Tag: believable characters

Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch for Seeing The Other Side

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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.
Many thanks to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, Gemma Owen-Kendall, Liz Pacey and Babs Trevitt for images from Swanwick which feature in my Chandler’s Ford Post this week.
Hope you’ve had a good week. I’ve spent some of it thinking back to what I was doing at Swanwick the previous week! Been lovely to get out and about with the dog and to go swimmimg again. Also, hooray, we’ve had some rain here and it is a lot cooler.
Next big event for me will be the book signing for Seeing The Other Side in Salisbury on 5th September and not long after that there will be a blog tour for the book. All good!

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Now this was a post I’ve been looking forward to sharing. My post on Chandler’s Ford Today this week is Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch for Seeing The Other Side.

I celebrate both events in this post and I share a mini diary of what courses I went to on which day. That alone will show the wide variety of topics on offer and there were many more I could easily have chosen.

Plus I celebrate the thought of catching up with writing friends, which is the focus for many a Swanwicker when we get back to The Hayes again.

I look at the launch, the benefits of it being held at the school, and how taking part in Open Prose Mic Nights can help with book sales too, as well as being great fun to take part in and listen to.

Hope you enjoy the post.

Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch for Seeing The Other Side

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Hope today has gone well. Was on the final leg of my journey home from Swanwick this time last week. (Thursday 13th August – one of the hottest days ever for travelling!).

Delighted to say Seeing The Other Side is now available through Waterstones. Just spotted it on there. Am also looking forward to my signing event at Salisbury URC on Saturday 5th September.

Writing wise, I’m also busy with editing work, as well as the writing. I may well try to draft something for a competition over the weekend. It’s time I put my hat in the ring for one of those again.

Writing Tip: Schedule as much as you can, it takes the pressure off. I use quieter periods during the week to draft future articles etc and, once done, get them scheduled. I put a note in my diary a week or so before it is due to go out to just run though the posts again. There are always little things to pick up and correct.

For fiction, use the quieter times to draft flash and short stories. The time away from them will help you see them again with fresh eyes and again should help you pick up errors. While you can’t schedule stories as such, you can do a lot of prep work which then frees up time for a thorough edit (rather than a rushed one) later.

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Hope your day has gone well. Not bad here. Gentle swim earlier.

Will be sharing Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch for Seeing The Other Side on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Looking forward to sharing that as it is a celebratory post for both sides of that equation! See above.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. It was good there was a contingent from ACW at Swanwick.

Don’t forget it won’t be that long before my next author newsletter is out. Writing one of these is a sure fire way of spotting how quickly the year passes! To sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I share tips, news, story links and more here.

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Having a quiet end to the week, which is proving soothing. Mind you, not that I allow my characters to have a soothing time of it, far from it. As well as loving creating characters, I do enjoy dropping them right in the mire and then finding out what they do to get out of it again. The best characters will find a way out.

Having said that, I don’t drop my characters in it for the sake of it. The situation they face is something well within the bounds of likelihood given who they are, where they are and so on. Everything should seem as if it could be true even if it is set in a galaxy or other world far far away etc.

It is the characters who have to be believable in terms of their attitudes, behaviours and their reactions.

Such fun to create, mind you!

Pleasant day and a quiet one. Was an idiot earlier in the week and had a fall. All okay but am feeling somewhat (a) bruised and (b) sorry for myself so am focusing on writing. It takes the mind off other matters. Writing is useful like that at times. It’s also nice not to have to go anywhere but I do wish there’d been a better reason behind it! I hope to resume things like swimming next week.

Plodding on (literally in my case!), am pleased to be resuming my normal writing routine. Sometimes after a break it can be hard to get back to normal again, but not this time. It’s like putting on the perfect pair of gloves – am straight back into what I’d usually do again. And a break can be useful to help recharge the batteries, inspire you (as was the case for me with Swanwick) and more. All of that can be used to help your writing for the longer term.

It helps a lot to think about your writing in the longer term. I’ve found it easier to cope with rejections by taking the longer term view, for one thing, because I know now something which is rejected today may, with work, be accepted by someone else later. That has happened to me a fair bit. It helps to know often rejections aren’t due to what’s wrong with your work but because the market has recently accepted something similar or they’ve gone off a certain theme for a while.

