Tag: Broadcast News

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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Broadcast News, Broadcast Hiccups, and Birthdays

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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 had a great weekend. I had a fabulous 60th birthday celebration with family and friends – Lady was exhausted too by the end of it. A huge thank you for all the good wishes which have come in too.

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Good news. I’ve heard from Hannah Kate that her Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM, which was due to be broadcast on Saturday, will now be broadcast this evening, 24th March 2026 from 7 pm to 9 pm. The link below, I’m told, will still work for this.

Huge congratulations to fellow ACW member, Rosemary Johnson, whose story is on the show, along with my one, Out With The Old.

It is ironic perhaps I’m out later so will almost certainly have to use the wonderful Listen Again feature later this week to hear the stories but do tune in as and when you can. I always love listening to all of the stories on these shows. The range is amazing and, of course, they all have to be flash fiction to fit in with broadcasting requirements.

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special, Saturday 21 March, 2-4pm


Hope your week has got off to a reasonable start. Delighted to have my statement through from the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). Good result and up on last year so am very pleased. Many thanks to Wendy H Jones for flagging this up. I’ve been a member of ALCS for years as it comes with my Society of Authors membership. Do check them out if you have work out there with an ISBN or ISSN on them. It is a superb way of helping authors.

Don’t forget it won’t be long before my next author newsletter comes out. To sign up for hints, tips, stories and more do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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A huge thank you for the many birthday greetings coming my way thanks to my hitting the big 60 today. Much appreciated. I can’t quite believe it either. Had a lovely time yesterday with family and friends. Today is recovery time! (Lady had a ball with her chum, Lily. Lady slept very well last night!).

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Templates on Chandler’s Ford Today this coming Friday. I use them often and they can help so much with character creation and in helping you to “see” your setting in your own mind even if you don’t share most of that with your readers. I hope the post will be useful.

Am also looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group next week.

Hope to get back to drafting short stories for competitions from next weekend.

Unfortunately there were technical issues on Hannah Kate’s show yesterday so the Spring Equinox show did not go out as planned. I understand this will be redone at a later date and I will share further details when I get them. Tech is wonderful when it works! Update:  See above. Programme rescheduled for 24th March 2026.

Delighted my Out With the Old will be broadcast by Hannah Kate on her Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM today. Many congratulations to all of the featured authors. Flash is wonderful for broadcast and Open Prose Mic Nights precisely because they don’t take too long while retaining the challenge of ensuring listeners are engaged with a gripping story line and characters.

There is a Listen Again feature on the station, which I will be making use of as, when my tale goes out, I will be busy partying with family and friends ahead of my 60th birthday tomorrow. It’s all go. Sadly, things went wrong but the show was rebroadcast on 24th March 2026 instead.

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special, Saturday 21 March, 2-4pm

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My story, Out With The Old, will now be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show this evening on North Manchester FM – 24th March. I look forward to listening to it and the other tales in due course.

Flash works well for radio as it doesn’t take long and has immediate impact as does radio itself, of course. I also love taking part in Open Prose Mic Nights when I can especially at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, because you can get immediate feedback from the audience reaction as to how something went down with them.

Trust me, this is useful, and I’ve used the feedback I’ve had here to hone stories further. I think the tricky bit is getting the mood of the stories right for the occasion. For Swanwick with the five minutes maximum reading time, I like to read something punchy, something funny, something reflective. I think it makes for a good balance of moods and is a great way to showcase what flash can be.

It’s Monday. As ever it’s been hectic. Time to wind down with a flash story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Blame Game.

Well, just who IS to blame when food goes missing at a party? Find out here.

 

22nd March
I celebrate my 60th birthday today, not quite believing where the time has gone. I’ll be setting some sixty word exercises for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. Think three short paragraphs and you’re there. It’s a good challenge!

I haven’t come across any competitions for this word count (I have come across 53, 75 etc) but these short pieces are excellent for sharing on your social media and website. They give a good taster of your writing style and make for an excellent “warm up” exercise ahead of longer writing work.

Also birthdays are useful for looking back at times past as well as ahead to the future and good story ideas can come from those thoughts.

Hope your weekend is going well. Busy one here as I am about to celebrate my 60th birthday (22nd March) with friends and family today. Lady will have a fabulous time and be happily shattered later. She loves family get togethers especially as she will meet up with another family dog with whom she gets on very well.

Birthdays and other celebrations can be an excellent idea to write stories about. Who goes to what event? Who doesn’t get invited (there are consequences – think the wicked fairy in Sleeping Beauty here)? What happens at the event itself? Good story ideas there and they can be funny, tragic, dramatic, depending on your characters.


Goodreads Author Blog – Birthdays and Other Celebrations in Books

Birthdays and other celebrations can make a great backdrop in a story. I always think of Bilbo Baggins’ event at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. Here, it was used as a way for him to “disappear” without anyone seeming to notice. Frodo does, of course, and this sets in motion his own huge quest.

Birthdays can show up what other characters think of the celebrant. The birthday person can also use their event to make a point and that could set other things in motion. The event can also be where a murder or other crime takes place too. Nobody said these things have to be happy events!

Also reaching a certain age can set things in motion as they did for Harry Potter when he reached his eleventh birthday.

Other celebrations would include the ball where Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. It would not be something either of them would see as celebratory at the time but it did have a powerful impact on both of them.

It’s also lovely to see this kind of event in fiction at all because fiction does reflect life and birthdays are very much a part of that.

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Setting Writing Exercises

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Hope you have had a good few days. Delighted to share broadcasting news this time (see further time) and Lady has had a great week with her pals. All have appreciated the sunshine, as have their owners.

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Delighted to share Setting Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today which I hope will prove useful to those running writing groups and/or authors who set exercises as part of their newsletters etc to engage with readers (and fellow writers).

