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Pitching

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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. Lady and I have spent most of our time dodging the rain whenever possible and catching up with friends. Writing going well and I’m looking forward to joining in with an online event from the Association of Christian Writers next week too.

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Am pleased to share Pitching on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Pitching, I suspect, is one of those Marmite topics where writers will either love or loathe it. (The other one here is editing incidentally).

I share tips I’ve found useful for pitching, as well as discussing the importance of keeping accurate records of what you sent where and the result. I also look at some reasons why pitches can be turned down even though you have sent in the best possible pitch for the market.

I hope you find the post useful.

Pitching

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Hope your Thursday has gone well. Dreadful weather here today. Only time I enjoyed a soaking today was when I went swimming. Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal though and before the heavy rain came in so we’ll take that as a win.

I’ll be sharing Pitching on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow and hope it will prove useful. See above.

I’m off to the pantomime (oh yes I am) with my CFT editor later in the month to watch the latest production from The Chameleon Theatre Company. They’re staging Camelot The Pantomime. It should be fun and I plan to review it in due course. Those reviews are always fun to write.

Writing Tip: Every so often, I will check out the random generators and deliberately try one I haven’t used before. It’s a case of seeing what I can do with it. I can usually come up with something but the idea of trying something different here is to knowingly keep myself on my writing toes. And I get to produce stories I wouldn’t have produced any other way so I see that as a win.

Hope today has gone well. Lady had a fabulous time in the park. She saw her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals and her “boyfriend”, the lovely Aussie Shepherd. Great time had by all. Lady has shown her Ridgeback pal how to herd. Not sure the Shepherd knew quite what to make of that!

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to an ACW event online next week, the idea being it will help ACW members around the country connect and chat. Should be fun. Am busy writing various pieces including future Chandler’s Ford Today posts. I’ve drafted a couple of shorter flash pieces I hope to find a home for in due course too.

Writing Tip: Do you care about your characters? Do you root for them to succeed or fail (sometimes, at least, that’s apt for villains)? Do your characters make you want to find out what happens to them?

The answers to all of those should be a definite yes, naturally, because if your creations don’t grip you, they won’t do so for potential readers.

So there has to be something about your characters which makes you care, which is another reason why I like to outline “my people” so I get to know them a bit and, from there, I can start to care for them.

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One random generator I find especially useful is the random question one. What it comes up with can often give great ideas for themes and you then take that in the direction you want. One of my examples is below and I hope you enjoy it.

Theme: What’s something about you today that the old you would find surprising?

Changing My Life by Allison Symes

I open the red box which was in my wardrobe. I stored a letter in it years ago. My reopening date was to be my next birthday ending in zero.

I open the letter. I was to name on opening it five things I’d changed since writing it.

I’ve lost weight. I now swim. I’ve updated my clothes and look fabulous. I’ve discovered Fairtrade chocolate. Last but not least, I lost an abusive husband.

I feel happier than I have in years. He won’t feel the same. He won’t feel anything.

I buried him at the bottom of the garden.

Ends
Allison Symes – written on 11th January 2026.

Why not give the random question generator a try and use the questions as themes? I’ve written many stories this way.


Flash is a great joy to write and a continuing challenge, which is something I love about it. I have to find ways to keep on inventing characters and situations and it is fun to do. It is also nice to mix up the word count ranges I write to, though my favourite will always be the 100 worders. Well, as they were my way into flash fiction at all, it’s understandable they will always be my favourite, I think.

When I’m at workshops or events such as Swanwick, I enjoy taking part in the writing exercises which are set at these things. I try to polish up as many of my first drafts here as I can and see if I can do something with them. I have gone on to have pieces published doing this.

When I set exercises for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group, I either take part in the exercises on the night (I love live writing) or I have prepared something as an example. I still get more flash drafted so win-win here!

Flash is a wonderful tool for improving your writing overall. I’ve learned to spot my wasted words and so cut them out later. I’ve yet to work out a way of not writing those wasted words at all but so far that’s beyond me. I do know what to cut though and my first edit is off to a flying start thanks to that.

It also teaches you to think about what matters to your stories and characters and to focus on this alone. That’s no bad thing either. After all, this is what we need to share with readers first and foremost.

Anything that doesn’t move your story on in some way should be cut because why is it there if it isn’t a vital component?

Fairytales with Bite – Games

What kind of games would be played by your characters in your magical setting? Do they play games at all to unwind?

Games can teach us so much about winning and losing graciously. They can also encourage team spirit and co-operation. So where and how would your characters develop all of that if games were not a “thing” in your setting? Or is co-operation not a “thing” either and how would disputes get resolved in your setting to avoid absolute chaos?

Games can also be used to teach skills. What skills would be useful to your characters to learn this way?
Is magic allowed to be used in games or would that be considered cheating? Who would police things to ensure cheating was spotted and stopped?

We also talk about games as in playing games with people in a more dishonest way, usually to try to get something we want by underhand means? What games would your characters stoop to for something like this and do they get away with it?

Story ideas there for sure. Happy writing!

This World and Others – Arts and Crafts

One lovely thing about humanity, I think, is our arts and crafts. There is a huge range of them, of course, and often they are beautiful things. I admire anyone who can knit or crochet well, for example. Their finished works look amazing. (Also see tapestries for more of the same – beautiful objects, beautiful just because they are). I admire anyone who can draw or paint well – skills which are well beyond me but I do appreciate the finished articles.

Which arts and crafts would be found in your setting? Can anyone enjoy these? Or are certain arts and crafts limited to certain species? There may be good reason for that if so, such as the way your creations function may dictate what they can and cannot do here.

Would your characters have/go to arts exhibitions? Would their arts and crafts include the imaginative use of magic (for the public good of course)? How would your characters carry out their arts and crafts? Could they deliberately not use magic here to make the most of enjoying arts and crafts the “manual” way?

Which arts and crafts would your setting have which we either don’t have here or carry out in a different way? Could arts and crafts be used to build bridges between different communities in your setting?
And even if it is just something your lead character would do to unwind, which art or craft do they find the most helpful and why? Just answering that will tell you more about them, which in turn can impact on how you show them to us via your story.

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Stories Everywhere

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Hope the weekend went well. Managed to get plenty of writing and editing done. Also pleased the temperature has come up somewhat. My solitary primrose made it through the snow and frosts! Lady continuing to enjoy getting out and about with her chums and that is how life should be, I think.

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Hope today has gone well. Wet and muddy here today. Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler friend but neither dog nor their owners wanted to be out for long. We weren’t!

Writing wise, I had a lovely time at the online group I went to last night. Am also looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. Zoom is a fabulous thing though the words ‘you’re on mute’ have gone into the general vocabulary of everyone I know.

