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Moving Books

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Janet Williams for taking two images of me at one of the Hiltingbury Book Fairs.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Nice one here and it includes a Bank Holiday. Lady is hoping to see more of her friends this week and I remain thrilled to bits my third book, Seeing The Other Side, is due out on 18th June 2026. Onwards and upwards it is then!

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Hope today has gone well. Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler friend today – all well there.

Writing wise, I’m back on to editing for a client, as well as getting various bits and pieces together which will appear over the next month or so. All hugely enjoyable tasks plus, naturally, I hope to share more news of Seeing The Other Side in due course. So looking forward to that coming out.

Character Tip: There are various ways to start creating a character. Ironically, I don’t find pictures that helpful while I know many other authors do. I’m more drawn by how my character sounds in conversation, which will also show me a great deal about their attitudes to life and educational level/class. That conversation will come from what I believe their main trait will be.

Creating a character can be a bit like putting a jigsaw together. Get a corner piece and away you go! For me that corner piece is the trait and then I get the second corner piece of something my character is likely to say or think.

Hope you’ve had a good day. It has been a Bank Holiday Monday where I am. Still hectic mind you.

So time for my Substack story of the week and I hope you enjoy this one – Last Silly Thing. Idea for this one came from a random question generator which asked what was the last silly thing you did. There is no way I’m revealing that one but I can get a character to do so!

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Lovely church service this morning followed by a quick walk in the park with Lady and a quiet writing and editing afternoon. Much to enjoy about Sundays from my viewpoint! And I’ll be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday soon too….

Hope to submit a story I’ve worked on recently to a competition later today. Then it’ll be time to pick another competition to have a go at. I like to keep my hand in!

Writing Tip: I’ve mentioned before how useful it can be to have a stock of stories to hand for when competitions of interest come up, as they do, but where to start here? My thought would be to write stories around timeless themes (which is where the proverbs and sayings will prove useful), because these will always come up. There will always be competitions based around the themes of love, justice, revenge, and things like that. You can also think about genres here too. There will always be competitions around ghost stories, crime stories, history stories and more.

It’s important to write what you genuinely love though. I love most genres (and read in them) so writing to them when the occasion demands it seems a natural thing to do for me. I’m not so keen on horror, for example, so won’t write to that. (The nearest I’ve ever got to that was a dark, by my standards, ghost story and there I was looking at what could drive the character to be the way I portrayed them. I had no problem with approaching the story that way).

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start. Not bad here though rain has now come in. Not that this bothers Lady.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Book Event Tips for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I hope it will prove useful. Am looking forward to more events myself when Seeing The Other Side comes out.

Delighted to receive my copy of Christian Writer, the journal of the Association of Christian Writers, in the post today. Aside from anything else, we don’t always get post on a Saturday these days! Anyway, I have a column in Christian Writer called Allison’s Advice and I write a 100 word flash non-fiction piece for it on aspects of writing. My column this time shared a few thoughts on learning to love editing (or at least see it as the useful and crucial thing it is).

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Did get my flash competition entry off over the Bank Holiday weekend so was pleased about that. Have just received an email about another potential one. It is one I’ve tried before but have had no joy but you have to be in it to win it, yes?

I hope to get back to some longer short story competitions too but am putting this on the back burner for the next couple of months. Once my Seeing The Other Side is out, there will be plenty to do there but I am looking forward to that immensely.


It has been a busy Bank Holiday Monday here (though Lady was delighted to get to see her “boyfriend”, a lovely Aussie Shepherd). I do know it is time for a story on my YouTube channel though. Hope you like my latest one here – Past Mistakes.

Magical mistakes have led to my character learning and surviving but she now faces the test of her life. Find out more here.

 

Will be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly and I have a competition to submit for too. My entry for that was a flash piece I drafted a while ago, left “to brew”, came back and edited it and strengthened it. It’s now ready to send in but the break away did help me see flaws clearly when I came back to it.

I hope to write up some of the prompts I set at last week’s Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting. There was time for one of the exercises on the night and I’ve drafted something for that, which I think has promise. But I do want to try to have a go at some of the other prompts. There are some interesting characters to write stories around and that kind of prompt always draws me in.

As you know, I do believe a successful story hinges on how well readers root for the characters in it.

One of the joys of re-reading my Seeing The Other Side when I was proofreading it recently was to rediscover the stories in there. I write a great number of tales so it is impossible to remember them all. But I do tend to remember the characters. They’ve always been the kingpin of any form of fiction. If they grip me, the story will. It’s a good challenge to remember as I write my own tales.

Character Tip: Think about what makes your character stand out for you. What do you love about them? What do you loathe? The reasons why behind your answers here will tell you more about those characters and will reveal something of their motivations, which is always useful to know.

If you loathe a character because they’re dishonest, you can then look at why they’re that way. Were they driven to it? Did they do this as a survival technique? Were they determined not to be deceived by anyone else again?

Whichever way you look at it, there are story ideas here.

Goodreads Author Blog – Moving Books

I’ve long thought any story, any book (including non-fiction), should move you in some way for it to “work properly”.

For non-fiction, the “moving” bit comes from helping you to discover something you didn’t know or where a different interpretation, one you’d not come across before, is shown. Here the moving bit is enlightenment, if you like, or you agree/disagree with the different interpretation. It will still have made you think though!

For fiction, the success of any story is for the characters to move you enough to make you care about what happens to them. I’ve long found if I don’t care about the character, I won’t be finishing the story.

There are various ways to bring characters to life so they can move readers. Sometimes it is getting them to face a life or death quest (The Lord of the Rings is the godfather of this kind of fiction for me). Sometimes it is when two characters are clearly meant for each other but they have to overcome difficulties (Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion for me here).

But something about the characters has to appeal. I admired Frodo’s courage, Elizabeth Bennet’s determination not to settle for second best, and Anne Elliot accepting she made a mistake when rejecting Wentworth all those years ago.



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Using Old Sayings in Fiction

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady and I are loving the continuing sunshine. Writing is going well and I now have news my Seeing The Other Side should be out on 18th June 2026 – exciting times!


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Delighted to share Using Old Sayings in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today and I hope you get to draft some stories as a result of it. Why? Simply because I share a few old sayings and suggest ways in which they could be used for storytelling. (Incidentally the proverbs are also useful for non-fiction writing but I thought for this post I’d focus on the fiction side).

Proverbs reveal timeless truths so will always resonate with people and I think this is why they will always be useful as themes and/or titles. Basically, you do have ready made prompts here.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

Using Old Sayings in Fiction

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady and I had another great time in the park this morning. She saw her Hungarian Vizler chum and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Nice time had by all.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Using Old Sayings in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I’ll be sharing some old sayings and suggesting ways in which they can be used. I hope the post will prove useful and inspire some stories. Link up tomorrow. See above.

It was great to see everyone at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting last night. There was great discussion around the prompts set too. I felt it was a particularly encouraging and inspirational session and I hope everyone goes on to edit and polish their drafts.

Publication News: I’m thrilled to tell you Seeing The Other Side has a soft launch date in the middle of June (18th). More news as and when I have it but am delighted to flag this up now. Has perked me up a lot this week, as I’m sure you can imagine!

Glad to be back on More Than Writers, the blog spot of the Association of Christian Writers, with my latest post called Controlling Characters.

