped down the sycamore known as Robin Hood’s tree (it was featured in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). I love trees and have some in my garden. To chop something down for no reason is madness and heartless. Really can’t believe people at times.
What I do have to believe though is in how I portray my characters and one way I use to get this right is to quiz them. I talk more about this in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. See below.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today/More than Writers

29th September 2023 – Second Post – CFT
Second blog post from me today and I am back on Chandler’s Ford Today with Quizzing Your Characters. I discuss working out what you need to know and give some pointers as to what you could ask your characters to help you picture them well (and write their stories up with more conviction as a result because you do know them well enough).

If you’re writing in forms where you need to invent characters a lot (as you do with flash fiction/short stories), having a way in to creating characters which works is obviously handy. I have found doing this so useful (and a great time saver when it comes to editing later).

Quizzing Your Characters

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29th September 2023 – First Post – More than Writers

It’s double blog Friday from me this week. First up is Autumnal Writing, my post for More Than Writers (the Association of Christian Writers blog spot). I also share an autumnal story in this which I hope you enjoy. I discuss specific images, the use of the old game of word association, and set you a challenge too. Many thanks also to those who have commented on this one already.

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Two blogs coming up from me tomorrow – Quizzing Your Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today and Autumnal Writing for More than Writers. See above. Have put them in the same order as I shared them on Facebook but hope you find both blogs useful.

Had lovely evening at the Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom last night. Good to see everyone and I hope you all get a good deal from the tips and exercises I set around the topics of opening and closing lines.

I’ve come up with a couple of further ideas myself here which I look forward to working up into drafts in due course. I deliberately set ideas for exercises for these meetings but then have a crack at them myself during the group session. I love live writing exercises like that and I get some drafts done! Win-win.

Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler girlfriend today so she has had a good week catching up with her pals. If ever there is a species to make the most of living in the moment, it is dogs!

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Pleased to say I now have an “all in one go” link for Hannah Kate’s Hannah’s Bookshelf show on North Manchester FM last weekend. My story, The Natural Look, is on there. Link via Mixcloud below.

Lady thrilled to be with her best mate, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, this morning. Lovely time had by all.

Will be on the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom later this evening. This particular group works well online given the members of it live several hundreds of miles apart so could never get together in person. The development of Zoom and online meetings like this have been at least one positive thing to come out of the pandemic. (There have to be some positives, right?).

Writing Tip: Read your dialogue out loud and ideally record it and play it back. Ideally, you would do this for the whole story, but if time is short do focus on the dialogue. I have often found what looks good written down doesn’t always read well and hearing your dialogue played back is as close as you will get to a reader’s experience of your writing as they take it in.

Dialogue needs to mimic what we’d do in life but not be an exact copy so we cut out the vast majority of the hesitations, repetitions etc. The latter is real speech but is tiresome to read so you just put in a tiny amount of it – it gives the idea and that is all which is needed here.

 

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, The Old Days. Hope you enjoy it. Find out here what my two characters made of their Silver Jubilee school reunion.
Screenshot 2023-09-29 at 10-11-20 The Old Days by Allison Symes

Next author newsletter coming out on Sunday. How can it be almost October already? As ever I’ll share news, tips, and links to stories of mine so a good all round read I think! To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Looking forward to sharing a cracking author interview for Chandler’s Ford Today again soon. I enjoy getting guest authors on here as I’ve always found I learn a great deal from the hints and tips they share. And, of course, it helps with marketing for them and for me/CFT so win-win there.

What I look for in a good interview is a two-way conversation and I always ask questions that have to lead to an “open” response. So there will be no yes/no answers in this neck of the woods, thank you!

 

Hope you have had a good day. Beginning to get blustery here. So glad writing is generally an indoors job!

Many thanks for the comments coming in on Secrets, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Prior to the one I put up on Friday 29th September! On the plus side you get two stories in one post this time and if you check my MTW post out, a third one there!

This one is timely because I’ve been cake baking myself this afternoon ahead of a family do. I promise I have not done what my character, Mary Wentworth, does here!

Screenshot 2023-09-22 at 10-11-14 Secrets by Allison Symes

Fairytales With Bite – Storytime Acrostic

S = Select your characters – think about why you want to write these into a story.

T = Time spent outlining your characters (working out what YOU need to know about them) will save time and grief and editing later.

O = Outlining doesn’t have to be rigid; I know I need to know my characters so I outline them rather than the story.

R = Regulate the use of magic in your tales – if everything can be resolved with a wave of the wand, where’s the tension and drama?

Y = Your world, your setting, your characters, your rules but be consistent.

T = Time – how does this work in your magical setting and how does it affect your characters? Can they manipulate it, for example?

I = Imagine what you need to know about your setting and how it works before you write your story. You need enough to get started.

M = Managing your characters can be like herding cats so think about who has to be in your story, why, and what their role is.

E = Endings need to deliver on the promise of your opening lines. Dilemmas need to be resolved, questions answered etc.

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This World and Others – Puzzles Acrostic

P = Physics – how would this work in your setting? Physical geography – what would your reader need to know to make sense of the tale?

U = Understanding what characters can and cannot do. There is no story if one character can do everything. Also it’s unbelievable as we all have weaknesses.

Z = Zed time! Is there anything in your story which you find dull or boring? Worth looking out for this. Your readers will react the same.

Z = Zestful writing will keep the reader turning the pages and the best kind comes from having gripping characters readers care about.

L = Limit your descriptions to what readers must know and drip-feed in information as much as possible. Blocks of description are a turn-off.

E = Envisage your characters and then think of the best way of sharing that with your readers. You want readers to “see” your characters in action.

S = Story, story, story – what is the story? Does it deliver on its premise? If someone else had written this story, would you want to read it? Answer there should be yes.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Writing Exercises

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo from a local wildflower meadow.
Hope you have had a good couple of days since we last met here. Newsletter will be out again next week. How can it almost be September already? Not that Lady worries. She’s been having a fabulous times with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals for a lot of this week so it has been a good few days for her.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am pleased to share Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I discuss my nervousness when I was first set them, thinking help, I can’t do this. But I did draft something and later realised that was the idea. Just get something down. You can work on it again later if you wish. I usually do with my writing exercises and some of them have gone on to be published.

I also set a couple of exercises in this post for you to have a go at as well. Hope you have fun with them and find the post useful as I also share why writing exercises are so useful for any writer.

Writing Exercises

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In my Writing Exercises post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week, I will be looking at some of the most popular types I’ve come across. I’ll also have a look at the benefits of practicing writing to these.

Glad to say the writing exercises I set at last night’s Association of Christian Writers Flash Group meeting went well too. And if I get set exercises, as I so often am at things like Swanwick, I am only too glad to give them a go. I get a draft out of it! Sometimes I go on to do more with that draft. Sometimes I don’t but I find it fun just having a go at these things. More in my post tomorrow.