Mind you, after a break, it still pays you to look at the piece again. What can be done to improve it? What alternative markets could there be?

Good luck!

I have various ways into starting a piece of flash fiction. Sometimes I know the character first and therefore the kind of situation which would suit them best. Sometimes I know the theme and then work out what kind of character would best suit it.

Sometimes, of course, I’m giving a topic to write to so I list what could come from that and then go with the one which makes me really want to write the tale up. I use prompts of all kinds.

My focus though is on the character. For me they make or break a story. If I’m gripped by them, I’ll read on no matter who or what they are, where they are based, how many claws they have etc.

Creating characters has always been a great love of mine and in short form fiction, you get to do this a lot. Match made in heaven I’d say.

Fairytales With Bite – A Fairytale Event

What would characters in your magical setting consider to be a fairytale event? What would the fairies themselves consider to be worthy of note, given the magical business is their daily bread and butter, so to speak?

What one character would consider to be a fairytale event would be thought of in opposite terms for another character. So why the opposing views and which one would be right given they can’t both be?

Now I’ve just returned from what I consider to be a fairytale event, The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick which was made even more special this year given I had the launch there for my third flash fiction collection, Seeing The Other Side. These moments stand out in a writing life because you know they happen every so often. They cannot by their nature be everyday things.

So what would be magical moments for your characters and why do they feel this way? Was it something they’ve had to work for or has someone else helped them? (In my case it was both. I wrote the book obviously but the school organising launches was a real blessing for me and the other eleven authors who had launches there this year).

How often could these magical moments happen for your characters or are they always one-offs? Also, is there someone who wants to crash the party here? There’s always a jealous one somewhere in the fairytales. Good source for story ideas though.

This World and Others – Events in the Magical Realms

What events would your magical realm hold? Are they similar to events held elsewhere – on magical worlds or not – or are the events you share in your setting unique to that setting? What do your characters make of the events? Is it compulsory for all to go to these things and, if so, how is that enforced, given there is bound to be a rebel or two somewhere?

Are there historical connections to the events your world holds? We have things like Remembrance Sunday. What would your world want to commemorate? What would it definitely want to forget?

Would your characters take part in your world’s equivalent of re-enactments? The best ones of those are spectacularly good and do bring history home to people so what would your world do to ensure the “right message” got through here.

And when the events are over, and folk are returning to their normal life, do they ever consider what the events meant to them or are they just glad the whole thing is over?

Not everybody likes a show and there are story ideas there too.

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Deadlines

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days since the last post Lady and I have ducked the rain, got caught by the rain, but the temperature is so much better for said rain. Trees and plants are looking happier too. Writing going well too.

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I’m delighted to share Deadlines on Chandler’s Ford Today. I work to deadlines all the time for CFT, Writers’ Narrative, Authors Electric, More Than Writers, and for various story competitions.

I find deadlines useful but know not every writer sings to that tune so I thought a post sharing tips about how to make these things more manageable (and therefore endurable!) would be useful. I also use some old school ways to help me manage my own deadlines. Find out more in the post.

Hope you find the post handy.

Deadlines

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Hope today has gone well. Some amazingly heavy showers today but Lady and I have managed to duck those, thankfully.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Deadlines on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow and share some handy tips as to manage these things. Most writers have to face them at some point and many of us all of the time at that! Hope you will find the post useful. See above.

Have booked my train tickets for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick today. (You can get good discounts booking a reasonable way in advance and even more of one if you have a railcard. I am now the proud owner of a Senior Railcard and am putting this to good use already!). So looking forward to being back at The Hayes in August.

Character Tip: What drives a character to do something is so important. It is what makes a story believable, I think, even if your character is some fantastic creature from the back of beyond. So understanding motivations, for me, is a key part of character creation and yet another reason why I focus on character over plot. I fervently believe characters set the plot anyway.

Lady and I did get a soaking this morning though that was still easier to cope with than the super high temperatures of last week. There really is a silver lining regarding those clouds!

Looking forward to going to an online ACW group tonight. Plus I plan to get on with various pieces of writing though it will be mainly non-fiction this evening. Having said that it is a joy to write non-fiction as well as fiction as it means I always have something “on the go” and often ideas from non-fiction can spark thoughts for potential stories. It does tend to happen that way around too.