Will be sharing Pitching on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday and hope it will be useful. I suspect this topic will be another Marmite one (the other is editing) where writers will love or loathe it. But I still hope the post will be handy!

Hope the week has got off to a good start. Lady’s has. She saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and received pets from the shopping delivery guy (I loathe supermarkets).

Writing wise, am looking forward to going to an online writing related group on Zoom this evening so will get some “bits and pieces” of writing and editing done around that. Mondays are always hectic for me so this will be a fabulous way to unwind.

Have started going through the Writing Magazine Competition Guide and have marked up one or two possibles to try out. I hope, later this week, to check the background of these competitions out and maybe start drafting something. I do have a story to write for somewhere else so have started drafting ideas for that.

Hope your weekend has gone well despite the grim weather and even grimmer news. Mind you, I guess this makes me even more glad than I usually am to escape into the worlds of flash fiction and short stories. At least I know my villains will get what they deserve even if it does end up being in a roundabout way.

Am enjoying my usual Sunday flash fiction afternoon. The fact it is cosy indoors helps a lot! On a more serious note, I’ve always loved creating characters and in short form work you get to do this a lot. Know the people (or other beings of choice), know what drives them, and I’m off to a cracking start with a story outline.

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. We don’t usually see friends, doggy or otherwise, at the weekend though today was a nice exception when Lady and I caught up with Daisy, a sweet spaniel, and her owner.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Pitching for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Link up on Friday (which will halfway through January already, hooray!).

Though Friday Flash Fiction has now sadly shut up shop, Sunday afternoons will continue to be flash fiction day for me as I can get a reasonable amount of writing done and I do want that to continue.

Character Tip: What is your character’s level of education? It is worth giving this some thought as it will have a direct impact on the vocabulary and type of language they’re going to use, both of which can show so much else about them (such as likely class etc).

Readers won’t need to know the answer to this directly but will pick up on it subconsciously as they read what your characters say and think. Incidentally, that’s another lovely thing about reading – it’s the nearest we get to mind reading. We can read the minds of characters after all!

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Flash is a great way of helping your other writing as by the time you’ve written 200 or 300 words as a flash piece, you should find you’ve “limbered” up enough to get on with other, longer writing work.

Writing exercises set at events or workshops can only give people five or ten minutes at most to respond so you will “only” get a flash piece in terms of word count out of them but there’s no reason why you can’t go on to polish these pieces up and get them published.

Certainly collect them together, polish them up and you could have a collection on your hands.

It’s Monday. It’s January. It’s winter weather. Okay not unexpected but very few enjoy it! Definitely time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Done List. Collie owners will especially appreciate this one!

Everyone has a To Do list, even when they can’t write them down. Find out why my collie character was happy to get their two jobs done, even though their Mum wasn’t.

Chilly again today. I don’t think Lady was that sorry to get back indoors again. It is during cold spells I really appreciate writing being an indoors job!

Glad to catch up with some Swanwick friends on Zoom last night. Hope to be back on Zoom again later on.

Writing wise, it’s flash fiction Sunday for me so will be cracking on with some new pieces in a while and, later, continuing the editing work on my Seeing The Other Side. All great fun.

Also a nice bit of news. I’ve often sent in pieces, and had them accepted, by Christian Writer, the magazine of the Association of Christian Writers. I now have a column in there called Allison’s Advice (I do like a nice spot of alliteration every now and then and it seems I’m not the only one!).

I’ll be sharing 100 word writing tips here. First one appeared in the magazine I received yesterday. I hope people are going to find the tips useful. It’s lovely getting some flash non-fiction published.

I love mixing up the mood of my stories and think this reflects life in a way. It is a mixture of funny and sad and I like my tales to reflect that. This is where I think a collection can work so well because it can show a range of emotions.

Naturally, I’m biased here, but I’ve always loved story anthologies, long before I became published in them, because I loved the variety of moods they can show. I still love them, of course.

If you write flash pieces over time, would it be worth you seeing if you have enough to get a collection together? The independent presses or self publishing would be the best routes here. But it is possible. Two collections later, with a third due this year, I can confirm it is worth doing.

One of my favourite parts of putting a collection together is grouping the stories. It’s fun as I can group character types or moods of story as I see fit. Okay, my editor may want to change this later and that’s fine but I do enjoy this process.

Goodreads Author Blog – Stories Everywhere

I like the thought of there being stories everywhere. Okay, I’m biased because I love reading and writing them. Inspiration for stories of my own can and does come from various sources too. There’s nothing to beat being inspired by what you love reading yourself, in my view.

Okay, there are stories I try to avoid, most notably the news which is so grim. There is a focus on negative rather than positive stories there and I would like to see a better balance. But I guess knowing this, it does encourage me to read more and escape into the world of books. Nothing wrong about that.

Where you have characters, you have stories. Where you have any society, you have stories. The fun with fictional writing is, of course, in inventing your own. The fun with reading is discovering what other authors have invented.

And the great thing here is the sky isn’t the limit.There are no limits. Fantasy and science fiction especially are great vehicles to explore other kinds of character and societies and I find these fascinating. What can also be fun is spotting the other books and stories which have clearly influenced the author. Quest stories, I think, will have some kind of nod to the ultimate quest story, The Lord of the Rings.

Stories being everywhere is excellent news for all of us who love reading. We will not lack variety or number of stories to enjoy. That’s definitely worth celebrating.

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Story Inspiration

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Hope the first full week back after the Christmas and New Year break has gone well. Lady has been pleased to catch up with her friends. Weather is what you’d expect for January! Writing and editing are going well and I have booked my big writing event for later in the year, which has cheered me no end.

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Hope your Friday has been a good one. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and her Aussie Shepherd boyfriend, who, by far, had the best coat of anyone for coping with the bitter weather today.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share Story Inspiration for Chandler’s Ford Today this week and hope you will find it useful. I look at various useful “hunting grounds” where inspiration is likely to strike (and has done for me many times). These include books of lists, prompts, Kipling’s honest serving men and much more besides.

I hope you find these thoughts useful to encourage your own inspiration as it never does any harm to encourage that as much as possible.

Happy writing.

Story Inspiration

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Hope today has gone okay. Bad weather coming in this evening as I write this. Keep safe. Lady saw her two chums, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback, again today. Thankfully it was only light rain this morning. I don’t think any of the dogs would’ve been that sorry to get back indoors again.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Story Inspiration on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. I hope it will prove useful as I share some good ways to find inspiration. I always feel it is better to hunt for it than wait for it to come to you. There are various good “hunting grounds” for inspiration, some of which I’ll be sharing tomorrow, and which I hope will add to your “store” of places to look for sources of story ideas.

Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her best buddies, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback, today. Ice and snow pretty much gone, just in time for the storm to come in tomorrow! Oh well, at least the temperature has gone up somewhat.

Writing wise, am looking forward to meeting up again later in the month with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. We’ll be looking at Ways and Paths as a topic. Plenty of story ideas to come from that and I hope we will start drafting some on the evening.

Also have a story to get on and draft for a future submission. Plus I’m beginning to go though the Writing Magazine Competition Guide for possible places to try.

Looking forward to joining in with another ACW genre group online this evening. It’s always good fun and a great chance to socialise. Zoom continues to be a blessing when you can’t get together with other writers in person. Though I am looking forward to my big annual event in August – The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick – as well. Thinking about that cheers up a gloomy January for me somewhat!

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My way into flash fiction writing was the 100 word story, also known as the drabble. CafeLit issued their 100 word challenge and I responded to it and haven’t looked back since.

Flash Tip: I’ve often found the best way into writing a 100 worder is to focus on the ending first. How do I want the story to end – with a laugh or with something else which will move readers in other ways? Is a line of dialogue to bring the story to an end the right way to go or should I finish the tale with an “event” which must finish the tale?

Once I have a rough idea of the likely ending, I can work backwards from there to the likely beginning. Knowing a likely ending also shows me the likely lead character who will be finishing the story. I can then work out more about them.

Having the tight word count means I have to only focus on that which is relevant but this is a good thing. I’ve found writing the 100 worders does encourage tighter writing elsewhere and helps me fight any tendency to indulge in purple prose.

As well as flash fiction, there is such a thing as flash non-fiction. Many blogs would count as this given often they come in at about the 500 words mark.

But have you given thought to writing a short piece sharing how you came to write one particular story, say? This would be of interest to other writers and your readers. Works best when kept tight but could give you excellent additional material to add to your website/blog.

Counts as part of your overall marketing, of course, as well.

Glad it’s warming up a bit outside. Spotted a primrose out in my garden just around Christmas time. Is still out. Seems to have survived the frosts and snow – at least so far. (Am putting the qualifier in because I recently said we hadn’t had any snow and, guess what, overnight we got some so I don’t want anything happening to that poor little primrose!).

Now, we all face tricky conditions at time but this can be fabulous for our characters. It is perhaps just as well they cannot tell their creators what they think of them for this. I do love dropping mine in the mire as much as I can.

So what traits do your characters have to help them handle the situations you put them in? Are they already resourceful or do they have to learn how to be so? Many great story thoughts to come from that, I think.

Traits are an invaluable way of gauging a character. You could also use them to figure out how they could develop others.

For example, if your character’s main trait is honesty, would they develop bravery to ensure honesty in their world continued? Would they fight to save what was good in their world and stop it from being obliterated by the greedy?

(And if anyone’s thinking there are parallels with what’s going on here right now, you’d be right but we can use some of this at least as inspiration for story ideas. When you know what’s driving someone, you can get stories out of that).

Fairytales With Bite – Resuming Normal Life

It always takes a little while to resume normal life after any kind of break and perhaps more so after a break like the Christmas/New Year one. Am slowly resuming normality myself!

But how would your characters get back to what is normal for them? How long would that take them and what does count as normal for them? What kind of breaks would they expect to be as part of their overall life?

What official breaks does everyone in your setting have to take? Are they appreciated or resented? Could the events themselves be “commercially exploited” (and that does tend to lead to resentment in some quarters)?

Do any of your characters use official breaks to get out of something they ought to be doing? Does that work or does it cause further problems later on? Does anyone resent having to resume normal life again?
Could enemies of your setting use the break to cause havoc and how would they do this?

Story ideas there, for sure.

This World and Others – Routines

I must admit I do like routines. I have one for my writing and have had this for years. Every so often I adjust it to take in new writing/editing work etc but, on the whole, I’ve found it useful to help me make the best of the time I have available for writing and/or editing on any one day. But I know not everyone likes routines. There are many who would find them restrictive.

What would your characters make of routines? Are there those who thrive on them (and if so, how)? Are there others who would feel routines are like straitjackets? What would happen if you have a character of each type stuck together and they have to work out some sort of routine to get them though to the time when they’re free to do their own thing again?

Does your setting have a routine in terms of characters have to work at certain times, relax at certain times etc? What would its views be on those who don’t follow the general pattern here? Could a setting with a fixed routine face enemies who would exploit the disadvantages of being too rigid? What would the enemies be seeking to exploit on your setting itself?

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New Year, New Books, New Authors

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Hope your weekend went well. Some snow here though not too deep. Am wrapping up with multiple layers so I am waddling with Lady rather than walking with her right now! Hope the first full week back to “normal life” goes well. Pleased to be back writing and editing again. Needed and enjoyed the break but it is good to be back.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler friend and, later, was escorted home by her Aussie Shepherd “boyfriend”. Lady is keeping her socials together, well enough!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Story Inspiration on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Always a timely topic, this one. Writing and editing works are going well – and I’m staying out of the cold as much as possible, all wins here!

Writing Tip: Think about what inspires you to write – favourite stories, favourite types of characters etc – and then look at why you love these things. You will learn something useful from doing this and it will help you as you create your own tales. More in my post on CFT on this on Friday – what I can say now though is this works.

You know I said yesterday (4th January 2025) we hadn’t had snow in Hampshire as yet? Well, it is a clear case of me and my big mouth. We did get snow over night (probably 1 to 2 cm, no more than that). You’ll be pleased to know I won’t apply for any job in weather forecasting! Think that would be best for everyone…

Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today, both of whom were wearing coats. Lady doesn’t really need one (and I am sure she and her predecessors would consider them sissy for a collie/collie-cross anyway). All three dogs had a lovely time despite the cold and yes we owners did keep them moving.

Writing wise, am having a quiet evening getting on with various small writing pieces. Nice way to unwind after what is always a hectic day for me. And I get to stay well out of the cold too. Win-win there, I’d say.

Character Tip: What does your character make of their usual weather patterns? If cold is a regular feature of these, how does your character cope with it? (If they’re a northerner of any sort, they’ll put on their big coat. If they’re a southerner like me, they’ll put on a big coat with a body warmer under it – mind you, it did live up to its name today). How could cold weather help or hinder them? There will be story ideas there. Happy writing!

Hope Sunday has gone well. Bitterly cold and heavy frosts here in Hampshire but no snow (as yet anyway). Hope you are all okay. Lady has had a lovely day in that she saw her “boyfriend”, a lovely Aussie Shepherd, in the park earlier. He has a wonderful thick coat and I shouldn’t imagine felt the cold at all!

