Book Event Tips

May 8, 2026May 8, 2026Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. MANY THANKS TO JANET WILLIAMS FOR PICTURES OF ME AT THE MOST RECENT HILTINGBURY BOOK FAIR FOR MY CHANDLER’S FORD TODAY POST THIS WEEK.

Hope you’ve had a good week so far. Lady is doing well and the writing is also going along nicely. I like weeks like this!

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share Book Event Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I discuss doing as much prep work in advance as you can, suggest some good things to have on your book table, having newsletter sign up forms ready for these things, and giveaways. I also look at the benefits of taking part in book events.

Naturally I hope to take my own advice at future events once Seeing The Other Side is out. My last launch was back in 2020 with Tripping the Flash Fantastic. It wasn’t the best year to have events!

I hope you find the post useful.

Book Event Tips

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I’m delighted to share my latest post on Writers’ Narrative and hope you enjoy my Comedy Writing in Short Fiction. It can be done! I share thoughts and tips here, which I hope you will find useful.

Don’t forget Writers’ Narrative is free to subscribe to and you receive articles on the theme of the month every few days. The theme this time is Comedy Writing.

My article discusses “natural comedy” which flows from a well developed character and situation. For comedy to work, it mustn’t seem forced. I also look at comedy from dialogue and share one of my stories here to illustrate the point.

Hope you enjoy the post and do check out the other articles.

Hope today has gone well. Lady had a lovely time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler and Coco, the smashing Labradoodle. Tired but happy dogs went home.

Looking forward to an ACW online group tonight. It was great fun!

Will be sharing Book Event Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. The post will have tips I’ve found useful over the years (and hope you will do too) and which I hope to bring into play again for when Seeing The Other Side comes out.

Marketing Tip: Play to your strengths. Be yourself. If certain social media platforms are not for you, that’s fine. It makes sense to enjoy (as much as possible) the marketing work you do. I like meeting with readers, online or in person, so will aim to do both kinds of event. I like sharing posts on Facebook but haven’t got into, say, TikTok.

Whether that changes or not remains to be seen but I won’t try to spread myself too thin. I see any kind of event, including marketing posts, as a way of engaging with potential readers so want these to be as fun as possible for them and, indeed, for me. So it pays to work out then the kind of marketing you know you would be likely to enjoy the most and focus on that.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope today has gone well. Lady had a fabulous puppy party in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals, plus Coco put in an appearance.

Looking forward to interviewing fellow flash fiction writer, Esther Chilton, for Chandler’s Ford Today later this month, though it will be her children’s work which will be the focus of the interview.

Planning to work on more flash fiction over the weekend though I will soon need to look at what I’ve got so far. I know I’m close to a potential fourth book. In Seeing the Other Side, there will be acrostic and poetic flashes plus I’ve written more linked pieces and those were fun to do.

Hope today has gone well. Lady came with me to vote today. She loves that. Everyone makes a fuss of her and she is as good as gold. She then caught up with her Hungarian Vizler pal and her “boyfriend”, the lovely Aussie Shepherd. So Lady has had a great day.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Book Event Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. I hope the post will prove useful (and maybe reassuring as well). See above.

Editing Tip: I was asked at an online meeting I went to earlier this week about anything which stands out as a “bug” for me with my editing hat on.

I mentioned two things – inconsistencies with character names and paragraphs which go on and on for ever, amen. These grate because you do expect the writer to get their character names right.

The huge block of text, on screen or on paper, is off putting. See it as facing a great big “wall of characters”. Not everyone will read on. Your editor will be contractually obliged to (!) but you won’t win any friends doing this. Also bear in mind the longer the paragraph, the slower the pace.

Another top tip here is to read a wide range of books in the genres you write in (which you should do anyway) but look at how the authors here have laid out things like paragraphs etc. See how they will mix up short pacy ones with longer (but don’t drag) ones. Studying this will be a great guideline for you.

One of the many joys of writing and reading flash fiction is escaping into many different worlds.

Flash is character led and those characters can be set anywhere (and in any time) so it is lovely to take advantage of that.

I also like writing acrostic flashes from time to time, poetic type ones, all dialogue stories and so on. I also like to mix up the word counts I write to for flash. It all helps to keep me on my creative toes and I think this is why flash remains a constant and wonderful challenge. It’s a hugely enjoyable one too.

Certainly if you love creating characters, you get to do this all of the time with flash fiction so I highly recommend it. It is also a fabulous warm up writing exercise.

Why not give it a go?

Fairytales with Bite – Escaping For A While

It’s good to get away from it all for a while. I love to do this via writing, listening to classical music, getting out and about, reading and in many other ways. Day trips and holidays help too of course.

But what would your characters do to escape for a while? Where would they go to get away from it all? If they’re magical beings, can they switch their powers off to get a real break or do they have to keep them on “low” as a defensive measure? What would your characters read, listen to, watch, do for day trips and holidays? Is your setting similar to what we know here on Earth or so different there is nothing here to compare with it?

Why do your characters need the break? Do they take a break willingly or does someone else persuade them they need one? How does the break help or hinder them in accomplishing their purpose?

Plenty of story ideas there.

This World and Others – Winding Down

We all need to wind down but it isn’t always that easy to do. Jobs to do, places to go, people to see, a never ending (or seemingly so) To Do list etc.

I like to wind down with classical music and funnily enough writing. It is both a challenge and a joy to do so I find it unwinds me but there does come a point when my brain says that’s enough for one day and I’ve got better at recognizing that for what it is.

How do your characters do in this department? How do they wind down? Are they glad to do so, relieved even, or is it a case they know they need to do so because nobody can go on for ever and ever, amen, without having health issues at some point?

I find it easiest to wind down, knowing it will do me good, so no issue for me here but I could see characters resenting having to “stop” and that could be an interesting idea to explore. There will be an impact from that on how they react to others, how well they do with their work and so on.

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Sherlock Holmes, Old Notebooks, and Flash NANO

November 4, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. A HUGE thank you to The Chameleon Theatre Group for providing photos from their recent production of Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery at Mallen Hall. Hope all well with you. Some frightful storms in the UK this week, with more to come, but I’ve been out and about to my local amateur theatre’s latest production and have started Flash NANO which I am thoroughly enjoying.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am delighted to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post. This week I review Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery at Mallen Hall, which was recently wonderfully performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group.

My format for this review is different this time too – I do it in the form of a recipe! I look at what makes for a good detective story and give you the ingredients, the method, and the results as it refers to this particular show and the performance. Hope you enjoy it. Loved the show. Loved the performance.

Those local to me – if you haven’t been to see The Chameleons in action, do take the chance to do so when you can. You’ll be in for a wonderful evening of entertainment. I’ve shared a heads up for their next show in this post too.

Review: The Chameleon Theatre Group – Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery at Mallen Hall

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Pleased Lady got to play with her friend Coco today. Both dogs had a lovely time. Not impressed by the ghastly weather coming in again this evening (though if it does lessen the number of fireworks let off tonight, Lady won’t be that sorry. Incidentally, Classic FM are repeating their soothing music for pets programme, Pet Classics, this weekend. I know I found that soothing last year and I hope some of that rubbed off on Lady. It is worth a try for a nervous pet).

My Chandler’s Ford Today post is up tomorrow and this week I’ll be reviewing Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery at Mallen Hall, which was recently performed by the ever excellent Chameleon Theatre Group. My format for this review is a bit different this time too. Hope you like it. Look forward to sharing the link tomorrow. See above and again thanks to the Chameleons for their photos.

One lovely thing about writing, especially when the weather is pretty grim as it is is for a lot of us at the moment, is it is at least an indoors creative art! I am truly thankful for that!

Connections to classical music can start earlier than people think thanks to TV adverts

Hope you have had a good day. Blustery and wet here. Lady though had the time of her life with two of her best friends, the lovely Ridgeback and the equally lovely Labradoodle, in the park this morning. A three way zoomie session ensued – great time had by all.

Will be working on my second prompt for Flash NANO later. Enjoyed writing the first one. My aim here is not to write 50000 words over November, funnily enough. Even if I wrote 30 x 1000 words pieces, I would be well short of that target (though if you took in my blogging etc I would easily exceed it).

