Publication Week! Allison Symes – Seeing The Other Side

July 17, 2026July 17, 2026Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hope you have had a good few days. Cooler here but still too hot for Lady to be out after lunchtime unfortunately but getting there. Big news is Seeing The Other Side is now out, I have news of a signing to share, and I am happily posting books out. All go but in a good way. See below for more.

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A huge thank you for the wonderful support on my posts yesterday regarding the publication of Seeing The Other Side. All much appreciated.

For Chandler’s Ford Today this week, I share Update – Local Author News – Allison Symes – Seeing The Other Side – Publication News which is a good summary of the most recent happenings.
I also share more of what the book is about and discuss linked flash fiction, which I’ve written more of for my third collection.

I also share a marketing video which some of you may have seen on Facebook recently. Well, opening your box of books is pretty special! I also share news about my book launch at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick as part of this round up post.

What I hope is some of the things I share here, including the need to update certain things due to having a new book out, will also help other authors as it can act as a kind of checklist. It is easy to forget to do some of this stuff.

Again, a huge thanks for your support so far.

Update – Local Author News – Allison Symes – Seeing The Other Side – Publication News

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16th July – Publication Day!

And at last the great day is here – publication day for Seeing The Other Side. Link to the ebook on Amazon below but you will see the button taking you to the paperback from here too.

It has been six years since I last had a book out and I am so thrilled to now have a trilogy of flash fiction collections out there.

Am also thrilled to say I posted out my first book order today too. I never mind going to the Post Office for things like that! Do remember if you want to buy from me, you can. Just contact me via my website contact form at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/contact

You can also find the link to sign up to my newsletter here.

Now to crack on with various admin tasks such as adding my lovely new book to my website and so on. Fun things to do for a fun event!

And a huge thank you to Gill James and her team at Chapeltown Books for their support here.

Hope you’ve had a good day. Fine this morning but again so hot in the afternoon so Lady taking it quietly and doing fine.

Writing wise, it’s publication day for me tomorrow. So looking forward to that. Will be sharing an update on news to date on Seeing The Other Side on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above.

In other news, writing is going well. I am a lot of the way to a fourth book but will need to focus on that more later this year. I also hope to return to another project I currently have on the back burner. I think most writers have at least one back burner!

Am also busy preparing interview questions for something coming up in CFT in August. And, of course, a major highlight of my year, The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick is getting nearer too. Always look forward to this but even more so with a new book out and due to be launched there.

Flash/Character Creation Tip: Now I write a lot of flash fiction. I’ve not counted how many I’ve written over the years but suspect I am well into four figures by now. So that means creating a lot of characters and situations.

As I’ve mentioned before, my focus is on the character. They’ve got to interest me to want to write their stories up so what does interest me enough about a character to trigger this? Some thoughts below which I hope inspire you too:-

1. The character has an urgent problem and must resolve it. There can be no sitting on the fence here.

2. The character is different in some way. This is one reason why I do write many tales involving grumpy fairy godmothers or dragons. Am interested in what makes them the way they are and what they do about it. Can lead to some great, fun tales.

3. I’ve come up with an interesting opening line and want to find out more about the character who “came out with it”.

There are many other ways to work out if a character is “strong enough” to be written up but I do find the three points above great ways into to creating stories and situations.

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Another hot day though it is not quite so bad as it has been. Still being careful with Lady though. She’s doing fine but she, like us, won’t be that sorry when rain does come and brings the temperature down a bit. I will say she is missing her friends though and I am sure they are missing her. Bonding between dogs is such a sweet thing.

Writing wise, naturally I’m busy now Seeing The Other Side is out and I was glad to hear my first postal order reached its destination safely. Looking forward to my book events at Swanwick and Salisbury and online ones too. Hope to organise more events before too long.

Flash fiction is a great form of writing. It teaches you to write concisely, to think about meaning (and choosing words with extra care to get the most impact in the fewest number of words possible to convey that meaning), and to think about what it is the readers need to know and what you can allow them to infer.