Am so looking forward to the next production from The Chameleon Theatre Group in October. They’re staging Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (adapted by Stephen Briggs). Will be a real treat. Great story. Will be the first time I’ve seen a Discworld play.

What's your story - writing exercises can help you find out

Lady had a lovely time with her two best girlfriends in the park today. Good time had by all.
I’ll be looking at the usefulness of Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week – link up on Friday. See above.

I’ll be setting some writing exercises for the flash fiction group I’ll be leading later today.

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again on 1st September. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Looking forward to sharing further publication news soon too.

Ideas are triggered by writing exercises and the more you do, the more you trigger said ideas

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Am pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Puzzled Out. Hope you enjoy it – this is a story where I knew the ending first. And then worked backwards to get to a logical start. Definitely one for puzzle fans.

Screenshot 2023-08-25 at 10-16-23 Puzzled Out by Allison Symes

Have signed up to take part in Flash NANO again in November. This is where you are given a flash fiction prompt for the thirty days of November and you write them up as flash pieces. Last year, I managed to complete the challenge – that’s thirty new pieces to edit and submit somewhere and/or put towards a new collection. I hope to do the same again this year.

I found it great fun to do. I found it useful to write the prompt each day but found with some I had to “carry over” to another day but that was fine. I had something to work with, which is the whole point, The person behind Flash NANO is Nancy Stolhman. More details below.

 

Hope you have had a good day. As well as mixing up the kinds of flash fiction I write in terms of mood and setting, I also mix up the word count length. My overall favourite is the drabble, the 100-worder, but I am fond of the whole range of flash. My next most common category to write in is the 250 to 500 words bracket. I do write some at 750-1000 words but not nearly so often. I usually find if I’m going for a longer work, I will turn it into a standard short story instead (and it ends up at 1500 or so).

For my blogs, all of them are between 500-1000 words or so. For Chandler’s Ford Today I can and do sometimes go up to 1500/1750 depending on what kind of article I am writing. It isn’t always apt to split an author interview in two, for example.

You do end up getting a feel for what kind of word count works best for which item of writing. Practice helps which is why regular writing comes in handy as you get to develop your style of writing and which word count works best for you for certain pieces of work. At least that has been my experience.

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Fairytales with Bite – Once Upon A Time – Acrostic

O = Original characters in an original setting – your magical world won’t be exactly the same as anyone else’s while it will have elements in common.

N = Never mind how your characters feel – drop them right in it and see how they fare.

C = Create characters we will care about in some way – we all love to boo a “good” villain but need to understand why they are being the way they are.

E = Experience will tell – it is not unreasonable for your main character to have a magical mentor of some sort.

 

U = Undertaking – there will be something special for your character to do here and there will be high stakes.

P = Persistence and perseverance – two qualities every hero will need. (Funnily enough the villain needs them to a certain extent too but naturally they usually don’t have enough of these qualities. There has to be a difference between them and your lead).

O = Once upon a time is a classic way to start a tale but you could mix it up by bringing us straight into the action. We will have to read on to find out what happens.

N = Never leave loose ends – there has to be a resolution.

 

A = Always care about your own characters – you are the first to believe in them. You don’t want to be the last!

 

T = Truthfulness in character portrayal pays off – people will believe in your characters if they feel they are or could be true. Knowledge of human nature and what we’re capable of and why can be useful here.

I = Imagination, Imagination, Imagination – why do we read? To find out what the author has imagined for us to enjoy.

M = Memory can be unreliable. If you’re writing series stories, it would pay you to note somewhere what you need to recall about your characters. It’s too easy to change colour of eyes, say, from one story to the next.

E = Enjoy the writing – creativity is fun. Bear in mind editing can be creative too as you seek to strength your story. But do see the writing and editing as two separate tasks. I find that helps a lot.

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This World and Others – History and How It is Told

So much depends here on what value your world setting puts on history and who controls the narrative. That seems a familiar tale does it not?! But when history is told, how is it done?

Is it just via books or are there plays, reenactments, and so on? I once went to a historical reenactment in Tewkesbury – good fun but what was interesting was you got a real sense of the smells, the sounds etc which you would not have got had you just read a historical account.

So in your setting, who writes the history? Is it performed? Who would do that? Do they have to stick to the official version of the history or can they put their own interpretation on it?

In your setting, are new historical discoveries ever found? Are these welcome? Not all might be! If something were to put a different spin on a genuinely accepted event, people (as well as their government) are not likely to react well to it.

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES
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Publication News – Writers’ Narrative – and Writing to Unwind

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Images for Writers’ Narrative magazine used in the Chandler’s Ford Today post and on my Facebook posts were kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones, Editor in Chief. The Feature Image is based on an image supplied by Wendy too. Many thanks also to Richard Hardie for taking the picture of me at the recent Book Fair.
Hope you had a lovely weekend. Had a family to to celebrate my other half’s significant birthday – good time had by all, despite the weather. Lady loved it all. And it was lovely to be able to share more publication news just before the weekend too.

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Facebook – General

Am thrilled to say the first issue of Writers’ Narrative magazine is now out there. It’s a fabulous read for any writer (and written by writers who understand what people are seeking in this kind of magazine). I talk about Boosting Your Writing with Flash Fiction but there is an astounding range of articles in here. And the magazine has already hit the No. 1 spot in the US on Amazon. It was a real pleasure to receive the magazine in my inbox this morning – and you can receive it this way too. Just see the link.

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Hope you have had a good start to the week. Mondays are always hectic but it is nice to get to that point of the day where I can write for a while. Bliss and I find it invigorating and a great way to unwind at the same time, strange as that may sound. Writing satisfies a need to be creative. This is especially great after a day of doing more mundane things.

Looking forward to catching up with everyone at the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting on Wednesday. I am glad to say several have had pieces on Friday Flash Fiction which is fabulous. Flash fiction writing, I find, comes into its own when I don’t have as much time as I would like to write. I still can get something down!

May be an image of text that says "Learning to go with the flow takes time but you will be happier for doing so."As well as sharing the wonderful news The Best of CafeLit 12 is now out (with my story Jubilee on page 110 – guess who looked!), I get to do some authorial housekeeping. I’ve updated my Amazon Author Central Page – I will give Amazon their due here. I put the request in and literally minutes later the book was up on my page. Can’t fault that.

Updating books on Goodreads is more tricky though – I’ve sent a request in but don’t know when I’ll hear on that. Am less impressed. I’ve never found updating anything on that site easy.

I’ve updated the books page on my website (see link – I’ve got the books page as my home page – I think there is something apt about that. Books always make me think of home and the lovely volumes I have here!).

Oh and I’ve got the book listed with ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society). As a member of the Society of Authors, I get to be part of ALCS for free but it doesn’t cost much to join and your membership fee is taken from your first payment. Just the once too. You pay once and that’s it.

