Tag: Book Brush

Acrostics and Focusing

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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. Screenshot of part of my latest story video was taken by me.

It has been a hot few days here but Lady, my collie cross, prefers to keep it cool. Image of Lady and me taken by Adrian Symes.

LADY DISCUSSES TTFF WITH ME

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A bit cooler today. Lady and I weren’t sorry about that.

I’m going to have two blog posts to share on Friday. My Chandler’s Ford Today one is on Brand Recognition and Why It Matters. This is so important for writers given we all have to do at least some marketing. So therefore it pays to think what brand we want to put “out there” that readers associate with us and will like.

I’ll also have a post out on Authors Electric, which is called Reading Into Writing Will Go. Those of you of a certain age will recognise the words “will go” from the way division used to be taught in Maths. So what has that got to do with writing or reading? I look forward to sharing the link on Friday when you can find out!

So look out for two Facebook posts from me on Friday with two links.

Meanwhile back in Hot Hampshire I am so glad I live in a property that faces north. It means more heating in the winter but it comes into its own right now – it is cool here! (It is quite nice that something is cool here because I do know I’m not!).


Baking day – outside that is! Lady had a reduced exercise session before it got too hot. Although she is usually as daft as a brush, she is sensible in warm weather, knows all the shady spots to head to, and is the first of my three collies who willingly drinks water! I rarely go out without water for her and, in these conditions, it is one of the first things I get ready to take with us.

I have a good spot on our patio area where I can do a pavement test (back of hand held down on said area for at least 15 seconds. Let’s just say if I can’t keep my hand there for the required time, Lady doesn’t go out. One issue with going out later in the day is the ground has had time to bake, literally, so please if you’re a dog owner, always carry water with you, and do the pavement test before you go. If in doubt, don’t go). (Lady has happily curled up in the shade for the rest of the day and has been enjoying snoozing and woofing at my shopping delivery man so she has had a great day!).

Writing wise, a huge thanks for all the fabulous comments on my New In Town on #FridayFlashFiction. Feedback always appreciated.

Do you find it harder to write in hot weather rather than cold? Makes no difference to me as I make sure I’m comfortable enough at the old desk but I can understand if concentration levels dip somewhat. (I swear there are times my laptop is cooler than I am!). I don’t use weather in my fiction at all partly because I don’t want to fall into the “dark and stormy night” cliche trap but also I can think of several more important things for a reader to need to know than what weather my character is experiencing. I can only see relevance here if you’re sending your character on a quest (and generally you need longer than a flash fiction piece to do that well!).

Looking forward to sharing my next Authors Electric piece later on in the week too.

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Another warm and sunny day in Hot Hampshire (and a sympathetic salute goes to all hayfever sufferers!).
Stories come in all shapes and sizes but this goes for non-fiction too funnily enough. Especially when I interview someone for Chandler’s Ford Today, I want that person’s story and love to get behind what led them to write the books or stories they have. I suppose this is because (a) I’m nosey and (b) I know no two writing journeys are the same and I find it fascinating and instructive to learn from others here.

For fiction taking a bit of time out to think about what makes your characters the way they are leads to better characterisation (you really have got a handle on your person here) and stronger plot lines. So looking for the story behind the story then is always a good idea. We’re encouraged to dig deeper and not just go for the obvious ideas for stories. Looking into what makes your characters tick in more depth is a great way to achieve that.


Hope you have had a good Saturday. Glorious weather here. Lady enjoying it – sensibly. Currently curled up behind me in a nice cool study.

Coming up on Chandler’s Ford Today in the next month or so will be a fascinating interview with someone I first met a few years back at the Hursley Park Book Fair, which I wrote about for CFT at the time. Very much small world syndrome here but a delightful one and the interview is a smashing one. I’ll also be sharing how I met this author again as it is a great advert for networking in person where you can and online anyway. Looking forward to sharing more on all of that in due course.

Coming up this Friday for CFT will be a piece called Brand Recognition and Why It Matters – so I combine writing with some marketing for that one! (I also share thoughts and tips here and look forward to sharing this later in the week).

Thrilled to bits my latest story on #FridayFlashFiction, New in Town, has had a wonderful response to it. Acrostic stories are good fun to write though I have found you want something (a) short and (b) open to interpretation for this kind of thing. In case you missed it, here’s the link for it. Oh and it has been a great joy responding to the comments on the site itself on this one. Thanks, everyone.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the response to my acrostic flash tale called Fiction yesterday. Good fun to write and create a video for. I have discovered the joy of animations on Book Brush and used a “pulse” one for Fiction. I use Book Brush a lot for my blog work as it is lovely putting captions into the pictures I use – and they look better I think. Only downside? It is too easy to lose a lot of time playing with Book Brush but there are worse writing problems to have!

But it is creative and part of the old marketing so that’s okay then! (And the videos are a simple way to share mini-flash tales – basically under 100 words or so).

Screenshot 2021-06-15 at 20-42-49 Allison Symes

For the rest of the story you’ll have to go to the link – see below.


Pleased to share my latest acrostic flash fiction story video with you. This one is called Fiction and many thanks for the comment that has come in on this already. Hope you enjoy. There is a time for dancing in the streets…and a time not to!


I’ve mentioned before that titles carry a lot of weight in flash fiction. They indicate mood/genre of the story, freeing up precious word count room for what matters – the story itself. But it pays to keep your title short to maximise the impact of it and to allow for the fact some markets and competitions count the title as part of their acceptable overall word count limit. Do watch out for that! Also shorter titles are more memorable and that’s important to your reader (and therefore potentially to you too). You want your readers to remember your titles and the books they appeared in!

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Glad my story New In Town went down so well yesterday. Acrostic flash tales are good fun to do but work best, as I mentioned on my author page on FB earlier, when kept short and if the word or words chosen can be taken in more than one way. Double meanings, as well as hyphenated words, are great assets to the flash fiction writer!

Twice the meaning for only one “lot” of words and hyphenated words mean you get two words for the price of one. So glad to have discovered that one especially as I have made good use of it in my time. (No. You can’t just hyphenate any words – that would be cheating!).

Misjudging people can be a great theme for any story but I have used it in flash. In Tripping the Flash Fantastic, my character, Walter, makes up his mind about the new postman in my story Identity. Can’t say more than that. The story is about whether Walter was right or wrong. But what was interesting here was I didn’t need to give you the postman’s backstory. You just see things from Walter’s point of view and then the story goes on to show you whether he was right or wrong.

I’ve mentioned before that with flash focusing on one character and one important incident is the way to go. Here it was a case of focusing on Walter’s viewpoint and then following it through to a conclusion. I could have brought in something from the postman’s viewpoint to indicate whether Walter was right or not. In not doing that, I’ve made the story more focused and, I think, it has greater impact.

Goodreads Author Blog – Kindles for Kinds of Books?

I love reading. Okay no big news there. I love reading in all kinds of formats and listening to audio books. Again no great breaking news story there. But I wondered if you save your Kindle or other e-reader for certain types of book. I do.

I use ebooks to test out authors new to me and for a lot of non-fiction (especially where the print version would be too big and bulky to handle. I can think of a few tomes here that would break your toes if you dropped the book on your foot – the Encyclopedia Britannica anyone?!).

I also use ebooks for short story and flash collections as these are ideal for reading on a screen.

The Kindle is one of the first things I pack whenever I get to go away (and that still won’t be for a while yet given Covid) and its finest “moment” is saving every avid reader from ever having to worry again about how many books they can fit into their suitcase. I appreciate my Kindle for that alone!