All of those skills are transferrable to other forms of writing and if you’ve ever taken part in a writing exercise anywhere, you have written flash, given you only have so much time for the exercise. In that time you’re only going to come up with a hundred words or so, depending on how much time you have been allotted.

One of my stories in my new book started life as a writing exercise set at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. I polished it up later and lo and behold it is now a published story so it can be done.

I can’t recommend trying flash fiction (and yes flash non-fiction too) highly enough.

It’s publication day! Seeing The Other Side is finally out there. And I’ve set up a signing at Salisbury URC (who support the city’s Art Festival) for Saturday 5th September. Do see the link. Am so looking forward to this. My family and I have connections to the church here and it was so good of them to offer their church as a venue for a book launch. It’s an offer I am only too happy to take up.

I will post a reminder about this much nearer the time but if you happen to be in Salisbury, which is a lovely city, on that day, do pop by and say hello. I also hope to share details about my publisher launch, which will be via Zoom, ahead of this.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will also details of my launch at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. See above.

So plenty going on then with more to come.

Saturday September 5th, 10am-12.30 Meet the author

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Publication day tomorrow – yippee! Good to be celebrating flash fiction with another collection out and, as mentioned on my author page, I have enough material for a potential fourth book so hope to to look at that later this year.

The best definition of flash I’ve ever come across is from The Bridport Prize where they describe is “the art of just enough” and I think it that aspect which makes you hone your writing, cut out wasted words, and lose all fear of editing when writing in the form. But these disciplines can cross over into other forms of writing you do and I have found this to be the case for my Chandler’s Ford Today and Writers’ Narrative articles especially.

Hope to crack on with updating my website for Seeing The Other Side later this week. Plenty to do but it will be fun.

Fairytales with Bite – Writing Fairytales With Bite

I love writing what I call fairytales with bite. These tales (and there are more of them in my new book, Seeing The Other Side) focus on a magical character or something happening in a magical setting.

My stories are usually humorous and can involve someone getting a long overdue comeuppance (which I like to think of as my tribute to the original fairytales which also are often based on this). There is a lot of irony (which I discovered the joys of thanks to reading Jane Austen).

But what matters is there is a proper story structure, the “bite” has to come from the situation before it and has to seem to be a sensible result, a believable one, regardless of how fantastical my character or setting may be.

It’s why I’ve had no problems about writing from the viewpoint of a mother dragon before now. It was a question of understanding her motivation for what she was about to do and it made it all so believable.

I start with knowing my character, what then makes them special, what motivates them and take things from there. When I start with the setting, I work out who would be in it and what they would need to be able to do to survive in that setting. A non-magical being in a magical setting is at an immediate disadvantage, unless they have something useful which isn’t reliant on magic.

But you can have a lot of fun writing this kind of story. I’ve always had a soft spot for humorous fiction and it works so well for flash work too. For flash, I can’t go into too much detail about what kind of magic my character has. What I can do is show them using it – readers will pick up what they need to know from that.

This World and Others – Aspects of the Magical Setting

Tying in with Fairytales with Bite above, when I use a magical setting as my way into creating a story, I focus on one or two aspects which makes that setting stand out. I won’t have the word count room to show all which makes my setting a magical one but I can show enough.

I’ve found the best way of doing that is to show my characters thriving in the setting or struggling against it and that in turn will reveal what the aspects of my setting are. For example, if one aspect is my setting has the unfortunate capacity to change weather patterns every ten minutes, I can show my characters coping with this, what their attitude towards it is, and how it impacts on what they’re supposed to be doing.

Magical settings don’t have to help those who live in them and fun tales can be written around characters trying to make the best of what they’ve got, possibly inventing things to improve things too.

But it helps to know what your setting has, what it hasn’t got, and what your character(s) can/cannot do, though not all of that will make it into the story itself, even if you write longer form. You need to know more than the reader does. It helps you create your character and setting with believability built in because you will believe in these things because you know how things work.