I set tips, include examples of different writing exercises, and the importance of mixing things up here. I also look at the benefits of writing exercises whether you do them, set them, or, like me do both as often as you can.

I love writing exercises and it is a joy to set them for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group, which I lead monthly. The group have come up with fabulous stories as a result and I maintain, even if your writing work is in the longer forms, using a writing exercise as a “warm up” is not a bad idea. It gets you into writing (and you can work on those shorter pieces again later, hopefully getting those published too. Nothing to dislike about that thought!).

I hope you find the post useful.

Setting Writing Exercises

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A busy day but Lady enjoyed meeting up with the “girls”, her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals.

I’ll be sharing Setting Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week – link up tomorrow. See above. Will be useful for anyone running a group and/or individual authors looking to set exercises to engage with readers/fellow writers via their newsletters etc.

I’m looking forward to joining in with a Zoom meeting of the Association of Christian Writers later this evening – will be good to chat to fellow writers/ACW members. I enjoyed this kind of meeting when ACW ran it before so I’m pleased they’re doing it again. This is one of the perks of being an ACW member and it was a great meeting.

Last but not least, I’m thrilled to announce my story, Out With The Old, will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM this coming, Saturday 21st March. Link below shares more details. (If you can’t listen live, there is a Listen Again facility. I love that facility myself and often make use of it).

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special, Saturday 21 March, 2-4pm

It’s my turn once again on the Authors Electric blog and this time I look at Special Years. I have a special birthday coming up over the weekend, you know the kind that ends in zero, but it is also a reminder of my writing anniversary thirty years ago.

A writing anniversary is a good time to reflect on the writing journey to date and mine has taken many twists and turns I hadn’t anticipated when I first started out trying to write seriously for publication. I also look at how I felt when I was first starting out because it is hard to believe then the break will come and you do need persistence, grit, call it what you will, to keep going as a writer. I think it pays to remind yourself of that sometimes. And, of course, to keep going!

Hope you enjoy the post.

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I look at Setting Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week and, of course, it is something I do a lot of but I respond to even more writing exercises for my flash fiction. I can’t give an accurate figure on it but I estimate well over 90% of my flash stories started life as a response to an exercise. When I go to writing events such as The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, I will sometimes set exercises there but again response to even more from the tutors there.

Also, in entering competitions, especially those with a set theme, I’m responding to an exercise effectively so it is a good idea to practice writing to different kinds, something I hope to do more of later this weekend.

I must admit though I do love the opening line exercises and have used so many of these to start my flash pieces. I find they help me hit the ground running with my characters and their situations and I like that a lot.


Pleased to say I’ll be having a flash piece broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM on Saturday, It has been an especially busy and tiring week so far so this was lovely news to receive. Pleased to say a dear friend of mine will also be having her story broadcast. Love it when that happens.

For stories for potential broadcast I always do record them on Zoom so I can practice reading them aloud and get my timings right. Playing them back when I finish the recorded Zoom meeting with myself is a boon as I can hear how I sound – am I reading too fast? Is my pacing a bit slow etc? Plus Zoom gives you an exact record time which is so useful.

I also use Zoom for when I’m practicing for Open Prose Mic Night sessions for the same reasons. Most of these sessions are for an upper limit of five minutes only. Nobody minds you coming in at under that time but it is unfair on the other performers to go over so using Zoom is a good way to know in advance I won’t be doing that.

It’s also useful for hearing how your dialogue sounds in longer stories too so highly recommend doing this. Back in the day I did use Audacity but I do find Zoom even easier to use.

Hope today has gone well. Lady has been busy enjoying the sunshine with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals.

Flash fiction is a wonderful format for sharing moments in a character’s life which are complete stories in and of themselves, but which are shorter than “normal” short stories. The form encourages you to cut the waffle and to only share with a reader what matters to the character. That alone tightens up your writing. I’ve found that has carried over into my blog and article work, which is no bad thing.

So when I’m outlining a character, I focus on what is the one thing which matters to them and what gets in their way of obtaining it. It’s a great story structure and naturally the tale will show whether they do obtain it or not in the end. Sometimes other things will crop up which show them what they thought they wanted wasn’t ideal for them after all and they find something better. But what matters is something happens, there is always a point of change even in the smallest piece of flash fiction.

And it is a fantastic challenge, always.

Fairytales with Bite – Party Time

As I write this in March 2026, I’m looking forward to celebrating a big birthday, you know the kind with the zero on the end. Party time is fun! But do your characters take the same view? Do they celebrate each and every birthday or just do the special ones? What kind of format would their parties take, especially if they live in a world alien to our own?

If your setting is a magical one with various species, would they all celebrate in the same way or would what would be acceptable to one kind be abhorrent to another? Could that lead to clashes?

I don’t especially like balloons (not great for the environment either) or candles (fire hazard especially with my big birthday coming up!), but what “fripperies” would your characters like to have at their celebrations? What would be considered a “must have”?

Also, who does all of the work in getting the party food and drink ready? Are certain magical characters in your setting known for their skills here?

Could be some fun stories to write up here, apt since parties should be fun.

This World and Others – Society Occasions

As well as private functions as I look at in Fairytales with Bite, most places will have some sort of society event, sombre or otherwise. What forms would these take in your setting?

Being based in the UK, we had various Jubilees for the late Queen Elizabeth (and it seems so strange still writing of her in those terms) and I enjoyed these. We also have sombre occasions such as Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day. But all of these things are important in different ways and matter in different ways.

So how would your society hold a public celebration? How would they have a remembrance event (and what are they seeking to keep in the public memory here)?

What would your characters make of these things and do they play any role in any official events like this? Is there anyone with a vested interest in disrupting these things in some way and what are they hoping to achieve?

Story ideas there!

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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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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!