So do you save certain kinds of book for your e-reader and, if so, which?

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Summer (finally!), The Author Voice, and Mom’s Favorite Reads

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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. Summer weather now finally here in the UK and I have publication news too – for non-fiction this time and something I hope will be now be a new “regular” for me, Mom’s Favorite Reads. Screenshot of cover image of MFR taken by me, Allison Symes, as was snippet of my piece on flash fiction.

BookBrushImage-2021-6-1-19-5015

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Another glorious day. For once the swimming pool water felt refreshing rather than like a blast from the icy North. (Am sure it is a ploy to make you start swimming quickly and to be fair it is an effective ploy!).

Sent out author newsletter today. Hope those of you who have signed up to it enjoy it. I love putting them together.

Delighted to say I am now in Mom’s Favourite Reads and this time I have a feature article about flash fiction (Flash Fiction and Sharks) in there along with a flash story called Dressed to Kill. Looking forward to contributing more to Mom’s Favourite Reads in due course.

It has been a gloriously sunny and warm Bank Holiday Monday in my part of the world today. This is more like it!

Looking forward to taking part in the Brechin/Angus Book Festival later this year. (Also lovely that many of my writer pals are also going – it will be a blast!). More details as and when.

Also looking forward to giving another Zoom talk on flash fiction at the end of July. Can’t wait to be back at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August too. So a promising summer and autumn lies ahead.

Now I’ve mentioned before that when I have odd pockets of time, I will jot down one or two liners which I will then write up into flash or short stories. Sometimes the ideas I jot down can become blog posts for Chandler’s Ford Today, Authors Electric, or More Than Writers. (From next month, I’ll be jotting down regularly ideas for articles for Mom’s Favorite Reads too).

It really does pay to to do this. I was feeling especially tired yesterday, the old imaginative tank was definitely running on low, so I went back over a couple of old ideas and wrote them up. One is a flash story which has become a story video (see my book page at https://www.facebook.com/fairytaleladyallisonsymes for the link to this – going up shortly after I post this!). Also see further down!

The other story has become a 100-word story I submitted to #FridayFlashFiction. (And I can let you know on Friday whether or not they took it!). I ended up finishing my writing session feeling considerably more cheerful than when I began it because I had something I could work with immediately and so off I went.

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Hope you have had a good Sunday. Lovely to see some “proper” May weather – nice sunshine, decent temperatures etc. Lady relished it when having her usual playtime in the park.

I guess I should’ve known the weather would perk up because my Chandler’s Ford Today post for later this week is called Summer Here, Maybe? There really is a Murphy’s Law for Writers!

On the plus side I do share some good news that has lately come to my attention in this post, discuss holiday reading, and anticipate returning to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School later this year.

Mind you, I could easily have written 1000 words on the vagaries of the recent weather!

New newsletter from me out on Tuesday (1st June) so if you want to sign up please head to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I’ve been having great fun with Book Brush recently for a lot of my blog work as it has been great creating images I can use with the captions already in them, captions I invent. The images are still from those marvellous people at Pixabay but prior to discovering Book Brush, I had to add captions in under the image itself which, for me, was not as clear. And, of course, I’m using the same program to create my short story videos – all good fun. (Talking of which I will be sharing two exclusive short story videos in my newsletter on 1st June).

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Facebook – General – and Association of Christian Writers – More than Writers

I look at why it matters we hear from your characters, and not from you the writer, in my turn on the ACW blog, More Than Writers, this month. When we tell stories, we are showing readers what happens to our “people”. It is “their” story. We just create their roles for them. So let them speak, act, think etc. It is the characters that grip readers, the characters who keep people reading.

Now to ensure I get my characters to do the talking and acting, rather than have my author voice butting in, I outline those people first. I use a simple template so I know enough about my characters before I start writing them up.

If they don’t grip me at that stage by showing me, yes, these characters could do this, do that, really impact a reader this way, then I don’t write those characters up. If they don’t engage with me, they won’t for anyone else. I share a simple template I use a lot to help me get my characters “fit for purpose”. Hope you find this useful.

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Just to flag up the paperback of Tripping The Flash Fantastic is on offer at Amazon. See link for more info.

Also sharing the link for Mom’s Favorite Reads as I have an article on flash fiction and my story Dressed to Kill in there. Will be writing more for MFR in due course.

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Delighted to share my latest story video on Youtube – Mirror, Mirror On The Wall. (Yes, I do love using fairytales and nursery rhymes for story ideas. They can make great themes – and I’ll be talking about finding themes for Chandler’s Ford Today in a couple of weeks’ time). Hope you enjoy!

 

If you like inventing characters, flash fiction is for you. It has always been my favourite aspect to creating stories so this is a win-win situation for me. My favourite kind of character is the quirky type (and my heroine, Mary, from my story Assumptions which is on #FridayFlashFiction, is a good example. Let’s just say nobody is going to con or otherwise hoodwink my older heroines. I once came across the term CroneLit for heroines of a certain age and upwards. I like that).

And flash works brilliantly for those “one-off” situations which you couldn’t justify stretching to a full length short story (1500 words + generally). It also works well for quirky characters. Now to get on and invent some more!

Never too old fashioned to use a pen to jot down those ideas. Pixabay
I’ve yet to see the lightbulb appear above my head! Pixabay
LOVE your writing! Pixabay

 

Thanks for a great response to my story, Assumptions, on #FridayFlashFiction yesterday. Also thanks for the fabulous response to my contract news the other day. Am looking forward to writing up my chapter on flash fiction in due course.

Now I remain convinced one of the things that has helped flash take off so well in the last few years is technology and a change in reading habits. More of us are reading on screen (and I do so whenever print books are a little less convenient such as if I’m away somewhere – there are only so many books you can pack in a case and the Kindle does get around that issue!).

And something that is easy to read on screen is ideal – flash is perfect for that of course. It is also great to share on social media as a way of entertaining (hopefully!) your readers. It is great here as an advert for your writing work overall and to give something of value to your followers.

Less is more really could be the anthem for all flash fiction writers!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Goodreads Author Blog – What Puts You Off Reading a Book?

I know this is a bit of an odd question for a book blog spot but I think it a valid one. So is there anything which would put you off reading a book?

For me, hype tends to do it. I want to decide for myself what to read and I am always suspicious when a book is hyped. Lots of good reviews is another matter. People say what they think, I do so myself, and that’s fine. It’s when you get the “you’ve got to read this – everyone else is reading it” that tends to make me pause and think “well not everyone”. I don’t want to be told what to read while I am always happy with recommendations.

I still haven’t read Fifty Shades. Really not my style of book. The hype for it wasn’t going to make me change my mind either (if anything, it made me more determined not to do so).

I have got around to reading The Thursday Murder Club and loved that. I had word of mouth recommendations on this one (always the best kind to get) plus I checked out the reviews. (I still think the book was let down by poor proofreading though, always a disappointment and even more so when a big publisher is guilty of it).

So what would put you off reading a book? Is it a question that you know the genres you like and you stick with those no matter what? Comments welcome!

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The Interview Fence and Humorous Books

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

And below – well books are such magical places to be, are they not?

 

What inventions populate your fictional world - image via Pixabay

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Nice big walk with Lady today before the weather set in. Not looking forward to tomorrow. I suspect Lady and I are going to get a good soaking, no matter what time I take her out.

Have drafted answers to second set of interview questions so will be reviewing those and sending them off to the interviewer probably tomorrow.

Now I am on both sides of the interview fence of course. I love questions which draw a writer out of their shell a bit. So questions which always find favour with me will include things like:-

Why do you write what you do? What made you pick that genre?