Do you control your characters or do they, at least sometimes, control you? I share tips and thoughts for those occasions when your characters come out with the unexpected. I also look at whether you can control your characters while giving them some “freedom” at the same time and where knowing the major trait(s) can prove so useful.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

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1st May 2026 – newsletter
Pleased to say my latest author newsletter went out today. My theme was Dialogue in Fiction. I hope subscribers find the tips and thoughts on that topic useful.

To subscribe you just need to head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Has been a lovely week so far with publication news (my third book, Seeing The Other Side, will be out in mid-June – circa the 18th) and a fabulous writing session with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group last night. (On Wednesday 29th April 2026). Have also worked on a piece which I hope to submit to a competition over the weekend.

It is lovely when you have productive times like this. It makes up for those times which are more of a struggle or where all that seems to come in are turn downs from competitions etc.

Encouraging times also help you focus and move forward too. Nothing to dislike about that.

And bear in mind too encouragement can be a fabulous theme to write about. Best encourager in the “fiction business”? To my mind that has to go to Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Frodo needed him.

Lovely morning in the park and Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler chum today for the first time this week so both dogs were pleased to see each other. Little moments like that are special.

You could argue flash fiction is the art of sharing the “little moments”. By that, I mean there is enough of a tale to be a proper story with a proper beginning, middle and end, but not enough for a standard length short story (usually 1500 words plus). The secret here is to ensure the “little moment” is enough of a story to be a story at all. So there must be a memorable character and something crucial happens but it is all over within a compressed word count.

If you ever want to learn to write tightly, do practice writing flash fiction. You learn to work out what you do need and what you don’t. You cut out the qualifiers such as the words “quite”, “a bit” and “very”. Usually the things these are referring to don’t need the qualifier at all. If something is “a bit” scary, say, then surely it is just scary!


Fairytales With Bite – Crashes

In your magical environment where folk can fly with or without the aid of machinery or a decent broom, how do they avoid crashes? Traffic congestion happens everywhere (and I’ve written a few humorous flash pieces around that thought – one will appear in my forthcoming book, Seeing The Other Side).

Is there a kind of magical Highway Code which people stick to? Do they learn this at their equivalent of school or is it something like our driving test which people have to do later when they are considered to be mature enough to do this?

Would your setting have anything like air traffic control, which would monitor and control air lanes?

If crashes do sometimes happen, what is the procedure for dealing with them? Is there a “magical insurance policy” drivers/fliers have to have and do claimants have to go through claims processes as we do? I smile at the thought of an annoyed witch having to file an insurance claim and being told she has been turned down or has to pay an excess. Would she dare to do anything against the assessor?

Good potential for humorous stories here, I think.

And what inspired this thought? A word game I like on my phone crashed without warning. Still, it’s given me an idea for a blog post!

This World and Others – Technology and Magic Clashes

In your magical setting, would your world consider our technology to be the equivalent to their magic? Or would they consider their magic to be far superior and would they be right to think that?

I’m thinking along the lines that certain aspects of science can “look” magical. For example, if you combine elements to create something else, that could look “magical”.

Especially if our technology can achieve things your world’s settings cannot do, would they want to try and copy what we’ve done? Or would they want to stop it and us? Or would they improve their magical powers to overtake us? Or would they simply steal the ideas from us and use them in their own way back at home?

Could our technology ever threaten their magical powers?

Story ideas there for sure.

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Templates

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you have had a good week. Weather more changeable but Lady has been having fabulous times in the park with her closest chums so all well there. Glad to say my story did go out on Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on Tuesday 24th March. Links below

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Am pleased to share Templates on Chandler’s Ford Today. I share thoughts on what you could put in your own template to help you flesh out characters and/or settings. All of the questions I share here will help you come up with story ideas.

I also look at the advantages and disadvantages of templates. I see them as a helpful way in to creating a new character and/or setting. Sometimes it is useful to know the setting first and then you can work out who would populate it. Often settings can almost be like characters in their own right – for example, think of the moors in Wuthering Heights or Dickens’ London as shown in Oliver Twist.

I also mix up the questions I use in templates to avoid them becoming formulaic. Hope you find the post useful.

Templates

 

Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler chum today – the dogs are always pleased to see each other. It’s lovely to see.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Templates on Chandler’s Ford Today this week – link up tomorrow. See above. I’ll be looking at the usefulness of these things (and also discuss some disadvantages, not everyone gets on with them for one thing). I’ll also be suggesting ideas for your own templates. Hope the post will prove useful.

Am glad to say I now have the link for the Hannah Kate Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM on Mixcloud. I hope to catch up with this myself at the weekend but highly recommend a listen because I love the stories on these shows though I will admit to bias being on the show and knowing someone else who is but it is a good bias to have, I think.

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Lady had a fabulous puppy party this morning with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback friends and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. All four dogs went home tired and happy.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later on tonight. Our theme this time is sixty. There are various ways to incorporate that thought into stories and we will be looking at some of those this evening.

I hope to catch up with Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show over the weekend but many congratulations to all of the writers who had work featured here. I always enjoy catching up with these shows and listening to all of the stories – fabulous entertainment.

Writing Tip: Character names can be used to reflect something of their age and likely social status but the main thing to watch when having more than one named character in tale is to ensure the names are different enough so it is easy for readers to tell who is speaking at any given point.

Also it helps not to have the same initials. If Jake and John are in the same tale, it could be easy to confuse these unless there are other clear points of difference such as in the manner each of them speaks and the type of vocabulary they use.

A good editing tip here is when you read through your work, can you tell the characters apart easily? You should be able to do so.

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Earlier this week at the meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group, we looked at the theme of Sixty. I chose that to fit in with my special birthday (couldn’t resist it!) but it does lend itself to stories based on diamonds, special birthdays and anniversaries. You can also just use the number itself as part of a story such as part of an address, a sum of money and more.

I also set the group some exercises, one of which was to write to sixty words exactly including the title. My story for that session, to show as an example, is below. Hope you enjoy it.

My Hero by Allison Symes

I can’t say I like his handiwork but he leaves me gifts. He doesn’t do that for anyone else. He comes and sits on my lap when I feel sad. Then goes out and kills as many mice as he can find and brings them all to me.

I possibly shouldn’t have called my rough diamond Mr Tiddles.

Ends
Allison Symes – 8th March 2026

Word Count including title = 60

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The next best thing any reader can do after buying an author’s book is to review them, of course. A lovely one for my Tripping The Flash Fantastic includes the following quote.

Fabulous collection of poems and flash fiction. Some made me giggle, some made me gasp, all surprised me! I found it a real page turner, as the stories had such unexpected twists and turns!

Many thanks to my lovely reviewer here. Reviews like that reassure an author they’re on the right lines. I look to entertain with my flash and short stories so it’s good to know that is happening!

The great thing with reviews is they don’t have to be long, which is so apt for when you’re reviewing a flash fiction collection.

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Looking forward to joining in with some of the exercises I’m setting for tonight’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. Always good fun this and I get more drafts down so nothing to dislike there. Hopefully these will end up later on being polished up for competitions. Am hoping to get to write some further drafts over the weekend as there are competitions coming up in May and beyond which I always have a go at and I do like to start early. It means I get enough time to rest my drafts to assess them properly well ahead of deadlines.