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Author Interview: A Right Cozy Christmas Crime with Wendy H Jones

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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. Many thanks to Janet Williams for the shots of me signing books at The Hilt Book Fair.
Hope you have had a good few days. Had lovely trip out with other half to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Lady had a fabulous time too. Pleased to say I have broadcast news and I know others who will be on the same show so am pleased for them all too. More details below with a link to come later.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am delighted to share a wonderful interview with Wendy H Jones about A Right Cozy Christmas Crime (Scott and Lawson), a recently released anthology of cozy crime stories. We discuss the joys of anthologies, the appeal of cozy crime, and the use of Christmas as a setting plus much more besides. Do check the interview out. And maybe you’ll have an extra idea for your Christmas present list.

What I love about short stories and flash fiction is you get to visit so many different “worlds” and characters and anthologies are the prefect place to have such stories collected. I deliberately read novels, then shorter forms of writing, then back to novels again. I want to read across the spectrum and often will check out an author new to me when they’ve got work in an anthology like this one before going for their longer works.

A Right Cozy Christmas Crime with Wendy H Jones – Author Interview

 

 

 

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Had a lovely day out with other half and Lady today. Other half and I were celebrating our 37th wedding anniversary.

Writing wise, don’t forget there is a fabulous interview coming up with Wendy H Jones about A Right Cozy Christmas Crime (Scott and Lawson) on Chandler’s Ford Today – link up tomorrow. See above. I love short stories, crime tales, and anthologies. This latest publication has the lot. Plenty of useful thoughts are shared. Do check it out.

Last but not least, I’m thrilled to say my festive flash fiction story, Perspective, will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday 14th December 2024. The show is on from 2pm to 4pm. Congratulations to all who have had their tales chosen. I’m looking forward to hearing them all. It’s a lovely show and supportive of writers and the story world. I hope to share a link later.

 

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal this morning and, to our great surprise and delight, her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal this afternoon on our usual walk. An unexpected and welcome play time ensured as the walk has a nice area of green where the dogs can play. They had a lovely time.

Looking forward to the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event on Saturday and to an ACW group meeting on Zoom this evening where I love joining in with talk about science fiction and fantasy. A lovely time is had by all.

Character Tip: Put yourself in your character’s shoes. You don’t have to like your characters (I can think of a few of mine where if we could meet in life we would not get on at all) but you do have to understand where they’re coming from and why. I think it is the only way to write for them with any conviction. I’m convinced when an author does get behind their characters like that, this comes through in the story and makes it more believable.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale Printing Error. This is an entry for their Christmas competition and in this one the word I had to use was peace. Hope you enjoy the story.
Screenshot 2024-12-06 at 09-48-50 Printing Error by Allison Symes - Friday Flash Fiction

As mentioned over on my author page, I’m delighted to say my festive flash fiction story, Perspective, will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday 14th December 2024. The show is on from 2pm to 4pm. Link to come later.

This was one of the several flash pieces I’ve recently got out to different places. Always good to know one got through okay!

Will not hear back on the others for some time and only then if they get a placing. You do get used to this. Often it is a question of competition organisers simply not having enough time or people to email all who entered rather than anything else.

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Have received the reading order list for the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event on Saturday. Have worked out what I’d like to read. Always a fun task! Am looking forward to hearing the other stories too – it is a treat to be read to and I love reading my work so win-win here It’s fun. Flash works so well for open mic type things.

Am also looking forward to catching up with Debz Hobbs-Wyatt and Hannah Retallick, whom I interviewed for Chandler’s Ford Today recently. It will be great to catch up with friends, old and new.

 

Fairytales with Bite – Timing

What do your magical characters make of timings? Cinderella was useless at it, of course. How good or otherwise are your characters in keeping to time and what are the consequences when they’re not? Also could someone else make use of someone’s punctuality and use it against them?

Do any of your character’s spells have a timing limit on them? Some fairy godmothers do have this feature, of course! Automatically set to midnight, naturally – it’s never three minutes past one, is it?

If your character has to get their timing spot on with something, what obstacles will you put in their way to make it as difficult as possible for them to achieve this? What will they have to do to still make their objective happen?

Can your character use split second timing to achieve something different in the world of magic? What would this be? What other powers could it unleash?

Timing can be everything in a story (as it so often is in film). How can you make best use of this thought for your characters and their situations?

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This World and Others – Decisions

How easy or otherwise do your characters find making decisions? A lot will depend on what the decision is and how it is going to challenge them personally, of course, but as a general rule, do they have problems making up their mind about something or do they always know what they want?

The latter trait could be useful in showing something else about their personality. The go-getters don’t tend to be the shy, retiring type!

How do your characters react when having to make decisions they wouldn’t normally face? Many a quest tale has started with this. The way they respond so often makes the adventure memorable (The Lord of the Rings is the obvious example here).

I outline my characters with enough information so I know how they are likely to respond in most situations. There is still the room for them to surprise me and they do sometimes but the surprise comes out of what I already know about them so isn’t “out of kilter” for the way I’ve portrayed the character to date.

Funnily enough, I don’t usually need to know much about how they look – what I’m after finding out is their personality and then ideas for their appearance come from that. My major decision is in working out just how much I need to know about my characters before writing them up.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Broadcast News and Knowing 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. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Weather now stormy and wet. Delighted to have been on North Manchester FM over the weekend. Looking forward to taking part in Flash NANO again in November. Also have a fabulous interview coming up with Anita D Hunt to discuss her domestic noir novel, Behind The Curtain, on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Do look out for it. Plenty of useful tips and advice. This is one of the great things about author interviews You learn so much from them.

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Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Drier today, thankfully. Am also thankful Lady drives off quickly and doesn’t mind my towelling her down. Not all dogs like this. Lady sees it as a chance to get another cuddle in!