I hope my recent revisit to The Dorset Museum will spark a future Chandler’s Ford Today post. It has already inspired my recent Goodreads one. Ironic as it may sound, getting away from the desk for a while may well trigger ideas to put to good use when you get back to said desk again.

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Hope you have had a good end to the working week. Weather has been a bit of a mixed bag but it didn’t stop Lady and I getting out and about. Writing wise, I hope to look at some stories for potential competitions over the weekend plus I have various blogs to get on with and am getting ready for when Seeing The Other Side comes out. No chance of being bored here but I like that. I have a very low boredom threshold!

Flash is a great format for developing your characterisation skills. Given it has to be led by characters (as there is no room for lots of description), you do have to focus on what matters about the characters you have as the stars of your tales.

What does the reader need to know about them? Why should they care about what happens to them? Both of these questions should be answered for any length of fiction but it is especially crucial for the shorter story forms.

Hope to pick out a story to review for a possible competition at the weekend. It’s often the best time for me to go through my “stock” and it is nice to come across those tales I wrote a while back but which I have not yet placed. It means I have had the necessary time break away to judge them objectively enough.

It is also a fun thing to do to revisit these because you can see what works and from there figure out how to fix what doesn’t. This is the ongoing challenge of story writing. It’s great for the brain!

Flash Fiction Tip: Let’s say you have a character and storyline you like. Why not try writing this up to, say, 100 words, then 300, then 500 and see which works the best? The longer ones will have a bit more depth to them and that may be exactly what you want for a competition you’ve got in mind. Good luck!

Some of my non-fiction posts can come into the realm of flash non-fiction when they come in at 500 words or fewer. I must admit I still tend to think of them as blogs though!

But a thought to try on this front is to pick a topic you like and see if you can write a flash non-fiction piece to it to 500 words exactly. It’s a good challenge and, if nothing else, this can give you interesting material to share on your website.

Thoughts for topics could include ideas which would work just as well for a story theme. For example:-

Justice;

Favourite historical character (whom you can then put in a story or have someone who would have known them put in a story);

Inventions which changed the world (and you can invent some for stories with a fantasy setting).

Best Day Out Ever (and then write a story around a character who has their best ever day out).

There are many more topics, of course, but I like the thought of flash non-fiction feeding into flash fiction like this. It’s useful! I like the idea of having one idea and getting more than one piece from it.

Fairytales With Bite – Magical Stores

Where do your magical characters get their supplies from? I must admit I love the idea of Diagon Alley in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. The films especially confirmed my thought the place may well look as it it came straight from the times of Dickens! But it also confirmed magical characters need supplies – potion ingredients, wands, other equipment and so on.

So as well as thinking about where they’d go to get these things, flip it and look at who manufactures these things. How did they discover the art? How did they become expert at producing certain things? Is there a “government standard” they have to adhere to and, if not, why not? (Magic is dangerous enough without dodgy equipment!).

How do your “magical storekeepers” protect their premises against those who would steal their wares? What can be done to stop those on the dark side corrupting products so they’re used for things not originally intended?

Story ideas there for sure!

This World and Others – Provisions

How do your magical characters provide for themselves? Is magic allowed to be used for, say, the growing of food, or would that be the equivalent of “artificial farming” which most of us would reject? If they can’t create their own things like this, where would they get food, clothes etc?

If anyone is allowed to produce these things magically do they have the equivalent of a government licence to do so?

For centuries in the UK, the monarch would grant monopolies on various things to those they favoured and those folk would make money from that. For example, Queen Elizabeth Tudor gave monopolies to print and publish music for twenty-one years to Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. That guaranteed them income.

If your setting cannot produce everything it needs, where would it get the “missing items”? Who would it import from and is there anything it could export back?

Provisions have to come from somewhere and there will be people who make things happen here. There could be some great stories here.

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Writing Wishes

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Gorgeous spring weather here. Lady and I are making the most of it. Writing and editing going well too. Not short of things to do right now!

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Am delighted to share Writing Wishes on Chandler’s Ford Today this week.