I also make a point of mixing up the kind of writing exercise I use because it keeps me on my toes and I get to create more stories this way. I must admit though I do have a soft spot for the opening line kind.

Fairytales With Bite – A New Era

This topic came to mind as I’ve recently celebrated a landmark birthday. You know, the kind of one which marks the end of one decade and the beginning of another.

So how would your magical characters recognize what was a new era for them? Does your setting mark time in a similar way to ours but, if not, how do they do so? How would their eras correlate to what we would recognize as that?

Now I see my next decade as a promising one in that I hope to continue to develop my writing and hopefully have more success with it. But how would your characters see the passing of another decade (or the equivalent)? Do they worry about aging and, if so, why? Would magical powers decrease with age and that is why nobody really wants to think about getting older and what it would mean there? (There are clear parallels with us here).

Is your magical setting a benevolent one or a dictatorship? That would colour the views of your characters as they enter a new era. They may want more of the same or a complete overthrow of the regime. Good story thoughts there.

And a character’s view to aging, whether they’re magical or not, can also highlight other attitudes of theirs. If they worry about aging, could it because they know how older beings are treated? Again, good story ideas there.

This World and Others – Leaving the Past Behind

Landmark birthdays can give cause for reflection as you look ahead to the decade to come and ponder on the one you’ve just left behind. I don’t think it is entirely possible to leave the past behind. You always carry some of this with us and so should our characters. But there are times we want to not be held back by damaging things from our past and that again can often be the case with our characters.

When it comes to magical or alien characters, what kinds of things would they want to confine to the past and why? Would they have the same or similar regrets to us or would theirs be different due to their nature and/or environment?

Leaving the past behind can throw up interesting areas to explore for historians and archaeologists. What would count as archaeological finds on your setting? Would it be anything we’d recognize? Sometimes discoveries from the past can have impact on what is known now. For example, the finding of the remains of King Richard III has done this. Are there things from the past your world and/or characters wish had stayed hidden?

Definite story ideas there.

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Review – The Chameleon Theatre Company – Camelot The Pantomime

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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.  A huge thank you to Daisy Wilkins (Dazoo Art) for kind permission to use pictures, on behalf of The Chameleon Theatre Company, from Camelot the Pantomime in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Lady has enjoyed seeing her friends. Mud avoidance not possible at the moment though! Glad my copy of Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction Favourites has now reached me and I’m enjoying it very much. I have a few stories in there too.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals again and all three went home tired but happy.

Talking of which, I came home tired and happy after seeing Camelot The Pantomime recently staged by the always excellent Chameleon Theatre Company. I review the pantomime for my post on Chandler’s Ford Today this week and hope you enjoy it. The Chameleon pantomimes are always worth seeing but they do stage other plays during the rest of the year so if you are in my area, watch out for these. I’ve taken in far more stories than I would otherwise have done watching The Chameleons on stage.

Oh and you know the old song from South Pacific, There’s Nothing Like a Dame? Great song, I have wonderful memories of a certain Morecambe and Wise sketch which used it, and it is always true for pantomimes, including Camelot.

The Chameleon Theatre Company – Review – Camelot The Pantomime


Soggy day today but Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals and Daisy the sweet spaniel. Lovely but muddy time had by all.

Writing wise, do look out for my review of Camelot The Pantomime, recently staged by The Chameleon Theatre Company, for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. It was great fun to watch the show and a real pleasure to review it. After a difficult week for various reasons (including Storm Chandra), it was such a tonic to see this. The review will share the “flavour” of the show which I hope you will enjoy. For me, it was also a chance to take in a story in a different format and I always welcome that. See above.

Many thanks for all who’ve liked my recent article on Writers’ Narrative on Substack. Articles will appear in your inbox (if you’ve subscribed to the magazine) every few days. Another one of mine will appear later this month.

Top Tip: For all of my articles, I prepare in advance as much as I can even when I know I can’t write the whole thing up until later. For example, if I need to research a particular topic but cannot do so immediately, I will make a note on my Scrivener file to remind me to check the references out and list them so they are easy to find. So I have these things to hand when I do then have the time to do the research. These notes are in with my draft article.

It’s what I love about Scrivener. It’s so easy to keep things together and even move things around as I need to. I went through a stage when Word kept crashing on me so when I discovered Scrivener, where I’ve had no problems at all, I was only too glad to move over to it. The nice thing is when I need to “compile” a Scrivener document to a Word format (for story competitions where I have to upload a file in docx format), it is so easy to do. I can also “compile” to pdf and many other formats and I’ve found that useful too.

But making a note at the time of what I need to research (and the links) at a later date saves me so much time.


Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler chum and Daisy the lovely spaniel. All three dogs had a lovely time in the park. Nice to see some sunshine about. Think we all appreciated that.

Writing wise, have now received the stories for judging for the flash fiction competition where I am a co-judge. Looking forward to reading the stories. Whether you judge stories or not, every time you read fiction you will learn something which can be useful to your own writing – what you like, dislike etc in characters, for example.

Reading/Writing Tip: If you keep a notebook to hand when you read, why not jot down what you like/dislike about a character and why. A line or two would be enough. These notes will build up over time and may well assist you in creating your own characters. You, having been the reader, will know what it is you want to see from characters. Your notes will confirm this.

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Today, 6th February, would’ve been the Accession Day for the late Queen Elizabeth the Second. Her life and her role in it changed in a moment. While knowing this would happen at some point, it came far earlier for her than expected.

Now how about applying that thought to some characters. Make them face things they are half-ready long before they truly are. How do they manage? How does it impact on their life? What problems does it cause given they were expecting this situation/role later than they inherited it? There will be good story ideas to come from that. Also there’s nothing like having a character face the unexpected (at all or early) to increase the tension/drama in your story.

Flash is a constant challenge given I have to keep on inventing characters but, given this is my favourite aspect to storytelling, it’s a challenge I love. For me, characters are the reason I keep reading any length of story. I’ve got to want to see what happens. The lovely thing with flash, of course, is you get to see what happens quickly. I love that too.

It does mean I have to work out what I need to know about my characters first before I share them in stories. I have to focus on what matters for the story only. Everything else has to be cut out. That in turn helps me meet the word count requirement.

Delighted to say my copy of Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction Favourites arrived today. Am looking forward to reading that. Good to see familiar names here (and often with more than one Editor’s Choice too, so well done all).

Have started sending in competition entries towards the end of January/beginning of February. I’ve started a little later than last year on this (various reasons for that) but am pleased to have made a start.

Competitions stretch me and it is always a great challenge to rise to a set theme.

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Fairytales With Bite – The End of the Working Week

I suspect most of us are glad to get to the end of the working week, even if we love our jobs. By the time we get to Friday, we’re usually more than ready for a break. (I salute all those who work shifts by the way, not something I could do).

But how would your characters, magical or otherwise, feel about what would be their working week? What would they do to unwind ready for the daily grind to begin again on their equivalent of Monday? Is it a case of switching magical usage off altogether and “discharging”? Or it is a case of using magic for more relaxing purposes instead of their daily work? What would their work be? If your setting is run on magical systems of any kind, I would imagine they would need “engineers” and “maintenance”. Someone has to carry out those roles.

