Allison Symes shares her Facebook author page blogs, her website posts and Chandler's Ford Today magazine articles with links. She also blogs about her writing journey and shares thoughts and hints on flash fiction.
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Image of me with wild hair and Tripping The Flash Fantastic taken by Adrian Symes.
Facebook – General
Great to see Amazon have updated my Author Central page quickly so Mulling It Over and Transformations are now both on there. (Lovely to see a good collection building up here!). And that has reminded me to add these books to ALCS too. What is ALCS?
As I’m a member of the Society of Authors, I have free membership to ALCS (the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society). ALCS collects money from copyright licences etc and distributes said monies to authors. There is no way any one writer could possibly keep tabs on X making photocopies of their work here, Y doing it there and so on.
If you’re not a member of the Society of Authors, you can still join ALCS. It costs £36.00 and this is lifetime membership, not per year. See https://www.alcs.co.uk/how-to-join for more.
I had my first modest pay-out from ALCS back in March and most welcome it was too. Do check out their website for more information. The main thing to remember is to update your details when you have new works out. And this includes, for me, not just my two flash fiction collections, but all of the paperback anthologies I have been in and continue to have work appear in.
(The reasons for the emphasis on paperback is ALCS need you to tell them the ISBN number and ebooks don’t have that. They have an ASIN which ALCS do not work with but given most anthologies come out in ebook and paperback, you can at least register the latter!).
Very well worth doing. (And another little task ticked off my writing admin list today!).
Even colder than yesterday here in Hampshire though Lady did get to have a fab time with her busy buddy, a lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback today. No chance of them getting cold with all that running around.
I’m going to be having a look at Continuing Professional Development and how it can apply to writers in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Have also put in my book order for copies of Mulling It Over and Transformations and have also asked Amazon to add these two to my Author Central page in due course. Hopefully they’ll appear on there later this week. I’ve usually found Amazon answer such requests quickly.
It is nice to see a good collection of books appearing on my page now. This is not something I anticipated when starting out but it does show the value, I think, of persistence, keeping going, and learning over time to get better at targeting my work to the appropriate market. And yes, it does take time. But this is true for everybody and I found that quite encouraging when I was starting out. It is good to know it is not just you!
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Brrr… so cold today. Even Lady wasn’t sorry to get in from her evening walk. Enjoyed watching The Polar Express tonight. One of my favourite Christmas films along with A Muppet Christmas Carol. Better half put the decorations up yesterday so the old homestead is looking festive. Am very thankful Lady leaves the tree alone.
Making good progress on my non-fiction project. Am on track to finish the first draft by the end of the year. Whenever I write anything, I always feel a certain relief on getting that first draft down. I love the creative side but I also enjoy the editing and getting the work into good shape ready for submitting somewhere. I swear I can almost feel the draft getting better as I take out my usual wasted words and sharpen up what remains. I like that feeling.
I’ve also got a third flash collection on the go. I plan to resume work on that once I’ve got the first draft of the non-fiction project done as I know I’ll need to rest that for a while so I can look at it with fresh eyes when I get back to it.
Writing is the gift that keeps on giving in many ways.
Firstly, boredom is a thing of the past as I’ve always got something to work on!
Secondly, writing stretches me. I want to keep trying to get better at what I do.
Thirdly, to write well you need to read well so you get two activities in one here. But best of all?
Making friends thanks to a shared love of writing!
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It was great seeing everyone at the Bridge House Publishing celebration event this afternoon. It was lovely to see friends and meet new people and the turnout was wonderful. There was plenty to celebrate too, despite the obvious problems affecting everyone this year.
There were plenty of new books out via Bridge House, including the recently released Mulling It Over and Transformations. Plus there were new single author collections out too, including my own Tripping The Flash Fantastic.
There was a cryptic clue quiz. I was hopeless at it but I always am at cryptic clues. It was something of a relief that I did get my book title in amongst the mix, plus the two I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of editing for Bridge House this year. (And that really was about my lot!).
There was lovely mix of stories read too and I read Progressing. This was my first winning story for the Waterloo Arts Festival Writing Competition (and is in the new Transformations book too).
All great fun and we are all looking forward to next year’s events! Pics for this one are the Cafelit (BB) mock up, the tunnel one, my anthologies one, and the phone one plus the “sky” one for FLTDBA and TTFF.
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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Delighted to share my latest story video on Youtube. This is one of my acrostic flash tales called Autumn. Let’s just say the video is apt for the tale and that no spades were harmed in the making of this story! Hope you enjoy.
As well as my own flash collections, I often contribute flash pieces to CafeLit. My Humourless in The Best of CafeLit 9 is one of my most recent and is on the darker side for me. The idea for this piece came to me when I asked one of my favourite writing questions – the old classic “what if”? What if someone had lost their sense of humour due to their job? What could that job be?
Finding a starting point for your stories is crucial and asking the “what if” question is an invaluable place to begin because it should trigger other questions and you will find yourself wanting to know what the answers are. If you can be hooked into finding out the answers, then hopefully a reader will be too.