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Flash Fiction Formats

July 14, 2026July 14, 2026Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hope you have had a great weekend. Lovely one here despite the heat. Great family gathering enjoyed by all. Am starting work on setting up things re Seeing The Other Side – news to come as and when and I will be sharing a general update for Chandler’s Ford Today later this week.

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Hope your day has gone well. Loved my swim today. Lady still on hot weather scheduling.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to say I’m currently sorting out an in person book signing event for Seeing The Other Side in September and hope to share more details of that nearer the time.

I can’t begin to say how wonderful it is to have my book finally here. A lot of work has gone into it on all sides of this and it is lovely things are beginning to happen. It does make it real!

It’s also lovely to have new characters and situations to share and am looking forward to doing this. I often read some stories at book events. It goes down well, gives a good flavour of the book, is great fun to do and encourages sales – nothing to dislike there!

A cooler morning today than we’ve had for some time but it made up for it this afternoon!

Still, it is time to cool down a bit as I share my story which was shared on Substack yesterday.

This one is based on the number 67 (I used a random number generator to come up with that) and the story is 67 words long, excluding the title. Despite the heat though, this tale might give you a chill or two.

Hope you enjoy my The New Neighbour.

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Hope your weekend is going well. It was wonderful to catch up with family and friends yesterday. Grateful for (a) the gazebo, (b) fans for inside the house, and (c) whenever there was any breeze whatsoever.

Many thanks again to Val Penny for hosting me on her blog yesterday. See below. It was a joy to discuss Flash Fiction Formats with her. I’ll shortly be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday. Don’t yet know which formats I’ll use today but look forward to finding out!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing an Update – Local Author News – Seeing The Other Side by Allison Symes on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday, the after my book is officially out. I’ll be sharing news of my launch at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, my other news so far on various events connected to the book, as well as links to the ebook and paperback versions. I’ll also be sharing more about the book itself given it is my largest flash fiction collection to date.

Flash Fiction Tip: Think about the theme or character or setting you would like to write about first. Worry about the word count later.

When I know I want to enter a competition with a specific word count, I work out what I need to be able to do in each “third” of the story. For example, if it is a 100 words competition, by about word 33, you must know the character and situation by word 66 or so, you’ve got the problem and my character’s initial attempt to sort it, and by the end you’ve got the resolution. I find it so helpful to break the story into segments like this.

It usually means my first draft is not far out from the word count specified. I always write over it but also know there will be my wasted words and other things I can genuinely cut out to bring it back to where it should be. Having this kind of framework in place though means I know the story does hold together and does what it is meant to do.

Am delighted to be back on Val Penny’s blog to discuss Flash Fiction Formats. I’ve used more of these in my new book, Seeing The Other Side, which is available to pre-order now and comes out on 16th July 2026. Find out more about flash fiction formats in my post here and a huge thank you to Val for hosting me again.

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Two days to go before official publication day for Seeing The Other Side. It’s fantastic having another flash fiction collection about to come out and I do hope the new book will introduce more people to the form.

Flash is fun to write and to read. It is the perfect form for short, sharp reads and those times, which we all get, where you would like to read more but for whatever reason, you can’t. There is a form of fiction which suits this – flash!

Top Flash Tip: Always focus on the character. Who are they, why must you write their story up, what grips you about them (which in turn will grip a reader), and what is their situation. One character (generally), one situation, one outcome (though this can be open to interpretation).

Bear in mind you can set your character in any location, any point in time, in this world or whatever you care to invent. Have fun!

Despite a cooler start today (which was so welcome), it has become horribly hot again. Time to cool down with a story, this time the one on my YouTube channel. As with my Substack story (see my author page for that – see above here), this is based around the number 67 but this one worked better at a longer word count length.

Hope you enjoy my Being Impressed.

Not much impresses an old fairy godmother but her niece managed it. Find out how and why here.

Hope you’re managing to keep cool. Still pretty hot here. Lady still on her hot weather schedule but she’s doing fine, drinking plenty of water and resting. She really won’t be sorry when the hot weather breaks. Neither will I be, to be honest.