Writing wise, I’m making good progress with my editing work. I’ve also got ideas I’d like to develop this year and I hope to share some 100 word stories on Facebook every so often. I’ve enjoyed sharing my Friday Flash Fiction links most weeks and want to keep up writing the good old drabbles regularly.

One enjoyable task this coming week is to start reading the latest Writing Magazine. It came with its annual competition guide and I hope to work my way through at least some of that this year. There are more flash fiction competitions out there than you might think and I do find this guide immensely helpful.

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start for you. As I write this I am enjoying a trip down memory lane thanks to Classic FM playing the theme from Animal Magic. Older readers will remember that show!

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Story Inspiration for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. It’s a timeless topic and I’ll be sharing some ways I use regularly to keep triggering ideas. I hope you will find it useful and look forward to sharing that on Friday.

Have resumed my editing work and making good strides with it, including on my own edits for Seeing The Other Side.

Writing Tip: I use an old school diary to note down deadlines for competitions, my own deadlines for when I want to get work finished by, and so on. It pays. I see it as making an appointment with myself and my writing and it has helped me to get more done. For longer work, I can break my task down into “manageable chunks” and put those in the diary. It all helps.

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Tonight, 6th January, is of course Twelfth Night, traditionally the time the Three Wise Men visited Jesus in Bethlehem. My story, The Family Legend, in the recently published Magi (Bridge House Publishing) takes a thought from this story – that at least one of the men were still alive thirty three years later and found out what had gone on in Jerusalem – and I ran with it.

But you too can run with the idea of an unexpected and/or unlikely journey and the characters that do this. There could be some interesting flash fiction pieces here too though I suspect you would probably need the 500 words plus range to do this justice in the very short form.

Hope you try the idea out though. Good luck!

It’s a bitterly cold Monday, the kind where Good King Wenceslas would feel at home. For me it’s definitely time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Looking on The Bright Side.

A fairytale witch finally has to tell the facts of the magical life to her child, who is shocked to find out where their instructions come from. Find out more here.

 

F = Flash fiction – fun to write, easy to read, lots of impact due to its brevity.

L = Language and editing skills develop a lot when you write in this form as you do look for the right word which carries the right amount of weight for what you want to convey. No wasted words here. Where one word will have the impact I want, I’m using that not three or four.

A = Assessing the impact you want your story to have on readers and then working out the best way of doing it before writing anything is, I find, sensible for this format. I want to hit the ground running so to speak here.

S = Settings can be anywhere in time or space or in any kind of world you care to invent. What matters are the characters. People follow what they’re up to even if they’re a three headed purple dragon from the planet Zog. If people care about the dragon, they will read on.

H = Humour is fabulous for flash. It’s fun to end a story with a punchline.

Flash fiction is not new. It has been around for centuries. To name one example, all of Jesus’s parables in the Bible come in at well under the 1000 words mark limit for flash.

The form has had several names including postcard fiction (which I like – you can picture it); short short fiction (which I don’t like – it’s a mouthful); and sudden fiction (this is okay but doesn’t, to my mind, seem an apt term for thoughtful flash pieces).

But whatever you do call it, flash fiction is a fun challenge and I love writing to the various word count brackets within it. The most popular for competitions I’ve come across are the 100, 250, 300, and 500 word ones but the first three of those are the most common.

All of them are great fun so why not give them a go?

Goodreads Author Blog – New Year, New Books, New Authors

Happy New Year and I hope 2026 brings you plenty of books to enjoy. I hope amongst those books will be books and authors who are new to you. One of the great joys of reading is in discovering new stories to enjoy by writers you either already thought you knew well or by authors you’ve not read before. Everyone wins from that one.

I’ve not yet made any plans for my new reading year. I’m currently engrossed with the books I received for Christmas and loving them all. Then I may catch up on my poor neglected To Be Read pile or at least make some inroads into it. I suspect you may well be in the same reading boat, yes? I’ve not yet come across a reader and/or writer who hasn’t got lots of books “on the go”.

I used to feel sad at the thought I know I won’t get around to reading all of the books I would like to read. Funnily enough, I now feel comforted by the thought. Why?

Well, it confirms to me the world will never run out of stories to enjoy and that is a great thing.

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Winter Stories – Part 2

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Firstly, I hope you have a very happy and peaceful New Year. I slept through it – I was very happy! Writing and editing work has recommenced now but it is a joy to get back to it again. Secondly and most importantly, Lady had a fabulous Christmas and is enjoying seeing her friends again.


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I don’t know about you but it really doesn’t feel like a Friday. Still, Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler friend again today and a lovely time was had by all.

What has helped me accept it really is a Friday is it is time for my first Chandler’s Ford Today post of 2026 – Winter Stories.

I share some of what I think count as winter stories, the importance of appreciating reading, and look at stories about stories, including how they can inspire further stories themselves. I also see stories as a link to the past and to the future.

I hope you enjoy the post – it’s a gentle start to a new writing year.

Winter Stories

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Happy New Year! Lady was pleased to see her Hungarian Vizler pal today and I was pleased it was less cold than yesterday so we both came home feeling we had gained something!

It’s good to be back to the old writing routine again, having had a wonderful break (and a calorific one at that!). Glad to say my author newsletter went out earlier today and I will be back on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow with my first post for 2026 on Winter Stories. See above.

Am on both sides of the editing fence at the same time again at the moment. Loving this. The last time this happened for me was back in 2020, the year we all prefer to forget, when I was working on Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Seems a world away now but am so looking forward to Seeing The Other Side coming out this year.

Hope you have had a good day. Lady caught up with her two best buddies, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler. We kept the dogs moving. It was far too cold to keep still! Lots of fog too – didn’t really lift. Still, this is one thing I love about writing. It is an activity best done in the warm! Will be listening to Classic FM’s Pet Classics this evening too. (New Year’s Eve). I think it helps the dog but I know for sure the calming music does do wonders for me!

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Winter Stories for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. My next author newsletter is good to go for tomorrow, 1st January, and talking of which, I’ll finish by wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

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It’s sad to start the New Year with no more Friday Flash Fiction (see screenshot) but it was wonderful getting back into the world of writing drabbles with them for the last couple of years.

I do hope to share 100 word stories of mine every so often here. And to start, here was one I was going to submit to FFF in early 2026, having written it in December 2025. It does fit in with pantomime season though – oh yes it does!

Hope you enjoy Following.