Adding my books on to my ALCS list means I will get something from my contribution to this book in due course from them. It is worth adding on your books (but they can’t do ebooks). Well worth investigating if you’ve got books out (or contributions to print anthologies etc).

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Had a family do today. Great time had by all. Lady loves it when we have guests around. They all make a huge fuss of her and treats are involved too so what’s not to like?

Am so looking forward to sharing next week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post – Welcome to Writers’ Narrative Magazine. I’m talking with Editor in Chief, Wendy H Jones, for this one. Amongst other topics will be how you can subscribe to this free magazine and how to submit articles for consideration.

The first (August) edition is out during next week (25th July, just ahead of my post). See above. Trust me, there is plenty of good reading here. I am privileged to be part of the editorial team here. Naturally I am also contributing articles! If you would like to sign up now, to ensure you don’t miss a single thing, you can do so at the link here.

Writers' Narrative

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Delighted to be talking about how writing flash fiction can boost your writing overall for the first issue of Writers’ Narrative, which came out today.

I will also be focusing on flash fiction for tomorrow’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group on Zoom.

This is a good example of why it is important to love what you write. All writers need to market their work (else how else will people know about it?) so it is vital you enjoy what you do to (a) help you keep going with this and (b) talk about your writing love with conviction. It does show.

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The good old notebook is still useful for Zoom workshop attendees

It’s Monday. It’s been wet, dark at times, more like an autumn day than a summer one, wet, and it is still Monday. Time for another YouTube story from me then. Hope you enjoy my latest called Celebrating though my character Sheila is celebrating alone. Find out why here.

 

Sunday afternoon is flash fiction writing time for me and is something I look forward to immensely. I’m also looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday evening.

My story, Jubilee, in the recently released The Best of CafeLit 12 is a piece of flash work. Yes, it is about the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. So much seems to have happened since then, yes?

Events like this can act as time markers for fiction – most people remember where they were/what they were doing at these things so that can save you a lot of description and gives a setting immediately. (And nobody, who saw it, is going to forget the marvellous sketch with Paddington either!).

CafeLit12 MediumHad a lovely time at the family do held earlier today. We don’t let the weather get in our way! Just as well too given it poured down all day….

The first edition of Writers’ Narrative magazine is out online next week and I’ll be taking about flash fiction in that. See above. Am excited about this as the magazine really is fabulous.

Talking of which, I am thrilled to have a flash fiction piece of mine, Jubilee, out in the recently released The Best of CafeLit 12. Many congratulations to all of the other writers in this lovely collection. Great mix of stories and authors here. Do check it out. Good read guaranteed!

 

Goodreads Author Blog – Publication News and Being Read

Am thrilled to have another story out, Jubilee, in the recently released The Best of CafeLit 12. The buzz of being published never dies! It’s a continuing joy to know your work is being read.

I regularly mix up what I read. I will read novels, non-fiction, fiction across most genres, but I also make sure I include the short form (short stories and flash fiction). Okay, I’m biased because I write short stories and flash fiction, but they are just as every bit a valid an art form as the novel. You cherish all of these things, I think.

The advantage of the short forms of fiction is they are perfect for those without much time to read or who do not have the confidence to read bigger works.

The shorter forms are ways of showing there is something out there for all reading needs. Not everyone wants to read a huge novel, at least to begin with, Maybe they’ll get to that later once they‘ve had confidence in reading built up (and the short forms can help a lot there). Sometimes a story is best told in fewer words and it genuinely works better at 10,000 words, say, rather than standard novel length of about 100,000.

What I love is there is plenty of choice out there and I will always wave the flag for the shorter forms of reading. They can be a great way into reading altogether.

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES
As well as selling my books, I was selling books I've contributed to - those went well too

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Must admit I do not like the new X symbol for Twitter. I liked the bird! Is staying here for the time being at least.

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Books Which Work and Those Which Don’t

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Not bad here. Glad to spread good news about the forthcoming monthly online magazine, Writers’ Narrative. This is written by writers for writers and the first issue will be out soon. More details below. Am very pleased to be part of this. (Images kindly provided for Writers’ Narrative by Wendy H Jones, Editor in Chief).

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Am pleased to be back on Authors Electric once more. This month I talk about Books Which Work and Those Which Don’t. I do love titles which get to the heart of the matter! Hope you enjoy the post.

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Back to the changeable weather today but Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler friend so was very happy with that.

Will be looking at Websites – Why A Writer Needs One for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday. Looking forward to the next Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Group meeting next week too.

The countdown to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick starts about now. Well, at least it does for me! So looking forward to catching up with friends and making new ones and the workshops are always an inspiration.

I’m chatting about Books Which Work and Those That Don’t for Authors Electric – link up tomorrow. See above.

May be a graphic of 1 person and text that says "The writing life is addictive but fun. The support of other writers makes a huge difference."Better day weather wise today though was thankful to avoid most of the rain yesterday. Still our park is looking much better than it had done. The grass is looking like grass as opposed to straw.

Many thanks for the comments coming in on my post yesterday about Writers’ Narrative. Much appreciated. I’ll be sharing a fabulous interview with editor in chief, Wendy H Jones, about the new writing magazine, in a couple of weeks time on Chandler’s Ford Today.

Meantime I’ll be looking at websites and useful material for them for the post coming up on CFT this coming week. Hope you will find both posts useful. More on each nearer the time.

15th July – Val Penny blog tour
So pleased to be part of Val Penny’s book blog tour to link in with the re-release of Hunter’s Blood. The tour is organised by Lynsey Adams but do check the tour out. And good luck, Val.
Screenshot 2023-07-18 at 20-42-30 Reading Between the Lines Online Book PR15th July – second post
Am pleased to share more news about Writers’ Narrative, the forthcoming new online writing magazine. Written by writers for writers. The first issue will be out soon and the best way to ensure you don’t miss an edition is to subscribe to it. Best news of all – this is free – do see the link (and meet the team as well while there). The magazine will be a monthly one and packed full of advice and aspects of the writing world you will not want to miss. Oh and check out the cover on the first one – it’s fabulous.

Writers' Narrative

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the great comments coming in on The Neighbours, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction. This is the only tale I’ve written which is inspired by Shakespeare, Terry Pratchett, and the female characters from long running sitcom, The Last of the Summer Wine. It’s a good mix though! If you missed it, do check out the link.

(Oh and many congratulations to other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group for having work on here this week as well. Always good to see that).

Screenshot 2023-07-14 at 10-10-17 The Neighbours by Allison Symes

It’s Monday. I just about rescued my washing in time from a heavy downpour when the forecast said there would be no rain. (Have always felt the forecast is more like an intelligent bet – and sometimes it does not pay off!). Time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Porridge.

 

I’ve mentioned before that telling details, which includes having a hook-them-in title, are crucial components for flash stories. With no room for much in the way of description, you do have to show only what your readers what they need to know and leave it there. The rest can be implied.