As I take a brief look at AI and the Human Authored campaign, I also look at other writing wishes, many of which are achievable! Others need working at but that is true for us all, if it is any comfort. Still others are “no-brainers” such as writers always wanting lots of nice stationery. Well, there is always room for one more notebook and pen set, isn’t there?

I also share two useful links for those seeking writing advice (and we all need that).

Hope you enjoy the post.

Writing Wishes

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal today. Lovely time in the park.

Today it is St. George’s Day and also Shakespeare’s birth/death days. I can only think of one other who died on their birthday, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s queen.

It took me ages to “get” Shakespeare at all, though like many of us I’ve used phrases I hadn’t known he invented. It took the pandemic and watching National Theatre Live, along with going to some of those productions in a local school after we were allowed out again, which changed my opinion. I do remain convinced though Shakespeare, generally, is best watched than read (with the exception of the sonnets, obviously). I saw Hamlet via NTL, both the Benedict Cumberbatch and David Tennant ones. Loved them. My late mother loved him and I’m sure she’d be pleased I’ve finally “got” Shakespeare.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Writing Wishes on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow (see above) and am ploughing on with the editing. Nice to do this with the windows open though and letting some sunshine in. It’s been months since I was last able to do that!

It has been another lovely spring day today, which Lady and I appreciated. The park was quiet and lovely. Talking of which, how about this for a prompt?

Prompt Thought: Quietness can seem wonderful or threatening, depending on circumstance and character mood. It can also seem oppressive, leading to the threatening feeling. Why not write two stories based on quietness being a wonderful thing for your character and then another tale where it is anything but that? You could also keep the word count for the two stories the same. Am sure you could get two interesting and contrasting stories here and, yes, you could use the same character but in different situations.

Happy drafting! (May well do this one myself at some point. As ever, watch this space).

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Hope the day has been a good one. Lovely weather again and Lady so enjoyed seeing her Hungarian Vizler pal. Later, she met a lovely cockapoo called Roscoe. Lady has had a good day on “the socials”. She is easily the most sociable pet we’ve had (and yes she loves it when we hold parties here so you could call her a party animal too).

Flash fiction wise, I am happily going through my third book and hope to have that done in the next few days. Then it’s back to the publisher. Exciting times.

Plus this weekend I want to dig out an old story of mine and have a look at it for a future competition. I always keep a supply of stories in stock, so to speak, for this purpose. It pays. If a theme is set, I often have a story already written in draft and I can then examine it to see if it could be submitted. Often it can be with some more work done to it, which is fine. I’ve never had a problem with editing!

I suspect by now there is a National Day of Something for every day of the year. As well as it being St. George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birth/death days, it appears it is also National Picnic Day (has anyone told the wasps?), World Book and Copyright Day (am naturally all for that), and Allergy Awareness Week. I should imagine though if you have any allergies (I do – asthma and hayfever), you are aware of that all year!

Having said that, there’s nothing to stop you weaving ideas from these days into your flash fiction stories.

For example, a character with an allergy – how does it get in their way? What do they do to overcome it as much as possible?

A character wants to set up a picnic and makes a right mess of it – could be potential for humour here. Do they give up on the idea or are they able to salvage something from the mess? Does anyone else help here?

So story ideas are there, including for flash. It’s a question, I think, of keeping an open mind to possibilities. I like to see these National Days as potential prompt ideas because you can take them that way.

I like to mix up the mood of my flash (and short) stories because I think this reflects life. Much as I’d love to find things funny all of the time, that isn’t possible. There is the darker side of life and I think it is honest to have stories which reflect both sides of life here. Certainly I believe having a mixture of the two types in a collection makes the stories, and the characters, more believable.

I do like to keep a balance in my collections though and this will also apply to Seeing The Other Side in due course.

There are times when I just know from my character outline what mood the story is likely to take. If, for example, I have a character dealing with a sad situation, there will be elements within the story which will show the character being influenced by that. I would then hope to write them going on to rise about things as much as is possible (and probably with help) but I can’t have them immune to what is going on around them. Else they would be a cardboard cut out character.

Characters make or break a story for me and even the most fantastical of creatures still has to be believable in some way. Motivation is key here. I might not understand what a great big dragon’s life is like,not having had experience of being a great big dragon (!), but I can imagine why they may want to terrorise a village. If they’re hungry, say, where would they go to look for food? Something has to drive them and basic needs can be a great way into working out what a character’s motivation would be.