Following by Allison Symes

‘Which way now? This old map isn’t clear enough. I knew we should have bought an updated one. See, here, the print is all smudged, Hans.’
‘Shall we toss a coin?’
‘Is that all you can come up with, Hans? Didn’t you learn something from last time?’
‘Yes. I learned not to rely on using a trail of breadcrumbs because the birds will eat them. Come on, let’s just go left. It’s the wider path. It looks less overgrown.’
‘Okay but if we come across a gingerbread house again, we are turning and running away immediately, right, Hans?’
‘Right, Gretel.’

Ends
Allison Symes – 21st December 2025

Happy New Year! Had a lovely informal meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group just before Christmas. Our next meeting will be towards the end of the month. Already looking forward to that one plus ACW members have the chance to meet up online later in the month too so I’ve signed up for that one.

Zoom can and does bring people together when in person gatherings aren’t feasible. It’s also a great tool for helping with flash fiction writing in that I use it to record stories I intend to “perform” or send in for potential broadcast. It gives me a way of hearing how I come across and it confirms my timings. All useful stuff.

Hope to start looking for potential flash and short story competitions in a week or so. Looking forward to submitting stories again. You have to be in it to have any chance of winning it after all.

The turn of the old year into a new one is one of those points in time we all remember. But you can use the thought of points of time as something your characters have to deal with.

What moment in time would be a pivotal point for your character and why? It doesn’t have to tie in with the calendar after all. It could be an anniversary date (pleasant or otherwise) and much more. It could also be a driver for what your character does next and naturally there would be consequences from that.

Happy New (writing) Year!

Fairytales with Bite – New Beginnings

I write this on 31st December 2025 with the New Year only a few hours away so I suppose it is a natural time to be thinking about new beginnings. What would make your characters decide they need a new beginning? Would they use a New Year (or equivalent in your setting) to decide this or are they forced to make a new start and how did they get into that position at all?

Does the new beginning live up to its promise? What makes the character change to make the new beginning mean something to them? What do they have to change? Is anyone or anything getting in the way of your character having a successful new beginning? Or is your character made to face up to the need to have a new beginning by another character and what makes them go along with this?

Do you have characters who always make new beginnings but they never seem to work out? Could a friendly fairy godmother help with this and finally help them get the breakthrough they’ve been seeking?

Definitely story ideas there! Happy writing.

This World and Others – Letting The Old Go

New Year’s Eve is an obvious time to let things go. You don’t have the choice. The old year goes, the new one comes in. But what would your characters really not want to let go of, even if they should do so? I have sympathy here. I never want to let go of chocolate even though, strictly speaking, it is something I don’t need to be able to survive.

All successful stories pivot on a moment of change. The character has to change in some way or do something different – the story has to move forward so it can work.

Letting things go, especially those with great meaning to the character, can be a useful symbol showing your character being ready to move on as they let go of anything they feel is holding them back. This can, of course, include other characters, who may or may not be happy about this but what you definitely have here is a story. The conflict here has to be resolved in some way and that can include the first character moving on regardless.

Give some thought as to what your characters wouldn’t like to let go off too and make them face the possibility of having to do so. What would they do? How would they react?

Story ideas there for sure!

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A New Year, A New Promise, A New List (Maybe)

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I hope you had a lovely Christmas and may I wish you a Happy New Year. The round up below consists of posts for pre-Christmas and in between Christmas events plus my usual pieces. I hope you enjoy a bumper read! Lady, naturally, had a fabulous Christmas seeing family and Santa Paws was as generous as ever.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her “boyfriend”, the lovely Aussie Shepherd, Bear, today. They both had a lovely time with Chuckit balls – at least the pair of them had the coats for the bitterly cold weather today.

I am sad to report Friday Flash Fiction is closing in the New Year. I am so grateful to them for their support, for getting me into regularly writing 100 word stories again (which was my way into flash fiction and being published in my own right), and the sheer fun of joining in and reading the other fabulous stories on this site. It will be greatly missed.

Will I keep on writing the 100 word stories? Oh yes. They are a great challenge and fun to write. It is amazing what you can convey in such a short word count.

29th December – More Than Writers

How can the year have gone by so fast? Yes, it is time for my final More Than Writers post for 2025 and I look at A New Year, A New Promise, A New List (Maybe). I discuss why I don’t make resolutions but I do review what I think I might like to achieve writing wise for the coming year.

I share why I think doing this is helpful and the great thing is it doesn’t matter where you are in your writing life. Even if you are just starting out, taking time to review where you are and where you would like your writing to go is a good idea. I also share some thoughts as to what could go on to your “review list”.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

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27th December

Hello again. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Lovely time here. Will be back to my usual writing routine on Monday but thought I’d pop by just to say I hope you received lots of fabulous books as presents. Don’t forget the next best thing you can do for any author is to review their books. Aptly since I’m a flash fiction writer, I will say reviews don’t have to be long. A line or two is great. Make a writer’s New Year – give them a good review!

I’ll be back on Chandler’s Ford Today next Friday too with a post about Winter Stories. Will share that on Friday.

I will be sending out my author newsletter on New Year’s Day too. To sign up for tips and stories and more, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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24th December – Christmas Eve

Hope your Christmas Eve has gone well. Busy one here but am set up ready to go for tomorrow. Lady is always interested when Mum is busy cooking in the kitchen. I wonder why….

Looking forward to a lovely church service tomorrow and then later catching up with family and favourite films. However you spend Christmas, I hope you have a great and enjoyable day.

It was great to have a quick catch up chat with my Chandler’s Ford Today editor, Janet Williams, this evening. Will be posting again on CFT from January. Tonight, I plan to just write a few odds and ends. I find doing some writing helps me unwind after a a busy day. I think it’s because the writing gives me some time to be creative and I seem to thrive on that.

Happy Christmas! Seems so long ago now but it was less than a week as I prepared this! Mind you, even with Christmas now over for another year, it is ALWAYS worth celebrating the wonderful world of stories.

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Am happily working on an edit of my Seeing The Other Side at the moment, as well as editing for someone else. It was way back in 2020, the year we all prefer to forget, when I was last on both sides of the editing fence at the same time. It’s an interesting and enlightening experience.

Will be co-judging a flash fiction competition from the end of January and am looking forward to donning my judge’s hat again. Judging stories is also an enlightening experience and a great honour to be asked to do.

It’s hard to say what the single thing is I most love about flash fiction writing and reading, but a strong contender would be the impact such stories have on you. There is no dilution of the emotions the stories are meant to produce. You get the pay off for twist stories quickly too and I find I then want to read even more short twist tales, it is like an addiction but this one is harmless at least!

29th December
The time between Christmas and New Year always does seem strange. What I do know though is today, 29th December, is still a Monday and therefore it is time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Approaching Time.