This is a fab question as it makes you think well why did I pick that route and why am I still sticking with it? In my case with the flash fiction it is because I love the challenge and variety of it. But that sort of question makes you re-evaluate what you’re doing and that’s a good thing. It should confirm you really do love what you write and it is that love which keeps you going during the tougher times of the writing life.

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Hope Monday has been okay for you. Very busy with the old domestics today. Only too glad to get to my desk and write. Writing relaxes me and I always feel so much better for having got something down on the old laptop.

Looking forward to sharing Part 1 of my Launches in Lockdown series for CFT on Friday. As well as sharing my experiences with Tripping the Flash Fantastic, I’ll be talking to two Authors Reach writers – Teresa Bassett and Francesca Tyer. Plenty of useful tips and thoughts given “normal” writing events won’t be back with us for a while, even if everything does go well with controlling, and eventually beating, You Know What.

Still one lovely thing about writing is there is always plenty to be getting on with and it is something positive to focus on. My goal for this week is to return the other set of interview questions I’m working on and prepare material for something special I hope to talk more about in the next month or so.

Plus there are always stories to work on and the new idea I referred to yesterday for a draft I’ve got prepared is something else I hope to write up later this week. I always jot down ideas like this in fairly detailed notes when I know I can’t write something up immediately. I’ve found it’s the only way to make sure I don’t forget something important.

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It is great fun being on the receiving end of the interview questions. I’ve just sent one batch back and will be working on another set but what is great is these questions stretch me and make me think. They make me think about what I write but also how and why. That’s a good thing. It pays writers every so often to take a step back and remind yourself of why you do what you do here. I look forward to sharing the links on these interviews later on.

Have drafted a story for submission, rested it for a week, and as so often happens a better idea for how to end the story has occurred to me so that will be going in. That is the whole point of resting a piece of work (and it applies equally well to non-fiction). You need distance between when you first wrote the piece and then when you look at it again.

Time away does help you see things more clearly, including where the story might be strengthened (and that is always worth doing. Someone said you should try not to write the boring bits that people skip when they read. It’s equally true you should try not to write the “weak” bits as people skip those bits too and you want readers hanging on your every written word!).

Had a lovely couple of writing Zooms over the weekend. Great fun to catch up with everyone and a much appreciated morale boost for yours truly – these things always are.

A lifeline for all authors!


Hope you have had a good Saturday. Glad I delayed taking Lady out as the weather went from grotty to cold but sunny. She liked that too.

Just to say the paperback of Tripping the Flash Fantastic is currently on offer via Amazon. See http://author.to/AllisonSymesAuthorCent for more on that. Many thanks for all of the fabulous reviews so far on this. Would always welcome more of course!

Whether it is for my book(s) or those of any other author, well thought out reviews are always welcome. They don’t have to be long and can be as simple as I liked this book because…. Or my favourite story is …………. etc. A couple of minutes and you’re done and you’re supporting authors too. So what’s not to like?!

Of course one problem all writers have faced in the last 12 months has been the lack of our usual writing events to promote and sell our wares. This is why I wanted to write the Launches in Lockdown series for Chandler’s Ford Today.

That starts next week but my interview with Richard Hardie yesterday was insightful as to the challenges faced by publishers. I’ve found it pays to understand something about the way publishers operate as that helps me in turn to tailor my approaches in them in such a way it increases the chances of acceptances! It really does make sense, folks!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again


Is there anything about longer forms of writing I miss when it comes to focusing on flash ficton storytelling?
I suppose if there is anything, it is the lack of subplots. There simply isn’t the room for any in a sub-500 words flash story. (You can get a simple one in if you write up to the 1000 word limit and I have done this with my story Rewards from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Also this is a good story if you want to be wary of how you upset someone with the power to get their revenge in print!).

But then I do see the joys of novels with their twists and turns as something to savour separately from the flash tales where I do just focus on the one important moment. And the great thing?

Both have their place in storytelling.

Both have their place on my writing and reading lists!

And there’s nothing to stop you writing in more than one form.


Wow! Many thanks for the huge response to my most recent Book Brush adverts involving my flash fiction collections, From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic. That came as a very nice surprise after a tiring Monday. (I hadn’t twigged today is so-called Blue Monday. Mondays are tough days regardless of when in the year they are! I wonder if that is why Bank Holiday Mondays seem to be more of a holiday than they are. It’s not just a question of getting a day off, we’re getting a Monday off!).

I thought I’d reshare one of my most popular story videos from my Youtube channel. Last Request lives up to its title! Hope you enjoy. (I often create a new story over the weekend but did not have time to do so this time. Mind you, this story is a good example of the kind of quirky tale I love reading and writing).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXGNt9XndN8

F = Fun to Write
L = Language to be direct and specific
A = Action – conveyed in as few words as possible
S = Story complete in and of itself
H = Hero/heroine but room for only 1 or 2 characters.

F = Fairytales and fantasy work well in a flash format
I = Imagination – let it run riot and then hone what you come up with to produce a piece of hard hitting flash fiction
C = Characters. Have to make impact quickly as flash fiction has to be character led.
T = Truth – flash fiction is as capable of conveying truths about the human condition as an epic novel!
I = Intense. Has to be due to the word count restrictions (but that makes truth hit home quicker and harder)
O = Omnipresent narration can work well in flash.
N = No restrictions on what genre of story you use for flash.

TTFF - posh chairBookBrushImage-2021-1-3-16-443BookBrushImage-2020-11-14-19-1939


Have been having fun with Book Brush again re promoting for FLTDBA and TTFF. Easy to do too. (See above pics though the phone one I created a little while ago but is a favourite of mine).

One of the things I do enjoy on the promoting side is being able to share some of the stories. Flash doesn’t take long to read so it makes quite a good advert for itself!

A good advert is one you can remember years later so the ideal for book straplines is to try and do the same with those. This is where flash fiction writing can help, especially practising writing the one-liners. But it takes time, it is not always easy to judge if you’ve got it right so beta readers and the like can be an enormous help here.

Am looking forward to getting my third collection together too. That is one my tasks for this year. I’ve written a fair amount already but will be getting the rest up together while I rest my non-fiction project. These are the two major things I want to submit later this year. I like the balance of having a fiction and a non-fiction to work on and I did find using NaNoWriMo incredibly helpful so will be open to using that structure again.

Below is the video I created for the Waterloo Arts Festival back in the summer of 2020 as that had to go online. I share an extract from my story Books and the Barbarians here and talk a little about my work. Hope you enjoy.

Goodreads Author Blog – Humorous Books

If ever there was a time for humorous books, it is now isn’t it? Something to cheer people up with and I must admit I was pleased to see that sales of P.G. Wodehouse books have gone up during the pandemic. (I hope the same has happened with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books too).

And of course humour creeps into other genres too, including crime and horror. I do love a witty one-liner from a character where you know the character is capable of coming up with such things.

It is a bugbear of mind that humorous books aren’t taken more seriously. They are “proper” literature and shouldn’t be looked down on. If anything a writer capable of writing humour should be lauded simply because it is not the easiest thing to do. Humour is subjective after all.

Mind you, the written word has a huge advantage here. I love “seeing” puns come out, where appropriate to the storyline. Language, and playing with it to make stories, should be fun and I like to see fun in the final results.

I guess this may well be one reason that misery memoir really is not for me, no matter how well written it is. I’ve got to have some cheer somewhere and even a gripping crime novel, with the odd bit of humour in it, will always work better for me than that.