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom tomorrow night. Always good fun. Theme this time is marketing. Talking of which, I’ve been busy preparing pitches, one of which I’ve just submitted, the other is almost complete ready for reviewing.

Writing Tip: Consistency helps a lot with (a) getting your writing done and (b) with your marketing. I’m not on every social media platform. I am on the ones I know I can keep posting to on a regular basis.

Being consistent helps you build up your brand

Delighted to be able to share a single link now to Hannah Kate’s Autumn Equinox show on North Manchester FM on Saturday afternoon. Do check out the stories on there – I found them to be a great mix. It was lovely listening to it on Saturday afternoon.

Don’t forget I’ll be chatting to Anita D Hunt about her domestic noir novel, Behind The Curtain, on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Plenty of advice and tips shared, this is one of the great strengths of author interviews, I find. You learn so much from other writers’ experiences.

Screenshot 2024-09-23 at 17-36-41 Hannah’s Bookshelf Autumn Equinox Special - 21_09_2024 by Hannah's Bookshelf Mixcloud

The storm hit Hampshire today. So much water on the road. Glad to get back home. Much as I love autumn, torrential rain does nothing for me save get me wet (and Lady dries off quicker than I do).

Writing Tip: I sometimes know what mood of story I want to write – funny, sad, scary, etc. Sometimes that mood is set by the theme of a writing competition too. What I do here is work out the kind of character who would suit that mood and as I outline them, I find myself discovering ideas for the situations they’d be likely to face. Put all that together and I have an outline for my first draft.

Knowing my character well enough for whatever length of story I write to works for me. Asking a few questions helps me to get to know that character well enough. Obviously the longer the story the more I need to know but even for flash I have to know what drives them and why.

There are often hints as I outline them as to where that drive has come from. If their drive is to make money and plenty of it, are they being greedy or are they fearful of debt because they’ve know what it is to face that?

I could write two different stories depending on how I answer that question. There is nothing to stop me either from writing two stories with two characters who answer that question differently and this is just one example of the benefit of some forward planning.

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Broadcast News: Enjoyed listening to the stories on Hannah Kate’s Autumn Equinox special show on North Manchester FM this afternoon. Lovely mix of styles. I’ve shared the links – link one above, link two below. My story, Spade Work, is on the second half of the show coming in at about the 22 minutes mark but do listen to all of the tales. You will be in for a treat. Do note I now have a single link to the whole show above and it may be easier to use that one.

Many thanks for the kind comments coming in on the Ruth Leigh interview I shared on Chandler’s Ford Today yesterday. Much appreciated. I think this interview proves a point I’ve made before about learning from author interviews. You can pick up all sorts of tips which will be useful to you.

Am pleased to say there is another super interview coming up next week with Anita D Hunt, who will be discussing her domestic noir novel, Behind The Curtain. Looking forward to sharing that. I’ve loved author interviews since I started writing seriously. I know I’ve picked up so much useful help and advice from them and it is a great joy and privilege to conduct them for CFT.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Anniversaries can make a useful theme to write about. Not only are there the obvious anniversaries, which you could show in relation to your characters and what they make of them, bear in mind your characters might also have specific dates they commemorate, which would be meaningless to anyone else.

So what would your character commemorate that nobody else would? How do they do this? What made them start doing this? A magical character could commemorate the day they “graduated”, for example. How do they celebrate – crate a new spell for the occasion, say?

Room for humour in stories like that, I think.

Fiction reflects on our lived experiences so certain themes are bound to occur regularlyIt’s Monday. It’s been raining heavily all day. And it’s a darker than usual Monday due to the weather. Time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Appreciation.

Has been a busy and soggy weekend. Hope things have been okay for you. Don’t forget my author newsletter is coming out again soon. To sign up just head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I’ll be talking about author newsletters for my More than Writers post for the Association of Christian Writers later this month too. I write a few monthly blogs and, as with my newsletter, I do plan out when in the month I will have these ready by. I’ve found this pays. Doing this frees up other writing time which I use for marketing and writing more flash stories. Win-win as far as I’m concerned.

Talking of flash, I’ve also found it useful to hit the ground running with my tales. I want to set up curiosity in the reader immediately and I can do this by setting a question you know the story has to answer or by giving an intriguing opening and you have to find out where it goes from there.

In my Enough Is Enough (Tripping the Flash Fantastic), I start with the opening line of She knew she had to stop it. What I hope that line does is set up immediate questions for the reader – who is she, what has she got to stop and why, and is she successful? The story does have to answer all of that. (It does, of course!).

I’ve found it helpful to think along the lines if it intrigues me, it should intrigue someone else. It can be a useful place to start, regardless of what length of fiction you’re writing.

It was a joy this afternoon to listen to wonderful autumnal flash on Hannah Kate’s show on North Manchester FM. It was a joy to be part of the show too. Autumn is a wonderful theme to write about because you can take it in many directions. You can look at a character’s attitude to it. You can bring in the changes in nature. You can bring in the sense of things winding down.

My maternal grandmother hated the season because she saw it as the time when everything died. I’ve used that thought in my story, Spade Work, which was broadcast this afternoon. I also used my own attitude to the season where I don’t agree with my grandmother’s view. My character, Holly, shares my view autumn is the time of beautiful changes and sees this in her Virginia Creeper where its leaves change from green to a fabulous shade of red.

But thinking about what your character makes of autumn or indeed any of the seasons can give you great insight to your creation. Their attitudes will also have a direct impact on their behaviour too and there will be story ideas there.

If they hate autumn, what would they do to get out of having to go any seasonal events? How would characters around them react to their behaviour here, especially if they love the season and the events?

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Goodreads Author Blog – Books I Could Not Do Without

With a title like this, I know I could go on at some length but decided to limit my choices to ten but have included some collections. So what ten books could I not do without then?