What I am aiming for is to write 30 new flash fiction pieces throughout November to “knock into shape” later on. Am also putting finishing touches to my third book and am on course to submit that possibly later this week or next. (I was aiming for autumn with this so am happy with this).

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to share my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction though it does come with a word of warning. Be ware of writers’ notebooks! If you want to find out why, check out the story, Old Notebooks.

This topic came up as a result of a random theme generator in case you’re wondering why I didn’t go for a writer’s current notebook! Link here (and a big thanks for the great comments already coming in on this one).

Am enjoying Flash NANO and will be working on the Day 3 prompt a little later on this evening.

Don’t forget if you would like signed copies of my books From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic, just contact me via the website and I will get back to you. (And I am always pleased to see new followers to my website and/or sign ups for my author newsletter too).

One huge advantage to writing flash is you do pare your stories down to the bare essentials. It makes you focus on what really matters to your characters. I’ve found that makes me think more deeply about why something really matters to them. And it is another way to get to know my characters better as a result. This is even more useful if you write linked flashes. (I’ve written more of these for my third collection and found it enjoyable to do. Not got enough to do a whole novella in flash but one day, maybe).

It isn’t just for my twist stories that I know the ending first. I often know the ending first for my humorous tales. I know the punchline or ending and then figure out how I can get to that point. When I brainstorm one liners, often I will come up with something that would make a great ending or a powerful beginning to a story, So I work out options for both and then go with what I like best.

Also looking at what Character A would make of a situation and then contrasting it with what Character B would make of it can make for a great story idea. (Often good for comedy).

Overall I’ve got to know my starting point whether it’s knowing the ending first, or knowing what this character could be capable of in these circumstances. It’s the way into a story which matters for me. Once I know that way in, away I go.

Fairytales With Bite – Seasons in Magic

In your fantastic setting, are there seasons in magic? Does one season encourage more use of magic, for example? I could see there being a need for more of it during what we would consider to be the winter months, if only to try and ward the darkness (and whatever may lurk in it) away.

Are there seasons where magical accidents are more likely to happen? That could tie in with the academic year, for example. You would expect beginners to be more clumsy after all. (Also think about who would clear up after such accidents, is there such as thing as Magical Accident Investigators and so on? Stories can come from someone not doing their job properly here or doing it so well they’re a threat to someone else).

Do your magical characters find they have their own seasons in magic when, perhaps at a younger age, there were things they could do magically they cannot now? Do they feel the lack or are they happy not to have so much responsibility?

Conversely, do older characters, with more experience behind them, discover their main season in magic is at this point rather than when they were younger? Are they taking on more powers and responsibilities? Do they resent the younger ones or is it the other way around? Are the younger ones waiting impatiently for someone’s season to end?

Equally could there be those who give fate a helping shove in the back and remove people in their way precisely because they want their season in magic to take off and flourish?

How would you define your character’s season in magic? When they get to a certain level or have clocked off a certain number of years worth of experience?

Can magic interfere with your world’s natural seasons and what would happen to any character who tries to exploit that?

This World and Others – Light and Dark

We think of light and dark in terms of the sun and the moon and also in terms of traits in ourselves. Most of us will acknowledge we are a mixture of light and dark but are your characters so honest? Do you have characters who think they are light but everyone else around them knows full well they’re not? Do you have characters who struggle to control the dark and have they friends/mentors to help them? What is their reward for not giving in to the dark?

What does your world have in the way of natural lighting? Does it have artificial lights, electricity etc? Thinking about seasons again, do they have a long or short light/dark season and what makes your setting have the kind they have?

We know the lack of light can have an affect on physical and/or mental health. Do your characters find the same and, if so, how understanding is their world?

Thinking about your world’s history, what would be considered to be their golden or light periods? What would be their dark ones? Is this accepted by all or do people/other characters query the official versions of events?

Old Notebooks, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/Ec589owKAg Pleased to share my new FFF tale though it does come with a warning. Be ware of writers’ notebooks! To find out why, check out Old Notebooks. Link below (and thanks for the great comments already in). pic.twitter.com/nyGSCecqrF
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 4, 2022

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Review: The Chameleon Theatre Group – Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery at Mallen Hall https://t.co/XXGoXaZ9MK My review format for CFT is different this time. I do it as a recipe for a detective story. I give you ingredients, method, and results for this show. Good fun!
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 4, 2022

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Breaks (and, aptly, A Quick Sandwich)

October 7, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you have had a good week. Am off to lovely Northumberland for a few days shortly. Hope to post as normal but that will be time and internet connection dependent! Loved it here when I went before, as did Lady, and autumn is a lovely time to go, funnily enough. Beautiful colours.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

It’s Friday once again and time to share my Chandler’s Ford Today post. This time I look at Breaks.

I look at this from the viewpoint of characters needing breaks too. A story which is all action with no gaps for characters (yet alone readers) to take stock and work out what to do next is (a) a bit too relentless and (b) risks your characters coming across as cardboard cut outs.

We all need time to work out what to do next when faced with a dilemma so a character not doing that will come across as being unrealistic. The trick though is to ensure the “break” is an interesting one and still engages the reader.

I share some thoughts on that here and look at breaks in shorter forms of fiction too. Hope you find it useful.

Breaks

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Lady got to play with her best buddies, a lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback and a Hungarian Vizler, and all three dogs went home tired and happy – job done! Busy packing for my break – naturally Lady’s case gets done first. Must not forget the toys!

Breaks will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. I look at how characters need breaks to work out what they’ll do next but the trick is to ensure these breaks are interesting enough to keep the reader hooked. I also look at breaks in shorter fiction and ask if there is such as thing as a lucky break for writers.

Now what fascinates you most about characters? I like to find out what mine can do when push comes to shove and those characters who are not so obviously likeable – well, could there be redeeming features in there somewhere?

I love poetic justice stories (which comes from my love of fairytales) but also tales where someone redeems themselves or is helped to become a better person in some way (my faith has an influence there – redemption or the possibility of it matters to me).

So naturally that comes out in my characters most of the time. Note I say most of the time. I do come up with characters I would loathe to meet in real life. It can be an interesting challenge to write their stories up as I still have to understand where they’re coming from to do them and the tale justice.

Why write those? Sometimes it is to see if (a) I can do it and (b) to explore a different perspective.

This is why you should never judge an author by their characters. Many of us will have characters we don’t like much!

Your characters need to intrigue you first

Windy, wild, and the acorns are flying off my oaks. Suspect there will be some busy squirrels tomorrow gathering them all up. Suspect there will be some excited dogs including Lady wanting to chase the squirrels. I’ve heard a squirrel’s cry. It is quite harsh. I wonder if they’re swearing at the dogs in squirrel language? Could be!

I’m looking at Breaks for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday. Again see above. This was an interesting topic to write about as it made me think about why we do need breaks for our characters but still need to be able to keep our readers engaged with the story.

I’m busy wrapping up some blogs for later on in the month as I want to get those scheduled before I head to Northumberland. Scheduling is useful and I sometimes use it for tweets too. I will often draft blogs for different places well in advance of my due date and have found this pays. Nearly always there will be something I would like to change or add to before I schedule and that’s fine. I’ve given myself the time to do that.

Do you plan your writing time? I’ve found it useful because there are certain days of the week when I know I can’t write much but I always feel better if I get something done. So I use those times for smaller pieces of work yet have still been creative and productive. That matters to me.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday storytime once again. On Friday Flash Fiction this time is my drabble called A Quick Sandwich. Hope you enjoy it (the story that is and, if you’re having a quick sandwich yourself as you read this, that too!).

Ideas for stories can come from all sorts of places but for me, sometimes it is an image from a film I’ve seen that is the trigger for a new flash piece.

My Where The Wild Wind Blows from Tripping the Flash Fantastic is an example of that. The film influence here is The Wizard of Oz where the farmhouse crashes on the witch. So even odd scenes can be used to trigger flash fiction ideas. I don’t want to say a lot in these tales which is why flash is the perfect format for them.