Have you any favourite funny books you turn to for literally light reading relief as and when you need it?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

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Decisions, Transformations, and Useful Questions

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Image of Dawn Knox kindly supplied by her.

Facebook – General

Hope you’ve had a good Tuesday. I see we’re due for sleet in Hampshire on Friday. At least we have made it into December first before any signs of the really cold stuff!

I will be posting Part 2 of a wonderful chat with Dawn Knox on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday and am looking forward to sharing the link for that. She’ll be talking about how she got into flash fiction writing and shares what has been the most fulfilling aspect of her career to date.

One lovely thing about writing is you never know quite where things will lead but this is a good thing. My short story writing led me to discover flash for a start! But the other good thing is you should seek to develop and to improve on what you do. This can lead to trying out forms of writing new to you and discovering you can add another string to your writing bow. More from Dawn on this, along with other lovely things to chat about, on Friday.

Now NaNoWriMo has officially finished, how did I do with my “kind of” version? Well, I was pleased. I’ve carried out the restructuring I knew my non-fiction project needed and added a great deal of useful material to it. So win-win. I’m carrying on with this as I want to get a first draft done by the end of the year but am on track to do that.

Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com

 

I’ve been having fun with Book Brush again. This time I created a story video, uploaded it to Youtube, and then used their audio library to add a soundtrack to the video. I always check out licences allocated to things like images and audio tracks and this one is a free to use one. Always, always, check out what the licences say. You don’t want to break copyright. You really, really don’t. I’ve got used to doing this thanks to writing for Chandler’s Ford Today so regularly. (And it’s why I love Pixabay!).

Creating the video was good fun and I hope you enjoy the story. I was particularly pleased with the background I used as the video here as the movement of the word “sale” reminded me of the way Jaws moved through the water! Apt for the tale but click the link to find out why.

Facebook – General – and Association of Christian Writers More Than Writers blog spot

It’s my turn on the Association of Christian Writers More than Writers blog. My piece this time is called NaNoWriMo – Doing It My Way. Well it’s kind of appropriate given I haven’t written a novel and I know I’m probably under 50,000 words. So how come I even thought about doing this? See the post for more – and I have found the experience incredibly useful for helping with focus. Hope you enjoy!

 

Facebook – General – and PUBLICATION NEWS – TRANSFORMATIONS


Busy night tonight – I have two posts for you.

It is with great pleasure I share further publication news. I’m pleased to say the three e-books that comprise the stories from the winners of the Waterloo Arts Festival writing competition have now been combined to make one wonderful paperback called Transformations. (The three ebooks were To Be…To Become, Transforming Being, and this year’s Transforming Communities).

Link to follow in due course but meanwhile here is the fantastic cover. Many congratulations to all of the other writers who are “between the covers” with me for this one.

Oh and I love the cover for this.

Transformations Medium

SECOND POST

I posted about this topic over on Val’s Book Bundle on Facebook on Wednesday but thought I would expand on the topic here. I asked what people’s favourite part of a book was and my answer was the moment I realise I am rooting for the character(s).

Sometimes I root for them to fail if they’re the villain but the important point is the character is making me react and from that point onwards, I know the story will be fine. No reaction = no interest in the character = no interest in the book!

So developing this further, how can we get a reader to react to our characters?

The simple – and all at the same time complicated – answer to that is to make the reader care about what happens to said character. Simple because it really is down to that. Complicated because just how do you do this?

I outline my characters before I write a story. Sometimes that outline is a brief paragraph, sometimes it’s longer than that, but by the time I’ve done this I have worked out why it is I want to write this character up. I am feeling something for that character. And I can feel something for that character, a reader will. Thinking of questions to ask your character can be useful.

Try these to get you started.

1. What is the character’s main trait?

Can be good or evil or somewhere in between. Think about what would come out from your character if they were really put under pressure if you’re not sure what the main trait might be. Would your character show courage or run away at the first sign of trouble?

Whatever the answer to that is, think about why the answer is as you have given it. If a character would run away for example, is that because they have tried to help before and all it did was land them right in it? Jot down your thoughts. Your story thoughts may well start “sparking” from what you note down.

2. What is it about the character you as their creator like/dislike?

Your readers are likely to feel the same way!

3. Why do you want to write their story? Why does it matter?

If you’re looking to just write a funny story to amuse people, that’s fab. That is just as valid a reason to write as writing a story with purpose behind it. But you still need to think about how your character would amuse people and that will often come down to their main traits. For example, a character who is a loudmouth can set themselves up for a fall and that can be funny or tragic.

An outline doesn’t have to spell out everything. You want some room for your imagination to kick in with other ideas but it is a great place to start!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I use the first person a lot for my flash tales but when I do name a character what do I look for in that name? I look for a name that will reflect something about the character and sometimes I choose age. In my story Identity in Tripping The Flash Fantastic, I chose the name Walter. That immediately called to my mind an older gentleman which is what I wanted for this story. (Making this decision was helped along by the fact my maternal grandfather was called Walter!).

Books of names help a lot here of course but looking up articles from old newspapers can also be a good source of information. If you know your character is going to be in their seventies, for example, you can look up articles from around the time they would be born and look at the names in the paper to get a feel for what names were in common usage then. And don’t forget to look up the family announcement pages too. Those can also help trigger ideas.

Names can be a great tag in flash fiction. They can be an indicator of class, as well as age, and you can use that to good effect. Telling details carry weight in short form writing. For a writing exercise I was set at Swanwick once, I came up with the phrase “take the Garibaldi” as I needed to get my character to say “take the biscuit” but I didn’t want to use the cliche.

Cliches are cliches for a reason but you can have fun subverting them, having said that. But if I had put something like “take the Lidl’s Rich Tea” instead, I could’ve indicated likely background of my character just by referring to the supermarket they use. So think of names, personal or otherwise, as useful tags here.

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Eleven months down, one to go! What a strange year 2020 has been. If 2020 had a strapline, it would probably read something like “2020: The Year That Delivered Something Nobody Wanted” or “2020: The Year Everyone Wants to Forget”!

Over on my author Facebook page,I shared the link to a new story video on my Youtube channel called Decisions. It was great fun playing with both Book Brush and Youtube for this but it is the one line stories that work really well for this kind of thing. You don’t want a video to be too long. So therefore the story can’t be too long either. So this will be an outlet I think for my one/two line stories in future. And, of course, it acts as an advert. Looking forward to doing more with this.

One thing I love about any kind of creativity endeavour is it often helps you develop others as you try to improve on what you do and find new ways of doing exactly that.

And do see writing one-or two line stories as good practice for blurb and strapline writing even if your main writing is something else entirely. These also make great warm up writing exercises.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA


Hope you enjoyed The Buddies yesterday. (N.B. See further down for this new story!). I like to mix up how I approach writing flash fiction as it keeps things fresh for me (and hopefully for readers too). Using the various random generators is a great way of mixing things up.

And another way of using the word based ones would be to deliberately place the words generated in the opening or closing lines or somewhere in the middle and then work out a story from there. Equally you can put the words in the title and nowhere else and then crack on with the tale. But there are different ways of using these things so the only limit should be your own imagination here!

Don’t forget to mix up the word counts to write to as well. There’s nothing to stop you taking an opening line and then writing a 50 word story from it. Then see what you can do when you make it 100 words and so on.

Above all enjoy your writing!