  1. The Bible – I especially love the Psalms (wonderful poetry) and Jesus’s stories (especially The Good Samaritan always a challenging one that).
  2. The Lord of the Rings – THE fantasy book in my view.
  3. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – loved the story. Cried when I first read what happened to Aslan at the hands of the White Witch.
  4. The classic fairytales – I am especially fond of Cinderella.
  5. Men at Arms – Terry Pratchett. A classic whodunnit as well as a wonderful addition to the Discworld canon.
  6. Nemesis – Agatha Christie. Her best Miss Marple novel I think.
  7. The ABC Murders – Agatha Christie. Her best Hercule Poirot book (though I was torn between this and Murder on the Orient Express).
  8. Jeeves and Wooster – P.G. Wodehouse. Can’t pick any single one. They are all brilliant and never fail to make me smile.
  9. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens. The ultimate ghost/redemption story. Simply wonderful.
  10. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen. Her best book, I think. Wonderful characters and Elizabeth Bennet is ahead of her time.

Which ten books would you choose?

Screenshot 2024-09-21 at 18-00-25 Allison Symes's Blog - Books I Could Not Do Without - September 21 2024 10 00 Goodreads

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

This time I share the October 2023 edition, which had horror as its theme. My article is on Writing Horror: The Telling Details.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Author Interview: Catching Up With Ruth Leigh – The Further Adventures of Ruth Leigh

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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. Many thanks to Ruth Leigh and Social Shapes for some of the images in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week.
Hope you have had a good few days. Continuing to enjoy lovely autumn weather here. Lady continuing to have a riot with her pals in the park. All is well! On the writing front, I’m delighted to say my story, Spade Work, will be broadcast by Hannah Kate on North Manchester FM on 21st September (between 2 and 4 pm). Hope to share the link later.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m so pleased to welcome back Ruth Leigh to Chandler’s Ford Today to discuss her new book, The Further Adventures of Isabella M Smugge. Isabella is one of those unforgettable, touching, and funny characters, it was clear from the outset she would need more than one book!

In this in depth interview, Ruth and I discuss what she loves about Isabella and who Ruth would pick to play the role should Isabella ever come to the screen. Ruth also shares some wonderful tips about book launches. If you’re thinking of having a launch, do check these out.

Ruth also discusses what inspired her to write A Great Deal of Ingenuity and The Little Unexpected Book of Poetry which came out since the last CFT interview and we both celebrate being Jane Austen nerds.

Ruth also shares how her writing life has taken off in other directions with Resolute Books and the British Christian Writing Conference. There are also valuable tips on websites and the challenge of managing both writing and marketing time.

Plenty to enjoy then and lots of useful advice and tips for other writers. Do enjoy. And congratulations, Ruth, on the fourth installment centred on your wonderful heroine.

Catching Up with Ruth Leigh – The Further Adventures of Isabella M Smugge

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Lovely start to my day as I found out my story, Spade Work, will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Autumn Equinox show on North Manchester FM on Saturday, 21st September. I hope to share a link later. Many thanks to Jenny Sanders for flagging this one up.

Am looking forward to listening in as there is always a lovely mix of stories on these shows. Will be interesting to find out how the autumn theme has been taken by the other contributors.

Flash works well on radio and/or Open Prose Mic Nights precisely because you have a contained story which doesn’t take too much time to read out/listen to.

Am also looking forward to taking part in Flash NANO again in November. Hope to get thirty more draft stories out of that!

Screenshot 2024-09-19 at 17-19-48 Hannah Kate on X 🍂 Coming up on Sat at 2pm it's the Hannah's Bookshelf Autumn Equinox Special on @normanfm1066 featuring flash fiction from Jess Richards Carmen Walton @mariascohut @noodle[...]

Another lovely autumn day here and Lady had a fabulous puppy party with her chums, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, and Coco, the Labradoodle. Tired but oh so happy dogs went home. Lovely to watch them at play.

Am pleased to be back on Authors Electric with my post Directions. I look at how my writing life has been an upside down one and why I’ve learned not to worry about my writing life changing direction. I hadn’t started out writing the short form at all but when I did get around to that, it twisted again when I discovered flash fiction and from that the joys of learning to write tight and to never fear editing or being edited again. The latter alone has proved useful to me.

Wherever you are on your writing journey, I hope the “ride” is a good one and the turns you take prove to be useful to you. Hope you enjoy the post.

WORD OF WARNING:  Annoyingly there are two useless comments on my Authors Electric post, one of which is potentially dodgy. I have flagged them up to the admins of Authors Electric. These comments weren’t there when I published the post.

One is advertising how to hire a hacker. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THAT COMMENT OR CLICK ON THE PERSON’S ICON. I dread to think where that would take you.

The other is about recipes, irrelevant to a writing post. It is the bane of all website owners to have to deal with this kind of thing. Please DO enjoy my post though. I hope you find it useful.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday, the end of the working week for many. Time for a story then. Hope you enjoy The Case. If there is a moral to this one, it is to take a hint seriously when you are given one. Find out what happens given my character David didn’t do that.

Screenshot 2024-09-20 at 10-06-36 The Case by Allison Symes - Friday Flash Fiction

Hope you have had a good day. Lovely autumn weather continuing here. Delighted to say I’ll be on Hannah Kate’s show on Saturday afternoon on North Manchester FM. The theme for the show in the Autumn Equinox. Will share a link when I get one. Next seasonal theme I will write something for will be, dare I say it so early, a festive one. Festive flash is so enjoyable to write. I do think the aim there is to make the stories fun. At least that’s the take I try to use for it!

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A lovely review for From Light to Dark and Back Again describes the book as From Light to Dark and Back Again is indeed, as the subtitle states, ‘a collection very short stories to suit every mood’ – be it mournful, pithy or murderous.

