Tag: Benefits of flash fiction writing

Best Friends in Fiction

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Image Credits:
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Image of Lady and myself taken by my other half, Adrian Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you have had a good week. This week has ended well as a still poorly Lady is now a lot, lot better and back playing with her pals in the park again.

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am pleased to share Best Friends in Fiction, my latest blog for Chandler’s Ford Today. I take a look at the role of the best friend/sidekick character and nominate the one I think is the best fictional friend of all time. Take a look at the post and see if you agree with me. Nominations for your own candidate would be very welcome in the CFT comments box!

I also discuss why some stories simply wouldn’t work without the best friend character (and I am sure you can think of loads of examples. To name only one could you really imagine Wooster without Jeeves? I know I can’t. And while I know Jeeves is Wooster’s “gentleman’s personal gentleman” there is no question that the advice and help he gives Bertie is the kind of advice the very best kind of best friend character would give.)

Hope you enjoy the post.

Best Friends in Fiction

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Had a lovely time at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom last night. We were chatting about writing prompts and random generators amongst other things, both of which I love and use a lot. I like to mix up the kinds of prompt I use as that keeps me on my toes.

And if you are looking for ideas for prompts, I will flag up Prompts 2020, Prompts 2021, and Prompts 2022, all of which were produced by Gill James and with contributions from many Bridge House Publishing authors including yours truly. The link takes you to the Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop page. But having a book of prompts to hand is a good idea as is using the different kinds of random generators. It all helps inspire the imagination.

 

Hope you have had a good day. Lovely highlight for me today was having a long overdue catch-up chat over a cup of tea with my editor at Chandler’s Ford Today, Janet Williams. (As ever, Lady thought any visitor has to be for her. It is difficult to convince a dog otherwise).

I’ll be talking about Best Friends in Fiction for CFT on Friday. So much wonderful fiction relies on the best friend/sidekick character and, as well as looking at what the best friend’s role is for, I nominate whom I think is the best ever friend in fiction in my post. Looking forward to sharing that. See link above.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s the end of the standard working week (at least here in the UK) and it’s story time again. Am pleased to share Someone Like Her, my latest piece on Friday Flash Fiction. This story is a little unusual for me in that it is the first time where I have deliberately repeated a whole line. It is appropriate to do so for the tale and I think gives the piece a good rhythm.

Normally I would consider a repetition like that a waste of words, especially in such a tight word count. I would normally seek to say something similar in a different way if I needed some repetition for emphasis, say. But here I think the repetition works well. Comments always welcome here and on the Friday Flash Fiction page under my story.

Screenshot 2022-01-21 at 19-08-10 Someone Like Her, by Allison Symes

One huge benefit to flash fiction writing is, if you are pushed for time (and how many of us are not at times?), you still have a form of writing where you could produce something in ten minutes, say. Okay it will need editing later but all forms of writing need that so that’s fine.

I must admit I find it satisfying to produce a piece and not have to wait too long for a pay-off from it (and even when that pay-off is a turn down, I can edit the piece again and re-submit it somewhere). I’ve found it useful to save small pockets of time to draft future stories.

When I have more time, I can come back to those and polish them up, ready to submit somewhere. But it is so nice knowing I can use those pockets of time for something useful (and which helps me make the most of those longer writing sessions later on).

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What do I want a flash fiction story to achieve? Well, a lot depends on the story’s mood of course but whether I am trying to make a reader laugh, cry, or scream, it is all about the impact. My characters must make my readers care about what happens to them. There has to be impact. I want a reader to enjoy my flash pieces and feel that not a word could be added or taken away.

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Fairytales With Bite – Three Is Magical

The number three crops up in fairytales often. Three wishes. The youngest son (out of three) is the one to do well. And then there are the titles – The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, etc. In any story where something happens, then that same or very similar something happens again, I am expecting the something to be resolved on the third “go”. The Rule of Three is something we take in all the time while being usually unaware of it.

And there are good reasons for this. The first “occasion” sets up a situation, the second one repeats it where the character clearly hasn’t learned the lesson they’re supposed to have learned, but on the third time they have changed what needs to be changed so the situation is resolved, usually happily. The structure works.

A fourth “go” and the story would seem to drag on for too long. Resolving the situation in two “goes” would not seem realistic either given characters (and us!) need time to realise they’ve got something wrong, work out how to put something right, try something, it still doesn’t quite work out, but on the third attempt they’re there.