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I thought I would take another look at the good old random word generator and I was delighted to find some other parameters to tick. You can select names too! I generated two and came up with Charlie and Elsa.
Things to do here:-

  • Use the names in the story.
  • Turn this into a full name – e.g. Elsa Charlie or Charlie Elsa and put this one character into a story.
  • Use another character who shows the reader what these people/this person means to them. For example in a crime story, Elsa and Charlie could be two people who ripped the narrator off. Equally the narrator could be the one to con them!

So plenty of possibilities here! Now let’s see what I can do here…

The Buddies
The park bench is empty now. It used to be the three of us on there – Elsa, Charlie, and me. Went to school together, even ended up working for the same boss. Always good for a laugh those two. We were known around these parts as the Cheery Trio. Elsa and Charlie married and I was their best man. It was a lovely day. They were married for 55 years, bless them.
I met Mary at their wedding, she was Elsa’s cousin. We all laughed at how that worked out. Mary and I were married for 52. Good years for the most part. None of us had kids though. Just didn’t happen. Had lots of fun trying but sometimes things just don’t work out and you have to accept that and move on.
We’ve all moved on.
But now Elsa, Charlie, Mary and I are together again. Right here on the park bench. We’re allowed out to come here sometimes.
Just a pity you lot can’t see us but we can see you.
No such thing as ghosts?
Ha! The four of us have plenty to say about that!

Ends.
Allison Symes – 28th November 2020

Hope you enjoy!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
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Photo by Alexander Zvir on Pexels.com
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Goodreads – Christmas Book List

Well, I trust you do have plenty of books on your Christmas wish list! There is a tradition in one of the Nordic countries where Christmas Eve is spent eating chocolate and reading books. I like that – a lot!

Don’t forget audio books. There are plenty of ways to take in stories. Reading will always be my first love but listening to stories comes in at a respectable second. And these are great for people who might not want to sit down with a book but who are happy to listen to a story while doing something else. You take in more than you might think.

Re-reading Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather and watching the adaptation of it is on my list of things to do and A Christmas Carol will be on the agenda for me to revisit again at some point in the run up to Christmas. I’ll almost certainly be watching the Muppet version. Not only is that a great adaptation, Gonzo, as narrator Charles Dickens, reminds people to go and read the book at the end of the film. I love that and I’d always second that suggestion!

Okay, you know when you’ve got books as presents. The shape is a dead giveaway but it doesn’t matter if you know what’s in the wrapping. There will always be something special about unwrapping a book for Christmas.

And they do make fabulous presents.

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Twitter Corner

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Introducing Dawn Knox – The Chronicles Continue.

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Images of Dawn Knox/The Macaroon and Basilwade Chronicles/The Great War/play photos were all supplied by Dawn Knox. Many thanks to her.

Image of Wendy H Jones kindly supplied for her.

And a big thanks to the organisers of the Facebook Group, Christmas Book Hub, for creating the wonderful bookshop image for their page, which currently features Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Very very happy to give them a shout out!

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m delighted to welcome #DawnKnox to Chandler’s Ford Today for the next two weeks as we discuss her writing journey, celebrate her new book, the hilarious The Macaroon Chronicles, and look at her varied career which includes playwriting. Dawn will be sharing her thoughts about writing and also chats about the joys and pitfalls of writing humorous prose.

Feature Image - Dawn Knox interview Part 1

The Macaroon Chronicles

It is always a great joy to chat to a fellow flash fiction and CafeLit/Bridge House Publishing writer and I’m looking forward to catching up with Dawn and many other colleagues at the BHP celebration event (online) on 5th December.

Will so miss seeing everybody in person but at least Zoom gives us the chance to meet online. And I can’t wait to share Part 2 of Dawn’s fab interview next week.

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Brrr…. It’s getting chilly out there not that Lady noticed. She had a fab run with a lovely Saluki/whippet cross this morning. Lovely to see them both having a great time.

Have been having fun with Book Brush again. This is my latest effort.

Really looking forward to sharing Part 1 of my interview with Dawn Knox on Chandler’s Ford Today. Look out for this tomorrow. Dawn is a delight to chat to and I always learn something useful from interviews like this.

No two writers have the same writing journey and I find it endlessly fascinating what has worked for one, what has worked for another and so on.

Dawn will be discussing her latest book, The Macaroon Chronicles, which is hilarious. If you need a cheerful read, do check this out.

Am catching up with some non-fiction reading at the moment. I’m reading London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. It’s a hefty tome but a fascinating read and I just love the idea of writing a biography about a city. Interesting approach to take on it.

Whether what I learn from this fab book filters into my writing later on remains to be seen but I do know non-fiction can often spark ideas for story writers. An interesting fact here and there can trigger story ideas so don’t overlook reading non-fiction as part of your overall reading “diet”.

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Had the perfect dentist’s appointment today. No. It wasn’t at two-thirty (tooth hurty – veterans of the old gag circuit will easily recognise that one!). I got out with nothing having to be done! So win-win immediately there…

Looking forward to “going” to the Bridge House Celebration event on 5th December. Normally this would be in London but of course it will be a Zoom session only for this year. The event is FREE but you do need to register. See https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-and-celebration-event-tickets-127841763155 for more details. Hope to see you “there”.

These events are always great fun and, if ever there was a year we could all do with some of that, this year is it.

Personally speaking, what is lovely is being able to celebrate The Best of Cafelit 9, where I have two stories published; Mulling It Over, the new Bridge House annual anthology where I have a standard length short story published; Transforming Communities, where I had a 1000 word story published (this was the Waterloo Arts Festival writing competition book); and, of course, Tripping the Flash Fantastic.

Despite everything else going on in 2020, publication wise it has been a good year. And there’s more to come. A little later on the three ebooks from the last three years of the Waterloo Arts Festival will be published in one single paperback. Am looking forward to sharing details about that in due course.

This year has been a good one for professional development too in terms of video making, setting up the Youtube channel, revamping the website, appearing on Chat and Spin Radio, appearing on #WendyHJones’ The Writing and Marketing Show. And Book Brush has been a revelation too.

The flip side? I have so desperately missed meeting up with writer friends in person at Swanwick, Winchester, the Association of Christian Writer events, and the Bridge House/Waterloo Arts Festival celebration days.

Let’s hope for better things for 2021 but I guess if this year has shown anything, for me at least, it has been doing what you can when you can and making the most of things like Zoom.

Oh and keep on writing and submitting of course!

Happy writing!

Book Brush - Cafelit 9, Mulling It Over, TransformationsBookBrushImage-2020-11-16-21-040

From Light to Dark and Back Again

I enjoy being part of a number of writing groups etc on Facebook. These groups are a lovely way to meet other writers, albeit only online in some cases, and I always learn a lot from them.

I am part of the Christmas Book Hub – see https://www.facebook.com/groups/bookhub/permalink/1003208640189243/ for more.

#PatriciaMOsborne, one of the founders of this, is someone I know from the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School and I’ve had the pleasure of chatting to her for my Chandler’s Ford Today posts in the past too.

Now I mention this for two reasons:-

1. If you want to create a book buying list for Christmas, do start here!

2. There is a wonderful banner for this Facebook page – of books in a Christmassy shop window. The books on this change every so often and my Tripping the Flash Fantastic is on there at the moment.

The artwork for this is wonderful and it is a great pleasure and privilege to see my book on there. A huge thanks to the organisers behind this page on behalf of all of the authors on here. Online things like this are always useful but never more so than now during what has been such a strange year for us all.

And it is a timely reminder to say that do DM the authors on this page, including me, if you would like to know more about buying signed copies of our books.

We would be so pleased to hear from you!