Other useful starting points include using Kipling’s famous serving men – What, Where, How, Why, When, and Who? Anything that makes you ask questions to find out more about the character and what they’re facing is going to help you plot out the story in more depth.
The tricky bit is in working out what the most relevant points are and focusing only on those. This is why I find flash’s restricted word count useful. It makes me focus and that’s no bad thing.
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It was especially nice to talk to a fellow flash fiction writer, Dawn Knox, for Chandler’s Ford Today last week. Always good to advertise the form and to show what can be done with it.
Flash is a great vehicle for character studies. I find those work best when kept short (as is the case with monologues) and flash fiction is ideal – a match made in writing heaven perhaps.
When I’ve drafted a flash story I ask myself certain questions about it.
Does the story make the impact I thought it would before I wrote it?
How does the character make me react/feel? (No reaction = character not strong enough = no story).
Have I marked up my usual suspects of wasted words ready to take out for the second draft?
What phrases have I used that could be fine tuned into creating stronger images for the reader?
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Delighted to see another review come in for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Many thanks! Reviews really do help authors. Neither do reviews have to be lengthy. I use reviews myself when checking out potential books to read or when I’m wondering whether to try a new grocery product!
Had a fab time at the Bridge House Publishing event this afternoon. It is one of the highlights of my writing year. It was great to see a good turnout too. I did miss the actual getting together (and the splendid authors’ lunch that precedes it!) but I am sure we will make up for that next year!
But the biggest thing about Zoom is making events accessible and it was wonderful to see some of Bridge House’s more far flung authors able to take part in today’s event. When the nightmare of Covid is over, I want to see Zoom continuing. It has been one of the more positive things about this whole year.
New for old is a catchphrase from Aladdin of course but is this something that is appropriate for book lovers?
After all I love old books. I love new books. I just love books!
I think it is good to have a balance of old favourites. These are my comfort reads when I need that.
I also like to read new books, especially from contemporary writers. It is good to know what is being put out there now.
One handy side benefit to making writer friends is this does help ensure you do get plenty of contemporary reading in. I take great pleasure from the fact I have shelves which are packed full of fab books written by people I’ve come to know and count as friends. I always look forward to adding to my shelves in that regard. I can’t wait to get back to book events so I can pick up those books signed by said friends in person.
Naturally I’m looking forward to being able to hold some book events of my own in due course.
So have I got books on my Christmas list?
What do you think?!
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Twitter Corner
Had a fab time at Bridge House Publishing celebration event on Zoom. Good to see so many. Nice mix of stories read too. Plenty to celebrate with new books out. Most recent: Mulling It Over, Cafelit 9, Transformations, and single author books including Tripping The Flash Fantastic pic.twitter.com/aV2Zl59tGA
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Images of Dawn Knox, the photos of the stage productions of her plays, and her book covers were kindly supplied by her.
Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today
Delighted to share Part 2 of a fascinating interview with Dawn Knox for Chandler’s Ford Today. Dawn is a fellow CafeLit and Bridge House Publishing author and has written wonderful flash fiction (see her The Great War – it is a great example of what flash fiction can do and be) and fabulous funny stories. Her latest collection, The Macaroon Chronicles, is out now.
We talk about what drew Dawn into writing flash fiction, her links with her local radio station, writing routines, how she balances writing with marketing, and what she thinks is the most fulfilling aspect of her career to date amongst other interesting topics.
Dawn and I took part in a Zoom event back in September which was great fun and we are both looking forward to the Bridge House Publishing celebration event tomorrow, 5th December. Hope to see you there! Where would we be without Zoom now?!
A huge thanks to Dawn Kentish Knox for taking part in a fabulous two part interview with me for Chandler’s Ford Today. I look forward to catching up with her and other Bridge House writers at the BHP celebration event tomorrow! We would prefer to meet in person but right now this is not possible and Zoom is the next best thing!
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Nice to be able to resume swimming today. Did my usual number of lengths but let’s say I won’t be setting any world records here… Not that I intended to do so anyway so that’s okay.
Looking forward to sharing Part 2 of a wonderful chat with Dawn Knox on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow.
Saturday will be busy with the Bridge House event in the afternoon and directly after that I’m off to my church in Romsey to record a Bible reading for a service that is being recorded to be shown via Zoom nearer to Christmas Day.
I am going to miss the traditional carol services though I have had a couple of invites to Zoom ones so I will try and tune in to at least one of those. I do enjoy a good sing. Whether anyone else does is another matter!
It’s strange sometimes the memories that come up on Facebook. Earlier this morning they put up a picture of me reading from From Light to Dark and Back Again at a Bridge House event held in a pub (and yes a very good time was had by all!). I’ll be reading on Zoom on Saturday for this year’s BHP event where I plan to read from one of my winning stories from the Waterloo Arts Festival.
Now the event is free to go to but you do need to register. Hope to see you there. There will be readings and giveaways. It will make a great way to spend a cold December afternoon! (See images below for some of the books we will be celebrating!).