So three is a magical figure for fiction telling then. With fairytales, you can always arrange for your character to have three magical objects (naturally the last of these will be the most powerful). What matters here is how your character uses these things. Do they use the first one wastefully or greedily? Does this backfire so they are less greedy or wasteful when it comes to using the second object but are still not quite using magic honourably?

By the time they’re ready to use the third, have they stopped being greedy or wasteful and use the last object in a sensible way? Scene – action – reaction. Scene – action – reaction. Scene – positive action – positive resolution.

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This World and Others – Who Tells The Stories?

What form(s) do stories take in your created world? Is there a written/printed story tradition or is it oral only? Is technology used for storytelling or are there bards and the like telling stories the old-fashioned way? Are stories valued and accessible to all?

Or does your world prefer facts only and the stories told are those of past battles won etc? (It can be an interesting reflection on a place where it celebrates its victories but ignores its defeats. For that sort of world, I would expect there to be oppression, no freedom of the press etc).

Who tells the stories is an interesting question in another way. Who tells the storytellers what they can say? Does the narrative ever change? Does the narrative get challenged? And what would happen if your created world was made up to face up to the fact that one of their so-called great victories was actually a defeat and there has been an almighty cover-up?

Are there libraries and who can access these? If books are banned in your creation, which ones and why? Also is there a black market for the banned books (there often is for this kind of thing)?

Whose voices are represented by the stories being told? Whose stories are ignored or treated with contempt?

Answering questions like these will help give you a clearer picture of what your world is and its attitudes. It should then show you your characters’ reactions to those attitudes. Do they just accept it as it has always been that way or do they seek to change it?

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The Joy of Editing

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Hope you have had a good week.

Weather all over the place here in the UK – still it is only June! Writing wise, very pleased with response already to my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction. (Screenshot of part of my latest story, Restless, taken by me, Allison Symes – hope it tempts you to read the rest! Link below).

AE - July 2021 - A great character drives the plot


Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post about The Joy of Editing. I share my thoughts on why editing can be as creative as the initial act of getting a story down. I also share thoughts on how outlining characters or ideas for blog posts can save a lot of time on editing later on (and avoid that oh-so-easy-to-fall-into trap of going off on interesting but usually irrelevant tangents which only have to be cut out later). I also list what I think of as my editing stages and what I do for each one. Hope you find it useful.

(Oh and advance notice. I’ll be interviewing the lovely #HelenMatthews in an in-depth conversation on 2nd and 9th July. Helen shares lots of useful insights into the writing life and I am so looking forward to sharing these interviews).

(Further advance notice – my latest author newsletter will go out on 1st July. If interested please sign up to it at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com).

The Joy of Editing

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Enjoyed my swim earlier today but you can tell when the weather is “iffy” – the water feels cold. When It is hot, as it was last week, the water feels refreshing and I don’t want to get out. (Mind you what helps is knowing the shrivelled prune look when you have been in the water for too long suits nobody!).

Looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow. This week I’m talking about The Joy of Editing. And, yes, I know you will say Allison, you are an editor as well as a writer, you are bound to be biased. Yes, sure, guilty as charged there, but there is much to be said for editing as I will share in my post tomorrow.

So looking forward to reviewing The Chameleon Theatre Group’s latest (and comeback) performance later in the summer. Along with singing in church and meeting up with friends, I think not seeing their wonderful shows has been the thing I missed most last year. (Their performances also raise money for different charities each year so well done to them and it’s another great reason to go and see their shows if you are local to Chandler’s Ford. If you’re not, I’m sure there will be great amateur theatre groups you can support near you – try them out and see!).

From a writing viewpoint, it is interesting seeing words performed rather than just read.

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Hope you have had a good day. More like a proper June day today and Lady got to play with her best mate, the Rhodesian Ridgeback. Two tired and happy dogs went home.

Have got my ticket for the comeback shows from The Chameleon Theatre Group for the end of July. So looking forward to watching them on stage again. (Review to follow on Chandler’s Ford Today in due course naturally – it is so lovely to get back to this kind of thing again).

I’ll be sharing a fabulous two part interview with #HelenMatthews on 2nd and 9th July so plenty of good things to come on CFT. I met Helen at the Hursley Park Book Fair which I reported on for CFT a couple of years ago and again at the Winchester Writers’ Festival. You never know where networking with other authors might lead you! Anyway, really looking forward to sharing this interview as it is packed with great author insights (just one of many reasons why I love sharing author interviews here!).