So think about scenes which have stayed with you. Any possibilities of a flash tale told from the viewpoint of an alternative viewpoint looking on the scene with interest? Someone whose voice has not been heard?

You can have a lot of fun here – good luck!

Sometimes I draft titles to use later on – it is a good use of those small pockets of time when you know you can’t get much done. It also means when I do have longer at my desk, I’ve got something to work up into stories. I find a good title can be a creative spark in and of itself in that I then need to think of the characters and plot line that can do it justice.

And it’s a good warm up writing exercise too – five minutes jotting down title ideas. They don’t have to be perfect. Nothing is on a first draft. But it’s a great way to get you stared on something and I find having the titles encourages lateral thinking. I am literally thinking now what can I do with this? I want to avoid the obvious so I dig deeper and I’m on my way to something which will be unique but fits the title. For competitions, this is invaluable. Judges like stories that stand out.

Fairytales with Bite – Misfire Acrostic

MISFIRE

M = My, that wand is on the blink again.
I = I only got it serviced last week.
S = Said it was fine for its age but was that wizard referring to my wand or to me?
F = For goodness sake, that wand has gone and blown up my daffodils.
I = I wouldn’t have minded that so much if it had taken out those dratted weeds as well.
R = Right, that’s it, I’m off to the shops and trading this thing in.
E = Except… except it has conjured up a perfect cream tea…hmm… maybe I’ve been hasty, I’ll go to the shops tomorrow.

Allison Symes
5th October 2022

Hope you enjoyed that. Acrostics are fun to do with flash fiction. Best for when the word you use is relatively short. (Can make an interesting writing exercise – why not give it a go and you can always use a random word generator to come up with the word itself to write to).

I also love acrostics like this for amusing little scenes of everyday magical folk like my annoyed fairy godmother character narrating the above.

This World and Others – Service Engineers

The above acrostic made me wonder about those unsung heroes or villains, the service engineers. Someone has to service the magical equipment out there.

Why call them villains? Well, I am a little biased here given I had one not turn up on me. Would that happen in your fictional world? What would the consequences be, especially in a magical setting?

And what could go wrong with the magical equipment? I suspect my story wand above simply had a mind of its own. Not sure any service engineer could sort that one out but what could they do?
Is their profession highly regarded or are they considered to be the lowest of the low – those magical beings who didn’t have the talent to do something better?

And what would happen to your lead character whose wand or other equipment did give out at a critical moment? How could they recover their position?

I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of their service engineer the moment they got back to the shop to complain but that could make for a fun story (albeit probably not from the engineer’s viewpoint!).

It’s Friday storytime once again. On Friday Flash Fiction this time is my drabble called A Quick Sandwich. Hope you enjoy it (the story that is and, if you’re having a quick sandwich yourself as you read this, that too!). https://t.co/VAM9MnJmJe pic.twitter.com/6ycR9dDFjK
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) October 7, 2022

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Breaks https://t.co/4034a33hiM I look at this from a character viewpoint. A story which is all action with no gaps for characters to work out next moves is relentless and risks characters resembling cardboard cut outs. See why here. I look at breaks in shorter fiction too.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) October 7, 2022

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A Sad Week

September 9, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

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

THE DEATH OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH THE SECOND

ON 8TH SEPTEMBER 2022

It has been an odd couple of days since the news broke of Her Majesty’s death. My posts below reflect that. There is a collective sense of loss even though we all knew that at some point this day would have to come.

I believe it to be a remarkable tribute that the sense of loss is palpable given she was the only monarch most of us had known and she was a constant presence even for those of us who never met the late Queen.

Constancy and consistency matter (as Her Majesty proved by her devotion to duty) and I feel that is only brought home by events like this.

My late father was a child during World War Two and was, at first, too young to be evacuated. Later he recalled often seeing the late Queen’s parents in the bombed out areas of the East End of London. I am absolutely sure the late King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother as she became, would be very proud of their daughter. We are.

May you rest in peace and rise in Glory, Ma’am.

God save the King!

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

There was really nothing I could add to my Facebook post yesterday. See below. Her Majesty will be much missed. I thought the King’s speech was wonderful.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is Good Interviews and I look at the topic from using interview techniques to get to know your characters better before writing their stories up. I also share some thoughts on how writers can prepare for interviews and what I think makes for a good interview.

Hope you find it useful.

Good Interviews

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8th September 2022
So deeply saddened to learn of the death of Her Majesty the Queen. She has been a constant presence and will be much missed.

God save the King.

Hope today has been okay. Have enjoyed listening to the 30th birthday celebrations of Classic FM today. I’m a fairly late convert to the joys of classical music. This is very much a case of better late than never.

Now talking of well known sayings, how can you use them in story telling without falling into the great big cliche trap?

One way is to use the saying as the title. It also gives your readers the theme immediately. It is then a question of you delivering something special on that well known saying – no pressure then! – but it can be done. The big hook for any story for me (and I won’t be the only one) is the lead character. Get me interested in them and I will read on.

Also think about ways you can prove the well known saying to be right or wrong in the case of your character. Maybe for your person, it really isn’t a question of being late than never. Never would’ve been the better option etc. You could have fun with that.

I’ve subverted sayings for titles but you could do it for the story itself too. Your character would have to establish fairly early on they are different enough to be able to do that as it is unlikely a meek and mild character would subvert anything much!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Today has been a strange day, as you can imagine, though I thought His Majesty’s speech hit the right note and was beautifully done. I’ve been listening to various recollections of people meeting the late Queen on Classic FM today. Personal stories matter and they were all deeply touching.

I love stories as they can be a form of escapism and just sometimes that is exactly what is needed.

My latest story on Friday Flash Fiction is called On That Day, which is about what happens when Bella finds a travel machine conveniently left open. Hope you enjoy it. Definitely on the light side this one.

8th September 2022

Today is a historic day. The late Queen’s devotion to duty was legendary. You will be much missed, Ma’am.

God save the King.

One quick way into a character outline for a flash story is to ask five quick questions about them.

1. Your name?
2. Your major trait?
3. Your tastes in music, food, film etc.
4. What you like/loathe the most?
5. Name one thing you would never do.

The great thing with the last one is your story would have them facing up to that one thing they’d never do. When push came to shove, would they still really not do it or cave in? A great way to ratchet up the tension and there would have to be a conclusion – which way would your character go and why?

Fairytales with Bite – By Hook or by Crook

Which way of doing things do your characters prefer? Do you have characters who couldn’t be honest if their life depended on it and would do anything to get their way? What obstacles do they come up against and do they change their tune?

What would be fun here, I think, is having a character who does things the right way – they hook support in legitimately – up against someone who will take every crooked turn available and then watch the sparks fly! Only one of those characters can win by the end of your story. Will the judicious use of the right “hook” be enough to save the day?

How honest, or otherwise, is your main setting and its government? Do your characters moan about their leaders the way we moan about ours and, if so, what are the consequences, especially in a magical world?
What kind of crook does exist in your setting? Is there crime as we know it? If there’s magical crime, what form does that take and what are the consequences for those caught using it?

Last not not least, what is the hook for your story and characters? What will draw readers in? It helps to draw yourself into the story and view it as if someone else had written it. What do you make of this tale if it was written by someone else?

A fantastic hook won’t work if the plot falls apart

A good hook will want your reader to find out what's next

This World and Others – On Whose Order?

Orders can be given by all manner of people. The kind of order given matches the importance or otherwise, of those giving the order, so who do you have in your stories barking out commands to all and sundry? How well does this go down the the other characters? Potential set up for comedy and/or tragedy here I suspect.

It can also led to interesting story ideas if you look at how someone got into a position of authority ad what they’ve had to do to stay there. On whose orders are the orders given out? Are the orders ever disobeyed? Can anyone question an order to prevent it being carried out?

Is your society structured in such a way everyone knows their place and everyone knows whose orders are being belted out to people and why? If you have a stranger in town, so to speak, how do they pick up what they need to know?

Are orders backed up by the use of force ore are people generally obedient?