Even anthromorpic beings with a limited shelf life make the most of the time they’ve got, even when they are parts of Time herself.

 

27th December
Just popping by to write some brief pieces. Have thoroughly enjoyed my time off (and will be off again tomorrow) but it is also nice to be back at the desk for a short while tonight.

One of my nicest tasks when I get back to a proper writing routine will be to start selecting flash and short story competitions to have a go at in 2026. I did enter more competitions this year and want to keep on doing this (as it makes me write more and what isn’t accepted in one place may be accepted elsewhere, that has happened for me before).

I also want to find new competitions to try. It stretches me and my writing and that’s a good thing. It will be a while before I send anything into Friday Flash Fiction but hope to do that again sometime in January when the new editor gives the word to go. Sadly, I received further news since writing this that Friday Flash Fiction will be closing at the end of 2025 but I will keep writing 100 word stories. There are a number of competitions for these so I hope to try some of these.

24th December – Christmas Eve
Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy Christmas. Naturally I hope you receive many wonderful books (including flash fiction collections, of course) tomorrow! Mind you, I am obliged to add flash fiction isn’t just for Christmas!

Joking aside, I will also say a huge thanks for your support this year. I continue to love flash fiction in all of its forms and look forward to getting back to writing more after the Christmas break.

Meantime, I hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year. See you here again soon!

Fairytales With Bite – Festivities

I write this on the evening of Christmas Eve 2025 so naturally festivities are very much to mind at the moment.

Now festivities come in a huge range of forms and are held for various reasons, including personal festivities, religious ones etc. Which type or types would your setting have? How did they originate? Have the way they are celebrated changed over time and what brought about the change?

What do your characters make of the festivities? Do they look forward to them or dread them? Is there the equivalent of the last minute Christmas shop? Are the festivities a time for everyone to “down tools” including magical ones? How would your world ensure it was secure enough during its “down time” or is it secure enough to know it doesn’t have enemies? (Good story possibility there for someone to prove them wrong!).

Who organises the festivities? (I’d want to know who does the catering but I have a vested interest in that one given I do the catering here).

Also a festivity could be a useful break/time of respite for a character who needs it. Story ideas there for sure.

This World and Others – Marking the End of a Time Period

As well as thinking about Christmas as I write this on 24th December 2025, the festive season also includes marking the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.

What time periods operate in your fantasy world? Are there periods of time they mark when they pass? How does time operate in your setting? Is it the same as ours or do they not have things such as days, weeks, years?

When it comes to periods of light and dark, which is the greater in terms of length or are they the same? We base our time system on the thought there are twelve hours of daylight, twelve hours of night (especially in mid summer) but what would your world base their system on if they don’t use natural light to base it on?

Now I admit I did use to stay up and see the New Year in but these days I tend to take the view the New Year can come in without me witnessing it as I do appreciate my sleep more! In your setting, would everyone be obliged to mark the passing of a set period of time? How would those commemorations happen? Who did say what the time periods would be at all?

Goodreads Author Blog – Happy New Reading Year

I hope 2025 brought lots of lovely books into your life and that you have an excellent and Happy New Reading Year too.

The time between Christmas and New Year can seem a bit odd, it’s almost as if you’re in limbo, but it is a great time for getting on with reading all of those lovely books you received as presents. (And a lovely New Year’s present to the authors can be to leave them a review here on Goodreads and elsewhere, of course).

The New Year will bring a new book into my life too. In May, my third flash fiction collection (Seeing The Other Side – Bridge House Publishing) will be out and I am looking forward to that, naturally.

Am also currently enjoying editing works for others. It’s a lovely job. Also it makes me think about my own writing and this can be enormously helpful.

I do know, above all else though, I will continue to love and appreciate stories and books. They are some of the best things about humanity. (Okay, folks, I do have to include chocolate and classical music in that list too!).

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A Year In Flashback

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Hope you have had a good week. Lady has enjoyed seeing her chums though the weather has been frightful at times. Am slowly winding down for a Christmas break. There will be one more round up post (Tuesday 23rd December and the one after that will be on Tuesday, 30th December). Meantime I hope all of your Christmas preparations go well – still plenty to do here!

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Pleased to share my last Chandler’s Ford Today post for 2025. I look at A Year In Flashback and review my writing year. I also share the link to the recent Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM hosted by Hannah Kate. I was pleased to have a festive piece broadcast here (and thrilled three other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group had their work broadcast too).

This post was a joy to write as I look back at events I went to and review my news of the year, especially the forthcoming publication of Seeing The Other Side (Bridge House Publishing). Hope you enjoy the post and I would recommend taking out some time to look back at your own writing for the year. You may well find you’ve achieved more than you thought. I’ve written more stories than ever this year, for one thing.

A Year In Flashback

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The weather has been ghastly today (Lady didn’t go out this afternoon and it has to be really bad for that to happen) but I do hope my latest post on Authors Electric might bring some seasonal cheer.

I look at Approaching Christmas and A New Year this time and discuss the joys of taking in seasonal stories whether it is by book or film (many of which are based on books in any case). I also share some film ideas here too – if you haven’t seen Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, I highly recommend it. Plus you can’t beat The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Hope you enjoy the post and I hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year. See you here again in 2026, all being well!

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Hope you have had a good Wednesday. Lady had a lovely time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals which was sweet to see.

Looking forward to tonight’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. We’ll be sharing chat, news, stories etc. Christmas jumpers and so on are optional. Should be fun and it is a lovely way to wrap up our writing year here. It was great fun!

Will be sharing A Year in Flashback for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I will be back on CFT after that early in the New Year. A huge thank you to all the lovely authors I’ve interviewed this year. Am hoping for more of the same in 2026. See above for CFT post.

Writing Tip: As Christmas approaches, I do slow down on the writing and then stop for a few days. The break is wonderful and gives me chance to catch up on some reading too. Never be afraid to take a break from writing when you feel you need one. It will still be there for you when you are ready to resume it (and I find I am raring to get back precisely because I have had that break).

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No story to share on Friday Flash Fiction this time but I will just say the winner of their Christmas competition will be announced shortly after 19th December 2025. Good luck to all who took part in the competition too.

I will start sending stories in again in the New Year and look forward to doing so, though the break will also be lovely (and I am sure that will be the view of the FFF people too!).
Will be sharing A Year in Flashback for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Will be my last CFT post for 2025. See above.

I hope to draft some flash and other pieces during the holidays but don’t plan on writing much. I do hope to catch up on some reading though.