This is where using the senses can come in handy. Rather than get my character to wear a drab coat, I would get them to wear a beige one. It is specific. Beige is considered a drab colour. Job done there.

Sometimes for locations you can use sound to imply where a character has to be. If they’re listening to a wide variety of bird song, they’re unlikely to be in the middle of a big city. Other little details can then flesh this out such as the character relishing the sound of walking through crunchy leaves etc (and that gives you the season too without you having to say so).

Naming a street, say, would imply the character has to be in at least a village.

It pays then to work out what your reader has to know and then work out how you can show that through your character’s actions and thoughts.

May be an image of text that says "What's Next? A good hook will make your reader want to find this one out!"

As promised, more news about Writers’ Narrative. I am one of the team behind the magazine (the editor in chief is Wendy H Jones) and the magazine is packed full of wonderful information and advice no writer is going to want to miss and much more besides. Good news! You can subscribe to the free magazine here. The first issue will be out soon. It is a pleasure and privilege to be working on this. (Oh and naturally I’m talking about flash fiction in the first issue). You can subscribe for free here.

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Goodreads Author Blog – All The Fun of the Book Fair

I was thrilled to take part in a Book Fair local to me last weekend. It was the first one in the venue chosen (and the venue was excellent). It was fantastic to see a wide range of authors covering so many different tastes in books and age ranges too.

Non-fiction (travel journeys) was well represented too. The organisers counted well over 100 people in attendance and there was a constant footfall flow all afternoon. This is highly encouraging. There is hope this event will become an annual one. For obvious reasons, I hope it does too.

But I also saw it as encouraging that people still love books. They want to see what their local authors are coming out with. If you have an event like this coming up near you, do go if you can. You may well be pleasantly surprised at the wealth of reading material on offer. I was – and I was taking part!

Also great to see these events back again. The last one I took part in was before the pandemic – that seems like a world away now – though I have run workshops, gone to conferences etc since. Good to see the book fairs back too now! This was something I was especially pleased about as our bookshops are now several miles away so having the books come to the locality will always be a fantastic idea.

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Twitter Corner (2)
This tweet came as a nice surprise! Thank you. Jacci Gooding! Also have been very busy on the Twitter front this week – that bird has been tweeting a lot from my end!

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Windsor Castle and Cake Glorious Cake

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for taking the image of me reading at the Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night back in 2019. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos from Windsor Castle.
Had a lovely day out with my younger sister over the weekend. It was a trip down Memory Lane in some ways. While we’d not been to the Castle itself before, we have been to Legoland and, prior to that on that site, the old Windsor Safari Park. (That was very much of its time). In both cases we remembered the magnificent views of the Castle from those places. This time, it was nice to see the views FROM the Castle!

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Posting early as have a busy evening ahead. Have another one again tomorrow with the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom. Talking about flash fiction is always fun and it has been great to see people with this group have works published on Friday Flash Fiction etc. The proof of the pudding etc etc. Writing exercises (and I set these regularly) do spur creativity and are worth having a go at for that reason alone. If you can then go on to get the works published, even better.

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Today would’ve been my father’s 86th birthday. He would have heartily approved of my kid sister and I having a trip to Windsor Castle over the weekend. The last time we were in the area at all, we were kids and he was driving. Yes, I am going a long way back. I have a long way TO go back!

Lady had a good time with her two closest pals, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and the Hungarian Vizler. It has been cooler today – nobody in my acquaintance, human or otherwise, has been sorry about that!

Looking forward to welcoming Gail Aldwin back to Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. (Many thanks again to Francesca Tyer for her two part interview – it was great).

Have submitted a short historical piece as an entry for an article competition. So enjoyed writing the piece too. Am pondering whether to have a crack at a flash fiction competition – deadline end August.

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Another hot day (though cooler than yesterday). Lady and I are not sorry about that.
Many thanks for the great comments coming in on Deserved Desserts, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction. The opening line here is an odd one even by my standards but huge fun! Hope you enjoy it if you missed the link on my book Facebook page on Friday (From Light to Dark and Back Again).

Sometimes I will start an idea from a quirky opening line I’ve jotted down (usually during one of my brainstorming sessions). I then work out what I could do with that line and I usually find something. Don’t forget you can use random generators to come up with opening lines (quirky or otherwise). This makes for a good writing challenge. There are competitions which are based on opening lines set by the competition organisers so this is well worth having a go at on a regular basis.

Screenshot 2023-06-23 at 09-56-26 Deserved Desserts by Allison Symes

Had a fabulous day out at Windsor Castle with my kid sister. Lovely time had by us both. So hot though. What is nice is we’ve been able to convert our tickets so we can visit again during the next year during the times the Castle is open to the public. We hope to get to do that. No extra money for this either. Also very impressed with how well organised they are for those with mobility issues.

Looking forward to sharing a fabulous interview with Gail Aldwin whose The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is out soon. Link up on Friday. And then I’ll be sharing more news about the Book Fair I’m going to be part of in July.

I’ve occasionally written a flash piece based on a work of art. Gill James set this as a challenge ages ago and it was fun to do. Will I do it again? At some point, yes. I was impressed with the Van Dycks and other masterpieces I’ve seen today at the Castle so plenty of inspiration to be found there! Am not short of potential material at least…

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I mix up the pieces I use for reading at Open Prose Mic Nights etc – in terms of mood, word count as well as by using different tales. I rehearse reading these (and yes I do often record them on Zoom to play back) but the important thing is to have a good read through (ideally several) as it is too easy to assume you know the material, you can wing it. Err… no.

What I do find the rehearsals do is help calm my nerves because I know I have rehearsed. It helps. The tricky bit is working out how much to drink (non-alcoholic as alcohol can dry the throat aside from any other side effects!) ahead of an event because you don’t want to have a dry throat when reading (it can lead to coughing) nor do you want to be caught short! I find about an hour before hand works well.

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It’s Monday. It has cooled down a bit! Still time for a new story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Cake Glorious Cake. Is on the dark side, probably like the chocolate involved in the cake. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Internal thoughts are a great way to show character attitude (and usual practice is to have these in italics. It distinguishes them from “speech” and flags up the the reader this is a character thinking). I use this a lot as I often want to get across attitude and don’t we all think things we don’t then go on to say? Characters can do the same thing! What the thoughts will do is influence their behaviour and show the reader directly why your character is acting the way they are, both useful things.

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Looking forward to running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom next week. Always good fun and it is an enjoyable challenge for me to find a useful topic to set exercises on. I like setting (and then doing) writing exercises. I’ve had several stories go on to be published which started life this way.

Now I must admit I find the hot humid weather not the easiest of conditions to cope with but it led me to wonder if you could get a character to find the same thing. How would that change their attitudes and behaviour? How would that change the course of your story? And are other characters tolerant of their struggles to cope with the conditions?