Many thanks to Book Reader for that one. Please note though Amazon say the book isn’t available in paperback that isn’t the case. All Chapeltown Books are print on demand so it isn’t a question of unavailability. Print on demand doesn’t have a use by date!

Also you can order directly from me. Just contact me via my website (https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/contact/) or you can go to my publisher’s bookshop, The Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop. See link.

Screenshot 2024-09-20 at 20-31-21 The Bridgetown Café Bookshop From Light to Dark and Back Again

Fairytales with Bite – Professional Practices

Think about the professions in your magical setting. Think about the obvious ones like witch, wizard, fairy godmother etc. Behind any profession there is usually a service industry. Within the profession there is usually a set of professional practices or some sort of Code of Practice.

So what would make up the service industries here? Someone has to supply the magical equipment and test it so it is good to be used on a wider scale. Someone else would write the spell books (and those would have been tested and proved to work at some point, else why include them?).

Then there would be whoever supplied the ingredients or someone who brought out the latest model of wand etc. Also who taught those who work in the professions? What rigorous standards do they have to teach to? Do you have the magical equivalent of Ofsted here?

So all sorts of things then go on behind any job in our world and the same would apply in a magical one.

Fairies may be born but they would have to be trained. They will need to know how to use their equipment and so on, They will be expected to stick to what most accept as a reasonable code of conduct (noting there would always be some who defy these things).

As for the professional practices/Code, who wrote these? Who approved them? What led to there being a need for them in the first place? What would happen to anyone who went against these things?

Story ideas there for sure!

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This World and Others – Unions/Guilds

Given the need for professions in any world, who cares for the workers in those professions? Would there be the magical equivalent of trade unions? Are there guilds ensuring professional practices, as referred to in Fairytales with Bite, are adhered to? Who runs these things and how did they get into those roles?

Who would they answer to and do the workers have the right to hold their union officials, as well as their bosses, to account where necessary? How does the employment world work in your setting? Story ideas there too!

On a lighter note, as for possible magical trade unions how about the following:-

The FGTU – The Fairy Godmother Trade Union. Motto: Clocking off is always at midnight, not a moment sooner or later.

NRG – Nursery Rhyme Guild. Motto: There for the talking bears to ensure they always get their furniture and porridge replaced.

MCWU – Mouse Clock Winders’ Union. Motto: Ensuring the clocks always read 1 am or 1 pm – nothing else. Members here cannot be a member of the FGTU as well due to an obvious conflict of interests.

COBBLERS Guild – Collective of Brave Blue-collar Leather-working Elves Restoring Shoes Guild – Motto: Always proud to help the small businessman who is kind but has fallen on hard times.

Hope you enjoyed those. For story purposes though the world of employment (on both sides of the fence) could be a good source for ideas.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

This time I share the April 2024 edition of the magazine which is on a theme close to my heart, editing. I ask the big question – Editing:  Do You Love It or Loathe It?

 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Publication/Broadcast News and Author Newsletters

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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 had a good weekend. Great start to the week with publication and ALCS payment news. Lady got her week off to a cracking start by having a good run round with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Hope the rest of the week continues to go well. Spotting more spring flowers out too. They cheer me up so much. I love the colours.

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Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Glad to share a Mixcloud link to Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM on Saturday. Always easier to share one link rather than two! (I had shared two links to both halves of the show over the weekend but will only share this one link here). It was great fun taking part in the flash fiction slot here and do check out the other stories. They were a good mix. Hannah’s Bookshelf is on every Saturday between 2 and 4 pm. If you like books, stories, and radio, well here is the show for you!

Separately, I will be talking about the joys of PowerPoint for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Will be sharing tips and what I’ve found useful here.

Screenshot 2024-03-19 at 10-01-58 Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special - 16_03_2024

Busy night tonight. (18th March 2024 – you know how you sometimes get several things on one day, mine this week was Monday!). First post. Delighted to say I am back on CafeLit with a story called Zoom. Hope you enjoy it. Oh and I will leave you to decide if the character in this one could be in any way related to yours truly!

Screenshot 2024-03-18 at 16-52-14 CafeLitMagazineSecond post. (Told you Monday, 18th March 2024 was busy for me!). Glad to share my latest Authors Electric post where I discuss Author Newsletters. I discuss how I approach writing mine and share some tips. Hope you find it useful.

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Hope you are having a lovely weekend. Pleased to see some sun this afternoon.

Will be back on Authors Electric tomorrow, talking about Author Newsletters. Will also have a story on CafeLit tomorrow. Gets the week off to a good start! See above. I like Mondays like Monday 18th March – lots happening!

Listening to Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens on Classic FM as I write this. (Well, I had been!). One of my favourite pieces, I always vote for it in their hall of fame chart. Also used a free to use version of it for the book trailer for From Light to Dark and Back Again. It is apt!

Am busy preparing some wonderful author interviews to go on Chandler’s Ford Today in due course.
It was lovely listening to Budding Betrayal on North Manchester FM live yesterday. I often have to use catch up but it was great listening to the variety of tales, all of which were spring related in some way, and it made a nice change to get to do so at the time of broadcast.

Writing Tip: I regularly have brainstorming sessions where I jot down potential ideas for titles, opening and closing lines, and so on. This is great and I find it so useful. But what do you do when the brain decides now would be a good time to give you a fabulous idea to write up but you are not in a position to write anything? I sometimes find this when I go swimming. It’s not a great time for inspiration to strike.

All I do here is repeat the idea to myself (silently!) until I can get to my phone and type myself up a quick note. I can then flesh that note out further when I have more time. What matters is getting the nugget of the idea down. Do that and you should find it will remind you of what else you thought about and then you can jot it down.

431477653_10161784215797053_7292184455729948731_nHope you have had a good day. Delighted to hear my story Budding Betrayal on North Manchester FM in Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show this afternoon. Many congratulations to the other four writers who had stories on. It was a great mixture of tales! All of the stories are on the second half of the show. See single Mixcloud link further up.