Gill James’s latest book as at July 2020.
An intriguing short story collection from Paula Readman
Facebook Memory
From three years ago – where has the time gone? I was reading from newly released From Light to Dark and Back Again at a Bridge House Publishing event. This year? I’ll be reading again at a BHP event but on Saturday via Zoom! Annoyingly, I can’t find the original picture but one thing that has developed over the last year or two has been a love of reading flash fiction out at events like the BHP ones and I hope to do more of this. Flash works very well as a “performance” read.
Yours truly and some of my collected works! Image by Adrian Symes
Great to see a review come in for The Best of Cafelit 9. If you are after an anthology which has a real mix of stories and writing styles, do check the Cafelit books out. I often use collections and anthologies as my go to for reading between novels. I don’t always know what I want to read after finishing a novel so switch to short stories and flash fiction collections for a while before deciding what my next big read will be.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
I’ve mentioned before that I sometimes write a flash fiction story “backwards” in that the first line I write is what will be the final one in the story. I then work out different ways I could get to that point and pick the one I think works best.
I sometimes use spider diagrams to help me work out what would be the one to work best. Usually it is a case of if one idea triggers a lot of other thoughts then that is a good indication there is strength in that idea.
If an idea only triggers the odd thought to come off from it, then I’ve got to ask am I likely to run out of steam if I go that route (and the answer to that is inevitably yes. I’ve only ever abandoned two stories in all the years I’ve been writing and in both cases I had not thought them out properly and did indeed run out of said steam for them! So if you’ve wondered why I’m such a fan of ensuring I know my characters well enough to write about them properly, now you know!).
One of my stories in Tripping The Flash Fantastic is called The Wish List. With your reader’s and/or writer’s hat on what would you wish for? You can have three wishes for a reader’s requirements and three for a writer’s one. My answers below.
Writer’s Hat
I wish to never run out of ideas.
I wish to never run out of energy to write them up.
I wish to always love every aspect of the writing process.
Nice thing with this is the last one isn’t usually a problem but we all get days when we’re tired, have too much to do in too little time, and so some of the enjoyment of writing can lag. What you want there is for that feeling to never last long!
Reader’s Hat
I wish to always know what I’m going to read next. (Lack of wonderful material isn’t the issue here. It is prioritising!)
I wish to learn something useful to my own writing from everything I read. (Often do and generally positively. Occasionally I come across a story that didn’t work for me but even there I learn something. I look at why it didn’t work for me).
I wish that everyone had full literacy skills and access to good libraries. (Possibly sneaking in an extra wish there but it is an understandable one so maybe the Book Fairy Godmother will let me off that!).
I was having a chat over on Twitter at #writingchatabout where writing has taken you. I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t start out as a flash fiction writer. That came about as a result of writing short stories for CafeLit and then taking up their 100 word challenge. I’m not sorry for that particular writing detour!
And it is why I do say be open to trying new styles of writing. You may well hit upon something you really love as I have. It’s also fun to experiment with your writing like this. If you decide you don’t like it, fine, but if you do… well it’s another string to the old writing bow, isn’t it?
Three top tips for flash fiction writing:-
1. Outline your character so you know who you are writing about and why you want to write about them.
2. Get the story down first and worry about the word count later. If a tale works better at 500 words then 100, leave it at 500.
3. Reading your work out loud is a great idea as it helps you pick up on the “rhythm” of your prose. If you stumble over it, a reader is likely to do so too. The great thing with flash is that this is so easy to do. You’re only reading out a short piece of work!
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Fairytales With Bite – Codes
What codes do you think should exist in a magical environment? I offer up the following ideas for a Code of Conduct for a Magical World.
No drawing of wands in an enclosed space. Do you want to make the whole building go up or become a giant white mouse or something?
Those with the ability to fly, whether it be by wings or broomsticks or other magical object, will observe the speed limits or risk being enchanted by the Magical Traffic Police. And their spells have been known to go horribly wrong. Yes, traffic enforcers do get everywhere.
Those with the highest magical powers will not bully the ones who are still learning the craft. That may have been considered a fine tradition once upon a time but times have changed. Also the underdog in the fairytales has a consistent habit of having their fortunes turned around thanks to a friendly fairy godmother. Do you really want them coming after you for revenge on what you did to them all those years previously? Best be cautious here.
Hope you enjoyed those. But if you are planning out a magical world for your stories, it does pay to work out who can do what. If everyone has the same magical powers, they’re going to cancel each other out. So how do the different magical species live in harmony with another? So some sort of agreement/code is going to be necessary after all!
Does your fictional world celebrate the differences between cultures, species etc? Or is there a dominant culture/species that seeks to dominate the others? How do the others react to that?
Even when there is no hostility between species, what are the differences between your characters? Do they get along well or irritate the hell out of each other?
How do differences in character/how characters handle situations play out in your stories? You are looking for what drives your characters to act the way they are but they will have their reasons for their behaviour.