Goodreads Author Blog – Classic -v- Contemporary Reading

Now for me there is no debate when it comes to whether you should read classic or contemporary works of fiction and non-fiction. You do both of course. For non-fiction you need to be aware some information is likely to be out of date but there is still inspiration to be had from what people thought at the time of publication. That could even lead to fictional story ideas.

I often mix up my reading so I’ll read a novel, before going on to a story or flash collection and then I’ll move on to some non-fiction but it is a good idea to mix up between classic and contemporary as well. You don’t want to miss out on the classic works and you want to see what is out and about now. I see this as having a good reading diet (which I find helps inspire my writing too).

It’s also encouraging to know great writers have always been inspired by others’ stories. So I should be too! But it is interesting that ideas for stories often come when I’m reading non-fiction. And I can be as taken away by fabulous tale whether it is a classic or contemporary one.

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES
Allison Symes - Flash Fiction Collections

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Blueways, Publication News, and Non-Fiction

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. One image of an unexpected visitor to my garden taken by my other half, Adrian Symes.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Lovely one here though Sunday was a day of mixed emotions as my post below shows. Mind you, it did lead me to think about how we can portray characters with mixed emotions. They shouldn’t be cardboard cut-outs after all. Oh and I discovered what blueways are as I wanted to write a story based on a colour so did so and added to my vocabulary knowledge at the same time. Good result and I hope you enjoy the story further down!

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Am thrilled to announce my story, Desperately Seeking Talent, will be in the new Bridge House Publishing anthology, Gifted, due out later this year. Many congratulations to all who will be in the new book with me. Good to see some familiar names there. It’s nice to “do the double” given I will be in The Best of CafeLit 12 due out again later this year. Great start to the week and it’s only Tuesday! Nice job of the week: returning my contract to the publisher which I plan to do tomorrow!

Also had an unexpected visitor in the garden this evening – a young fallow deer, female. Lady will go potty later on when she goes out just before bedtime, picking up on the scent! But what a lovely creature to see! Thankfully, she did not steal Lady’s football.).

 

Hope you have had a good start to the working week. Gorgeous weather again today and Lady got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback buddy (and show off in front of her Hungarian Vizler pal who Lady treats as “mum” and you always show off to “mum”, right? Well, Lady does anyway).

Many thanks for the kind responses to my post yesterday. Much appreciated. Anniversary dates can be strange things.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group on Zoom on Wednesday night. I love preparing material for these. Keeps me on my toes and it often triggers ideas for stories for me so win-win there. Have also got a story in draft for another competition which I’ll be working on later this week.

Amongst the random generators there are picture and object ones. I need to use these more often because that kind of prompt can make me think laterally. Why is the object important? Who does it belong to? What is their story? It’s easy to stick to the word based random generators – or at least I find that’s the case.

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Funny day today in terms of mixed emotions. Today was the sixth anniversary of Dad leaving us. I was also ordained as an elder at our church this morning (which Dad would have liked to have seen).

Now characters can (and indeed should) have mixed emotions at times. It should be clear to a reader why they feel this way. None of us are cardboard cut-outs after all. Our characters shouldn’t be either but there should be good reasons for them feeling this way.

Think about what would motivate you to feel mixed emotions. This is where drawing on what we know helps our fiction writing no end. It also encourages empathy in the reader for the characters. Without that, they won’t read further. I know I’ve got to care about what happens to the characters to read on so I have to have some empathy for them at least to be able to do that. And for villains, I’ve got to want them to get their comeuppance so I’ve still got to care a bit!

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Hope you have had a good Saturday. I’ll be sharing a local author news post for Chandler’s Ford Today later next week as these are a great way to bring a round up of happenings in one handy post. Also hope to be interviewing authors again soon.

Writing Tip: Look out your old notebooks from when you’ve been to writing events. Most workshops will set exercises. You only get a few minutes at the time to write something down. Why not revisit these and see if there is anything you can do with them? You may well have something that could be turned into a flash fiction story. Worth a go! (And you may even find something which you can work up into something which proves to be a short story, novella, beginning of a novel etc).

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I’m running a flash fiction workshop for the Association of Christian Writers tomorrow night and I’ll be looking at picking the telling details. For flash fiction where you haven’t got the word count room to go in for a lot of description, picking out the right details to get the images across to your readers that you want to put in their heads is a useful skill to develop. It helps with other forms of writing too.

It pays to think about what you want to convey and then figure out how you want to get that across. There are various ways to do that and I’m looking forward to sharing some of them tomorrow night but you can use the senses here as well, which is also a great way of helping to make your characters seem more real to your readers. We can picture characters who use their senses.

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It’s Monday. Hooray, it has been a sunny Monday! Still time for a story though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Blueways.
Blueways is the name for a trail designed for water users such as canoeists. I wanted to write a colour based story this time and came across this term and thought what could I do with this. Here is the result.

 

For the sub-500 word flash fiction tales, I find it useful to focus on one character and the single most important thing to occur to them. That is the story. What is even more interesting is when the character triggers a situation, even though they might not have meant to do that. What is the outcome? How do they resolve it? Can they resolve it? Soon get to 500 words with that!

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Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. Always good fun. I love setting a topic for these. Have been making more use of PowerPoint in the last couple of years than I had in the previous five to ten years!

I sometimes decide on a mood for my story and then work out what characters I could use to show that mood and what situation they would have to be in to trigger that. For competitions, where the theme is nearly always set for you, I work out which characters could best illustrate that theme. If the theme is one of justice, for example, I could have a character seeking to get justice or who has been on the wrong end of it. Either would suit the theme.

I like working out what I need to know before I write the story. Nearly always this is what my character is made from – are they keen to get justice if that is my theme? Why? I need to know what it is about this character that will make their story “worthy” to be written up. I’ve got to understand what drives them. There must be drive there.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Non-Fiction

I have got into non-fiction a lot over the last few years and am glad to have discovered it. Sometimes ideas for stories spark from a non-fiction book so I am glad about this for that reason too!

Reading non-fiction has increased my knowledge of certain time periods which is great in and of itself and I suspect will fuel ideas for further stories later on. I’ve known that happen before. You suddenly find something out and it triggers an idea.

Sometimes it can be finding out what you thought was true might not be or at the very least there is another side to things which is also worthy of exploring in my fiction work. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is a case in point here as it made me think again about Richard III.

I love the way non-fiction has finally shaken off its “worthy but dull” image. Well at least that was the image I had for it. The likes of the Ben Macintyre books on various aspects of World War Two history read like novels. I like that.

Screenshot 2023-05-20 at 19-53-59 Non-Fiction

 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Allison Symes - Flash Fiction Collections
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Feedback, Local Theatre, and Reviews

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Busy week this time with a trip to the theatre and running a flash fiction group online coming up. Both will be fun though.

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Posting early today as have a meeting tonight. Will also post again early for the next few days. It is just one of those weeks but at least the sun came out today and Lady got to play with her friend, a smashing Aussie Shepherd. Both dogs had a fab time.