Talking of cool, it can be great fun to write flash pieces when the character loses their cool altogether. You can explore what triggered that and whether your character gets their cool back again or not. Sometimes if the trigger is another character, that secondary one could be right to make your lead lose their cool. Maybe the lead character has done or is thinking of doing something stupid, for example.

Happy writing! Now back to keeping my cool in this temperature as I get on with more writing!

Won’t be writing much today as having a family do which will be huge fun, despite the temperature. Am pleased to be back on Val Penny’s blog – see my author page for the link. See above.

Always thrilled to be talking about flash fiction and in the post I look at some of the different formats you can use. I expect I’ll be using more of them for flash fiction Sunday tomorrow!

Meantime take care and keep cool.

GOODREADS AUTHOR BLOG – Book Parcels

It’s always lovely to receive a parcel full of books and even more so when they’re your books from your publisher! I received my copies of Seeing The Other Side, my third flash fiction collection, earlier this week.

Now I can crack on with planning events including a blog tour. Did feel sorry for the delivery guy though – there has been a heatwave again where I am (and most of the UK in fact). Book parcels are not light!

It’s always a wonderful moment to receive such parcels though. It makes it real. My new book is a good summary of my flash fiction work over the last three years or so. So to see it in print is a fabulous thing and I can’t wait for it to come out on 16th July though it is available to pre-order now via a certain well known online retailer.

I also like other kinds of book parcels – the ones which can be used for charitable purposes. Also bear in mind if you have books you really cannot keep and they’re in good condition, it might pay to ask your local library if they could use them. Given book budgets are so tight, this could well be a blessing to them and helps you.

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Festive Flash News and Author and Book Events

December 6, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo of my two flash collections at the BHP event. Many thanks to Lynn Clement for taking the photo of me reading at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Always tricky doing that kind of thing yourself!

Weather becoming significantly colder in my part of the world. Lady’s not bothered but is probably wondering why Mum is keen to keep moving rather than let her stop and sniff everything every five seconds or so!

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Glad to report one of my festive flash fiction pieces will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on 17th December. Looking forward to sharing the link to the show later. Glad to hear other friends will also be having their stories on here – well done, all!

Now I will record myself on Zoom every so often to check if a story flows as well as I thought and for things like Hannah’s show, I want to make sure I’ve got my timings rights. (Maximum allowed is three minutes). The lovely thing with Zoom is if you set up a meeting with yourself, record yourself speaking, and then end that meeting, Zoom will convert the file to an mp4 for you. You also get an exact timing.

And in playing back your recording, you can literally hear the ebbs and flows of your story. Worth doing and it is also great practice to read aloud for Open Prose Mic Nights as well.

Last but not least, a big thank you for the anniversary congratulations yesterday. Much appreciated! (See below).

5th December
Hope you have had a good day. Today is my 35th wedding anniversary. Better half and I can’t believe where the time has gone either.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share the link to the super duper double issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads. Why such a large edition? Simply it is because this is the 50th edition and naturally that had to be celebrated with something special.

I use the theme of Fifty for my article in this issue and I set not one but two flash fiction challenges. One was to write on the subject of fifty up to a word count of 300 words. The second challenge was to write a fifty word story all in, including the title. Do check out the stories that came in – it was, as ever, a joy to be the editor on these.

Screenshot 2022-12-05 at 14-08-56 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine December 2022

Screenshot 2022-12-05 at 14-07-35 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine December 2022

Screenshot 2022-12-05 at 14-09-13 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine December 2022

Brrr…it’s cold out there. Nice to have a quieter day today after my trip yesterday. I hope my next trip will be in January when I’ll be giving a flash fiction workshop. (It will be in person ideally but may need to switch to Zoom. Am happy with both kinds of workshop).

Am looking forward to welcoming back Wendy H Jones to Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. She’ll be discussing Deadly Traditions, a cozy mystery at Christmas anthology, with me. I’ll be chatting about how she found writing shorter fiction given she is best known for her own crime series and marketing books in particular. Long and short fiction writing have their own challenges and joys.