Fairytales With Bite – Journeys

I like journeys. Journeys have purpose. (Okay I loathe traffic jams, cancellations on the trains etc but journeys themselves are generally fine). They are also great things to write stories around. For a magical setting, you’ve got more range as to what kind of transport your characters have to use. The sky could indeed be the limit here!

Journeys can also be enlightening. Why does your character have to go on one? What does it achieve for them? When using magic, how does that help or hinder them? Are there disadvantages to magical transport? How could it compare with what we have here? I’m thinking along the lines of energy usage here. Could your magical setting have issues with “clean” and “unclean” magical energy usage? Journeys would be likely to use up a lot of this.

What does your character think about having to go on a journey, especially if it is not something they would usually do and/or it is to somewhere they would far rather not go? Be fair, would you go to Mordor if you didn’t have to?!

This World and Others – Taking The Long Way

I remember as a kid my Dad taking the family out for day trips and, especially if we weren’t in a hurry, we’d take the long way around to get home after a great day out. It was all part of the trip and we enjoyed it. Would your characters ever choose to do that? Where would they choose to go and why? What would be their long way home?

Where characters have to take the long way out of necessity, what is behind that? How do they manage it? What help do they have along their way? Frodo from The Lord of the Rings needed others to help him. He’d have never have made it to Mordor on his own.

What kind of roads would your setting have? Is the thought of any kind of journey, long or short, something your characters might dread because of the state of the roads and/or transport networks? Would have every sympathy there!

If a character has a choice of a short or long way to achieve their objective, what would make them choose the longer, more complicated way? I would expect there to be good reasons behind that. For example, the short route could have hazards the longer one doesn’t. The longer route is safer but just longer.

Whatever journey your character is going on, what would they face along the way?

Story ideas there!

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Thoughts on Editing

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Hope you have had a good week so far. Mixed bag weather wise but the train is welcome (grass has been looking sorry for itself). Writing wise, lots going on and I hope to share some very exciting news on this soon.

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Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with my latest post, Thoughts on Editing. Naturally I am biased on this topic given I am an editor but I share useful thoughts and tips on editing anything (yes, really). Hope you find the post informative and practical.

Am off to The Chameleons Open Evening tomorrow (7th June) as they are holding this to celebrate their 60th anniversary this year. Congratulations to them all. They put on some wonderful plays so if you have a chance to get to one or more, do go.

The Open Evening is on from 6 pm to 9 pm and will be at the Ritchie Hall in Chandler’s Ford. All welcome to go and find out more about what it takes to put on a performance. Volunteers always wanted for roles on and off the stage. 

Thoughts on Editing

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Hope today has been okay. Another soggy one but Lady got to play in front of her Hungarian Vizler chum again so all is well with their worlds! Not sorry about the rain. Grass needs it. Relieved it’s not coming down as a torrential downpour which just floods everywhere. Rain coming down at a steady rate means the ground is more likely to make better use of it. Also Lady and I get damp rather than soaked so there is that as well!

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing Thoughts on Editing for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above.

Will be off to visit The Chameleons as they hold their Open Evening to celebrate their 60th anniversary on Saturday evening. Hope to catch up with my lovely editor at Chandler’s Ford Today there as well.

Character Tip: What draws you (or repels you) to the character you’re writing about? There has to be a strong reason why you want to write their story up whether they’re going to be the hero of the villain. This all ties in with character motivation of course but I do think this is a huge driver for any story to be a success, regardless of its length.

Hope today has been a good Wednesday for you. Lady showed off in front of her Hungarian Vizler pal again today. The latter looks on Lady playing, almost as if she was being an indulgent granny watching her favourite grandchild! Lady just has a fabulous time (but I am sure she is aware she is showing off!).

Writing wise, am looking forward to going to an online sci-fi and fantasy group (run by the Association of Christian Writers) later this evening. Always good fun. Am making good progress on a longer short story too. Group was great fun. Longer short story on the back burner for the moment. Things have cropped up but I hope to share news of this soon.