TTFF in Christmas Book Hub shop windowScreenshot_2020-11-27 Facebook Groups

I’ve mentioned my love of mixing up the kind of flash fiction stories I write before. I do think one of the great strengths of flash fiction is because it needs to be character led, you can get to set that character anywhere you want in genre and time period, past, present, and future.

The crucial thing is to have a character who is worthy of being written up! Even if you don’t plan any other writing, I do think giving thought to what your lead character is going to be (or likely to be, I know things can change in the editing), is important.

If you want to write a story about a financially astute character but discover the way you’ve portrayed your lead, they’re more likely to be as astute as a chocolate teapot, then you have an issue (though it could make for a wonderfully funny or tragic piece, depending on how you wanted to “play” it).

But things like that should be a conscious decision by you as the writer. You can’t rely on “happy accidents”. You can rely on some forward planning though!

Many thanks to everyone for the wonderful reviews so far for Tripping the Flash Fantastic. They are much appreciated and I was delighted to see two new ones in today.

Appropriately for a flash fiction collection, I will stress reviews don’t have to be long and they are a great way of supporting authors. (This year we are even more grateful than we usually are for that kind of support. I have missed being able to go to writing events dreadfully. Fingers crossed for next year!).

Do I review books myself? Oh yes. One of the things I love about the writing world in general is there is a lot of give and take and that is only right. All of us know the pains and pleasures of bringing stories/books/articles to life etc. All of us appreciate the support from others but it is good when you can give support back. I like to see it as paying it forward and back.

Screenshot_2020-11-25 Amazon co uk Customer reviews Tripping the Flash Fantastic(1)Screenshot_2020-11-25 Amazon co uk Customer reviews Tripping the Flash Fantastic

Fairytales With Bite – Twists and Turns

Fairytales are full of twists and turns, which is another reason to love them. You know, after you’ve read a few (and/or listened to them when you were a kid), that the underdog will somehow come out on top, usually with the aid of a friendly fairy godmother or talking cat or some such thing.

Fairytales are great because you accept that magic is part of the setting and it is a question of finding out who is going to use it, whether they’ll use it to do good or not, whether it backfires etc etc. But you also know the character being helped this way has somehow got to be worthy of it. Fairy godmothers don’t just turn up for anybody!

So when planning your own fairytales/magical realism/fantasy stories, think about what your twists and turns are going to be. Magic is going to be around but don’t overdo it.

I know as a reader I like to see characters who are trying to improve things for themselves, who are being thwarted or held back through no fault of theirs, and then hey presto the fairy godmother turns up. It is also not a bad thing to show the downside of magic.

As with any source of power it can be abused so think about how that might happen in your creations and what your characters could do to overcome this (assuming of course they want to and they’re not the ones abusing the magic! In the case of the latter, I would like to see some sort of “back fire” happen so said characters have to behave in a better way and/or don’t get away with what they’re doing and/or are thwarted by other characters).

Expect the unexpected is a good motto here but as the writer think about how this could play out in your stories. Plan what your twists will be and how they will be executed. What clues will readers have to look back on and think later “I should’ve spotted that”?

And just as life is full of ups and downs, so your stories should be. But the nice thing with stories is you can make them end on a good note! Stories can be arranged!

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This World and Others – What Is Normal?

Now there’s a leading question but it is a vital one. Whether your created world is a fantasy one or set here firmly on Earth, you do need to work out what is going to be normal/perceived as normal by your characters. (Readers of course may well think entirely differently!).

So what kind of setting are you using? If here on Earth, will be in an Earth we would recognize? You could of course set up an alternative based on certain aspects of history being changed.

If X happened instead of Y, what would Earth look like as a result? The series The Man In The High Castle was based on that. If you’re using a fantasy setting, what aspects would appeal to readers? Which wouldn’t? Which are necessary to the successful running of that setting?

For your characters themselves, would we recognise their behaviours as normal? If not, why are they different and in their setting, is their behaviour considered oddball or not?

Working out details like this early on can save you a lot of editing and rewriting later on so I think it is worth doing. Even if you don’t want to plan to the “nth” degree, wanting to see where the story and characters take you, I still think it pays to jot down a few basic notes.

Character A is capable of this because…. The setting is this because…. What you jot down here really is an aid for you and I am all for things that help make the writer’s life smoother!

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Favourite Characters and Publication News

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Many thanks to Dawn Knox for supplying her author photo.

Image of me signing Tripping The Flash Fantastic by Adrian Symes.

Facebook – General

Hope Tuesday has proved okay. More raking up of the oak leaves for me today with Lady assisting by looking for sticks in amongst the leaves though she would have preferred to find a squirrel.

Talking of which, I would love to know why every dog I know/have ever known, on spotting a squirrel, always looks hopeful that said squirrel will come and play with them!

Has not happened on my watch. Is unlikely ever to do so. Mind you, Lady is the only dog I’ve had who might be in with a chance of catching one.

Photo by Connor Danylenko on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Writing wise, I’ll be interviewing fellow flash fiction and Cafelit writer Dawn Knox about her latest book, The Macaroon Chronicles, on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

This will be a two part interview and we’ll be discussing the challenges of writing chronicles, what drew Dawn into writing, and how long it took her to become an established author, amongst other interesting topics.

I love conversations with other writers. I always learn something useful. Given no two writers ever have the same writing journey, it is fascinating to find out what others have found most helpful to their writing or, conversely, find out what they think has to be the worse writing advice of all time etc. Link up on Friday.

I haven’t kept a word count for my kind of NaNoWriMo project but to be fair I never intended to do so. My non-fiction project needed restructuring, which I’ve now done, and it is now a question of adding material to it. Then a massive edit or several! But that’s okay. I’m enjoying seeing the project coming together and this is an interesting experience since I’ve not written non-fiction to this length before.

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Am continuing to have fun playing with Book Brush.

Many thanks to Dawn Knox for inviting me on to her blog today. It was great fun to take part. I chat about flash fiction, Tripping the Flash Fantastic, the one regret I have about writing and other topics.

Do check the interview here.

And more news from Dawn and I in a moment….

Bonus Post – Publication News

Talking of further news from Dawn Knox and I…

It has been a busy Monday, as always, but it was nice to discover further publication news! Dawn and I both have stories in the new Bridge House Publishing anthology, Mulling It Over. It is currently out as an ebook but the paperback will be out soon.

Many congratulations to the other authors in this ecletic collection. It is always great fun to be between the (electronic) covers with writer friends!
My story, It Is Time, is one of my colder, darker ones. Appropriate for this time of year I guess!

Mulling It Over Medium

It was great fun taking part in the Brechin/Angus Book Fest earlier today (22nd November 2020). I shared videos for Judgement Day, Being Yourself, and the book trailer for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. (See further down for all of these).

I also shared some of the recent images I’ve had fun creating on Book Brush! (The phone one which also has From Light to Dark and Back Again on it too works really well I think). (Again see below).

Below is a round-up of my posts from earlier today in descending order of appearance.

Last but not least from me. This is Judgement Day from Tripping the Flash Fantastic. Hope you enjoy.

Am happy to take questions about flash fiction. The irony is I never started out as a flash fiction writer. I discovered the form by accident but it has been a very happy accident!

BookBrushImage-2020-11-14-19-1939

My story, Being Yourself, on Brechin/Angus Book Festival today.

My book trailer as shown on the Brechin/Angus Book Festival event today.

Many thanks #SarahArchibald for your hard work putting the Festival together online. Great fun to take part! A big thanks for the opportunity events like this give authors especially since our usual events are not possible right now.