I will be sending out my author newsletter on 1st January as normal though I will admit to preparing a lot of this in advance. It helps! I share news, tips, story links and more here. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and for those who already subscribe, may I say a huge thank you for your continued support.

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Last meeting for 2025 for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tonight. (On Wednesday 17th December and it was good fun).

Also am glad I got my final flash and short story competition entries in a couple of weeks ago. Things are starting to become more hectic in the run up to Christmas. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be surprised by it really. We all know Christmas is coming but the last week or so seems to creep up on you. Am looking forward to taking part in some carol services too. These are always lovely.

I try to use some of the Christmas break to catch up with stories (via books, films, audio etc).

Flash fiction comes into its own during busy times. It means I will always have time to read some stories, even if they are only 100 words long a piece!

Fairytales with Bite – Minor Characters in Fairytales

I have a very soft spot in my heart for minor characters in fairytales. One helped me get into print with A Helping Hand in Bridge House Publishing’s 2009 anthology, Alternative Renditions. I have written many fairytales with minor characters taking the lead for once since then.

Flash fiction works brilliantly for this given I think this kind of story works at its best when kept tight. For one thing, you don’t need to go into much detail about the story the minor characters have come from as folk will know this already. All you do is hint there was more to come and that is where your story comes in, of course.

This kind of story can be great fun to write as you can set the record straight, if you wish, for the minor characters who will be your “stars”. You can also show behind the scenes material the original story didn’t cover. For example, what did go on in the Palace kitchens on the night of Prince Charming’s ball? What was the gossip (and you can bet there would have been plenty of that, especially after midnight!).

What matters is showing why you want to write about the minor characters you pick. What made them special enough for you to write their tales up? That is where the story will “spark” and catch not just your imagination but those of your readers too. So what does need to be told about these characters and why?

These tales are a great vehicle for humorous stories too. Have fun! (I continue to do so here).

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This World and Others – The Role of Your Setting

What role does your setting play in your story? Why have you set your story there? How does it help or hinder your characters? How would it appeal to your readers? What would we picture about it to make it seem real to us?

Setting can almost be a character in its own right. Think Mordor or The Shire from The Lord of The Rings. Both of those places conjure up different images (and of the characters likely to live here too).

If your world setting is an old one, how has it changed over time and has that been due to natural factors or things like magical power misuse? If the latter, has anything been done to correct it?

Your setting could be the story in its own right – what happened to it, why, and what was done to rectify it and who led the way to things being put right (or as right as possible).

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Broadcast News and Judging Stories

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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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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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Back At The Theodore Bullfrog With Bridge House Publishing

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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. Many thanks to Paula Readman and Lynn Clement for certain pictures taken at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Most of the pictures for that Chandler’s Ford Today post and screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady has! Delighted to hear one of my festive flash pieces will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday 13th December 2025. Will share the link to the broadcast itself next week. Equally thrilled to say three other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group will have their work broadcast here too. Well done, all!

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Am delighted to look back at last weekend’s celebration event with my Chandler’s Ford Today post, Back At The Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing.

The post gives a good round-up of events and shares something of the joys of getting together with other authors like this (and also being with a splendid independent publisher).

I also flag up the specific celebrations for the publication of The Best of CafeLit 14 and, more recently, Magi An Anthology.

Hope you enjoy the post.

Back At The Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing

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Hope Thursday has gone well. All quiet in the park today so Lady had to put up with just me!

Looking forward to sharing Back at The Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing on Chandler’s Ford Today – link up tomorrow. It was such a fun event, I was bound to write about it. See above.

In other news, I’m glad to share the following link re the Hannah Kate Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday 13th December. I also want to add huge congratulations to the other writers taking part in this, especially three of them who are members, with me, of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. I’m very much looking forward to tuning in to hear a great range of festive flash fiction.

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

Hope you have had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal so all well there. Lovely sunny day too, the kind of winter day I like.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Back at the Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. Then there will be one more post after that from me (19th December) before I take a Christmas break and resume on CFT in the New Year. Just where has the year gone?!

Had a turn down from a flash competition over the weekend. Will have another look at that story in the New Year and see if I can submit it somewhere else. I have had work published doing that.

Writing Tip: Rejections and not hearing back from competitions do happen to everyone so do take some heart from that when it happens to you (and it is bound to at some point). I do try to see this as a chance to have another look at my stories and find ways of improving them. Normally I can see something and I adjust the story, which is why I think I have then gone on to have the story published somewhere else.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s the last day of the Friday Flash Fiction Christmas Competition and I did manage to send in two stories, one per week, for the two weeks the event ran. It was good fun to take part in this. All of the stories in this have to be 100 words exactly (and trust me it is so easy to come in at 102 words or 98 but for this competition it had to be spot on the 100). Good luck to all taking part.

Word association is a great game. I remember playing it often when I was younger. Little did I realise then it was going to become a great tool for writing prompts for me much later on. The reason it is so useful is the game makes you think of links and those are so useful for outlining characters/potential story ideas.

For example let’s take the word festive and see what can be done with that:-
Festive = Christmas = Scrooge = Muppets = films = The Great Escape = bravery.

Now on the face of it, this is just a list of fun, loosely connected words but if I was to use this for a story, it would be the last word, bravery, I would focus on. I love working with traits. They can tell you so much about a character.

Here, I would want to know who showed bravery and why (and it could be a Christmas set story too or not as I chose). Just from this then, I have the sparks of a potential idea.

Do add word association to your prompt generating toolkit if you don’t use it already. It is useful.

Looking forward to an informal chat and sharing of news and stories with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. We usually do have this kind of session at the year end and it is a lovely way to bring our writing year to a close before we head off to our respective Christmas breaks.

Am a co-judge for a flash competition in the New Year so looking forward to working on that. Naturally I’m looking forward to Seeing The Other Side coming out next year. It is highly likely I will be on both sides of the editing fence again. It’s an interesting experience (and useful to me both as a writer and editor. The view from the other side of the fence can be enlightening to say the least).

Fairytales With Bite – The Fairytale Flip Side

There can be a flip side to much in life so why should the fairytale world be exempt? For all of those fairytale characters who have the benefit of magical help, there are so many others who do not. Mind you, the latter can be fun characters to write about and my first story in print, A Helping Hand in Alternative Renditions (Bridge House Publishing), was about Cinderella’s youngest step-sister.

I’ve long believed there are disadvantages as well as advantages to any form of power and that goes for magic too. What would happen if magical characters misuse their powers for their own ends? (I know, I know – as if that would happen here! Oh if only!). How could they be stopped?

Even when magic isn’t misused, what effects would it have on the bodies of the characters? I’ve long thought sustained use of magic must be incredibly draining. Indeed, I can’t see otherwise being the case.