Are these good reasons? Do the characters need to change their outlook?
What differences do other characters bring to your leads and are these for good or ill?
Above all, what difference is there in your main characters at the end of the story as opposed to when the story starts? There should be pivotal change. That is the story!
Very pleased to be in such distinguished company too and given book festivals celebrate stories and books, what is there not to like about that?
Pleased to say I’m “on” for the Sunday from 1.35 for about 20 minutes or so.
Hopefully “see” you there!
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Given I can’t go swimming at the moment, raking up leaves from my oak trees is proving to be a good replacement workout! Lady would love to be out “helping me” but we live on a main road so that’s not possible.
There are advantages to living on a main road by the way. Nobody but nobody parks in front of my house. Even delivery drivers never stop long….
True story: years ago, we were unfortunate enough to be burgled. We were lucky. We got our things back (my engagement ring, things like that) because they caught the thief red-handed literally further down the road from me.
A police officer came to see us after all was sorted out just to make sure we were okay and parked his marked car outside our drive. He and I were chatting when we heard this enormous bang.
Yes! Someone had driven round the corner and somehow had not seen a marked police car and went smack into it.
Would’ve loved to have seen the insurance claim on that one!
Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing my CFT post tomorrow about the Brechin/Angus Book Fest. Naturally I’m looking forward to taking part in that over the weekend.
I also hope to have further publication news in the not too distant future.
Favourite thing to write ever? For me it’s those magic words “the end” after I’ve got the first draft down. I then know I’ve got something to work with and that always comes as something of a relief even now after many years of writing.
Oh and a huge thanks for all the views on my Last Request story on Youtube. And a big welcome to all of my subscribers too!😊
How has your Wednesday been? Good I trust.
What made you start writing? I’d always loved stories and loved composition lessons in English where we had to write tales to whatever theme the teacher said. And there my writing remained.
I had in the back of my mind that it might be a nice thing to do one day but I didn’t write seriously until two major landmark events in my life made me realise if I was going to get any writing done, I ought to get on and do some. My only regret in writing has been not starting sooner.
It takes you longer than you realise to find your voice and discover what form of writing suits you best and this is an ongoing process. As you know, I hadn’t started out by writing flash fiction but that is where I’m published.
What I would advise anyone who is thinking of writing is to go for it. At best you will discover something that entrances you, keeps your mind active, encourages the development of your imagination, and hopefully you’ll end up published too.
At worst, you’ll discover it’s not for you or that you will only write occasionally for your own pleasure and that’s fine too.
It is important to love writing. It is what helps keep you going when the rejections hit the fan.
Okay, you’re not going to love all of it all of the time but, as long as most of the time, you can’t imagine your life without writing, then you’re on a good path!
Looking forward to waving the flag for flash fiction at the Brechin/Angus Book Festival over the weekend. I am “on” during Sunday from about 1.35 pm for 20 minutes or so.
Delighted to see that my Last Requestvery short flash story on Youtube has attracted almost 300 views. A big thank you, everyone. I plan to do more of these. They’re great fun to do and I hope make for an entertaining advert for my writing.
I don’t know about you but I never mind adverts that amuse or entertain me. I can think of several from years ago that I can remember now precisely because they were entertaining and/or amusing.
Flash fiction is, by its nature, ideal for this kind of thing!
Favourite tips for writing flash fiction and which have never let me down:-
Focus on the character. It is their story. What matters to them? What is the problem they’ve got to overcome? What gets in their way? What helps them?
Just get the story down and edit afterwards. My first edit starts by taking my wasted words out – very, actually, and that. I don’t worry that I seem to just write them in the first draft. I know they’re coming out and that bit can wait until I’m ready. What matters initially is just getting that story nailed down.
When you think you’ve edited the story enough (note I say think!), read it out loud. This is easier to do with flash fiction writing I must say but I will pick up on wording I could phrase better when doing this. It is worth doing.
Happy writing!
A flash fiction story shines an intense light on one particular moment of change for a character. In a longer short story, that point could well be the start of the story and the tale would be long enough to show other moments of change happening (catalysts happen!).
What that moment of change is depends on the character to an extent. A feisty character is going to take major change more in their stride than someone who isn’t and therefore for the latter that change is more dramatic.
Ultimately, for me, any story is about how the character handles the situation they find themselves in. If your character, say, shows great courage, there should be some inkling that they are capable of it earlier in the story. In flash fiction, that inkling will be the odd seemingly throw away line which, on a second read of the story, proves to be pivotal.
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Fairytales With Bite – Be Wary!
If you’re a resident of a magical world, what should you be wary of? Plenty!
The little old lady/gent who looks harmless. Note I said looks there! They’re usually a witch or wizard in disguise and are anything but harmless.
Dragons, vampires, monsters of all kinds turning up. You live in a magical world. You get used to it.
Being unkind to the youngest son or daughter or a stepdaughter in particular. Things usually dramatically improve for them. Your fortunes on the other hand will sink completely the moment theirs shows any signs of that improvement.