Best question of all, who challenges the status quo? Many a fine story has been told using that premise. Also just because orders are given it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re followed properly.

I love stories as they can be a form of escapism. Sometimes that is needed. My new tale on Friday Flash Fiction is called On That Day, which is about what happens when Bella finds a travel machine left open. Hope you enjoy it. https://t.co/1rXJN5R4tF pic.twitter.com/Lv6rdk1JUY
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) September 9, 2022

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Good Interviews https://t.co/9d96zDGbME In Good Interviews for CFT, I look at the topic from using interview techniques to get to know your characters better. I share thoughts on how writers can prepare for interviews and what makes for a good interview. Hope you find it useful.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) September 9, 2022

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Looking Back at Swanwick 2022

August 26, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Most images from the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School for my Chandler’s Ford Today post were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were any screenshots (and photos of Lady naturally).

A big thank you to Jennifer C Wilson and Penny Blackburn for images they took of me that I’ve used in my CFT post. Tricky to take pics of yourself when about to give a writing session! Hope you have had a good week. Not bad here and thankfully much cooler. Lady is pleased about that too.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m thrilled to share Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. This post was a sheer joy to write. It was also lovely not having to worry about sourcing the photos – I took most of them and friends shared the rest. Many thanks to #ValPenny and #JenniferCWilson here!

(I generally do use Pixabay and then enhance images via Book Brush as you know but it is also nice to share pics I’ve taken from time to time).

This post shares a little of what it is like to be at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. I look at taking part in workshops and fun events such as the Open Prose Mic Night and share a little of the joys of being immersed in the world of writing for a week, especially when you are always made so welcome whether it is is your first visit or your 50th.

Hope you enjoy the post and maybe see you there for Swanwick 2023.

Looking Back at Swanwick 2022

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Hope you had a good Thursday. Many thanks to those who came to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group on Zoom last night. It was great fun and lovely to see familiar names popping up on online magazines who welcome flash fiction. Keep writing!

I’m so looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow. I’ll be Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 and this post was a real labour of love to write. I love writing all of my posts but some always stand out as special and writing about Swanwick does that for me. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Have, after a bit of a break, got back to reading on Kindle again. Good to be back to that. Am so glad electronic book shelves can’t give way under the weight of all I’ve got on that!

Strange day weather wise here in Hampshire – drizzle, cloudy etc and then boy did it warm up!

One of the joys of writing is you do have two interests in one here. Every writer I know has a serious addiction to books and stories of all kinds and loves to read in and out of their genre. I try to keep my reading “diet” mixed and interesting.

I catch up with things like Writing Magazine over lunch but I read books to help me with my writing, novels, ebooks, collections etc (using paperback and the Kindle for this) most nights before settling to sleep. It is only if I am already too tired I don’t do that. I make up for it the next night instead.

I love stories. I love writing them. I love reading them. Win-win here. And in making writer friends, I get to ensure I read contemporary fiction as well as the classics. I like to find out what friends are bringing out after all and I have a lovely collection of their signed books to me on my book shelves. I treasure that.

And the great thing about flash fiction in all of this? It proves an entertaining story can be 100 words long as well as the novels proving it at 100,000! I like that. To me there is a pleasing symmetry going on here.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It is lovely to be back on Friday Flash Fiction after my break at Swanwick last week. Hope you enjoy my tale, Fitting In, which has a book-related theme. It also shows you can never be always sure of who your audience might be.

I like open titles for my stories, ones that have to provoke curiosity in a reader. Sometimes I subvert a title or phrase (as in my Punish the Innocent from From Light to Dark and Back Again).

Titles are your first hook to draw a reader in and I have judged competitions where there are no titles. I do think writers are missing a trick here. It pays to have a good title. I jot down an initial idea and then change if it I need to. I know what my story line is going to be (because I know who my character is) and that usually gives me a starting point for a title. Doesn’t mean I necessarily have to stick with it though. Again as with my story itself, I just need something to get me started.

I like alliterative titles but try to avoid using them all the time. They’re memorable but you don’t want to get sidelined into using only one kind of title. I’ve used proverbs. I’ve used phrases. I’ve used ideas thrown up by random generators. I like keeping my options, as well as my titles, open!

Writing tip 7008 or thereabouts: Don’t worry about your flash word count immediately. Get your story written. Then rest it. Then look at it again with fresh eyes and get rid of wasted words, look at ways to improving your phrasing and so on.

I then find a story will be “settling” at the circa 100, 200 or 300 words mark. I then and only then think will I try to reduce the story down to the lower word count or leave it as it is? If I feel a reduction will take something away from the story as such how it flows, characterisation that adds depth to the tale, I leave the story at, say, 224 words and then find a market or competition looking for pieces under 250 or 300 words.

I ask myself questions during the editing process mainly along the lines of do I need this and, if so, why? That helps enormously in helping me to judge what really should stay in. You don’t want to lose the soul of the tale. Editing should always enhance this and bring the best out in your story.

The only thing to cut out is waffle – now if only politicians took the same view, yes?!

Fairytales With Bite – Character Profiling

I often use random generators to trigger story ideas but you can also use the random question one to help you get to know your characters better. I use https://faculty.washington.edu/ejslager/random-generator/index.html mainly because I have a soft spot for the duck on their page (go on, check it out, you know you want to!).

I generated the question What is your theme song? You could apply that to your character and find out more about them by then asking yourself why they chose that one. In a fantasy setting, you could also work out what kind of music they would have. Is it comparable with what we have here?

I find I have to know what my character traits are (because actions, thoughts, capabilities all stem from that) but the generators are a great way of getting into profiling your character quickly. No reason why you can’t use them for fairytale characters or others of a fantasy/magical ilk.

This World and Others – Character Roles

What roles do your characters play in your stories? What roles are available to them? Are roles assigned by gender, ancestral heritage or anything like that? Do your characters like or resent their roles?

The role of women has changed considerably over time here – what would be the equivalent for your characters? Do things like war change what people are expected to do? How does technology change roles? Doles your world have the equivalent of the Luddites who went around smashing machinery to try to save their own jobs?

If your world has androids or any other kind of robot, what are their roles and could they break their programming? Do humanoid characters resent the role the robots do or are they relieved they don’t have to do this kind of work?

Characters can have roles they didn’t expect thrust on to them (Frodo Baggins, anyone?). So how do your people handle this? Is their new role the making of them?

It is lovely to be back on Friday Flash Fiction after my break at Swanwick last week. Hope you enjoy my tale, Fitting In, which has a book-related theme. It also shows you can never be always sure of who your audience might be.https://t.co/BhqPI7vk6W pic.twitter.com/GHQlhA1O2a
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 26, 2022

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Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 https://t.co/5cyCjkxnDi This post was a joy to write. It was lovely not having to worry about photos – I took most and friends shared the rest. Thanks to #ValPenny and #JenniferCWilson! Hope you enjoy the post. Maybe see you there for Swanwick 2023?
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 26, 2022

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Zoom, Flash Fiction, and What Does a Book Give You?

August 23, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Full report on my week at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School coming up in my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. Meanwhile, I celebrate flash fiction and share some ways in which Zoom has been so useful to me. Plus I ask a leading question for my Goodreads post this time!

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Came back from my Slimming World group to discover only a teensy weensy gain from my week at Swanwick last week. Given what I had, I thought this was a brilliant result and am feeling chuffed and nicely surprised! Lady is not at all sorry the weather has cooled down somewhat. Neither am I.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom tomorrow. Zoom has made genre groups possible for us, given so many of our members live hundreds of miles apart and could never get to an in person meeting. Zoom is one of the few good things to emerge from the pandemic.

It is also useful as an editing tool. How? Well, you can record a meeting with yourself where you read out your short story or flash piece, end the meeting, and Zoom will turn the file into an mp4 for you to play back later.

I’ve picked up clunky dialogue this way. What looks good written down doesn’t always read out well. I also use Zoom to practice my Zoom talks and help me get my timings right. (And for those of us of a certain age, Zoom was also a great ice lolly! – at least here in the UK it was!).