How would time work in your setting? Would it have a week as we know it, or is their equivalent longer or shorter? Who decided who would work when? How did your world realise their workers would need a break to recharge? Nobody, even with magical powers, can keep going all of the time. There would be a price to pay there.
In the UK our weekends really began as a result of campaigns to have Saturday afternoons off in the Victorian era. That gave workers that time and Sundays off. What would have happened in your world to trigger a change in their working patterns? How has your magical world benefited from the changes? Did they have magical campaigners here?

Food for story thought there, I think.

This World and Others – Respite

Linking in with Fairytales with Bite above, how would your characters get their respite from their magical or non-magical work? Would there be sports, dancing etc and would they resemble anything we have here? If your characters prefer to listen to music or read books (or do both together), what would be available for them?

If your characters need a longer period of respite, how would they take this? As an official holiday, a sabbatical, or would they take unpaid leave? What would trigger them to have longer respite periods? Also, what would holidays look like in your setting, is everyone entitled to them, when would they be taken and how long for?

Could you set your characters in stories where they are away from their normal routine, enjoying some needed respite, when adventures intervene and how would your characters handle this? I am fond of crime stories, especially those by Agatha Christie, and you know when she sends Poirot or Miss Marple somewhere something is going to happen which means they need to use their detective skills again. Could you do something similar with your magical characters? What kind of adventures would interrupt their respite?

There could be potential for humorous stories here too.

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Broadcast News and Judging Stories

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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 lovely weekend. Family came down to visit so had a fantastic and busy time – we went to see a local lights festival. Lady loved seeing the family too. She is very much a “people” dog! Writing and editing are going well. Will be wrapping up for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday 19th December and then will be back in the New Year.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal today so both dogs were pleased at that. Later on our evening walk Lady, other half and I came across her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal. The two dogs were so excited to see each other, sweet to see.

Character Creation Tip: You know your own likes and dislikes. Why not take those and swap them around for potential characters?

For example, if you love sprouts, get your character to hate them and then face a situation where they have no choice but to have some of the things. Could be a good fun story there but the general point here of taking what you know (your likes and dislikes) and using them for characters should be the means of generating plenty of story ideas for you.

Have fun!

Delighted to say the bumper December issue of Writers’ Narrative is now out. Pleased to have two articles in here – Real Characters, Please and Why Should Fiction Writers Read Non-Fiction?

The theme of the magazine is Diversity Matters and there are plenty of fabulous articles to enjoy, all of which will help you with your own writing in some way.

Hope you enjoy the magazine, all 52 bumper pages, link below. Plenty here to keep you busy for a bit!

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Have had a fabulous weekend with family visiting. Went to see a local light festival. That was great but the parking was abysmal. Traffic guidance (which was indicated by a sign saying there was police approved traffic control) was non-existent. Once parked though, we had a great time at the event itself. It was impressive.

Oh well. Great to catch up with the family though and it won’t be too long before we meet up again which will be lovely. (A riotous time is usually had by all including the four legged members of the family).

Next weekend will be busy too as will be taking part in Carols by Candlelight services and reading a beautiful poem at one of them. Looking forward to that.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing A Year In Flashback as my last Chandler’s Ford Today post for 2025. That will be up on Friday.

I did manage to get to listen to Three Minute Santas with Hannah Kate on North Manchester FM yesterday before the family arrived. Loved all of the stories. Am looking forward to congratulating via Zoom those members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group who also had stories on here. We’ll be having a round up meeting on Wednesday sharing chat and stories, a great way to finish our year.

Character Tip: What would your character make of our Christmas celebrations, especially if they were not from this world? Could be some fun stories to write following that prompt. Have fun!

Am posting early today as am delighted to have family come down today. We’re off to see a local festive lights show this evening. Should be fun.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing my last Chandler’s Ford Today post for 2025 next Friday, 19th December. I’ll take a look back at my writing year and look ahead to the next one too.

Broadcast News: Am enjoying listening to Three Minute Santas on North Manchester FM as I post this. (Well, I was at the time, honest!). The show is hosted by Hannah Kate (as part of her Hannah’s Bookshelf programme) and I know I am going to love listening to the festive stories. There will be some from members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group, including me, too.

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf 3 Minute Santas Special, Saturday 13 December, 2-4pm

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Flash is easy to share on social media and your website so can be an excellent marketing tool. I like to share some flash stories every so often, including the regular ones I share here, simply to show something of my writing style to potential readers. Besides which, I like doing this because it is fun!

I love it when other authors share their stories (or snippets). The tales in themselves are entertaining but you can learn so much from what other writers do. The writing community is very supportive here and I think a lot of that is because we know ideas spark other ideas. There will be never be just the one Christmas ghost story, for example (though Dickens did write a magnificent one in A Christmas Carol) but that particular famous tale will have and will continue to spark other story ideas.

What could our story ideas spark in others? I hope lots of other ideas that only those writers could come up with! I like to see this as contributing to the big world of stories out there. Also, we do build on what has gone before. I continue to be inspired by the classic fairytales for a start.

It’s Monday. It’s dark though I am enjoying seeing the Christmas lights when I walk my dog in the evening. Brightens the place up no end. Still time for a story though. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Who What When.

Discover who fell down a chimney, what happened when a collie became involved, and when this is going to happen. Hope you enjoy this fun Christmas story.

 

With my judge’s hat on, how do I pick a potential winning flash fiction story?

I look at how well the character grips me and then how do they deliver on the premise of the story. I am expecting the character to make me feel something/react to what they do (and it should be apt for the story of course). If the character stays in my mind after I’ve read the story, then that is a good sign and of course it is a challenge to me to make sure my characters do just that for my readers.

There should be heart and feeling in a story regardless of its length, I think. I’ve got to care about what happens to the characters after all.

Will be winding down the writing as we approach Christmas and intend to have a few days break. I appreciate the time off yet when I get back to my desk that’s no hardship and this is a good place to be. I am phenomenally grateful for discovering flash fiction. It is such fun to write and read.

Would like to try competitions new to me in 2026 (having ensured they’re reputable first, of course), as well as keeping up a reasonable number of entries. I do know my recent turndown is a story I would like to try and place elsewhere. Ironically, I am being a story judge myself again soon and again in February.

Does being a story judge sometimes help me with my own flash and short story contenders? It can do. I do know with my judge’s hat on I am looking for that special something which makes a story stand out. If I remember the story, that’s a good sign and it is a challenge to me to make sure my own are memorable too.

Goodreads Author Blog – Have a Lovely Reading Christmas and New Year

I hope the Christmas season brings you plenty of lovely new books to read. I put my list in early. Yes, there is always a list! There would be something wrong if I didn’t have plenty of books on my wish list.

Did you use to get annuals as part of your Christmas presents? Do you still get them even? My son used to love The Beano Annual (and yes I often took a peek or several, having loved many of the characters in there). D.C. Thomson are a fabulous publisher. My annual these days is the thoughtful The Friendship Book, which has been a yearly fixture for decades now.

As well as the books I’m looking forward to, I love the Christmas story itself. I also take part in Carols by Candlelight services and have read some wonderful poems based around the Nativity, which I hadn’t come across before. Beautiful words to read and the poems conjure up tremendous imagery, as do the carols, especially my favourite In The Bleak Midwinter (has to be the Holst tune though).