What I do when I’m thinking of submitting something for broadcast is edit my story and then I record it on Zoom. I can then play it back and hear how it sounds but I can also check my timings. For Hannah Kate’s show, you send in your stories via Voicemail and you have three minutes maximum on this so your timing does have to be spot on.

As with Open Prose Mic Nights, getting your timing right is crucial but Zoom helps you here. It is also fine to come in at under the maximum time. It is never okay to go over. Word count, I find, for a three minutes slot like today’s one is usually around the 250 mark but it always pays to check as you need to allow for your own reading time here.

The playback is helpful again because I can hear whether I come across clearly or not. No garbling, rushing, or big gaps here. I also find reading out loud and playing a recording back is also great practice for future Mic Nights. Nothing to dislike here basically.

And do enjoy the stories!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I don’t always name a character in my flash tales. (I always do for my longer short stories). I sometimes do this as leaving a character as an “it” can be more scary if I’m writing a darker flash piece. But at other times the name is not the most important thing about the character. Their attitude and back story is more important to know.

An example of this is my The Past – Ready or Not? from Tripping the Flash Fantastic. The story slowly reveals what you do need to know about my character but the name didn’t matter at all!

Most of the time I do name characters of course and use those names to help readers picture them but it isn’t always needed. It is a case of knowing why you are doing (or in this case NOT doing) something which matters most. There has to be a good reason for anything to be in a story.

433567827_10161787404767053_8155201244053768680_nIt’s Monday. Finally the evenings are getting lighter for longer. Having said that, it is still Monday. Time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest YouTube flash tale – Next Time. Dog owners especially will relate to this one.


When I have a theme set for a competition, I take some time working out what could come from that theme. It pays. I find the first few ideas are the “obvious” ones but as I write down more possible thoughts, I find I come up with something which isn’t so obvious. I will then explore those ideas further and see if there is anything I can do with them. Often there is and I will go down this route, knowing I’m producing a story which fits the theme but, hopefully, will stand out a bit as being “different”.

If you’re going for the more obvious takes on a theme, think about what would make your characters stand out in that story. What is it unique to you which you can bring to the mix here? A striking character can transform an “obvious” storyline.

But the time taken to work out ideas, I’ve found, has saved me considerable time and grief later. When I pick the idea to write up, I already know I have thought it through, worked out any potential issues with it, and then I get on with the first draft.

431465653_10161784218007053_4015866457362570123_nGood to hear flash fiction on the radio. I enjoyed tuning in to Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM this afternoon (16th March 2024) and hearing five flash pieces, including my Budding Betrayal, broadcast.

Flash works well on radio. Flash has to keep to the point and to word counts. That in turn helps with timings (crucial for radio shows). When I do need a scene break in my flash tale, and I did with Budding Betrayal, I use a slight pause to indicate a change of scene is coming. Only way you can do it but it does have to be a brief pause, otherwise folk will think there’s something wrong.

All dialogue stories would work well on radio but you do need to find a way of distinguishing between your characters. Yes, you can use names but it is also handy to have one character speak in a specific way and another character to speak in another. You can use turns of phrase to good effect here.

If one character in a two character tale uses a certain word or two, we will know who they are just by the use of those words. We will also know who the other character has to be by default because they won’t use them.

For flash with its tight word count, it would pay to ensure any turn of phrase is kept short and it should be repeated (ideally once or twice maximum depending on your word count here) but, as with any good writing, it pays not to overdo it. I think flash helps here. It forces you to keep things tight. Repetition is used as a deliberately chosen effect (which to my mind is the best way to use it at all).

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Goodreads Author Blog – Dialogue in Fiction

One thing writers need to be aware of is dialogue in fiction can’t match exactly what we come up with in life. Well, nobody wants to read lots of hesitations, repetitions which are not done for effect (and look like mistakes by the author), info dumps and so on. So dialogue in fiction has to “tidy up” what we would come up for real. Dialogue in fiction has to serve the needs of the characters (and, even more importantly, the readers).

The truly great stories get this spot on. You can imagine the characters speaking. What are they saying moves the story on and you are gripped by their conversation. That is the purpose of fictional dialogue.
Dialogue in fiction serves many purposes. It shares information. It reveals information from one character to another which furthers the plot. But whatever the intention of the author here, the dialogue must make us want to read on.

As readers, we need to be convinced by the dialogue the writer is sharing with us. (We have to be convinced this is what characters, as portrayed, would say if they were real).

I love writing dialogue. What I have to watch is to ensure I am putting dialogue into a story for a good reason. I could easily get my characters into conversational ping-pong. So what I do to ensure I don’t do this is ask what does this dialogue do for the story? If it helps in any way, which it should do, it stays in. Else it gets cut.

Great fictional dialogue shows you so much about the characters. In the Wodehouse stories, I can’t imagine Jeeves and Wooster speaking in any other way. The way the two speak (generally and to each other) confirms their portrayal and is so wonderfully done. That’s just to name one example.

Agatha Christie is consistent with how she gets Poirot and Miss Marple to speak. That matters too.

Consistency confirms characterisation. It is what we expect from the characters we like and loathe.

Character dialogue adds so much to the stories and books I enjoy, when done correctly. It acts as a good challenge for me to get it right with my characters too!

Screenshot 2024-03-16 at 17-34-46 Dialogue in FictionWRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Online Workshops 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. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Delighted to share broadcast news this time (and there will be publication news in the next post too). Weather still all over the place though have had some spring sunshine. Lady is as loveable as ever and continues to have a great time with her pals.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am pleased to share my latest post on Chandler’s Ford Today and this week I’m talking about Online Workshops. I discuss the advantages of these and share tips on how to make the best of them, whether you’re an attendee, a tutor, or, like me, you do both. Hope you find the post useful.