Writing Tip: Never worry about how much time you’ve got to write. Just get something down. I’ve talked about using pockets of time before but I have to do this a lot and it does pay off. I have had several blogs drafted, stories written etc doing this. It would’ve been too easy to have missed the chance to write those things down, yet alone then go on to do something positive with them.

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Lovely start to the day (and Lady got to show off her running skills to her older pal, the lovely Hungarian Vizler we know) and then by lunchtime it was pelting it down. One thing you can say about the weather in Britain – it is variable!

Have a busy week ahead with my visit to the theatre on Thursday and running the Flash Fiction group on Zoom for the Association of Christian Writers on Wednesday. Both will be great fun. (And I know I’ll get a review out of one of them and I suspect some draft flash fiction out of the other!).

Talking of reviews, remember these don’t have to be long and they are a great way of helping an author, so do bear that in mind. One from a review of Tripping the Flash Fantastic reads “Allison Symes can pack more into 100 words than most people can into 1000. Politicians take note!”

I wonder if I can make use of that given local elections are coming up soon!

Tripping The Flash Fantastic - by night

It’s St. George’s Day today (in England) and the birthday (also probable day of death too) for William Shakespeare. Have enjoyed watching several of his works thanks to National Theatre Live. Must try and get to see more.

Watching stories (stage or film) is another great way of taking in tales. My late mother would have been pleased about this. She tried to get me into the works of the Bard for many years. Would probably wonder why it took me so long! And the basic plots are often the basis for other stories – The Lion King is loosely based on Hamlet. His stories have inspired classical music too (The Love Theme for Romeo and Juliet being just one example).

Am off to local theatre later this week to see Spring Trio by The Chameleon Theatre Group.

Have never been tempted to act though I always admire those who do this well. It always has been the story I’ve been interested in. Doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that, does it?!

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Hope you are having a nice weekend. Off out for a lovely meal out later. Looking forward to that. Nice not having to cook!

I’ll be looking at How-To Guides (writing ones) for next week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post. I have used a few in my time and have found the ones I used (and still use) incredibly helpful. No one writer can know it all and a well written guide or two, developing networks of writer friends, and going to writing events are all invaluable for helping you learn your craft.

I use Scrivener for my writing and find both the inbuilt tutorial and the Scrivener for Dummies book by Gwen Hernandez to be great aids.

Link up for CFT post on Friday as usual.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the great comments coming in on Going Home, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction.

Feedback is much appreciated, especially for the short forms of writing. In the past where I was submitting something for a competition, if there was the opportunity to get feedback, I would take it. Usually there was a small additional fee (it is something towards the judge’s time) but I took the view it was worth it to get “soundings” back on my story. I always found this useful.

Sometimes I would then resubmit the story elsewhere and had it published then, having taken on board comments made. Didn’t always take the advice given – sometimes I had good reasons for disagreeing with it. But that was still useful. It made me work out why. And then there were those times when the commentator flagged up something so useful I wondered why I hadn’t spotted it in the first place! This is the way of these things.

Screenshot 2023-04-21 at 09-47-09 Going Home by Allison Symes

It’s Monday. It has been pouring down in my part of the world. It’s getting dark early due to the weather. It’s still Monday. Definitely time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest YouTube video – The Best. Not me being boastful (honest!) but see if you would do what my character does here faced with what she is facing.

One of the joys of going to things like The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, is getting to explore their wonderful Book Room! I’ve come back with flash collections and other books to enjoy many a time.

Don’t forget if you would like signed copies of either From Light to Dark and Back Again or Tripping the Flash Fantastic, please contact me and I will happily oblige! Payment is via bank transfer. Please contact me via the form on my website –https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/contact/.

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I was chatting about flash fiction and its benefits as part of an ACW meeting this morning. Always good to spread the word about the benefits of flash, no matter what else you write. I know it has brought on my editing skills a lot!

Sunday afternoons is often when I write a lot of flash. Always look forward to that. (I end up doing other bits and pieces on flash during the week whether I’m writing about it for blog posts or preparing for future books etc).

Above all, flash led me to having my own books published so will always love it for that alone!

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Goodreads Author Blog – What I Like about Reviews

All authors would like reviews, ideally good ones of course. What I like about reviews I read is when they give me information and a sense of what a book is about without giving away too much of it. These are the kind of reviews I try to write as well.

Other than buying a writer’s book, giving them an honest review is the second best thing you can do to help the authors in your life. We can share the fact we have had reviews in (which encourages people to take a look at those and hopefully our books too). It gives us a much needed morale boost. Bear in mind we are at our desks alone for a lot of the time. It is also a form of validation and most writers appreciate getting that every now and again.

So if you’ve read books you love, do review them. Reviews don’t have to be long. They don’t take much time to do and they really do help writers. And where better than to spread the word about the usefulness of well thought out reviews than at Goodreads?

Screenshot 2023-04-22 at 17-40-22 What I Like about Reviews

ALLISON SYMES – BOOK BRUSH READER HUB

MOM’S FAVORITE READS LINK – CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE INCLUDING MY FLASH FICTION COLUMN HERE –

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Reviews, Time, and Appearances

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Busy start to the week, the spring flowers continue to come up, but still no sign of proper spring weather yet. Lady continues to enjoy the mud! She has got used to the clock change in the UK quicker than I have!

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Posting a bit earlier tonight (and again tomorrow) as I’ve got a couple of busy evenings coming up (though one of them is for the Flash Fiction Group I lead for the Association of Christian Writers. Always fun, always good writing produced from it. Can’t wait to see the usual members there tomorrow. Zoom is fantastic for this kind of thing).

Writing tip: I know I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating. When time is short, just do what you can. I am in that situation at the moment and will be for a while.

What matters is getting some writing done and I get to my desk relieved and happy to get on with some writing even if, right now, it is not quite as much as I would like to do. There will be time to make up for that later on hopefully.

Ironically this is where I find deadlines especially helpful. They give me something to work to and ensure I focus.

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Hope you’ve had a good start to your week. Not bad here and Lady got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback bestie today so all well there. Still feeling a bit of “jetlag” after losing an hour yesterday. The day after a clock change is always the worst for that!

Pleased to say I’ll be interviewing Gill James about a very special idea in April. A bit more on that nearer the time – am looking forward to sharing this on Chandler’s Ford Today. It is going to make an apt tie in with my Anthologies post which will be up this Friday. There are times you just can’t plan these things. Serendipity can be fabulous!

 

I’ll be discussing Anthologies for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Well, they do say write what you know! I’ll also share some tips on how to make the most of the theme you’re set (as so many anthologies will want you to write to one).

Talking of which, it is great to see some fabulous reviews coming in for The Best of CafeLit 11 on Amazon. The wonderful thing about writing a review for an anthology is you can help many authors in one review (!) so so write one. Doesn’t have to be long either.