Spells going wrong. Trick here is not to get in the way of any apprentices to wizards (who are usually looking to get out of doing cleaning the boring manual way) or trainee fairies. They are bound to make mistakes. You just don’t want to be on the receiving end.
Animals. Some of them talk. Some of them weren’t animals to begin with. If you’re invited to kiss a frog by said frog, think about what you might be letting yourself in for (it’s not giving birth to tadpoles by the way).
Any notices that invite you to “eat me” or “drink me”. Any truly good food and drink has no need to advertise itself in that way. Any food and drink that does… well there has to be a catch and you don’t want to be the one caught out by them.
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This World and Others – Settings Used as Characters
Yes, it is possible to use a setting as a character. Think about Wuthering Heights. The moors there play a pivotal role as does The Cobb in Lyme Regis in Jane Austen’s Persuasion.
So how can you use a setting as a character?
It has to be distinctive. The story can’t happen anywhere else. It has to happen in the setting you’ve created.
It can be a threat to your characters. Think The Lord of the Rings or Narnia. Mordor and Narnia where it is always winter but never Christmas are not exactly fun places to be!
It has a mood of its own. Think moors and you generally think of damp, foggy places where people can easily get lost or injure themselves. Can the weather change quickly? Do you have to be a local to understand the mood of the setting and avoid its traps? Also can the setting in and of itself affect the mood of your characters?
It has to have some sort of input to the conclusion of your story. You can’t have The Lord of the Rings without Mordor being faced up to at some point. What makes your setting unique? Why have you chosen it? What aspects do you want to bring into your story?
Plenty to think about there but, just as I outline a character, I think it pays to outline your setting too. Work out how you will use it to add depth to your story. Ask yourself what you want your readers to “see” and “feel” as they read your story and absorb the setting you’ve put it in.
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Twitter Corner
Looking forward to sharing this post tomorrow. I’ll be talking about the Brechin/Angus Book Fest which I’m taking part in over the weekend. pic.twitter.com/bJMGojgwlQ— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 19, 2020
Brechin/Angus Book Festival – Local Author News – Allison Symes https://t.co/gXqFRomCag Delighted to share my CFT post. Not the snappiest of titles I’ve ever invented but it does do what it says on the tin! I’m “on” for the Sunday from 1.35 for about 20 minutes. “See” you there! pic.twitter.com/1usdNYZNwZ— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 20, 2020
Image Credit: All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Images of me signing copies of Tripping the Flash Fantastic taken by Adrian Symes.
I look at board and card games. Which were your favourites? Were there any you loathed? I share a few thoughts on why I think playing games like this are good for you and not just at Christmas and holiday time.
No surprises here when I say I’ve always been fond of the word games! But I have added to my vocabulary since playing Scrabble and games like it and for a writer, when is that ever a bad thing? Now I just need to find a way of working the word “Xi” into a story of mine!!
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Thrilled at another wonderful review for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Many thanks to all who have reviewed so far.
I know it means so much to writers to have feedback like this and it helps more than might at first appear. So if you’re thinking of writing a review for a book you’ve loved, please do!
Moving on, so to speak, I hope those of us with pets are managing to find ways of helping them cope with what is, for them, a stressful time with regard to fireworks etc. Am currently listening to Classic FM Pet Sounds and enjoying it. Lady is curled up on the sofa and is at least relaxed which is probably the best to hope for.
I appreciate this year is going to be worse as there are no organised displays etc but I must admit I do wish there would be a switchover to using silent fireworks. All the colours, all the fun, none of the noise that is so distressing to animals. Win-win. The sooner they are used by everyone the better.
Trip down Memory Lane for my Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I’ll be talking about board and card games. Naturally I have a fondness for the word based board games! More on Friday.
Many thanks for the great response to my new story on Facebook flagging up my Youtubechannel.
Am making good progress on my non-fiction project and looking forward to getting back on with tonight’s stint on that shortly.
Am also preparing some fab interviews to come on Chandler’s Ford Today for later this month so plenty going on. Looking forward to sharing these later in the month.
Also looking forward to taking part in the #BrechinBookFest later in November and will be writing about that for CFT just ahead of the event.
And don’t forget it you would like a signed copy of From Light to Dark and Back Again and/or Tripping the Flash Fantastic, do just DM me and we’ll take things from there.
Reviews, as ever, would always be most welcome. They help authors a lot and don’t need to be long. (Am so glad Lady can’t give a review. She looks distinctly unimpressed below!).
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From Light to Dark and Back Again
Do you have any favourite story themes? Mine fall into the following categories:-
1. Underdog winning through.
2. Injustice rectified. (Very close links to 1 usually).
3. Hidden pasts, usually magical, and kept hidden because the secret keeper has moved to another world, usually this one.
4. People trying to use magic for their own ends and failing miserably. (Lots of scope for humour here).
5. Character studies (I love the poignant ones which can show you another way of looking at things. Some of my historical flash tales cross with this category).