It was also lovely to share the posts and share a little of what flash fiction is about. It is the ultimate in the quick read of course but its impact should be a powerful one precisely because of its reduced word count. It lives up to the phrase less is more!

More details about my books can be found here (Amazon Author Central)

Screenshot_2020-11-22 BRECHIN ANGUS BOOK FEST(1)Screenshot_2020-11-22 BRECHIN ANGUS BOOK FEST

Bonus Post – Guest Blog Appearance on Gill James’ Blog

Am delighted to share the link where I am the guest on Gill James’ blog as one of the contributors to The Best of Cafelit 9. See  for more (the screenshot is a sample!).

Screenshot_2020-11-22 Talking to another of our Best of CafeLit 9 contributors

Have been enjoying the first day of the Brechin/Angus Book Fest. Looking forward to tomorrow when I’m due on from 1.35 for about 25 minutes.
Plenty of videos to watch and you could make a good Christmas book present list here.

Continuing to make good progress on my kind of NaNoWriMo project. Really enjoying writing new material for this though I am also looking forward to tackling the editing later on. I like editing. You can almost “feel” your work improving when taking out the wasted words and so on.

Good questions to ask when preparing blog, Facebook posts etc include:-

1. What have I learned as a writer that could benefit others? Posts like that are always useful and I have learned from so many over the years and continue to do so.

2. How can I entertain a reader so they’ll want to come back to read more of my posts? One of my ways is to share a new flash fiction story every so often. Flash being so short works well for this – and who doesn’t like a new story to read from time to time?

“See” you tomorrow at Brechin online!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again


Monologues can make great flash fiction pieces. I find they work best when kept short anyway so you’re immediately on to a winner there. Monologue with its demand for the focus to be on one character and flash fiction with its demand to keep the word count low make for a good match!

I outline my characters for my stories and, if you don’t usually do that, it would pay to do this for monologue writing. The question to ask above all I think is what it is about this character that they deserve a monologue?

What would fascinate a reader to keep them glued to your character?

A good tip is always to put yourself in your potential readers’ shoes and ask what is in this story for them?

 

Hope your Monday has been okay. Mine has been hectic as usual but the plus side of that is it will free up more writing time for me later on in the week, which I make good use of!

Lovely watching Lady having a good old fun session with her Rhodesian Ridgeback buddie this morning. (It is a case of watch the show and stay well out of the way! Part of the reason for that is both dogs are still convinced they’re puppies… erm….no… and they have the size to prove not!).

The weekend went from having a flu jab to cracking on with my kind of NaNoWriMo project to taking part in the Brechin/Angus Book Festival. So yes, it got better as the weekend went on!

Writing wise, I’m drafting a future CFT post as well as working on my big project. I’m a little ahead of myself for once with CFT as I have a fab interview to share over the next two Fridays. More on that tomorrow and link up on Friday of course.

(I can always tell how rapidly the year is going thanks to writing for CFT. The Friday deadline zooms and then vanishes week on week and before I know it, another 12 months has gone by. Mind you, I don’t think anyone is going to be sorry about that this year).

Am working also on more flash material which will no doubt see the light of day in due course. Oh and how about a flash two-line story to finish with tonight? Here goes…

To Turn Or Not To Turn, That Is The Question

It wasn’t the odd creaking that terrified Bill. It was the frightened rat who was looking at something behind Bill.

Ends.

Allison Symes – 23rd November 2020

 

New Story Video on My Youtube Channel

It has been a busy day on the old video front but given it’s a Sunday evening as I share this, what better than to finish the weekend with another story? I took my The Best Laid Plans which I shared here a couple of weeks ago and created a video for it using Book Brush and then uploaded it to Youtube. Be sure to watch to the end! Hope you enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilOcaCJMqQc

Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA

Screenshot_2020-11-09 Allison Symes - YouTube

I must admit I don’t have a favourite character in my stories, which is just as well I suspect, given I’m inventing people all the time for flash fiction writing. My favourite kinds of character do have things in common though.

They’ve got a sense of humour.

They’ve got guts.

They’re prepared to stand up for what they believe in.

I especially love those characters where coming out with witty one-liners would be appropriate for them to do.

I have a soft spot for thoughtful characters where their reflections show you so much about their personality. Flash fiction works well for this kind of story as they work best when kept short.

Favourite characters from other books? Hmm… hard to say as there are so many to choose from but they have to have some of the above attributes to catch and keep my fancy.

Goodreads Author Blog – The Joy of (online) Book Festivals

This weekend is going to be an interesting one as I’ll be taking part in a Book Festival for the first time. I’ll be “at” the Brechin/Angus Book Festival which finishes tomorrow, Sunday 22nd November. I’ll be “on” at about 1.35 pm UK time and am looking forward to sharing the joys of flash fiction, which is the form in which I’ve been published the most.

Book Festivals and events are wonderful ways of celebrating the written and spoken word. (Bear in mind we do talk about audio books).

The one positive thing about this strange and horrible year has been that many events like this have been able to take place online and that has made them more accessible to more people.

I wouldn’t ordinarily have been able to get to Brechin for one event, much as I’d love to go, as from what I’ve seen, Brechin looks lovely. But I can take part in its Festival online (so a big thanks to the organisers and #WendyHJones for putting me on to this one).

I love going to book fairs and the like even when I haven’t got my author’s hat on. I love seeing the variety of books available and I enjoy listening to author talks too. The latter can still be done.

For the first time this year I’ve made videos of my reading from Tripping The Flash Fantastic and explaining a little about how I came to write the story I chose to read.

What I do know is authors are still glad of reader support and always will be. Whether it’s writing a review or going along to an online event and commenting on videos you’ve enjoyed watching, remember it all helps.

And in helping authors, you’re helping books in general. You’re showing they’re important. That books matter. They so do!

Twitter Corner –

Re Brechin/Angus Book Festival – tweeted on 22nd November 2020

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Great fun to take part in the Brechin/Angus Book Festival today. I was on from about 1.35 for 20 minutes or so but the Festival does go on for the rest of today. Grab a notebook and make a Books Make Great Christmas Presents shopping list!!<a href=”https://t.co/5ygkIuokBi”>https://t.co/5ygkIuokBi</a></p>&mdash; Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AllisonSymes1/status/1330510528591093760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 22, 2020</a></blockquote> https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Re appearance on Gill James’ blog – 22nd November 2020

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Gill’s Blog: Talking to another of our Best of CafeLit 9 contri… <a href=”https://t.co/4MIXeTjl76″>https://t.co/4MIXeTjl76</a&gt; I was thrilled to be guest on Gill James’ blog today. Screenshot is a sample! See link for what led me into writing for Cafelit and what I find more difficult than writing stories for them! <a href=”https://t.co/BiMUZ1oalD”>pic.twitter.com/BiMUZ1oalD</a></p>&mdash; Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AllisonSymes1/status/1330609892701462529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 22, 2020</a></blockquote> https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Re Appearance on Dawn Knox’s blog – 23rd November 2020

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Please join <a href=”https://twitter.com/AllisonSymes1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@AllisonSymes1</a&gt; on my blog today and find out more about her new book ‘Tripping the Flash Fantastic’, her writing and what she thinks of custard, cheese and chocolate! <a href=”https://t.co/SSJrZfIr0a”>https://t.co/SSJrZfIr0a</a></p>&mdash; Dawn Knox (@SunriseCalls) <a href=”https://twitter.com/SunriseCalls/status/1330803625375961089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 23, 2020</a></blockquote> https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Running Orders, Book Brush, and the Brechin/Angus Book Festival

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Facebook – General

Smashing autumnal walk with Lady today. Hard to tell who is more tired out of the two of us though!