Have not yet started work on my editing for my Flash NANO stories. I suspect I’ll get to this after Christmas. I won’t be that sorry about it as I do give myself time away from something recently written so I can come back and judge it objectively later.

Where will your fiction take your readers

Am writing this on way up to London for the annual Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. This is being held at the wonderfully named Theodore Bullfrog pub.

Am looking forward to seeing friends and listening to author readings. I’m taking part in that too but it is such a joy to relax and be read to – how often do you get to do that? Audio books are fab but listening to the author telling their tale live as they want it to come across is special and a treat.

Do support author reading events. They’re great fun and give you a chance to escape the world for a bit as well as being another way to support writers.

Update: Did indeed have a fabulous time at the BHP event. Loved the readings from the different authors and it was fun to take part myself. Hope to write more about this for a further Chandler’s Ford Today post. A big thanks to Lynn Clement for taking the picture of me on my phone as I read a story from each of my two flash collections.

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Delighted to say a festive piece of mine will be on Three Minute Santas on Hannah Kate’s show on North Manchester FM on 17th December. Always a fun show to listen to – and I plan to share the link later. Flash works so well in an audio format.

Flash is also great to share as a reading because you can’t go on for too long yet it makes for a great introduction to you and your writing style. Win-win there!

I am planning to use my Flash NANO stories for a mixture of competitions and for a future collection. Nice to be off to a cracking start there!

It’s Monday. It’s cold. There is still far too much to do before Christmas but it is time to take a break and enjoy a new flash fiction video. You know it makes sense, to quote Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses. Hope you enjoy Fourteen Days, my latest on YouTube.

Loved my trip out yesterday and it is always good to wave the flag for flash fiction. I hope to do so again in January when I’m due to run a workshop.

I took the opportunity yesterday to show how flash can mix up the moods so read a humorous tale and a serious one. Both tales have good emotional impact which is what you want from a story. Even as a kid, I wanted to get to the “happy ever after” in the fairytales but I was also intrigued as to how that would happen.

That should’ve been an early flag to me that writing would be what I’d end up doing!

Looking forward to reading some flash tales at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event in London today. Nice to be back on the train again too. Always good for people watching and I have had inspiration for stories from things seen/overheard.

These things are always a starting point only as by the time I’ve written and edited my tale, my “unintentional inspirers” would never recognize they had inspired a story.

One key skill for any writer is to be observant and from that to think yes, I could use that. For example, I spotted someone hastily writing out a couple of Christmas cards. So my mind is thinking along the lines of who are these cards for and why it is vital my character gets these written now.

It’s a situation most of us can identify with and has the potential to be a funny tale and/or a heartwarming one. But I needed to spot someone doing this to get my ideas sparking.

(Again thanks to Lynn Clement for taking the picture of me reading).

Goodreads Author Blog – Book Events

Book events are great fun and if you can get to go to any, please do.

As well as showing support for the authors (which is always appreciated), you may well get to hear readings. Also there will be the chance to get signed copies. These make for fab Christmas presents!

A lot of work goes on behind the scenes setting these up but book events are wonderful for bringing writers and readers together.

Any reader interacts with the author simply by reading their works of course but at events, you may be able to ask questions as you get your books signed.

That can give the writer useful feedback. I’ve had readers say something about my stories revealing hidden depths I hadn’t considered when writing the tale.

Was I pleased? Oh yes! Why? Because the readers had engaged with my stories and showed me they had.

We all love books for various reasons but engaging with stories like that is so special. And it is really nice for an author to find that out a book event.

liked Allison Symes's blog post: Book Events https://t.co/t4nAccwQ57 via @goodreads I look at the usefulness of supporting book events this week for Goodreads. Timely too as I came back from London from one I was joining in with today! pic.twitter.com/dAS4jTgLHO
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) December 3, 2022

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It’s Monday and cold. There is far too much to do before Christmas but it is time to take a break and enjoy a new flash fiction video. You know it makes sense, to quote Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses. Hope you enjoy Fourteen Days, my latest on YouTube.https://t.co/MKad30ZQ96
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) December 5, 2022

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Am pleased to share the double (50th) issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads. I use the theme of Fifty for my article and set 2 flash challenges. One was to write on the subject of fifty to 300 words. The second was to write a 50 word story including title. Enjoy!https://t.co/FUHIxERKQI
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) December 5, 2022

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Book Brush – Reader Hub – Allison Symes

Competitions, Reading, and Publication News

May 26, 2020Leave a comment

Image Credit: As ever, unless otherwise stated, the images are from Pixabay or Pexels.