Nice to see some rain here in Hampshire today – drizzle rather than heavy rain for most of the day. Less likely to cause flooding and will still freshen things up a bit.

Back to the real world after a fantastic week at Swanwick. It’s going to be a long week…! Having said that it was lovely taking Lady back to the park today (there are some green bits on it now – not many but there are some!).

I’ll be sharing my Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 for Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Looking forward to sharing that on Friday. I loved picking the pictures out for that one. I always take loads when at The Hayes.

My next event is likely to be the Bridge House Publishing one later in the year and it will be lovely to catch up with people there too.

What is nice though is this is where social media can come into its own – there are ways to stay in contact with writing friends throughout the year – and social media is at its best for this kind of thing.

Hope you have had/are still having a lovely Sunday. Back to the writing desk and coming up later this week will be my Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 for Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up on Friday.

Looking forward to the ACW Flash Fiction Group Zoom meeting on Wednesday.

A big hello and welcome to the new subscribers to my author newsletter. The next one goes out on 1st September. Hard to believe we’re nearly three-quarters of the way through the year already. I share tips, story links, and news in my newsletter, especially relating to flash fiction. If you’d like to sign up, do head over to my website (landing page) at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Do I sign up to newsletters myself? Oh yes. They’re a great way of hearing the latest from your favourite authors, which is why I love reading the ones I’ve signed up for.

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Have caught up on some much needed sleep after a hectic and joyous and wonderful week at Swanwick.
Glad to share a link to the last flash fiction challenge I set for Mom’s Favorite Reads – and to one of the entries that came in as a result. Hope you enjoy.

Don’t forget MFR is free to download and there are wonderful articles and stories in there. Do check it out. (Glad to say a fellow Swanwicker, Maggie Cobbett, is in there too).

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Trust you have had a good day. Looking forward to chatting about all things flash fiction related with the ACW Flash Fiction Group on Zoom tomorrow. And it was great to spread the word about it at Swanwick too.

Don’t forget Mom’s Favorite Reads has a flash fiction column every month, written by yours truly, and I also set a challenge here. Do check it out for FREE.

I was glad to pick up another anthology from the National Flash Fiction Day from the Swanwick Book Room last week. It is important to read in your genre as well as outside of it. You get a feel about what is out there in your field and I find it encourages the love of this form of writing even more. Win-win there.

It’s Monday. I’m back to the day to day tasks after a fabulous week at Swanwick. It’s definitely time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on my YouTube channel – Send a Secret.

The lovely thing about flash fiction is you can mix up the mood of your stories in a collection. I like to write a mixture of lighthearted tales and those on the darker side, encompassing everything from historical flash to crime ones to twist in the tale to ghost stories.

The word count for flash is limited but you don’t have to be with your characters and settings. I love that aspect. When it comes to putting a collection together, I try to group my tales so you literally do go From Light to Dark and Back Again, I do like to finish on a lightish note.

I usually focus on my character for my stories and then ask myself where would this character best be placed. Sometimes I know I want to write a historical flash immediately so it is then a question of who can I use to serve my tale.

But the character has to suit which is why I ensure I know them well enough by asking myself some pointed questions. It is about working out what you need to know or so I’ve found and then I can get on and draft my tale.

The weekend after Swanwick is useful as it gives me a chance to catch up on sleep and time to start processing ideas etc which came from the courses and workshops. I was glad to spread the word about flash fiction too. I sometimes run a workshop on why flash fiction is useful for all writers, regardless of what else people do.

I hope to resume writing stories for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel from this week. Sunday is often when I draft those and it means I get two new flash pieces written a week. Does writing more encourage further ideas? I find it does – and the random generators are a great blessing here too. I know where to go to trigger other ideas I would not have thought of alone. They are so useful for that.

Goodreads Author Blog – What Does a Book Give You?

This is a leading question is it not? Where to start! Well what does a book give me?

Books give me escapism, entertainment, educate me, and show me things I had not realised I needed to know. Books can and do encourage empathy with characters. I can see where characters come from and why even if I still disagree with the actions they’ve chosen to do. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is something you get to do all the time when reading fiction, regardless of story length.

Books take me away from my problems for a while – and sometimes that break is all which is needed for me to work out solutions to whatever I’m facing. Even when that’s impossible, just having the break away does my mental health the world of good. And I get to discover worlds and situations I would never face for real but that in turn leads me to wonder what I would do in those situations and why.

Books do act like a kind of portal then. And it was the classic fairytales that showed me girls could be heroes too (see The Snow Queen by Hans Christen Andersen for this).

Above all books and stories encourage you to keep on reading. That in turn fuelled in me the desire to write stories and books myself. I see it as a kind of giving back to the wonderful world of books.

Just got back from my writing treat at Swanwick. Lots of inspiration and notes. All good but do you look back at your notes later and act on them? I’ve come across drafts of stories, polished and submitted them. Some were published. Definitely worth looking again at your books. pic.twitter.com/JI8rJYxrdX
— ACW (@ACW1971) August 20, 2022

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: What Does a Book Give You? https://t.co/rF3fT4T6WX via @goodreads Well, where do you start with a question like that? My take on it is my theme for Goodreads this week. pic.twitter.com/JYzryIl7sN
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 20, 2022

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It’s amazing what can be found in notebooks. Forgotten Ideas. Thoughts about projects which occurred as a result of a course. Plans change but it's worth reviewing these. You’ll find some ideas are worth acting on and others won’t be but until you review them, how will you know? pic.twitter.com/pvkIeVQMBk
— ACW (@ACW1971) August 21, 2022

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Many thanks, @valeriepenny – see below for my two flash fiction collections. https://t.co/abnpJoXAGM pic.twitter.com/D0FRrfQs6a
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 21, 2022

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Notebooks – I have loads. So does every writer I know. One dilemma before every writing event I go to is which precious notebook will be coming with me. It is a nice dilemma. How long does it take you to resolve your notebook dilemma here? pic.twitter.com/1VSEpWw8pl
— ACW (@ACW1971) August 22, 2022

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It’s Monday. I’m back to the day to day tasks after a fabulous week at Swanwick. It’s definitely time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on my YouTube channel – Send a Secret.https://t.co/ALbjtPr2U6
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 22, 2022

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Interview – Val Penny – and Swanwick Part 2

August 19, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Many thanks to Val Penny for supplying the book and author photos for my interview with her on Chandler’s Ford Today. Photos from the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, including one of Val about to give her excellent Promoting Your Work talk (see CFT post), were all taken by me, Allison Symes. You do know who to blame! And a HUGE thank you to Jennifer C Wilson for taking the photos of me about to lead my session at Swanwick and of me signing my books. It is SO hard to take that kind of shot yourself!! Another lovely thing about Swanwick is we all happily do this for each other – the sharing and kindness here is amazing.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Safely back home after a fabulous time at Swanwick, I hope to report more on that for Chandler’s Ford Today next week.

Today though I share a great interview with Scottish crime writer, Val Penny, a fellow Swanwicker. Val shares news of her recent book release and we have a fab chat about blog tours, keeping notes about your characters’ main characteristics, marketing and other topics. Hope you enjoy it and it was lovely to catch up with Val again in person this last week. Until next year, Val!

Val Penny: The Hunter Wilson Series and Blog Tours

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Am pleased to share my latest blog on Authors Electric. Aptly I talk about Holiday Reading and Writing.

The four part course on Creative Non-Fiction ended today. So useful. I then went on to the Writing Comedy short course led by Rob Gee.

Later this afternoon, it will be time for the Swanwick Annual General Meeting. The main event on the last full day is the famous Swanwick Farewell and Awards evening which is always great fun. It was too!

Am I planning to be back next year? Oh yes!

Well, the temperature has cooled here in Derbyshire. We have had rain! Nobody sorry about that.
I resumed the Creative Non-Fiction specialist course led by Simon Whaley and then went on to the Historical Fiction course led by Jennifer C Wilson. I write some historical fiction flash stories and it is an area I would like to write more in – the scope is huge!

I’m planning to finish my afternoon by going to the Cracking the Cryptic Crossword one hour workshop led by Vivien Brown. I love crosswords. I can’t get cryptics so I thought this could be useful for when I want to unwind with word games, as I often do. It was great fun and an eye-opener.