I suppose that’s what I love about words, stories, and books the most. They really do take you places through the power of your own imagination.

I’m looking forward to having my imagination re-fired by the books I find under the tree this year!

I hope to post again next week but in case that cannot happen, I will wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year and hope books to continue to play an important part in your life. I cannot imagine a world without books. Nor do I ever wish to be able to!

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WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

Couldn’t resist putting the above magazine back in here too. This has been one of the highlights of my writing year.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Review – The Business of Murder by Mike Standing

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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. One image of Creativity Matters was kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Started the week feeling poorly but much better now. Enjoyed going to Penny Rogers’ online launch for Amelie at The Window. I interviewed her for Chandler’s Ford Today recently. Busy editing and other writing going well and Lady continues to make good progress and loves seeing her chums so all okay here.

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Am delighted to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with another review. This time I review the murder mystery play, The Business of Murder by Mike Standing, which was recently staged by the Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church Senior Thespians. It was great fun and I look at some of the joys of this kind of play in my review.

Hope you enjoy the post and if you get the chance to check out murder mystery plays near you, do so. They are a great format.

Review – The Business of Murder by Mike Standing

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady enjoyed being with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today and I was pleased to get back to swimming, though it was for a shorter session than I usually do. It was nice being in the pool again though and before you think I’m daft here, the water was lovely. Mind you, it only feels like that when it is either (a) perishing outside as it is today or (b) so hot outside the water feels refreshing by contrast (as it did in the summer)!

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing my review of The Business of Murder by Mike Standing which was recently performed by the Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church Senior Thespians. The murder mystery was great fun and I share more about it on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Am making good progress with Flash NANO. Hard to believe we’re at the two-thirds through mark already.

Will be sharing a super author interview in early December on CFT too and am looking forward to that.

Marketing Tip: Seeing marketing as a way of being creative with your writing is one way of making doing any more bearable. I know many authors don’t particularly like marketing. We’d far rather be writing, right?

But we also want readers to see our writing so deciding what marketing we will do and being creative with it is another way to play with words and promote our written works. I do enjoy using Book Brush to help me create graphics. I love preparing little videos for my YouTube channel.

In both these things, I can put my imagination to work and get some marketing done. Win-win there, I’d say.

Hope you’ve had a good Wednesday. Bitterly cold here though we’ve managed to escape the snow for the time being. Lady doing well but she, like me, wasn’t sorry the walk was a relatively short one today.

Am looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. Will be looking at the topic of memories – apt for a month where remembrance is so important. Memories can be a huge source of inspiration for story ideas as well as showing you something about the characters they come from.

It won’t be too long either before the last author newsletter of the year comes out from me. My, does the year fly by. If you want to sign up for news, tips, story links and more do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and a huge thank you for the support shown, it is much appreciated.

Character Tip: Think about the kinds of memories your character could have. Which would they select to share? Which would they ensure remained only with them? There will be story ideas there. Happy writing!

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It’s Friday. It’s time to end the working week with a story. Hope you like my latest drabble on Friday Flash Fiction – Standing Out. Find out here if monsters can be embarrassed and, if so, who by. Hope you enjoy the tale, it was fun to write.

Had a lovely response to my Flash NANO 19-words story yesterday. Thanks, all. It was great fun to do and it’s not a word count I usually use, so it was a good challenge. Will be having a go at the latest prompt shortly.

Mixing up the word counts I write to with flash is something I do regularly. For Friday Flash Fiction, it is always the classic drabble (100-worder) I write but most of the competitions I have a go at are anything from 100 to 500 words. (I’d say 250 to 300 is probably the most popular I’ve come across).

What matters though with any flash fiction is you have a complete story – a proper beginning, middle, and end. It is never truncated prose. There must be a feeling that nothing more could be added to the flash piece (though much will be implied).

It should have impact, whether it is to make a reader cry, laugh, scream, wince or what have you. There should also be a feeling nothing could be taken away from the story too.

I have a lovely Flash NANO prompt for today (19th November) where I have to write to a specific word count. Always a good challenge to do. Always good fun too. This kind of prompt does make you think about what really matters for your character. There will be no room for anything else. Will be cracking on with this prompt later.

Don’t forget the wonderful CafeLit is a great home for short stories and flash fiction. To find out more why not follow the link? Am looking forward to catching up with CafeLit, Bridge House Publishing and Chapeltown Books authors at next month’s Bridge House Publishing’s celebration event. A lot of writers getting together in convivial surroundings – there will be lots of story telling for sure! (Not least of which will be what we’ve all been up to writing wise since we got together last time!).

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Fairytales with Bite – Musical Magic

One thing which is on my bucket list is to go and see The Nutcracker at some point. I love the music. I love the storyline. I just need to go and see it! But I just love the idea of a magical musical story in the run up to Christmas. For me, that’s fitting.

I love most forms of music, especially classical. There is something about music which can be soothing, uplifting, inspiring and so on. So what does your magical world have in the form of musical magic? Do they have music at all? If so, is magic used to create it/perform it or is at an area where magic is banned (on the grounds magic is in the music anyway if you have the right attitude to it)?

What forms of music are available in your setting? Is it available to all? Would your characters appreciate it?

Is our love of music here something which might redeem humans (a bit) in the eyes of your setting? Does your setting appreciate its composers (and do they copy anything from Earth though they may refer to it as “sampling”!)?

Has music always been available in your setting or is it a recent discovery? If the latter, where and how did they discover it? (By exploring what other worlds including our own do here, perhaps?).

Definitely story ideas here.

This World and Others – Time Off The Magic

When you live and breath magic (or an equivalent form of power/energy), would you want time away from it? I am sure you would.

So how would your characters get to have this time off and what would they do to ensure they had a proper break before resuming work related duties again? Does using magic all of the time get tiring enough the powers that be in your setting recognise the need for their folk to have that proper break?

How are proper breaks organised? I am not including things like the need for sleep here but things like days off, holidays etc. Would there be times your entire setting has down times or do these have to be staggered to ensure the setting doesn’t leave itself defenceless, for example?

Do your characters need to ensure some level of protection for themselves when taking a break and who/what would they need that protection against? Tiredness can kill and not just in our world!

When it comes to having a break, where would your characters go to have it? If they go to our equivalent of hotels etc., is magic used there to ensure good service or is it all done “manually”? If the latter, is that because your characters on a break can absorb magic from around them so if it is used in their presence, they don’t really get a break from it.

How would your characters react if their needed break was interrupted by a threat of some sort? How would they handle this? How would not having their full break impact their performance?

Again story ideas here.

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Visiting Jane Austen in Dorchester

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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 week. Am about to head off to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick once again. Lady has been catching up with some of her pals. Am busy writing and editing. Two CFT posts for you this week too, see below for more. Photos from The Dorset Museum and their Jane Austen – Down to the Sea exhibition were taken by me, Allison Symes.


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8th August 2025 – 1st post – John Puzey

Busy day. First up is my first post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I share a post about John Puzey’s library event coming up on 16th August. He will be discussing his new book, Captive Audience (Authors Reach Limited). John is well known in my area as a member of the Chameleon Theatre Company too. I hope the event goes well. Full details of time etc in the post.