Allison Symes: books, biography, latest update

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Hope you have had a good day. It actually felt like spring here today. Just in time for the clocks to go forward in my part of the world tonight.

I’ve often used time in stories. Sometimes I’ve used Time as a character. Sometimes I’ve used time travelling characters. Sometimes I’ve written historical flash fiction where the setting of the story acts like a character (and again is a time frame). But time could be used as a countdown in a story too. That would be a great way of ensuing a good pace. Equally you can have an inciting incident happen at a particular time in a story and the tale takes off from there.

I use time to work out my writing week. Certain days of the week I have more time to write than others so I save my longer pieces of work for those days. I use pockets of time to jot down notes, opening lines, title ideas etc. It all mounts up and helps me to be more productive. Time is to be used!

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Flash fiction can cover any mood and any genre. It’s just the word count you need to watch. But the word count for your flash story has to be appropriate for the tale you are sharing with us. Some of my stories genuinely work out better at 500 words rather than 100 and so I leave them at the upper limit.

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It’s Monday and time for a story. Hope you enjoy Appearances. Be ware who you mock!


One of the toughest writing exercises I’ve tried is writing to a middle line. You’re usually told where exactly in the story, word count wise, it has to be be too. It’s not an exercise I come across often and I suspect that is because everyone finds it tough! But this is where forward planning is the writer’s friend.

What I have found useful here was having a spider diagram with the middle line slap bang in the middle and then work out, firstly, what could lead to that line from the start of the story. I then work out what could lead from it to get to a suitable ending (and I usually work out that ending too). I just jot down possibilities and then go with what I like best but the “two way” planning here has worked well for me in the past.

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Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom. Exercises will be set. I know. I’ll be setting them but I do make it a policy not to do the exercises myself until the night of the meeting. I love taking part in live writing exercises myself. It’s fun, a good discipline, and I get to draft some stories for later polishing and submitting somewhere. Win-win there!

May be a cartoon of text that says "Have fun with writing exercises. They give you new ways to create stories."

Goodreads Author Blog – Reviews

R = Reading is one of the great joys of life, along with writing the stories in the first place!
E = Entertainment between the covers and can be educational too.
V = Varying between light reading, serious reading, humorous reading and all kinds of genres, is it too much to ask for a review?
I = Imagine the author hard at work – a review is of enormous help to them.
E = Easy to write too – often the best reviews are fairly short.
W = Will the review influence others to buy the book – hopefully – authors appreciate their sales!
S = Support your authors – buy the books and review them. Thanks!

Screenshot 2023-03-25 at 20-48-09 Reviews

 

 

ALLISON SYMES – BOOK BRUSH READER HUB

MOM’S FAVORITE READS LINK – CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE INCLUDING MY FLASH FICTION COLUMN HERE –

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Zoom and Writing Formats

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope all is well with you. Hectic week so far (and it’s only Tuesday as I type this!) but this is where getting to my desk to write works wonders. The moment I’m doing something remotely creative I relax – and that is a good thing! Okay the hard work comes in later when I’m editing and polishing and submitting work but the joy of getting a new story or blog post down, even though I know there is work to be done on it, is a great feeling.

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Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom tomorrow. I’m talking about Making the Most of a Zoom Workshop for Chandler’s Ford Today this week – let nobody say my timing is off! I do set homework when I run workshops (nothing to be scared off, honest!) – and yes I do it myself as well after the session I’ve led. Makes me draft some more flash pieces too!

Zoom and Powerpoint work well together

Mondays are always hectic for me (as they are for so many of us!) so it is with relief I get to my desk and get on with some writing. It is the kind of day where there isn’t a moment spare but once at my desk, I can focus on something creative and I find that relaxing.

Looking forward to being interviewed at the end of the week by Hannah Kate for her show on North Manchester FM. More details about broadcast nearer the time. (Due in early March but that will be with us before we know it).

On tiring days, I focus on flash writing and drafting blog posts etc. It’s a good use of the time I’ve got available and makes me feel as if I’ve got something useful done. That helps a lot. When I’ve a longer writing slot, that is when I go for the longer pieces and getting collections together etc.

It’s taken me a while to match writing time available to work I can do but I have found I’m more productive for doing this. It’s also more sustainable. I know I’m always going to have busy Mondays so making the best of what I’ve got here writing wise makes a great deal of sense.

Never beat yourself up on what you can’t do but focus on what you can – it is a more positive approach and will make you feel better too.

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Hope you have had a good day. I’ll be looking at Making the Most of a Zoom Workshop for next Friday’s Chandler’s Ford Today post. It’s timely as I’ll be running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group this week on Zoom on Wednesday! I often use Zoom for family get-togethers too. It has been one of the better things to come out of the pandemic.

Am busily getting my next author newsletter ready. Do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com if you would like to sign for tips, news, useful post links, story links etc. I base my newsletter on the kind of thing I know I would want to receive in my own inbox so hope people find it useful and entertaining. That’s the aim anyway!

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It’s my turn once again on the Authors Electric blog. This time I talk about Writing Formats – Diaries and Letters. I’ve used both formats in my flash fiction writing, though have needed towards the upper limit for that to do this. Hope you enjoy the post. They’re interesting forms to tell stories in and have been used as such for a very long time. Will you give them a go?

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Since getting involved with Zoom workshops, I’ve rediscovered the joy of PowerPoint. Ideal for flash fiction presentations I must say. Short text, on a slide – yes, that works. Funny thing is I hadn’t used it in years. Good to be reacquainted with it though and am putting it to good use. I used to record my stories on good old Audacity to hear how dialogue worked etc. I now tend to use Zoom for that as it helps me with timings as well (useful if I’m submitting a piece for potential broadcast etc).

May be an image of 1 person, phone and text that says "Reading work out loud is a simple way to ind out if dialoque works as well as you thought. If you stumble, a reader will τσσ."

It’s Monday. It has been a hectic Monday. It’s still dark out there! (Well, it is where I am as I write this!). Time for a story then. This one was inspired by three images which came up on three story cubes I threw. Someone kindly gave me a set recently and I thought I’d have a go with these. Will definitely use again. Hope you enjoy Bee Happy.

It was fun writing a flash acrostic for yesterday’s post (see below), I sometimes write stories in this format too. Works well for flash fiction as acrostic stories work best when kept to either one word or two shortish ones. (I’ve occasionally written to three words such as a story of mine called Talk The Talk).

As with letter and diary formats, which I talked about for Chandler’s Ford Today, recently, (and for Authors Electric even more recently!), this kind of writing is fun to do every now and again. They all make for excellent writing exercises too as they challenge you to do something a little different. Wouldn’t want to do them all the time as (a) not always suitable for your characters and (b) you could risk it looking gimmicky. But as an occasional thing, they’re great! Why not give them a go?