There’s a fancy dress evening later. Am not really into that myself but it will be fun seeing what costumes people come up with for the theme of Another Night at the Movies.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

So back at home and back to the writing routine. (I have to have one to get any writing done at all). I hope to resume writing for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel from next week.

Swanwick set a competition for us while we’re there. I did send in a 150 word story. It didn’t get placed but I loved writing it, will look at it again and see where else I can submit it – I do know there will be somewhere!

I’ve sometimes gone on to have work published that way. And I’m fine with the sometimes by the way, simply because nobody hits a perfect 100% hit rate in writing/being published/being placed.

Delighted to sign Tripping the Flash Fantastic for fellow authors while at Swanwick. It is always a special thing. When I first started writing anything seriously, I knew nobody in the writing world. It is now a great joy to have many writing friends, some of whom I’ve met in person and others I’ve met just online.

I’ve learned so much chatting to other writers, including finding out about flash fiction and I’ve never regretted discovering that!

From Light to Dark and Back Again - by night

My week at the fantastic Swanwick Writers’ Summer School went by in a flash. It always does. Fabulous fun, caught up with old friends, got chatting to people new to Swanwick, learned so much from the courses and workshops, and enjoyed taking part.

I did take part again in the Open Prose Mic Night. Again fun to do and flash fiction works well for this. Loved listening to the Open Poetry Mic Night too.

For the prose night, I picked my linked flash tales – Mishaps and Jumping Time from Tripping the Flash Fantastic this time. Pleased to say they did get laugh but then my hapless time travelling alien in these stories does have that coming. Honest!

The short form is excellent for improving writing skills

One thing I’ve learned over the years is to not rush a submission to a short story or flash competition. You always do need more editing time than you think. So I factor this in to my schedule and aim to submit my work about a fortnight before the deadline, having carried out all editing necessary including that important final check to ensure you have got all the typos out etc.

Can a judge tell if a competition entry has been rushed?
Oh yes.

What you want is for your work to be so polished the judge knows you haven’t rushed at all and you’ve given yourself plenty of time to ensure all is as good as you can make it. The little details matter here too.

Fairytales with Bite – The Creative Arts

What kind of creative arts would your fairytale world have? Would it be an area where magic was banned? I can’t see how much fun it would be if you were allowed to whip out your magic wand, say a quick spell and, hey presto, you’ve produced a stunning picture or a brilliant book. I would want things to be created “properly”, else where is the joy of the creative process?

Naturally I think of stories and books first for the arts world, followed by music, especially classical, as my two big art interests are there. What are your arts interests and could you bring them in somehow to the world you’re creating in your stories? What would be different in your magical world in this sphere?

Often we think of fairytales as those stories we read as children/had read to us. What would your magical world’s equivalent be? Do they tell tales about dodgy humans getting their comeuppance thanks to a heroic magical character, say?

Life is made up of the basic necessity to survive naturally, but what about the other elements of a well rounded life, which include the creative arts? How are those represented in your stories?

This World and Others – Values

What values does your fictional world have in common with this one? Which ones are literally alien and why have these values been established? (That may well shed a great deal of light on the characters of your aliens – do they agree with these values or not?).

Values get established over time so how long did it take your world to come up with the ones it has? Are there sections of the community which don’t hold with these values at all and what do they do about this? Passive resistance or something much more active? Are they right to take the view they do?

Bear in mind your characters, wherever they are set, do not need to share your values. I’ve written pieces where I am at odds with my characters and that’s fine. But you still do need to understand why your characters, of whatever species, hold the values they do. There will be reasons for this. Okay, they may not be great ones but they will make sense to your fictional world and characters.

Authors Electric: Holiday Reading and Writing by Allison Symes https://t.co/hNM03b2kun
Am pleased to share my latest blog on Authors Electric. Aptly I talk about Holiday Reading and Writing, having spent this week at the wonderful Swanwick Writers' Summer School. pic.twitter.com/T8eeazminA
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 18, 2022

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Val Penny: The Hunter Wilson Series and Blog Tours https://t.co/Xl5CU1We2E Home after a great time at the Swanwick Writers' Summer School, I share a fab interview with Scottish crime writer/fellow Swanwicker, Val Penny. She discusses marketing and note keeping on characters too.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 19, 2022

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Quizzes and Word Games

August 5, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Photos of The Hayes, Swanwick, were taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hope you have had a good week. Mine started with a petulant goose but has ended without one (it has literally waddled off) much to Lady’s relief. Best of all, my copies of The Best of CafeLit 11 arrived. Always lovely to open something like that.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share a lighthearted post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I‘m looking at Quizzes and Word Games, favourite things of many a writer, including yours truly. I have a soft spot for Scrabble in particular.

What are your favourite word games? Do share your thoughts on the CFT comments page.

Next week I am interviewing the lovely crime writer, Val Penny and looking forward to sharing that.

And the goose continues to keep away so Lady is well pleased. From her viewpoint, an odd week has ended well, especially as she got to play with her best buddy, the Rhodesian Ridgeback this morning.!).

Quizzes and Word Games

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One thing I never tire of… drum roll, please… is opening up my new arrival of books! Pleased to say my copies of The Best of CafeLit 11 arrived today. I was especially pleased as I wasn’t expecting these until next week so that was nice.

Nice and quiet here without the hissing goose.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is a fun one on Quizzes and Word Games. Apt for writers. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Has playing word games helped my vocabulary? Oh yes. Especially playing Scrabble. Have any of the words I’ve learned made it into a flash fiction story or blog post from me yet? No. Give it time!

Playing Scrabble on my phone has advantages

In breaking news… NO goose turned up today. I have a much happier dog! A much happier me come to that. I haven’t checked what my broom feels about it but it too has had a quieter, less eventful day.
Now that goose was clearly a bit out of place so how about a writing prompt to come from this?

Have your character out of place. There has to be a good reason for it. Show how they got into that state and how they got out of it again. Good potential for funny or sad pieces here I think. I may well have a go at this myself later on in the week. Will keep you posted. Have fun with it.

Characters have to have good reasons for their actions, even if they’re the only ones who think so. Your readers should be able to see where your characters come from but they don’t have to agree. I often disagree with my characters but that’s fine. I know where they’re coming from. I just don’t want to be there with them! And if they get poetic justice, as often happens in my stories, I relish writing every word of it!

The writing life can be great fun at times… I’m just glad there isn’t a Character Protection From Their Own Authors Society. I can think of several of mine who would want severe words with me.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to share my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction which is Age Is Just a Number. A huge thank you for the comments coming in on this one already. I suspect I may have hit a nerve or something here.

Hope you have had a good day. My copies of The Best of CafeLit 11 arrived, the goose has gone, and I’m settling down to an evening of what I love most – writing – so it’s been a good day here.

Looking forward to going to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in just over a week’s time. Will be so wonderful catching up with friends and being immersed in the world of writing full time for a week.

I’m running a one hour course there on Editing – Both Sides of the Fence and taking part in Lift Up Your Pens (early morning writing) and Lift Up Your Hearts (the latter is a short Christian devotional). Naturally I shall be waving the flag for flash fiction as well.

There is something about being with other writers that encourages and inspires. I am glad Zoom helps here too and it is also a great medium for sharing the joys of the mini stories.

Now a couple of years back a writing exercise I did at Swanwick as part of a course ended up becoming a published story online (CafeLit). I wouldn’t mind that happening again!

Hope Wednesday has passed off well. No hissing goose here today so Lady and I think the day has gone well!

Writing Prompt for you: What is the one thing what would make your character think a day has gone well and why? Think that could make a nice piece of flash fiction, say 300 to 500 words. Good luck.

I also followed my own advice here. The prompt idea came about as a result of my preparing this blog post so I jotted it down immediately and realised there would be a story prompt here. So something to add to this blog post too!

Fairytales With Bite – The Purpose of Fairytales

I love stories that “just” entertain. To me, there’s nothing “just” about it though I do wish some would not look down on genre fiction and indeed fairytales for doing that. They’re doing their job!