Author Event – John Puzey at Chandler’s Ford Library – Captive Audience – 16th August 2025

8th August 2025 – CFT post – Visiting Jane Austen in Dorchester

My second post for Chandler’s Ford Today is Visiting Jane Austen in Dorchester where I review my recent visit to a special exhibition at The Dorset Museum. The exhibition called Jane Austen – Down To The Sea was enlightening. I share more of my thoughts as to why in the post. If you do get a chance to go to this, I highly recommend it. The exhibition is on until 14th September 2025.

Mind you, I plan to go back to the museum anyway later in the year because it holds a wide range of other interesting exhibits which I didn’t get chance to see so a return trip is definitely called for. (For one thing, I wouldn’t mind visiting the Thomas Hardy room here).

Visiting Jane Austen in Dorchester

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8th August 2025 – third post – Two year Writers’ Narrative anniversary

Another post here tonight sees me, along with the rest of the Writers’ Narrative team, celebrating the second birthday of this excellent magazine. But don’t just take my word for it. Why not check it out?

It is written by writers for writers and is packed full of interesting articles and amazing tips. See the link below to the most recent issue. (There is a subscribe link inside the magazine itself and it is free to subscribe to so nothing to dislike there!


Lady was pleased to see her other best buddy, the Hungarian Vizler, today. Nice time had by both.
There will be two Chandler’s Ford Today posts out from me tomorrow. See above for both links.

One is to flag up a local author event. John Puzey (who will be known to many in my area as a member of The Chameleon Theatre Company) is having an author signing event at the Chandler’s Ford Library on 16th August to discuss his book, Captive Audience, which is published by Authors Reach Limited. The post shares full details. All are welcome. Brief blurb below.

Behind the wire and the watchtowers, three prisoners of war begin their journey to fame. An adventure of escapism and escape, set against the backdrop of war-torn Italy and the lure of post war stardom.

The second post will be my usual one for a Friday and I’ll be sharing Visiting Jane Austen in Dorchester where I’ll review the recent exhibition I went to see. That runs until 14th September 2025 and if you get a chance to go, I highly recommend it. Links for both posts up tomorrow.

Lady got to play with her best buddy, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, today so all well there.

Writing/Character Tip: Can you summarise your main character in one line? Why not give that a go? It helps you get to their “essence” and is a good way, when you read your story back, to check that is coming out in your tale as you would want so your character makes the maximum impact on your readers.

It will show you too why you want to write this character up. There should be something about them which “nags” you to write their story up after all. If they grip you, they will grip your readers but that essence will show you why they grip you in the first place.

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Friday Flash Fiction are currently running their annual two week competition which ties in with the Edinburgh Festival. So I am sharing the link here to the 100 words story page so you can have a wonderful read. I have submitted a story this week but no names or comments here until the competition is over. But do enjoy the tales. I have had a fabulous read and am sure you will too.

In other news, and an update to an earlier post this week, I did manage to get my 750 word story submitted, just ahead of Swanwick. 

Hope you’ve had a good day. Not bad one here.

Had a lovely time at yesterday evening’s ACW group I go to most months. Was pleased to put in the word for Writers’ Narrative too! You can’t always know when marketing opportunities come up and some of the best ones are by word of mouth. I also put in a good word for the Authors Licensing and Collection Society (ALCS). Both WN and ALCS are worth checking out but you need not just take my word for it!

Flash Tip: Another advantage to the tight word count flash demands is you haven’t got room for any waffle whatsoever. So words like whatsoever would automatically be taken out of any flash fiction story of mine! You do get better at spotting words which aren’t really needed (and really is so often another one!).

But this is the purpose of the first edit after all – to get rid of wasted words and to ensure the story makes sense. Then it is a question of polishing up and proofreading. I see these as three distinct stages. All have a purpose. All help me make my stories as good as I can make them.

Hope today has gone well. One thing I will especially look forward to at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, which happens soon (hooray!), is getting to take part in writing exercises.

I enjoy these things and know I will end up with some draft flash fiction pieces from them. Nothing to dislike about that! I have polished up some of my stories from these things in the past and had them published (CafeLit and I can think of at least one which will be in my third book, Seeing The Other Side, due out next May).

So is there a point to writing exercises?

Definitely!

Fairytales with Bite – Going Away

In your magical setting, do any of your characters go away to do what we would know as Continuing Professional Development? If so, is it compulsory they do this (annually maybe) or is it a volunteer thing?

I am about to head off for a few days of writing workshops and courses. It is a big highlight of my writing year. Not least because I get to meet up with writing friends I only see online for the rest of the year. So what would be the equivalent in your setting?

Wouldn’t necessarily be writing of course. Is there a fairy godmother school somewhere where said godmothers can improve their craft work? That could be fun to witness. Certainly I could see potential for humorous stories there. Also would there be a social side to this and what would happen there?

So where would your characters go? Why is the location for the courses etc the one which has been picked for this? If magic is flying about, you could see the point of setting workshops etc nowhere near any major populations!

Could be some fun stories here.

This World and Others – Workshops and Courses

Linking with Fairytales with Bite above, which workshops and courses would your characters go to? Would they have any choices or are there specialist ones they absolutely must do on a regular basis? Who runs these? What standards are expected of the courses themselves and how would your characters qualify to get to go to them at all? Is there the magical equivalent of OFSTED or any other body which holds educational establishments to account here?

Who decided there should be magical workshops and courses? What led them to that and do they teach them? What obstacles did they have to overcome to persuade others learning like this was essential (as not everyone would see the need. Sadly not everyone sees the need for education, especially for women, even now).

What do your attendees make of the courses they go to? Could one of your attendees learn something at one of these courses which will change their lives, for better or for worse? How would that play out?

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

As I’ve shared the August 2025 edition above, please find below an older issue of the magazine.

 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Review – The Chameleon Theatre Company – Notes From A Small Island

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Have had a good week. Hope you have too. Lovely meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday, Looking forward to supporting Rosemary Johnson’s online launch for her Past and Present (Bridge House Publishing) short story collection via Eventbrite later on Friday 1st August. Lady has had a good week, catching up with her closest buddies, to the joy of all.

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1st August 2025

First post of two here tonight. I’m pleased to share my review of the recent Chameleon Theatre Company production of Notes From A Small Island for Chandler’s Ford Today. The bestselling book by Bill Bryston was adapted for the stage by Tim Whitnall.

My lovely editor from CFT, Janet Williams, and I went to see the play a week or so ago and had a great time. I remain amazed at what the Chameleons can produce on what is not the world’s biggest stage!

For more see the post. Note to self: now read the book! This show was unusual in that it is the first time I’ve seen an adaptation of a book without having read the book first.

Review – The Chameleon Theatre Group – Notes From A Small Island

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1st August 2025

Second post of two here tonight. Glad to say my author newsletter went out again earlier today. Just where does the year go? Hard to believe it’s August already. My theme this time was flash flexibility.

Also delighted to say the August edition of Writers’ Narrative came out today. (Too late to include in my newsletter but I will include it with the next one). The theme this time is Cover Design and my article here is called Cover Design and Why It Matters.

And as it is the weekend it is time for a good read, is it not? Link below to the magazine.

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Hope today has been good for you. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals again, ahead of the rain too, so all had a lovely time.