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Every so often, I go through my list of potential competitions and whittle them down. I inevitably don’t get to enter all of them (time!) but I like to have a shortlist of contenders to pick from and I always go for the themes that appeal to me most. I do go in for open theme competitions too but actually prefer the set themes. I like to have a framework to work towards.

I wish I could say tidying the paperwork up immediately triggered inspiration for the Best Writing Idea Ever but I think I’d need the Writing Fairy to make a special appearance for that one to happen! 😆😆 I’ll let you know if she ever shows up….

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Have been slowly getting back into reading again via the Kindle.

I talked about how I’ve not read that much since the lockdown began in my CFT post last week so I am pleased the drought is beginning to clear.

I have had patches of not reading much before, mainly at times of great upset/stress etc., but also know that those patches pass so it is a relief to be slowly coming out of this one. (The last time was around the time I lost my dad, just over three years ago and I didn’t start reading properly again until a week after the funeral).

And yes I’m reading humour. It is always what I turn to first to kickstart my reading “diet” again.

And if you find you’re not writing or reading so much (or both), go easy on yourself. See this as a temporary stage only. It is!

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Managed to do a fair bit of editing over the weekend so am pleased with that. My CFT post this week will be looking at books on the radio and will feature YA author, Richard Hardie, as well as yours truly. More on that later in the week.

I must admit one advantage of writing mainly in the evenings is not having the heat browbeat me down! (I never work that well in very hot weather. Mind you, does anyone apart from the ice cream sellers?!😆).

I’ve long found creative writing to be therapeutic. I suppose it is because finding a form of artistic expression that suits me is so relaxing. I see writing as my wind-down time. I like to feel at the end of a session I used the time productively even if I “only” produced two flash fiction stories, say. I want to feel happy with what I’ve written even at first draft stage (because I know the work will only get better after that).

For longer term projects, I want to feel as I’ve made progress and I can see where I’ve got to go next.

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Facebook – General – and Publication News

Bonus post tonight. My story Breaking Out is now on Cafelit. Hope you enjoy.

The opening line comes from a prompt I contributed to the Prompts book produced by Gill James (see picture below). Do check it out in the usual places. You won’t run out of writing prompts!

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As you know, when I’m planning out a character I focus on their major trait(s) and there usually is more than one. After all, someone isn’t just brave, say. They may well be honest, charitable, compassionate and so on as well. It is the combination of traits that sparks a character (and therefore the story).

A character who is generally honest but is forced to lie to protect people they love is going to be a character I want to read about. I will want to find out what happens as a result of that lie but also how the character deals with their internal conflict here. While they’ll be happy to protect loved ones, they won’t be happy to have had to lie so how do they handle that?

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From Light to Dark and Back Again – Story Time!

Story time again. Random question generator time again. Hope you enjoy.

The question was what are the two things you would do if you woke up to find you were invisible? My answers? Panic and wonder whether I’d ever “come back”! But I thought it would be fun to write a story on this.

IN TIME

I knew something was up the moment the alarm woke me. Oh it was set for the usual time – 5.40 am – but when I realised I couldn’t see my hand as I went to switch the wretched thing off, I began to panic. I thought at first I’d lost my sight but then realised I was looking at where my hand should be and I could see my wardrobe in one corner of my room. Opposite was my chair.

I got up and went towards the full length mirror which was something I’d inherited from my gran. There was nothing in the mirror. Now I know I’m not a vampire and you’ll just have to take my word for it on that. This is when my panic settings went from mild to through the roof and up into the stratosphere territory. Well, you just would panic, wouldn’t you?