And the nice thing with all of the above is there is so much scope with each and every one. Different characters handle situations in their own way.
For one character, a humorous story would be their best vehicle. For another, it would be a “straight” tale, possibly tragic.
What I do know is the mood of the story has to reflect something of my character’s personality and attitudes, otherwise it won’t ring true.
I often work out what the most important thing is about the character I’m about to put in a story and then why that matters. There is the story in a nutshell.
Sometimes I work out what the character’s major trait is and how that affects them and the world around them. There is many a good story to be written using that route.
I do have a lot of fun with feisty characters here. They land themselves and others right in it and that is such fun to write and to read. I also think you can get a sense of when the writer has had fun creating their stories. Something of that comes through.
The reason formulaic writing can get a bad press is it comes through that the writer is bored with sticking to the same old, same old. Even in linked flash fiction stories, or series novels, the characters have to engage the readers each and every time.
That means the writer has to love writing about them to be able to keep that up. Therefore, there has to be something very special about their lead to generate that. What is the something special about your main character? Why do you write for them?
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I sometimes know the closing line for a flash fiction story right at the outset. I draft something that I know will be the perfect finish to a tale and then work backwards from there to get to the beginning of the story. It is also a great way of mixing up my approaches to story writing.
I find that keeps things fresh and interesting for me and hope it will do so for a reader too.
In The Magician in Tripping the Flash Fantastic, I knew what the closing line would be immediately. (I can’t say what it is without giving the story away!). Punchlines can work well here too. It’s then a question of finding the appropriate start to your story so that punchline is justified.
However I approach writing the story, my overall aim is to have a story that “flows well” so a reader will be taken along for what I hope will be an enjoyable but brief ride!
Interesting question this one, I think. If your story is set in a magical world, is everyone magical? Does everyone have the same abilities? Is there room to improve on your skills here? Is there anyone who has more magic than anyone else and what do they do with the “extra”?
Is there magical infighting and how does that manifest itself? If a species with the gift of invisibility resents another species who can fly, how could they use their gift to try to either gain the ability to fly themselves or to stop the others from doing so?
Wherever there is any kind of power, there will always be those who resent the ones wielding it so you can reflect that in your stories too. It is all about control when all is said and done, so who does the controlling?
How do they maintain their position? Do they use fear or do they reward those who work for them well so people are happy to go along with it?
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This World and Others – Etiquette and Expectations
Have you given thought to etiquette and expectations in your fictional world? Are there any?!
Any kind of society, including a fictional one, has to have some sort of system by which it works. Where you have a system, you will often have a class system.
What is expected by those who run your created world of those they rule over. What do the “subjects”expect of their rulers? Do either of them deliver?!
Do standards here match or mirror those of here on Earth?
There should be some kind of laws your society runs on, including a criminal law so people know what will happen if they fall foul of what is expected from them. How would this manifest itself in the world you’ve invented? Is their idea of what is criminal the same as ours or different?
Do the various species in your fictional world have varying standards of etiquette? Are there any common grounds between them? If one species thinks burping is the highest compliment known, how do they get on with another species who considers it rude? What would unite them?
Plenty of food for thought there!
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Twitter Corner
Thrilled at another lovely review for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Many thanks, everyone, who has reviewed so far. If you are thinking of reviewing a book you've loved, please, please DO. Doesn't have to be a long review. Helps more than you know. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/fQS2hFiRiL
Image Credit: All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Facebook – General
Hope your Tuesday has been okay. Lady and I got a soaking this morning. She dried out quicker than I did. Hey hum…
Lots coming up on CFT in November – two fab interviews I’m looking forward to sharing and naturally I’ll be flagging up the Brechin/Angus Book Fest which I’ll be taking part in. Am also going to be using November to make a breakthrough on my non-fiction project so will not be short of things to do. But that’s always good!
Must admit I’ve not adjusted to the clock change well this time. Keep feeling really tired about 9 instead of about 10. My subsconcious clearly hasn’t been fooled by the change!
I suppose the good thing about the darker evenings is that it does encourage you to stay in, get to your desk and ignore what is going on in the mad, mad world, and focus on what your characters are getting up to instead!
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Pleased to say I’ll have more publication news later this week (Cafelit) and I was delighted to see a friend and fellow Chandler’s Ford Today writer, Mike Sedgwick, on Cafelit too recently.
There is a wonderfully eclectic mix of stories on Cafelit so do check the site out. See http://cafelitcreativecafe.blogspot.com/and the idea is the stories here are long enough to have a drink to (and ideally a bit of cake too. Where would the world be without cake?!).
Great start to the week with another fab review for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. All reviews much appreciated.
Plenty on my To Do list right now but am looking forward to sharing my CFT post this week too. I’ll be talking about the joy of photos and even for fiction writers photos make a huge difference. After all we rely on being able to share book cover images, screenshots of fab reviews etc!
And photos can make great story prompts too.
Have started subbing stories again and looking forward to getting on with writing more. Have a lovely interview to write up for CFT and am looking forward to that.