I’ll be sharing Thoughts on Editing for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday – it is always a timely topic especially given I am editing away at the moment and loving it. See above.

 

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Delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble (100 worder), Starting Over. Find out what role the “umbrella from hell” has to play in Mary’s life here.

I mentioned yesterday about using flash to play with genre (see below) but inevitably my favourite genres come through in my flash fiction stories.

For me, these are what I call fairytales with bite (humorous fantasy, sometimes grimmer fantasy!), historical fiction, crime and many more but I would say these are my main three.

There is often a strong element of justice being done in many of my stories too which crosses the genres but I know for me is inspired by my love of the classic fairytales. The rotters rarely get away with it in those tales. You know the comeuppance is coming. The great thing with flash tales is that comeuppance comes very quickly, sometimes in only 100 words!

One of the things I enjoy most about writing flash fiction is the opportunity it gives me to play with character and, therefore, genre. I can and do set my characters, some of whom are definitely not human, in all kinds of settings and back and forwards in time as well.

What I focus on is making my character believable as I mentioned the other day. Their world may be fantastic. But their actions and attitudes should always be relatable. (Not necessarily agreeable though!).

Fairytales with Bite – Seasonal Magic

In your magical setting, do the seasons, whether they’re the same as ours or not, play havoc with a character’s magical abilities? Does the availability of natural light, or its lack, change what your characters can do or limit their powers in some other way? If it does, can this be overcome by what they would consider artificial means?

Can enemies take advantage of when powers are “down” due to seasonal fluctuations? What would your world do to protect itself against that?

Equally when there is an abundance of natural energy (not necessarily light though this is an obvious one to think about), does that boost your character’s magical powers and how can they make the most of this while this lasts? Can your world take advantage of this against their enemies?

Certainly I wouldn’t think it unreasonable for lack of light or other energy source to have a direct ability on someone’s magical capacity in stories. It an also limit the powers of magic forcing your characters to find other ways to resolve their problems. There will be interesting story ideas to emerge from that.

This World and Others – Times

Time is a major factor in all of our lives and that goes for our characters too. Even the superheroes need their down time. So what kind of down time would your characters need (other than the obvious ones of food, drink, rest) and how would they get this time off?

How is time measured in your setting? Are the lengths of days and nights the same as ours, or are they wildly different and, if the latter why is that the case? This has a direct impact on what could be grown in your setting too and what your characters are likely to be able to eat. It would then in turn have an impact on the kinds of employment in your setting too. If only certain items of food can be grown, your setting would need workers for that, others to process it for the general market and so on.

The way time works in your setting will have an impact on what you characters could get done in a typical “day”. That will have an impact on how long they will need to fulfil their quest or whatever task you’ve set them to do. Of course if they have more time in a day than we do, that could help them a lot!

But it pays to plan out how time will work in your setting.

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Tips, Writers’ Narrative, and Defining a Good Read

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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. Image of me holding Creativity Matters, From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. A huge thank you to The Chameleon Theatre Company for permission to use the photos in the bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post shared below.
Hope you have a good weekend. Mine encompassed the glamour of wood treating a fence panel to getting on with my writing. Both creative in their way though, I suppose!

Facebook – General

Today has been somewhat soggy but Lady didn’t mind. She got to see her Hungarian Vziler pal again today and Lady never frets about the rain. She’s got a good coat, she can shake it all over Mum, so why worry?

Writing wise, hope to share some exciting news soon. Looking forward to being able to do that. Watch this space as they say.

Apologies for forgetting to put a title to my June newsletter – oops! But many thanks to all my subscribers. Your support is much appreciated. Other than that little faux pas, I have found the transfer over to MailerLite to be painless, I’m glad to say.

Character Tip: Whatever kind of character you create – and I have many non-human ones in my cast list – they still have to be understandable to readers.

So motivations and wants need to be clear and we should be able to see why someone would do something. Nothing is to “come out of the blue” – nobody ever believes that.

Hope Monday hasn’t been too bad. Busy one here as always. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal today so her week has got off to a good start.

Writing Tip: Want a quick easy outline for a story? Just ask two questions.

  1. What does your character want?
  2. What gets in their way?

In fleshing the answers out to those, you will be off to a flying start with your outline and the resulting story. All stories need a structure and those two questions give your tale a great “backbone”.