Behind the scenes, I’m also working on workshop materials so yes watch this space for further news in due course.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Delighted to share my latest story on #FridayFlashFiction called Restless. A HUGE thank you to all who have commented on the tale so far. This is so much appreciated. (I also love the way this kind of thing helps writers engage with readers directly).

Restless is a different kind of flash tale for me in that every sentence starts with the same word. It’s an interesting technique, fun to do, but is something I would only do every now and again. (Generally speaking given the restricted word count in flash anyway, I wouldn’t normally repeat anything other than say the unavoidable ones such as the, and, but etc.


Screenshot 2021-06-25 at 19-03-20 Restless, by Allison Symes


Thanks for the great response to my acrostic yesterday. I use the technique sometimes for mini-blog posts as well as flash tales!

Looking forward to taking part in the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group later in July. Glad to report we had our first Zoom meeting a week or so ago and it went down well. (I also get to write up flash tales from the exercises set, whether these are set by someone else or me. I’m sure I can find a home for these stories at a later date!).

The benefits of flash fiction writing are learning to write with precision, to think about impact, to think about what your reader needs to get from your story, and to lose all fear of editing. Those things transfer well to other forms of writing too.

Never assume a character’s mood is the same as their author’s one! Image created in Book Brush using a Pixabay photo.


F = Fun to write – but the work really begins in the editing.
L = Looking for maximum impact on the reader so word choice is so important here.
A = Any genre, any character – have fun with the format.
S = Story, story, story – it is your character’s tale, let them tell it.
H = Have an outline for your characters before you write the story – it can be as simple or as detailed as you like but it will save you going off on unnecessary tangents. You will know what your character is capable of and why. I know this tip alone has saved me a great deal of grief (and work) later on in trying to fix characterisation problems. By working this out at the start, you can hit the ground running with the story itself because you know what your character is likely to do and say.

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Fairytales With Bite – Why the Bite?!

The classic fairytales have plenty of bite. Indeed, that is one of the things I love most about them. They don’t mince their words when it comes to villains. The stories show you the villains for what they are. The wicked stepmother is wicked (and definitely not in a good way).

The classic stories also like their heroes/heroines to do or be something worthy of being helped by a passing helpful fairy godmother and the like. Said passing fairy godmother is not going to help the lazy, those who just want riches and so on.

Right is also seen to be done. Evil comes back to bite those who commit it (which so often doesn’t happen in life and even as a young child I was aware of that).

What fairytales are not are twee. The characters are clearly portrayed and they are what they are. They also show characters can be redeemed. Fairytales are about choices made and not every character makes the right one.

So bite then is a vital ingredient to fairytales. From my perspective, it is what makes a fairytale a fairytale, much more so than a magical being waving a wand about.

Fairytales are truthful too – and again bite comes in here too. They show you aspects of human nature, a lot of which are not the pleasant kind. They hold a mirror up to our own behaviour – you just need to accept some of what you will see through the stories will be the kind of things we usually like to pretend are not there. Our own stories need to reflect this to be true to the genre. Our characters need to reflect that.

Even the tales read to very young children will show this. We know from a very young age the Big Bad Wolf is not to be trusted.

So when it comes to writing our own tales, we need to be brutally honest with our character portrayal. Are they the kind of character a fairy godmother would help? If not, why not? What role will this character play in your story? If they’re not someone who would “earn” magical help, how are they going to get said help when they need it? Are they going to change in some way so they do end up “earning” that help and what makes them realise change is necessary? Plenty of story ideas here.

Character change is key to a successful story. And there’s nothing a fairy godmother likes better than a character redeeming themselves to get her help. Readers like that too. So give your characters plenty of bite. They must not be twee. We need to see where the characters are coming from and where they are heading.

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This World and Others – Reaching Out

How do your characters reach out to others? Are they the kind of characters who would help others? If not, why not? Are they held back by fear or resentment of others and can they overcome that?

Does your fictional world reach out to other worlds near it or is it an insular one?

When characters reach out, is that as successful as they hoped it would be or does it backfire? Are good intentions misunderstood, deliberately or otherwise? Does this stop your characters from reaching out after that (as it would, at best, knock confidence)?

What is the impact of reaching out on the society immediately around your main characters? Does your society encourage reaching out or make it more difficult? Can your society be changed for the better by your characters who do reach out to others?

Hmm… I think there are story ideas there!

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