Fairytales do serve another purpose – they serve as warnings about behaviour affecting outcome. There are consequences for rotten behaviour in fairytales. The baddies generally do not get away with it.

Fairytales also show there can be poetic justice (and sometimes rough justice). They warn against arrogance. Also to not look down on the poor. And given so often in fairytales, the Rule of Three crops up, the important points are emphasized to ensure they stick in the memory. That was vital when most could not read or write.

Fairytales can be enjoyed by most ages and are usually the way into stories as a whole for children. They were for me. I still have my Reader’s Digest collection of fairytales, a huge two volume set of books with beautiful illustrations.

They’re a great way of getting a message across without being preachy. Readers/listeners pick up the message from the story. From a writing viewpoint, they show characters in action and how to get a story across without the tale itself necessarily being a long one. Lots to learn from that, especially if you go into flash fiction with its restricted word count, as I have done.

This World and Others – Characters Seeking a Purpose

All characters in any story should have a purpose to justify them being included but of course they themselves may need to find out what their purpose is as the tale progresses. Do other characters enlighten them? Do they find clues? Do circumstances force them to find out what their purpose is?

Most heroes in stories don’t set out to be a hero – they are pushed into it – it is a do it and survive or not as the case may be! When faced with that kind of choice, you’re going to get on and be a hero, aren’t you?

How do your characters react when they find out what their purpose is? Do they handle it well or badly? Not everyone would take well to suddenly discovering they’re a royal, a wizard, a fairy godmother or what have you.

Do the characters go on to accept their purpose or do they reject it and try to get their life back to “normal” (or what they thought of as normal anyway)? Even if they accept their purpose, what do those closest to them make of it? What further complications could that put in your lead character’s way?

Characters seeking a purpose may find the one they end up with is definitely not one they would have chosen! What does this do for them/to them? Do they find they’re better as people because of it? Can resentment from friends and family erode that purpose, even lead to the lead character failing?

A story can be about a purpose that does not work out and the consequences of that failure (though it would be difficult to have an upbeat ending here).

Age Is Just A Number, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/t9c6tiYfqi
Pleased to share my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction – Age Is Just a Number. A huge thank you for the comments coming in on this already. I may have hit a nerve or something here! pic.twitter.com/kcrjOs5V6A
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 5, 2022

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Quizzes and Word Games https://t.co/oIeYkYyygB Pleased to share a lighthearted CFT post. I‘m looking at Quizzes and Word Games, favourites of many a writer, including yours truly. I adore Scrabble. What are your favourite word games? Share your thoughts in the CFT comments box.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 5, 2022

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Your Lead Character In Fiction

July 22, 20222 Comments

Image Credits:-

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

Weather has cooled down somewhat as the week went on, much to the relief of both Lady and me. Trust all well with you. Glad to share an exclusive new story from me for this blog – see further down under Fairytales with Bite. Hope you enjoy it. Plan to include it in my third flash fiction collection which I’m working on at the moment.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share my latest post for Chandler’s Ford Today – Your Lead Character In Fiction. I set a mini quiz as part of this to show how important characters are – see how you do. I also look at qualities of the lead character and whether it is necessary to always root for them or not. See what you think and do leave comments over on the CFT page. I go on to discuss what a writer needs to know about their lead character and share some different ways in working this out. Hope you find the post useful.

Later in August, I’ll be sharing a fabulous interview with a great crime writer for whom their lead character is especially important! Well, when you write a series you do have to have someone to lead that series…! More details nearer the time.

Your Lead Character In Fiction

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Glad the weather is continuing to be cooler. I much prefer it at about 23/24ºC and so does Lady.
Have booked my tickets for the Bridge House Publishing event in December. Will be good to see friends old and new there. And I hope to catch up with writing pals at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School which is rapidly approaching (next month – yippee!).

Will be sharing a brand new “fairytales with bite” story in my round up blog post which will also go out tomorrow via my website – see https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com – new subscribers always welcome. I will be sharing the link to this post via Facebook tomorrow too. You can also sign up for my author newsletter here – the next one of those will go out on 1st August. Story further down.

Much needed cooler weather today (though the forecast looks like this might be a temporary reprieve). Lady and I made the most of the cooler weather. Both of us were much happier for it!

Looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. I’ll be talking about Your Lead Character In Fiction. There will be a mini quiz as part of this and I’ll be looking at whether it is necessary to always write likeable characters or not amongst other things. See link above.

I have a soft spot for those characters who back the lead up and without whom the lead cannot succeed in their story. My favourite here is Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Even Gollum knew not to underestimate Samwise!

Whatever position your character has in a story in terms of importance, there should be a definite role for them. If your story would work without them, they shouldn’t be in there.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday once more and time for some flash fiction. My latest story on Friday Flash Fiction is simply called Tomorrow. Hope you like it.

Hope you have had a good day. Can’t believe we’re rapidly approaching the end of July already.

Now I sometimes use time in my stories, with characters going forwards and backwards in it and with dubious results. See Tripping the Flash Fantastic for that (Mishaps and Jumping Time). I have great fun with these kind of tales as they give me opportunities to drop my characters right in it. There is no clause anywhere which says an author has to be nice to their characters. I checked, okay.

But you can take time and use it for more sombre stories too. I did that with The Pink Rose which shows the ravages of time.

So time can be a useful device as a a setting, it can be used as a character, and you can have reflective pieces on it too. How will you use time in your stories?

… and breath! Thankfully cooler today. Lady and I made the most of it too.

I sometimes start my story with a question in its opening line. In my The Truth, from From Light to Dark and Back Again, I use this and I finish the tale with my character’s thoughts connected to it though the question itself is not directly answered. This is because I’ve used a metaphorical question and my character is aware of that (at a subliminal level at least) They also know they’re not going to change attitudes here. Sometimes your character is the only one to see through something. See The Emperor’s New Clothes for more on this – the kid there was right!

With metaphorical questions, your character is unlikely to be able to answer it fully but their conclusion should be a reasonable one based on the premise of the story.

Fairytales With Bite – A Fairytale by Allison Symes

Thought it might be nice to have an example of what I call a fairytale with bite this week. Hope you enjoy it.

Once a Rat by Allison Symes

I can’t remember all the details to be honest. I was happily being a pain in the neck to all and sundry. I was king of the pickpockets, see. Made a good living at it until I managed to annoy some biddy who happened to be a fairy godmother, and the next thing I know I was zapped and became a rat. I remember her speaking over me.

‘Since you are a rat in human form, you can be a rat in rat’s form and save everyone the bother of having to avoid you. They’ll do so willingly. Most folk hate rats.’

How I survived I don’t know. Even other rats avoided me. I’m sure they knew what I was really. Just a shame every fox I met tried to eat me but I always did have a good turn of speed. Came in handy I can tell you.

And then I lost concentration for a moment and ended up in a rat trap. This girl came to fetch me indoors and then I saw her again. That wretched fairy godmother. Boy, did she laugh when she saw me. Said she never forgot a client.

I never knew such fear as when I saw her take out that magic wand of hers again. What would she turn me into this time?

I couldn’t believe it when I saw I was now a coachman, kitted out in a decent uniform too. I was to take the girl to the Palace for the grand ball. First time in my life I had a job. A proper one too.

The godmother whispered to me not to wreck things this time. I could keep the job if I did well. The pay was good and food and lodgings were thrown in. I might even meet someone nice in the Palace staff. I did too. Mary and I have been married thirty years this year. Got three kids and six grandchildren. It’s been a good life. A funny one too. And she does know about my past. Always ensures I get a decent amount of cheese – bless her.

How long have I been serving Cinderella and Prince Charming now?

Oh, it must be a good thirty years now. Their kids are okay too.

The one thing I can’t resist though is setting the caught rats free when the other staff here aren’t looking. Well, it could be someone I once knew in my past life or one of their offspring.

I got a second chance. Maybe they should too. A rat isn’t always just a rat – and I should know!