Plus will be doing some prep work this week on my non-fiction project ahead of doing a massive stint on this during November. (I am basically looking to complete a first draft if I can. I have written some of the material already but I know it needs reorganising and more material to be added to it).
A big thanks to Wendy H. Jones who updated the #ClubhouseBookshopheader today to include book cover images of some of the authors involved in this FB group. (And do check the group out – it will give you fab ideas for Christmas book presents for one thing!).
I’ll give you one guess precisely as to why I was pleased with what Wendy came up with!😂
Delighted to have an unexpected guest blog appearance on #MaressaMortimer’s blog (and another review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic on Amazon). See the blog link.
And best of all, I am in very good company with Scottish crime writer #WendyHJones (and her DI Shona McKenzie series) and #LizCarter who has recently released her poetry and short story collection, Treasure in Dark Places.
If you need somewhere to start with your Christmas book buying wish list, folks, you could start here!
Despite the awful weather in the UK right now (and I hope everyone has kept as warm and dry as possible), it has been a lovely day as I’ve had the great pleasure of signing another book and getting that ready to post early next week. I love tasks like that!
Writing wise, I am busy preparing for another blog appearance and for an interview I’m looking forward to carrying out for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. And I am about to get back to my non-fiction project which I hope to make great steps forward with during November.
Who needs to go outside and get wet then? Oh yes…. Lady but thankfully her walkies are finished for today and even she appreciates cosy time of an evening!
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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
One of the things I enjoyed most for the cyberlaunch of Tripping The Flash Fantastic was in creating some videos where I read a couple of stories. I then talked a bit about what led me to the write the stories in the way that I have.
I hope to be doing more of that in due course but for now my top tip is, after you’ve got the first draft down, DO take time to think back on why you’ve written the story the way you have. Ask yourself if the story DOES achieve what you hoped it would.
You are going to see the flaws of course. Don’t worry about that. This is a draft after all but if your key point was to show a character overcoming adversity, well check they actually do so and in a way that is realistic to them and to your reader.
A character using magic to help them get out of a situation is okay where your story is clearly set in a world where that is possible. It’s not okay in the middle of a suburban High Street with no previous hint of magic being a possibility. (That scenario is likely to cause unfavourable comment! Mind you, I suppose there could be comic possibilities there! The general point remains though. If magic is a possibility, then it should be flagged up early in the story. You don’t want to risk your reader feeling cheated).
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What do you learn most from stories?
Well, you learn what you love and loathe. But it pays to look carefully at a story that didn’t grab you and ask yourself why that was. There usually is something (for me it’s usually characterisation that didn’t convince me) and then you can take that and hopefully avoid making the same mistake in your own work.
For a story you love, look at what DID grab you and explore why that was. If it’s sparkling dialogue say, look at how the writer has written their wonderful prose. What can you learn from that?
I love playing the guessing game with stories new to me. I do try to guess how the characters will end up. I’ve mentioned before that I love being wrong-footed by authors here but, on the assumption this happens to you too, go back and look at where you think the writer “mis-led” you.
Almost inevitably you will find clues in the story you should’ve picked up on but didn’t on the first read through. And again you can learn from that for your own storytelling.
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Sent off a flash tale today so pleased with that. Hope to be back to writing flash more regularly now though obviously marketing for TTFF will be ongoing.
I am trying to do something on that most days and see it as a long term thing. This is the good thing with marketing. It doesn’t all have to be done by a specific time period. After all I will want to talk about both of my flash collections, do what I can to promote them, for a VERY long time.
The best marketing is in itself creative so I see it as part of the whole writing “package”.
Hope you have a good writing and reading week and I hope you enjoyed The Perfect System yesterday. Follows below so yes story time!
The latest anthology where I have two stories pubished.
My debut flash fiction collection.
Yours truly. Image by Adrian Symes.