Will be sharing my review of The Chameleon Theatre Company’s production of Notes From A Small Island on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Plus I will be supporting Rosemary Johnson for her online book launch for Past and Present (Bridge House Publishing) tomorrow evening. So the beginning of August will get off to a cracking start (especially given my author newsletter will be out too).

Had a lovely meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday evening. Plenty to think about and ideas to try from the theme of summer too.

Found out today my story for The Bridport Prize didn’t make the cut so will have to try again for that competition next year. I will have another look at my story at some point and see if I can improve it and send it somewhere else. I have done this before with stories going on to be published elsewhere. All part and parcel of the writing life…

Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady has had a fantastic one in that she had a good run around with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal while their Hungarian Vizler pal looked on. All were very happy dogs and it is lovely to see how pleased they always are to see each other. Humans can learn a thing or two from that! I was also pleased to get a short bonus swim in – the water was lovely.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this evening. Glad to report good time had by all and plenty of excellent results from the exercises I set too.

Also looking forward to Rosemary Johnson’s book launch for her Past and Present (Bridge House Publishing) on Friday. A busy but fun week!

Will be sharing my review of Notes From A Small Island which was recently performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. My newsletter will be out again then too.

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It’s Friday and time for another story. I hope you enjoy my latest on Friday Flash Fiction called Clock Watching. Thrilled to see I am the Editor’s Choice this week too. Hope you enjoy the drabble.

Some of the most popular flash fiction competition word count limits are the 100, 250, 300, and 500 words ones. Ironically, I am preparing a story for a 750 word competition as I write this! Those come up sometimes too but, by far, there are more flash competitions for the sub-500 word count limit so it is worth practicing writing to these.

Following my advice yesterday (see below) about using postcards to write a story on literally or just accepting this would be a 50 to 100 word count limit would also help practice here!

I mentioned as part of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting yesterday that the theme of summer (or indeed any of the seasons) can be wonderful backdrops to your stories. You won’t need to spell out a time frame in detail if you, say, set a story against someone watching a Wimbledon tennis match live. Everyone will know that’s in the summer. This can save so much on your word count and makes for tighter writing.

I set a series of exercises based on postcards (and the amount of words you get on them) for a recent post for More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers.

Why not give this a go? Depending on the size of your handwriting, you can only get 50 to 100 words on there so these exercises come with an inbuilt word count limit!

You could think along the lines of what would your characters write home about. Also give some thought as to what they might tell you as their creator. It may well not be flattering but could they reveal something about themselves to trigger further story ideas for them. Worth a go and it’s a good fun exercise.

The postcard idea is to make you focus on the one thing a character would reveal as you literally wouldn’t have room for anything else. So if you need to work on character focus, this idea is definitely worth trying.

Fairytales with Bite – Preserving the Past

Does your magical setting cherish its past, fear it, or does it do everything it can to cover it up? What we see as fairytales do they see as actual historical events? Do they think we’ve got them right or wrong?

Are stories/books stored in libraries as we would know them? Who would be the custodians of them and is anyone allowed access? Can anyone read the stories kept at home or are your characters not allowed to do this? Is education limited? It always interests me when this is done because you have to ask what are the powers that be afraid of he ordinary folk find out? There will be something!

If the past is treasured, as I hope it would be (you have to learn from the good and the bad after all), who would do this? What would your setting’s equivalent be of librarians, archivists, archaeologists etc? What items would they be looking after? How do they care for these things properly? Do they copy any of our techniques here?

This World and Others – Hiding the Past

Following on from Fairytales with Bite, if the past isn’t treasured, who hides it? How do they do this and who finds them out? Sure to be cracking story ideas working that out!

What are the reasons to hide the past? Is it all hidden or just a specific era or incident? Could there be good reasons for doing this? Could the discovery of this be used to cause ruin to others for good or evil purposes?

If something rotten needs to be exposed for the greater good, who does this, what led them to decide it had to be done, and do they have help at all? Can magic come to their aid or does it complicate matters?

Naturally there would be opponents to this. What have they got to lose if your character’s quest succeeds in exposing the truth? How would the discovery change the way the world (or a particular area of it) is governed? What impact could there be on those lower down in the “chain”?

Who initially made the decision to hide the past in question and had they any good reasons to do so? Naturally you get to decide how you define good here!

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August 2025 edition of Writers’ Narrative is now out too. See above for the link to that.

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Double Blog Day: Breaking Down Why A Story Works/Jane Austen

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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 the week has gone well for you. Have had some rain but it is still muggy here. Not a bad week writing wise though I’d have liked to have got more done than I have. Mind you, everyone gets weeks like that. Time to soldier on then but am so looking forward to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick which isn’t far away now.

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18th July 2025 – Double Blog Day – CFT

Second blog out of two up today and it is my weekly spot on Chandler’s Ford Today. For this week’s post I look at Breaking Down Why A Story Works. I hope you find it useful.

I share thoughts and tips as to why breaking down why a story works is a good idea. Writers can learn so much from doing this. I discuss taking in the basics, compelling characters, inspiration encouraging your imagination and much more.

Breaking Down Why A Story Works

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18th July 2025 – Double Blog Day – AE

First blog out of two up today and it is my turn on the Authors Electric one again. I discuss Jane Austen, this time given it is the 250th anniversary of her birth (strictly speaking it is in December).

I celebrate her writing and its impact on me for this post. Hope you enjoy it.

I will be off soon to see an exhibition about her in Dorchester and hope to write about that in due course too.

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Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal again today and a lovely spaniel, who we see from time to time, called Daisy. Lovely time had in the park by all three dogs.

Will have two blogs to share with you tomorrow – my Chandler’s Ford Today one and also one on the monthly Authors Electric (monthly in terms of my contributions to it). See above for both.

Also looking forward to seeing the next production from The Chameleon Theatre Company next week. They re staging the play based on Bill Bryson’s book, Notes From A Small Island. Am sure it will be lots of fun and I hope to write a review in due course for Chandler’s Ford Today.

Plus I have my Jane Austen jolly coming up too. Lots going on and it won’t be long before I’m back at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick once again.

Next week I’ll be interviewing fellow Swanwicker and flash fiction writer, Esther Chilton, for Chandler’s Ford Today too.

Hope today has been okay for you. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal today. All well there.

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing Breaking Down Why a Story Works for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It will be double blog day then too as I will also have my Authors Electric post up for the month. I’ll be discussing Jane Austen for them on Friday given it is the 250th anniversary of her birth later this year. I’m also off for an interesting trip out in connection with Miss Austen later this month. Hope to write about that for CFT at a later date. See above for the blogs.

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Light Work. Hope you enjoy it.

What do you want to do when you so want to retire but your boss isn’t happy about it and dragons are involved? Find out here. 

Hope today has gone well. Not bad here.

As well as being fun to write, flash can be a great aid to your marketing. It gives you a chance to share some mini stories, which flags up your style and may well tempt people in to read your longer works. It’s also easier to share on social media precisely because flash cannot be too long. It’s easy to share on author newsletters too and give something of value to those who follow yours.

Also if you usually write longer works, could you write a flash piece concerning your main character(s) which could be value to share on your website/author newsletters.

Do think of flash as a marketing tool because it can be.

Today has been one of those days when I’ve been busy but do not seem to have achieved so much. We’ve all been there right? But our characters could experience this too. So why not write a flash tale showing this and how your character deals with it? Could make it funny or tragic. Hope you can make use of that prompt.