May be a cartoon of text that says "I've been known to interview my characters to find out what they are capable of. Another good technique would be to write a diary from their viewpoint. What would they want to write down?"

F = Fun to write, the very short form of fiction has plenty of challenges.
L = Learning to select what a reader has to know is one of these challenges.
A = Another is in learning to select the telling detail or two which will save you a lot of description and word count as a result.
S = Still has to be a proper story with a proper beginning, middle, and ending.
H = Have fun with characters in different genres and across the word counts for flash, just don’t go above 1000 words.

May be an image of sky and text that says "Where will your fiction take your readers? This world or somewhere else?"

Goodreads Author Blog – Libraries Acrostic

L = Love your library – they’re wonderful places to explore books.
I = Imagination stretching happens right here as you explore books you might not buy/read otherwise.
B = Books, great and small; books for all.
R = Reading is encouraged and cheered on here.
A = An amazing range of book types can be found in your library – check them out.
R = Read in and out of your genre if you’re a writer; it’s not a bad idea for non-writers either!
I = Inspect sections of the library new to you and don’t forget the wonderful world of non-fiction.
E = Entertainment and education – all to be found here.
S = Support your local authors if they’re having events in the library, many do.

Screenshot 2023-02-18 at 20-27-21 Libraries Acrostic

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Workshop News and Key Story Ingredients

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Still very cold in my part of the world. One nice thing about running a Zoom workshop (which I will be doing on 25th January) is you get to stay indoors!

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Facebook – General

Another bitterly cold day today but Lady got to show off in front of her Hungarian Vizler friend today so she was happy enough!

Looking forward to running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group on Zoom tomorrow. Those taking part in it live hundreds of miles apart so we never could get together in person but Zoom has made groups like this possible.

I’ve used Zoom to help me get my timings right for stories which have then been broadcast on North Manchester FM. It means I know for sure I am coming in at under the maximum time allowed. And it has been a lifeline for catching up with family as well. So yes I am a big fan of the app here.

I also love in person workshops and it is a good thing, I think, to try and have the best of both worlds.

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Hope you have had a good start to the working week. Still bitterly cold here. Will be talking about Classic Stories for Chandler’s Ford Today later on this week – will share the link on Friday. (And many thanks for all the comments which have come in over my interview with June Webber last week. Much appreciated all round!).

Many thanks also for the fabulous comments coming in on Reasons, my most recent Friday Flash Fiction tale. This is one of my darker tales but I hope you enjoy it.
Screenshot 2023-01-20 at 09-27-41 Reasons by Allison Symes

Had a lovely time at the workshop yesterday. Many thanks, everyone, for making me so welcome.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom on Wednesday and going to see The Chameleon Theatre Group perform Pinocchio on Saturday. It will be a lively week!

Have been busy sorting out some of my writing admin today – need to get in more business cards etc and book orders too. This kind of admin is a joy to do though – I can literally see the end product! And don’t forget if you would like a copy of either or both of my flash fiction collections, you can get them from me by contacting me through the contact form on my website (link below). Naturally there are the usual other online outlets here but I can sign the books for you if you get them directly from me!

Contact

 

Am on my way to run a flash fiction workshop in London. Looking forward to that though today’s trip is a mixture of trains, tubes, and replacement bus services thanks to the landslide at Hook. This is on the main route to London.

I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures of this but the damage done by the landslide is seriously scary with tracks in mid-air etc! Hope and pray this is sorted well and as quickly as possible given the circumstances (shouldn’t be either/or here!).

Was delighted to hear of a book sale of Tripping The Flash Fantastic to a local fellow dog walker yesterday. Always lovely news that!☺

Many thanks for the lovely comments coming in on social media re my interview with June Webber for Chandler’s Ford Today which went live yesterday.

More author interviews to come in due course but June proves it is never too late to write and be published. I find that enormously encouraging.

Update: had a fabulous time at the workshop. Everyone was so welcoming. I hope you all have fun writing up the story ideas generated.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the views coming in on Bigger and Better, my latest tale on YouTube. See below. Also thanks for the great comments in on Reasons, my newest story on Friday Flash Fiction. Link and image further up.

I like to mix up the way I come up with themes for my stories and do this by using different random generators, proverbs, overhead snippets of conversation, themes which will never date (there will always be places for ghost stories, love stories etc), odd things which catch my eye in the news/on social media etc.

I then think of which characters could best serve those themes and look at why they would. Then I start drafting when I know my character, who has this quality, that fault etc., would be the best for this tale. And I relish writing that draft. It should be fun!

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It’s Monday. It’s icy cold. It’s dark. It has been a hectic Monday. Definitely time for a story then. My latest on YouTube is called Bigger and Better – hope you enjoy it.

 

Had a lovely time running a flash fiction workshop in London yesterday. It is always a joy to share the joys of writing flash and why it is useful for all writers, regardless of whether someone makes it their main creative form or not. I discovered the form having been writing short stories for some time. I hadn’t even heard of flash when I first started out but I’ve never regretted this happy writing accidental discovery!

Many thanks for the lovely comments coming in on Friends, my recent Friday Flash Fiction story. The feedback from this site is great. Do check the site out and, in case you missed my tale first go around, do see the link below. Especially pleased to repeat this one as it is an acrostic story, which are always fun to write, and the comments have been wonderful.

Screenshot 2023-01-13 at 09-32-23 Friends by Allison SymesWhen I enter any kind of writing competition, I assume “nothing doing” if there is no notification from the organisers within two months of the closing date.

I then have another look at my story, revise it (sometimes it is just the odd word or two here), and then send it on elsewhere. I have had flash and short stories then go on to be published.

It isn’t a question of major rewrites for the revision process here. I would’ve written and edited the original as good as I could do before entering the competition. But having the gap of a couple of months means I’m looking at the story again with fresh eyes and there nearly always is something I can tweak and make better. So I do!

I do judge competitions sometimes and know a story can be fine but then one comes in which simply takes your breath away and that must be the one to win. And different things trigger that take your breath away moment for different judges.

Moral of this? Never be afraid to revise your stories and send them out elsewhere.

Goodreads Author Blog – Key Story Ingredients

All successful stories, for me, have to contain key ingredients. Doesn’t matter if these are flash fiction, short stories, novellas, or novels, I think they all need to have the following ingredients in them.

1. Characters you care about and want to root for. Sometimes it can be rooting for a villain to fail.

2. Twists and turns so you have to keep reading to find out what happens.

3. A feeling of having had a fantastic reading experience when you finish the story. Points 1 and 2 are crucial here.

4. For a novel/novella series, there needs to be continual character development so you can see how they change and grow over the series. You can do likewise on a smaller scale for linked flash/short stories.

5. Understanding of the dilemmas the characters face and enjoying finding out how they deal with these.

What would be key ingredients for you?

Screenshot 2023-01-21 at 21-25-05 Key Story Ingredients

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