Ends
20th July 2022 – Allison Symes

This World and Others – Poetic Justice

Hope you enjoyed the story. One of the things I’ve always loved about fairytales is they have a strong sense of right and wrong about them and almost always justice is seen to be done in some way. There is usually a chance for redemption too. Love all of that. Always have done.

Is there such a thing as poetic justice in your created world? How does it manifest itself? If magic is involved, is it used to correct a problem initially caused by someone else’s magic for example? (Best known example of that is the fairy godmother modifying the spell for Sleeping Beauty so she doesn’t die but just falls asleep).

Is there any character in your work who deals with justice overall? Does an underdog character come through to ensure justice is done by the end of your story?

What about the characters who deserve to have poetic justice done to them? What did they do? Did they irk someone they really should not have done as my character did?

Now this can be a great vehicle for a humorous tale (and it is where I generally use it) but how will you take the idea of poetic justice and use it?

It’s Friday once more and time for some flash fiction.
My latest story on Friday Flash Fiction is simply called Tomorrow.
Hope you like it.https://t.co/edCISoEPtv pic.twitter.com/kD7iuSB7ow
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 22, 2022

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My CFT post is Your Lead Character In Fiction. I set a quiz to show how vital leads are, look at qualities of lead characters and ask if it is necessary to root for them. I discuss what a writer must know about their lead and share ways to work this out. https://t.co/UGmHBRQlkg pic.twitter.com/LN430RODOL
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 22, 2022

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Characters, Conversation, and Chandler’s Ford Today

July 5, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits: All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Photo below taken by Adrian Symes (though Lady still has work to do on her literary appreciation techniques!). Hope you had a good weekend and an equally good start to the working week. Lady is in good spirits as she has met up with her favourite dog pals this week already.

Facebook – General

For Chandler’s Ford Today this week, I’ll be looking at Writing Techniques in Fiction. Now that could cover several books but I’ll be taking a brief overview at things like show, don’t tell and speech tags amongst other things. It took me a while to get my head around the show, don’t tell one. Writing flash fiction helped me enormously there (and of course still does). Link up on Friday. (I think I’ve found a topic for the letter X but I’ll post on that next week!).

Am looking forward to resuming author interviews on CFT again later in the summer. More details nearer the time.

Will be off on another CFT works outing with my lovely editor, Janet Williams, when we go to see The Chameleon Theatre Group’s latest production Hoovering the Edge, which we’ll be seeing later this month.

Hope you have had a good start to the working week. I wrote two flash pieces over the weekend which have specific times in them. Yes, there is such as thing as a random clock time generator! I’ll be sharing one of these on my Facebook book page (From Light to Dark and Back Again) shortly with the YouTube link. See further down. I hope to share the other one later on in the week. Good fun to do this. And as with all of the generators I use, you can set the parameters that suit you. Will be using this one again at some point.

What is it about a book or short story or piece of flash fiction that grabs you? As you know, for me it is always the character. I have to find out what they’re doing/going to do. What is it about non-fiction that grabs you given you don’t have a character as such? For me it is the narrative voice and a good opening hook. Questions are useful here as you know by the end of the piece some sort of answer has to be given and that is what keeps you reading. You don’t necessarily need to agree with the answer!

I’m a big fan of reading blogs as well as writing them and what I love most is the way you have a “compact” article in 500 words or so. Great way to take in useful information and tips quickly. For my CFT posts, I see these more as articles given I aim for 1000 to 1500 words a time (as any longer than that, it becomes a two or three part series. Beyond this word count it works better as a series and you can hopefully hook readers into wanting to read Part 2 etc).

If you want a great read, why not download the latest issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads? You will find a great range of articles, including my monthly flash fiction column. This time I talk about Flexibility in Flash Fiction.

I discuss why flash is flexible with regard to word count (bar the the upper limit of 1000 of course), genre, and the use of first and third person. I’ve taken advantage of all of those things and created a wide range of stories as a result. You can too.

Best of all, the magazine is free! Time to put your feet up then, have a good read and have a decent beverage to hand I think. (For me that will always be tea!).

And check out the stories which came in as a result of my flash challenge – great tales all of them but don’t just take my word for it. Go on, it really is time for a read!

Screenshot 2022-07-02 at 17-26-39 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine July 2022

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I sometimes write all dialogue flash stories which are fun to do. I love getting my characters to talk so this is a good format for me. I limit these stories to two characters only and I find most of my stories of this kind come in at the 200 words or under mark. The challenge here is to ensure the dialogue does tell a story and keeps the reader hooked. It can’t just be conversation for the sake of it.

The secret here is to have two strong characters with distinctive voices. Getting them to use certain types of words here can be a great way to tell them apart – one can use slang terms, the other doesn’t. One has a posher sounding name than the other (and I repeat names every so often as well).

Give it a go and have fun with it. You will find out quickly if your characters are strong enough to carry a tale of this type. If not then the conversation will fizzle out and there will be no story. If they are strong enough, you’ll have no trouble sharing their story in conversation.

A classic way in is to have one character want something and the other is stopping them but the conflict here still needs to be resolved via the dialogue only. So it would probably pay you to work out how that could be done first, then work out what leads up to it. The classic writing from B to A again which I use for twist and humorous endings too.

It’s Monday once again and time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube. This one, called Deterrent, is based on clock times generated by a random clock time generator. Yes, really. Hope you enjoy it.

Flash fiction is a great format for those humorous pieces which stand alone well (but would not work if used to pad out a longer story. It would either seem like padding or would get “lost” in the overall story). My A Stitch in Time from Tripping the Flash Fantastic is an example of that.

This is another reason to love flash. It gives a vehicle for those tales which might not otherwise be told. For Open Prose Mic Nights, I like to have at least a couple of these funnier pieces in amongst the more serious stories. That in turn shows the range for flash – it can be funny, it can be tragic etc.

Whatever type of flash you write though, you do need to be able to get into your characters’ heads. Otherwise the reader won’t either. And it is the characters that readers want to find out about, whose story they want to read. You are your own first reader.

I like to keep an Ideal Reader in mind when I am going through my stories and to think about how this story would appeal, what would my Ideal Reader be likely to say to me about beefing it up where it is needed and so on. Having your audience in mind from the start has helped me not to go off on unhelpful tangents, which would only get cut out later anyway.

For the funnier tales, I have a fairly broad sense of humour so I try to aim my humorous tales to appeal to that kind of audience, someone like me with that kind of taste.

Many thank for all the comments coming on on The Big Day, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated. This tale came about as a result of my deciding to write a story centred around an anniversary or a birthday. I knew cake had to be involved!

I also mentioned about a week or so ago that birthdays, anniversaries and the like can make a great structure for stories. Something happens at these events. You can also look at how your characters react to them, whether the events go well or not, and so on. Anyway, I took my own advice here!

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Collections

One of the earliest books I had (and still have) are the Reader’s Digest Fairytale collections. These are two huge books full of the classic tales by Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christen Andersen, and so on. You don’t want to drop these books on your foot is what I am saying here!

I spent hours as a kid looking at the wonderful colour illustrations and later reading and re-reading the tales. I loved The Snow Queen. For the first time I came across a girl as the heroine, the one doing the “derring-do”, and I loved that (and still do).

What I deeply appreciate here is the way people collected these old tales so we still have them now. Invaluable. I also appreciate it from the viewpoint that short stories are worth collecting – they so are!

My late mother collected the works of Dickens, I collected the works of Agatha Christie. Both Mum and I used a book club for these. (Mine was via Odhams Publishers but they set up an Agatha Christie collection kind of club and naturally I wanted the lot. Never regretted getting those).

What story collections do you treasure and why?

liked Allison Symes's blog post: Story Collections https://t.co/mF35FrLuI8 via @goodreads I look at story collections, including the collections of classic fairytales I had as a kid and still own, for this week's Goodreads post. Which collections do you treasure and why? pic.twitter.com/hEdE68vKSH
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 2, 2022

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It’s Monday once again and time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube. This one, called Deterrent, is based on clock times generated by a random clock time generator. Yes, really. Hope you enjoy it.https://t.co/QiJMOb4ftw
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 4, 2022

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