Mind you, if you find the refreshments on offer at an online workshop are not all they should be, you really do only have yourself to blame!

(Will be having some fabulous author interviews coming up on CFT in April and May. Am so looking forward to sharing these too. More to come later).

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Broadcast News: Am delighted to announce my story Budding Betrayals will be broadcast on Saturday 16th March on North Manchester FM. I have an unusual lead character in this one but you will have to listen in (live or on catch up) to find out more.

Hannah Kate is hosting a special Spring Equinox show in her Saturday afternoon slot and I am delighted my tale will be part of it. Many congratulations to every one else taking part too. See link and screenshot for more. I hope to share the link to the show itself sometime next week.

Screenshot 2024-03-14 at 09-49-18 North Manchester FM Hannah's Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special Saturday 16 March 2-4pm - Hannah Kate

Today would’ve been my mother’s 90th birthday. Many thanks for the gift of reading, Mum. It has led to a lot!

Don’t forget my next author newsletter goes out on 1st April. Not an April Fool, honestly! To sign up for news, tips, prompts etc, head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I chose a monthly time slot deliberately as it gives me plenty of time to put the newsletter together and it isn’t too frequent an arrival in your inbox! All of the author newsletters I subscribe to are either monthly or occasional. Does anyone send one out weekly? How would you have the time?!

Having a newsletter forms part of my marketing, of course. It’s a joy to put together and it also gives me an opportunity to share links to my stories on Friday Flash Fiction for the month and to my videos on my YouTube channel. It makes a good “one stop shop” for me here.

Newsletter with envelope image

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am delighted to share my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction – Neighbours. Neighbours are not always what they appear to be and that is the case for the characters in this story. Hope you like it.

(From tomorrow, 16th March 2024, Friday Flash Fiction are running an annual competition in memory of Andrew Siderius. Check out the home page for more information).

Screenshot 2024-03-15 at 10-08-09 Neighbours by Allison SymesPleased to have another flash fiction tale due to be broadcast by Hannah Kate on North Manchester FM this coming weekend. (Saturday 16th March 2024). I hope to share a link to the show itself sometime next week. This news came as a nice surprise today.

Am making good progress on what I hope will end up as a fourth flash fiction collection in due course too.

I love flash for its flexibility in mood, style, genre I write in, and even the word count I write to, as long as I don’t go over 1000 words. Great fun to do. It also makes for an excellent warm up writing exercise. Why not give it a go? I did. Two published books later and another in the pipeline, I’d say I made a good call!


My mother would’ve been 90 today. She saw my first published story in print. She would’ve been pleased about the flash fiction collections. I owe my love of stories and books in general to her. It is the gift which keeps on giving.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting later in the month. Always good fun. It’s also an opportunity for folk to share news of relevant competitions etc as no one writer can know them all and I was told about Flash NANO via the Flash Fiction group. Am appreciative of that!

I sometimes write what I call “slice of life” flash tales. One of these is Judgement Day from Tripping the Flash Fantastic which has a “punch in the gut” ending. You would root for my character in this one and that, of course, is the reaction I wanted to generate with this story.

When I write slice of life tales, I focus down on what matters most to my character and that then is the story. There will be change. There will be development. There will be reflection. All of this comes together to bring about an emotional tale, which I hope gives readers pause for thought. For me, that is the purpose of a slice of life tale.

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Fairytales With Bite – Humorous Fantasy

I am very fond of humorous fantasy and my favourite series here is the Discworld one by the much missed Sir Terry Pratchett. Humour can often get across points better than “telling”. People are more willing to “take in” humour.

Humour has its place in the world of the fairytale too and many of my flash fiction pieces fall in this category. I love ending a fairytale piece with a punchline ending.

One of my own favourites here is Making The Grade from From Light to Dark and Back Again. I often read this one at Open Prose Mic Nights as it is short (100 words), has a punchline ending, and involves a magical character and exams. All good fun!

I’ve found a good way into writing this kind of humorous fairytale is to have a strong character in mind first. Ensure you know what their main traits are. My character in the story above is determined to do things her way and a lot of the humour comes from that.

I also find knowing a rough idea of the ending helps. I often write down a potential punchline finish first and then work out what could lead to that. It means I have a logical structure in place. I’m just writing from B to A rather than A to B.

So think about what your characters would find funny. Also what situations could you put them in where humour could develop. I am a big fan of outlining (yes, even for 100 word stories) and find jotting down ideas helps clear my mind and sparks other ideas too. I then go with the one which has the biggest impact on me as that will be the same reaction other readers will have.

But do have a go at writing humorous fairytales. They are good fun. I find they work best when kept relatively short but there are places in the flash fiction market which would be open for these kinds of stories.

And they make people smile. I like that.

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This World and Others – Humour In Your Setting

Linking with Fairytales with Bite, I thought I’d look at humour in your setting. Does your setting have anything intrinsically funny about it? Does it have species which are considered to be funny by others and if so, what are they? What is it about them that produces the smiles? (I think there is something intrinsically amusing about the duck-billed platypus, for example. I like the way it breaks the rules. Mammals aren’t meant to lay eggs but it does).

What would your characters find funny? Do the powers that be in your setting encourage humour or suppress it, given humour is often linked to freedom of thought and speech? What would your characters do or where would they go to find humour? Is there an underground humour movement? (For more on this kind of idea do check out The Goodies’ show Goodies Rule UK? It is brilliant).

Do all of your main species have humour or do only some have it? What kind of problems could their humour cause, especially where it is not shared? Could you use humour in your stories to bring species together, maybe to even wrap up your stories?

Humour is a powerful and wonderful thing. Tastes in humour vary too. That could be something to be explored in your character portrayal too.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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