Happy with the progress on my kind of NaNoWriMo project yesterday as I had one of those lovely moments where the words just flowed and it was just a question of keeping going with it. (That is the definition of the ideal NaNoWriMo really isn’t it?!). I’m adding new material now and enjoying it so hopefully future readers will do so too.

Am really enjoying playing with Book Brush. Latest effort below.

Oh and talking of CFT, my post this week will be a Local Author News one about yours truly in connection with the Brechin/Angus Book Fest I’m taking part in over the weekend. See https://www.facebook.com/groups/808280536653169 for more details on the Festival, which is part of Book Week Scotland. I will also flag up more news here as I get it. (Oh and I also flag up my Youtube channel on my CFT post but more on that on Friday).

Chandler's Ford Today post reminder picture(1)


After Saturday’s deluge, and a world record time set by me for walking Lady (20 minutes, bare minimum, both of us returned looking like drowned rats), it was a relief to have a dry, reasonably mild day today.

Sight of the week and probably the year: Lady’s best buddie, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, having a wonderful run and play fight with another Ridgeback – 100 kgs of dog between the pair of them. Wonderful sight. Just stay well out of the way! Lady decided to leave the pair of them to it and focused on her Chuckit ball, probably wisely.

Delighted to say I’ve been playing with Bookbrush again and for the first time have used the video function. Hope you enjoy the very short story that goes with this. Naturally this went up on my Youtube channel earlier today (I do love scheduling!). (Have also included the video here).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXGNt9XndN8

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA

– Last Request by Allison Symes

Have spent time this afternoon doing some “housekeeping” on my website.
My About page is now my Home page and I’ve added new material to it, including those lovely images I created yesterday using Book Brush. (A big thanks for all the positive comments about those). Am so looking forward to using Book Brush more.

There is now a direct link to my Youtube channel on the About page too.
I like to add material to the website every so often to keep it fresh, of course, but it is easy to forget to do the housekeeping side of it such as removing things no longer relevant, finding better pictures than the ones you had originally and so on.

I’ve also tidied up my Books page too. I’ve not yet found a way of changing the URL slug for the Books page from Home to Books but will sort that out in due course I hope.

The ideal of a website is to make it easy to navigate, eyecatching, and fun for both you and your visitors.

Hope you enjoy the tidy up!

 

I went out with the dog once today. It was enough! So glad to be back at my desk. Still no watering of anything will need to be done for some time in my neck of the woods!

Many thanks to #LizHurst for her fab interview with me on Chandler’s Ford Today yesterday (Friday, 13th November, see previous post).

I’ll be talking about the Brechin/Angus Book Fest for my post next Friday. The fact I’m taking part in it is NOT coincidence! 😀😀

I’ve also been experimenting with graphics for my books (using Book Brush). See throughout this post for various images created since the weekend using this.  

This kind of marketing is fun! Hope to be doing more of this. This has come out of a Zoom event I was at on Friday night where I learned so much. Many thanks to #WendyHJones and #KathleenSweeney for running this.

Below are some of my earliest attempts at creating book adverts. Just need to replace the spaniel with my Lady for the dog one! Mind you, I suppose I could avoid telling Lady….


From Light to Dark and Back Again

Having a lot of fun experimenting with Book Brush. Latest effort for Tripping The Flash Fantastic below.

One thing I have learned though creating Feature Images for my Chandler’s Ford Today posts is to keep them simple and avoid over-complicating things. Great tip for writing flash fiction there too!

I like to hit the ground running with my stories, which is why I often use the first person as that encourages this approach.

It is often said for story writing that you have to get straight to the action and hook the reader immediately. That is true but flash helps you sharpen that skill which you can then adapt for any other writing you do.

Even for non-fiction you need to draw the reader in immediately.

Looking forward to sharing more about the Brechin/Angus Book Fest as and when I can later this week. I’ll be writing about it in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week as well.



Hope your Monday has been okay. I’ve posted a mini flash story, Last Request, on my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA

Good fun to do and I love the bats and that’s all I’m saying about that here!

paper bats and spiders on orange background

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

I love many things about flash fiction but one of the major ones is that it is more flexible than it might at first appear. I’ve written stories across the spectrum from six words to the maximum of 1000.

I’ve written in the first person, the third person, and shown things from the viewpoint of a mother dragon (see my trailer for Tripping The Flash Fantastic).

It is a great format in which to have fun with your writing. If a story works well at 100 words, I leave it there. If it needs more and ends up at say 500 words, that’s fine.

I also think it is good discipline to practice writing to different word count lengths. For one thing, it means you can have a stock of stories in store ready to send to different competitions and markets depending on their requirements.

Happy story writing!


As well as selecting the stories for my flash fiction collections, thought has to go into the running order too. That isn’t an always obvious thing to decide.

For TTFF I deliberately kept two historical stories together as one is from the viewpoint of Richard III (Getting It Right) and the other is told by his niece, Elizabeth of York (Not Knowing). Those two were going to go together from the offset.

But I didn’t put all of the historical ones together in one batch. There are others later in the book.

I also look at the mood of the stories too. I like a mixture of funny, poignant, scary (think light horror – that’s as far as I go) and back to funny again. I also try to end a collection on a positive note too. Kind of “that’s a wrap, folks”!

Did I get the running order right immediately? Oh no!

Did I expect to? Definitely not!

But it is worth taking your time over. You want to think of the impact your stories will have on your readers and that helps a lot with working out an appropriate running order. I did the same for From Light to Dark and Back Again. It makes, I hope, for smooth seamless reads and an even more enjoyable reading experience for your reader.

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Well, I’m glad I don’t write stories which match the mood of the weather. Anything I’d come up with today would have been unremittingly grim!

Now you know I like the good old random generators for triggering story ideas. I’ve used random number, word, noun, and adjective generators to good effect. Ta da – I’ve found another one!

Welcome to the good old random object generator. Yes, really.

This particular site has four categories – All, Outdoors, Clothing, and Office.

You can select a number of items though I have found with all of the generators, you are better off selecting up three or four and no more.

So how can I use the random object generator in my flash fiction, I hear you cry?

1. The object has to be in the story somewhere.

2. The object has to have special meaning to a character in your story.

3. If you’re a crime writer, how about making the object either something to be stolen or the murder weapon?! (In my selection tonight, a pillow came up. I’m sure you can think of a way of using that in a crime story!).

But you get the idea. Have fun!

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Goodreads Author Blog – Effective Blurbs

The book cover is usually the thing that attracts my attention to a potential new read, of course, but following that comes the blurb.

I like a blurb that is (a) short, (b) intriguing and (c) gives an idea of what the story is about without giving everything away.

My blurb for Tripping the Flash Fantastic reads as “Allison Symes loves reading and writing quirky fiction. She discovered flash fiction thanks to a Cafélit challenge and has been hooked on the form ever since. In this follow-up to her From Light to Dark and Back Again, Allison will take you back in time, into some truly criminal minds, into fantasy worlds, and show you how motherhood looks from the viewpoint of a dragon. Enjoy the journey!”

Was it easy to write that? Not particularly! The stories were easier to do but many authors find that. It is hard to capture the essence of your work without giving too much away. After all, the idea is to entice the reader in to read your book, not leave them feeling as if they have read it all from what you’ve put on the back cover!

Is it worth taking time and trouble over to get right? Oh yes.

Put yourself in the reader’s shoes. What is it about your book that they would want to know to make them want to find out more? It is all about triggering interest and from that a wish to know more.

Happy (blurb) writing!

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