I find the best prompts are those which can be taken in more than one way. It’s why proverbs are useful as themes for flash and other stories. They’re timeless and, due to that, there is always something you can do with these.


Fairytales with Bite – Down Time

Ironically though I work with words all the time (as a writer, an editor, or occasionally both at the same time albeit on different things), when I relax, I do so with word games. I have a version of Scrabble on my phone and another anagram type game where I have to make as many words as possible out of the letters given. All good fun and surprisingly relaxing.

But what would your characters do when they had some down time? Is play a thing in their setting? Would they have games as we know them? If not, what would they have instead? Are only certain types allowed to play (and what happens to anyone breaking that rule)?

Games of course take many forms and can be used to help someone develop their craft. Chess, for example, encourages lateral and long term thinking, which would be useful in so many occupations.

What would your characters play to help them develop their skills? Would they be compelled to play these things? Are there tournaments (and yes I am thinking of the jousting ones from medieval times which would have used to show off prowess in riding, tilting etc)? Would your characters look forward to these things or dread them?

Plenty of story ideas there, I hope.

This World and Others – Controlling Leisure Time

Most of us have leisure time which we fit in around out other commitments. But it is generally up to us what we do with it. Is that the case for the characters in your setting? Or does the government, or other authority, dictate what your characters should do/are permitted to do and is that based on species type or other considerations?

Are your characters expected to take leisure time or is that reserved only for the privileged few? Does that cause resentment or, if leisure time is supposed to be spent in a certain way, do those without that pity those who do have it?

If the control of time is used as a way to keep characters oppressed, what do those characters do about it? It is possible the powers that be would give time to be spent in ways folk would enjoy which might lessen the risk of rebellion. Think of the Romans claim that to pacify the people you just needed to give them bread and circuses. Who, in your setting, could exploit that thought so leisure time is controlled in such a way it ensures folk don’t have the time to cause trouble or have no wish to ruin what they’ve got?

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Quizzing Your Characters

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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. One photo of me holding Creativity Matters and my flash fiction collections (to date anyway!) was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week so far. Lady has seen some of her friends and I’m making good progress with writing and editing. Will have news of something else soon I’m helping with. Looking forward to sharing about that. Plus there will be another great author interview on Chandler’s Ford Today soon.

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Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with my latest post, Quizzing Your Characters. I’ve long believed if you know your characters well enough, ideas for stories to put them in will occur.

For this post, I look at outlining your characters and using templates and/or traits into coming up with new creations time and time again (which is something I need as I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories).

Hope you find the post useful and do see the templates I share here as guides because there is nothing to stop you coming up with your own.

Indeed, I often mix up the types I use because I won’t necessarily need to know the same thing each and every time about characters I am creating. In certain settings, for example, I will need to ask specific questions relating to that setting and how it effects my character, for example.

Quizzing Your Characters

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Lady and her Hungarian Vizler pal had a nice time in the park this morning before it became too hot. I loved my swim today, as you can imagine. Did not want to get out of the pool.

Don’t forget Quizzing Your Characters will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above.

Less than a month to go now until The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. (Okay only just but I am so looking forward to this).

How do I get ideas for my CFT and Writers’ Narrative articles? Well, our lovely editor at Writers’ Narrative does set a theme, which is always useful, but for CFT, I know I’m writing to fellow writers in my area so I try to focus on aspects of our craft which I hope they will find interesting.

Whatever I write, and this goes for fiction too, I am always asking myself what is in this for the reader. It is a good approach to take because it makes you focus on their needs and what you come up with, as a result, should be more useful to them.

Lady had a lovely time in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Will need to watch the weather in the next couple of days as it is due to get very hot again but I’ve found the mornings have been okay.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Quizzing Your Characters on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It may seem like an odd thing to do but I’ve found it has paid dividends in being able to continually create characters. Best thing of all – you work out which questions suit your style of writing best. More in the post later this week.

Flash Tip: My favourite form of flash fiction has to be the drabble, the 100 worder. A short sharp story and punchlines/twist endings work well for this word count.

I find it helps to have an idea of the ending first for these. Then I work out what leads to it. It also means I know my punchline or twist ending will have a solid foundation behind it because I know what will lead up to it. It will seem natural, as if there could be no other ending, which is what you want here.

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It’s Friday again and another hot one where I am. Definitely time for an end of the working week story then. My latest on Friday Flash Fiction is called Dates. Hope you enjoy it. Just what will Dawn do about her date dilemma? Find out here. 
With the exception of Friday Flash Fiction where I know I will be writing to 100 words, I focus on getting the story down.

I then edit it after a break away from it, and then and only then do I worry about the word count. Sometimes the solution will be an obvious one. If my finished story comes in at 105 words I will edit it again to get to 100. If say, it comes in at 145 words, I will find a 150 words competition for it instead.

What matters is I am happy with the story in terms of its character portrayal and I’ve ensured I’ve delivered on the premise of the story. So if I am I will leave a story at a higher word count and find alternative homes for it rather than try to force it to fit the original home I had in mind for it.

A lovely review for my Tripping The Flash Fantastic included the line “A lovely little collection of quirky and often surprising stories and poems. Fairy godmothers who aren’t what they first appear.”.

Many thanks to my reviewer for that, but seeing it again reminded me characters who aren’t what they seem are (a) a common trait of fairytales and (b) need to be worked out carefully because the reader should have the hint there is more to this character than meets the the eye.

The surprise mustn’t come out of nowhere. Readers should be able to look back at the story and see “aah, I should’ve spotted that.” I love this when authors do it to me (especially in crime novels). It’s great fun to do as a writer too.

Book Trailer for Tripping The Flash Fantastic – thought it would be nice to share it again.

Fairytales with Bite – Problem Solving

How do your characters solve their problems? Do they instantly turn to magic (or other form of powers we don’t have here) to help them out or do they save that? Does using this kind of power drain them so much it isn’t worth doing unless you absolutely must use it?

If they’re not using magical or other artificial aids, what can they use without causing them further problems? Would they use logic, ask others for help etc as we would do? Are your creations able to ask others from outside their own species for assistance or is this frowned on? What would be the consequences if they did ask for that help when they shouldn’t? Could it lead to positive changes in your setting?

Are some of the problems your characters and/or setting face due to not being willing to interact with others when they could do so usefully? What gets in the way here?past history? Prejudice? Both? How can that be broken?

Problems can be useful for writers – you can get some cracking stories out of them!

This World and Others – Developments

Which developments have been welcomed in your magical/sci-fi setting and which weren’t? What problems did the latter cause and how were they stopped? Has your world copied inventions/developments from other worlds, including ours? How did these go down at home? Not everyone welcomes imports!

In terms of magical energy or other forms of energy your world has, how were these discovered? How have they developed? What new things have been added to them and why was this done?

Thinking about the different species in your setting, how did they develop their societies? Do all of them have the same opportunities for employment, education etc? If species were made to develop in different ways, who imposed that and why? Doesn’t necessarily have to be for evil reasons.

One good reason to keep them apart would be if they could never get along and separating them so they developed in their own way was the only way to stop the fighting. (That does sound a depressingly familiar tale, does it not?).

Story ideas for sure here! Happy writing.


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