And then I remembered. I was rushing home from work and bumped into a scatter brained old lady who stepped in front of me in such a way I had no time to stop. I shouted at her to look where she was going, was she blind or something, and yes I know I was bloody rude and I am sorry about that. I’d had a horrendous day at work and I just wanted to get home. I know – no excuses but I want you to know I’m not normally rude.

Anyway she called out that she would teach me to look and I just laughed at that and thought nothing of it. I laughed even more when she got a big stick from her handbag and waved it in my direction. Who did she think she was – a fairy godmother or something?

I don’t know what to do. Will this wear off? She did call out I’d have to come and grovel to her soon. I laughed at that too.
Trouble is, it doesn’t seem so damned funny now.

I’ll be off. I’ll get my coat. If I’ve got to grovel, I’d rather get it over and done with.

Ends

Allison Symes – 23rd May 2020

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Hope you enjoyed my story, In Time, yesterday. This is the first time I’ve used the random question generator as the theme of the story, rather than as the title, opening or closing line. So yet another use for the generators then!

I’ve sometimes come across writing prompts that I would like to have a go at but I’m not happy with the ideas I come up with so I will bear using the prompt as a theme instead. I think that will give more flexibility.

What I would be inclined to do here is save such stories generated this way for open competitions where you set the theme anyway.

It means an idea could well produce something for you that you might otherwise have written off if you weren’t happy with something you’ve prepared with a specific theme-set competition in mind.

I’ve always found it best to submit the very best stories I can produce. Anything I’m not happy with for any reason doesn’t get binned. Neither does it get submitted. I save it and see if I can salvage something from it later and usually I can. Okay it can’t go in for that competition but that’s fine. If the author’s not happy with the story, the competition judge won’t be either!

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What would you say are your favourite kinds of stories and why?

I love:-

Humorous prose, especially fantasy, as I enjoy a good laugh.

Crime(though not the very violent type) as I enjoy the puzzle and seeing justice being done.

History – fiction and non-fiction. I learn from both. A well told historical fiction story does seem to transport me back to the era it is set in. (Music can do this too. I love Ralph Vaughan-Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for that reason). A good non-fiction book will show me aspects of a historical character I’d not considered before.

Fairytales –first love, storywise. Always enjoy seeing the deserving get what they deserve (and this is even more true for the villains!).

And what I love most about flash fiction is the form is open enough for you to write in those genres and many more. All you need worry about is the word count and even there you have flexibility from the very short to the right on the 1,000 words limit. There are competitions and markets to suit the entire range too.

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I mix up how I approach writing flash fiction in terms of word count. There are times I know I want to write to a specific count (usually 75 or 100 words) for a chosen market and/or competition.

At other times, having outlined my story and character(s), I write it and then work out what word count it works best at. I then keep that story one side until a suitable market/competitiion comes up.

If a story works best at 250 words, I keep it there and won’t try and edit it down to get to a sub-200 word competition.

And how do I judge where a story works best?

It’s always about the impact of the character for me. The next thing I ask myself is whether there is anything I could add to or take out of the story which would improve the tale and its impact. When the answer is no, I’m there!

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Goodreads Author Blog – Book Events

One of the things I miss most as a writer at the moment is the ability to go to book events.

Much as I do deeply appreciate what is available online, and it is a lifeline, I miss going into libraries and bookshops.

I also miss going to author events and I look forward to being able to do all of these things again in due course.

The Waterloo Arts Festival is going to be online this year. I’ll be taking part in that as one of the winners of their writing competition and I made a video for this.

It was good fun to do but oh I shall miss meeting up in person with my fellow writers. (We will all miss the pub lunch beforehand too!).

But the good news is books can still be celebrated and they should be. Of all the times to need books for escapism, it is now, isn’t it?

Whatever you’re reading, I hope you have a wonderful time “between the covers” and, whoever it is you’re reading, do consider leaving a review in the usual places including here. It really does help.