So what would your characters themselves see as the flip side to their magical abilities/their world’s magical abilities? Do your characters have to cope with, say, envying other characters with greater powers than themselves? Would they find ways of developing or, worse still, stealing those powers for themselves? How would they handle powers they’re not used to handling?

Bound to be story ideas there!

This World and Others – Policing

Now given I am sure we can all think of those who misuse their powers in this world, and therefore we must have some kind of policing to try to keep things in order (and protect ourselves as much as possible), how would that work out in your magical setting?

Who would be the police force? Who created them? What are they allowed to do? What are they banned from doing? What would happen to any police authority who misused the powers given to them (and who would have bestowed those in the first place)? What extra magical powers would they need to be able to combat magical crime?

How would policing work and is it with the consent of the people generally?

I do love the Vimes stories in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and if you haven’t checked them out, do as you’ll be in for a treat. Here, the Discworld has magic and magical practitioners in it, but it’s not in the City Watch and Vimes doesn’t like magic. So many interesting tales there.

I think for any successful fantasy world, the writer does have to work out first how things will work broadly at least, which will include who can use magic, what can they do, recognizing crime does get everywhere so there has to be something to combat that.

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Meeting Up With Other Authors and Broadcast News

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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. Many thanks to Paula Readman for taking the shot of me holding up From Light to Dark and Back Again at the recent Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Screenshots and photos from the recent BHP Celebration event were taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope all is well.
Had a fabulous weekend with other half celebrating our anniversary and then going to London for the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Lady is doing fine and getting to see most of her mates most of the time so all well there, though we consider it to be a win if we manage to duck the rain and strong winds.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see both her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today. Lovely time had by all but all three dogs were told off for trying to eat the mud! Why, oh why, oh why…

Character Tip: What would your character want for Christmas (or in their setting their equivalent event) and why? What does it reveal about them? What would they never want to receive and why? What would happen if they received the unwanted present? Could be some fun stories to write (and read) there.

A wet walk with Lady this morning but did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and, as ever, the two chums were pleased to see each other.

Delighted to start the week with great news. My festive flash fiction story which I submitted to Hannah Kate for her Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM will be broadcast on said show this coming Saturday, 13th December. I plan to listen live but will share a catch up link as soon as I can (probably early next week). It is always a fun show to listen to so heartily recommend it.

Hope your weekend has gone well. Busy one for me being out and about but had such a lovely time in Dorset and London. Relishing a quieter Sunday though and I’ll be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly.

I will be looking back at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Looking forward to sharing that (and am enjoying reading the books I brought back with me from that event. Well, you can’t NOT do that, can you?!).

Am currently having a go at the Friday Flash Fiction Christmas competition. Can submit one more entry and I hope to do that as part of my flash fiction Sunday afternoon a little later today.

Festive Flash Tip: You can write these regardless of the time of year. If good ideas occur to me in the summer for this, I go for it and write the stories up. I must admit I prefer my festive flash fiction pieces to be 300 words or fewer. I think they work best at this word length because you’re generally looking for a lighthearted fun piece and you don’t want to dilute the sense of fun by having too many words for it!

6th December – Bridge House Publishing event
Have had a fabulous day at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event today. It was so good to catch up with friends. It was also nice to be back at the wonderfully named Theodore Bullfrog pub. Will write more about the event for next week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post though it was great to travel back with fellow Swanwicker, June Webber. Naturally we had a good natter!

Has been a busy weekend so far getting out and about. Nothing for ages, then loads of trips out. Suspect I will get something from the various journeys to inspire some flash fiction pieces.

Character Tip: I don’t usually worry too much about what my characters look like. I’m usually far more interested in their attitudes to life. But occasionally if I spot an interesting hat, say, I might wonder what character of mine might wear something like it. I have been known to wonder which character of mine wouldn’t be seen dead in a hat like that. These thoughts have given me ideas for characters and, from there, story outlines.

Images below were taken by me at the BHP event. Not long after the first shot was taken, the room was full of very happy BHP authors including me. For the second photo, it was good to be back on the BHP book table with Lynn Clement, whose The City of Stories I edited, and Rosemary Johnson, who is a dear friend from the Association of Christian Writers.

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Looking forward to listening to Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday. Delighted to say I have a story on there. The show is great fun to listen to – I hope to share a link early next week.

Is it difficult to think of different themes for festive flash each year? Depends.

I think because I go for character first, not plot, it helps a lot. So I examine the stories we know around Christmas, the Biblical as well as the secular ones, and look for characters who perhaps are not the main star of the show (some pun intended and I expect at some point I may well write a story around the Star of Bethlehem). You can have a lot of fun with characters like this.

Also give some thought to your favourite fairytales. They come up so often for pantomimes at this time of year so you could write festive flash around characters in these too.

It’s Monday, another wet and dismal one, so definitely time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Diet Change.

What on earth did Eliza wish for to make Santa read her note twice to ensure he hadn’t misread it? Was her wish granted? Find out here.

 

It was wonderful celebrating flash fiction and short stories in London yesterday at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Now back to the desk to get on and write more flash fiction!

As ever at events like yesterday’s, people shared news of websites etc which take flash and I hope to look into some of those after Christmas. Know I won’t get much time to do this before then.

When it comes to writing seasonal flash, I look at one specific character or someone associated with them. For example, for some of my festive flash I’ve written about Santa, the elves, Mrs Christmas, a young shepherd who was worrying about leaving the sheep behind when they all went off to Bethlehem.

I think knowing the character for this kind of flash story is essential because you look at their links with the festive season and that in itself is usually enough to trigger story ideas.

Lovely to chat with fellow flash and short story writers at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event today. I find I get a real buzz from being with other writers like this. It was good to share the joys of short form fiction with each other. Loved hearing the stories being read out. Am not often read to so make the most of it when I am.

Flash Tip: Focus on one moment, one character for your stories. Your story will have a much better impact because of that and it will be easier to stick to your word count.

Image below taken by me is of June Webber, my dear friend and fellow Swanwicker, reading her excellent story, Marmalade, at today’s BHP event.

Goodreads Author Blog – Meeting Up With Other Authors

Meeting up with other authors at various events is one of the joys of the writing life and one I greatly appreciate. It is lovely talking about stories and writing with those who understand why you have the drive to write at all.

Other authors are also fabulously supportive given we all have to market our own books. Most of us would far rather be writing.

Naturally a huge attraction at these events are the book rooms and book tables. Always a joy to buy books from writers I know and am always pleased to add more to my shelves.

If you can support author events, please do. Every writer I know will be pleased to see you. That goes for me too!

Happy reading!

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