Hope the weekend has been a good one for you. Still can’t quite believe it’s June already.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Thoughts on Editing for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It is always a timely topic and I share tips which have proved useful for me as a writer and as an editor.

Looking forward to popping along to The Chameleons’ Open Evening later this week too.

Pleased to say my author newsletter went out again today. It’s only the second one I’ve sent using the new service provider. All well so far and pleased to be able to schedule it too.

Glad to catch up with some friends from Swanwick on a Zoom session last night. Good way to keep in touch.

31st May –  First Post – Bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post
Two posts from me tonight. First up is a bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post. As you know, I often go and see plays performed by our excellent local theatre company, The Chameleons. They’re celebrating their 60th anniversary this year and are holding an Open Evening next weekend (Saturday 7th June). More details in the post but if you can get along, they will be pleased to see you.

The Chameleons – Open Evening – 7th June 2025 – Celebrating 60 Years of Drama

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31st May – Second Post – June 2025 edition of Writers’ Narrative

Second post and I’m pleased to say the June edition of Writers’ Narrative is now available. See link below.

The theme is on Worldbuilding (which comes into various forms of fiction and not just fantasy and sci-fi – e.g. crime fiction has to set its world too, you need to know era for one thing).

I share Five Top Writing Tips, useful for whatever you write. Do enjoy a cracking read.

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Flash fiction helps with other forms of writing in all sorts of ways.

Writing to one line sentences, as I set recently for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group, can be used to help practice writing straplines. Longer flashes (say up to 500 words) can be used to help get you used to writing to the word count needed for a synopsis.

Plus it can be used as a warm up exercise ahead of your main writing work and, as I’ve mentioned before, you could polish those pieces up and get them out for competitions etc.

Well worth trying. I find writing flash to be an absorbing challenge.

It’s Monday. Time for another story. Hope you like my latest one on YouTube – Taking Time.

Can the old Master of Time live up to his reputation when put to the ultimate test? Find out here. This is one of my fairytales with bite.

 

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. Need to look out some more competitions soon to have a try at but that may well need to wait until next weekend. Am happily busy elsewhere, writing wise.

I’ve always loved the way The Bridport Prize describes flash fiction – as the “art of just enough”. Sums it up so well. Inference is a powerful tool in the flash format. Picking the right telling detail about your character and/or setting can leave much else to be inferred but readers will pick up on this.

I know I love it in any length of story when an author doesn’t tell me every single thing. I like to work things out. All that is needed are the right clues to do that.

Flash fiction writing is great practice in working out what you do need to reveal and what you can leave to be implied. As such it is an excellent writing exercise. But the better news is there are opportunities for being published and competitions for those flash pieces you come up with.


Had a lovely morning wood treating a fence panel – I know it’s all glamour here! Lady was enjoying the cool indoors. (I also cannot trust her to not want to stick her nose in the wood treatment pot. She is a curious animal but sometimes there is such as thing as too much curiosity!).

Writing wise, pleased to say the June 2025 edition of Writers’ Narrative is out – theme is Worldbuilding. Every fiction writer does this to a certain extent. Even in flash fiction I have to show a reader where my story is, sometimes indicate era and so on. Link to the magazine shared via my author page. See above.

Last but not least, my author newsletter is out tomorrow. Can’t believe we’re almost at June already. I share news, tips, and links to my flash stories online in the newsletter. To sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Goodreads Author Blog – Defining a Good Read

How would you define a good read? For me, it is any story of any length and genre, where I have to read through to the finish. Usually it is the character which grips me. Sometimes it’s an intriguing premise. The very best stories have both of those.

But I have been just as entertained and gripped by a well crafted 100 word story as I have been by the other end of the scale, a 100,000 word novel.

I like a wide variety of genres though my favourites are fantasy, fairytales especially, history (fiction and non-fiction) and crime.

Thankfully I have not abandoned many stories of any length because they haven’t engaged but in those cases where it did happen, I know it was because I wasn’t convinced by the characterisation, yet alone gripped by it. Still in a way this is useful. I know what I like and dislike here so I can avoid making the same mistakes in my own work.

Life is too short to not have good reads in your reading pile!

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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