You know I have a fondness for random generators. Well I was exploring a random verb generator today and came up with the words ride, file, and cling. As ever with these things, you choose how many words you want to generate. You can also set the first and last letter. I tend to just choose the number of words I want. So what can I do with these three then? Let’s have a go…
The Perfect System ‘Your timing is not wonderful, Inspector. I wanted to complete my filing,’ the old lady peered up at her unwelcome visitor. But given she was only 3’10, she peered up at almost everyone. ‘Couldn’t this wait? All I want is to get myself organised and all I get are visitors turning up at all times. Most inconsiderate I call it.’ ‘No, Ma’am.This can’t wait. And I’m sorry to disturb you but even in a magical world such as ours, the law won’t wait for anyone and, with yet another disappearance, I must talk to you now. You were the last one to see Draganna alive.’ ‘Draganna.. Draganna…oh yes, the tiny fairy who thinks she knows better than everyone else. That is who you mean, Inspector?’ The Inspector coughed. ‘I have heard tale the lady could be bossy, Ma’am, but she didn’t deserve to die.’ ‘May I know what happened to her?’ ‘Draganna was last seen going for a ride on a dragon. Goodness knows why. The government warn people often enough dragon riding is dangerous. You can cling on as much as you want but if the dragon gets fed up, it just turns its head and either eats you whole or flames you. They are not meant to be used as taxi rides.’ The old lady tutted and went to her filing cabinet. She took out a manilla folder and opened it. Inside was a picture of a girl, a dragon, and a one page report. ‘Is this of any use to you, Inspector?’ The Inspector gasped. ‘That’s Draganna. That’s the dragon. And this page “predicts” Draganna will die by dragon. This is dated a year ago.’ ‘And Draganna died when?’ ‘Today, Ma’am. Look how…’ ‘I want to know, Inspector, why my predictor filing system is out of sync. I will complain to the manufacturers. They don’t make things the way they used to do. I pride myself on my accuracy and I will not stand for my timing system to be out and by a year at that!’ ‘Ma’am, that is not the point. You predicted this girl’s death and the way it would happen and it has turned out that way. I think you need to come with me to the station for a chat.’ ‘Very well, Inspector, if you insist but may I first go and get my coat?’ ‘Of course.’ Out in the hallway the old lady put on her coat, having first had a quick look at the manilla file inside it. It read “Inspector Know It All. Death by enraged elder fairy godmother. Thirty seconds after he escorts her out of the house.’ The old lady smiled. Her timing might be out but her predictions always came true.
Ends Allison Symes – 24th October 2020
Hope you enjoy!
PS I was so thrilled to find this pic on Pixabay. It tied in beautifully with my story Time for Some Peace on the book trailer for Tripping the Flash Fantastic and it works well again here! But so you can have another story, I will simply put the book trailer in again! The picture I refer to is the one of the dragon who looks as if she is congratulating herself after a spectacular burst of flame… as you would.
I owe my love of reading to my late mother. I loved reading from an early age and never got out of the habit. I’m phenomenally grateful for what I see as presents – the gift of literacy, the gift of wanting to read, and the gift of enjoying stories of most kinds. Those gifts are priceless I think.
So what drew you into reading? Were you encouraged to read early? Did you discover a wonderful book and wanted to read more by the author? (I was like that with the wonderful works of Terry Pratchett. I first read Jingo and then absolutely had to read the rest of the Discworld series).
What matters is we keep on reading. It’s important not to get out of the habit even if you don’t have as much time for reading as you might like. This is where short story collections play a wonderful role as they are great for dipping into and I would say that even if I didn’t have work appearing in them, honest!
This tweet came up again on a friend’s Twitter feed (hello, #ValPenny!) but it’s a great picture from Swanwick Writers’ Summer School and great to share again. I can safely say all of us in this picture are very much looking forward to Swanwick 2021, having missed the cancelled Swanwick 2020 enormously.
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today Double post from me tonight. A busy end to a busy week!
First up tonight is the link to my Chandler’s Ford Today post for this week. The Phone Conversation is a bit different from the kind of post I usually write here as (a) I set a writing challenge in it and (b) I include a new piece of flash fiction too.
My challenge is where I invite you to name one person (existing forwards or backwards in time) who you would love to speak to by phone. You only get the ONE phone call. Remember the old cop shows that always had that as a plot device? Well, I’ve taken the idea and run with it here.
Whichever direction in time you choose, the recipient would be enabled to use the phone. (Nor, if you go back in time, would they be burnt for witchcraft in being able to use such a strange device!).
Rules: Keep it short, keep it funny (and that rules out politics given that is anything BUT funny).
Now naturally I answered my own challenge and came up with a new flash fiction story as it was the best way for me to answer it! See The Biter Bit which I hope both amuses you and acts as a kind of heads-up to be wary of the scammers out there.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with – comments over on the CFT page please. (Oh and I had great fun with the captions for some of the images below but do check these out over on the CFT page! You can probably guess which ones I had the fun with!).
Delighted to share another lovely review for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Many thanks!
Now as we head rapidly towards the end of the year, and with book events mainly going to online versions only, writers, I know, are going to be even more appreciative of support than we normally are. (And generally we ARE an appreciative lot, honest!).
The nice thing is there are two big things you can do to support the writer friends in your life and they cost nothing, merely take a little time.
These are:- 1. Support their event by “going” to it even if only for a short while. 2. Give an honest review of their book on Amazon and Goodreads in particular.
Many thanks to #ValPenny for hosting me on her blog today. This is the final part of my mini blog tour, all involving splendid people from Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. (Last week I was guest on #PatriciaMOsborne‘s and #JenWilson‘s blogs – thank you, ladies!).
Tonight’s post with Val is an in-depth article. Naturally I talk about Tripping The Flash Fantastic, what I love about flash fiction writing, and discuss what I can of my internet search history! 😂😂😂 Best leave it there I think.
I also share a little about my writing routine and what I think is the best thing about being a writer.
Thanks again, Val. It was fab to chat!
Swanwick Writers’ Summer School buddies.
Val and I at Swanwick Writers’ Summer School.
From Light to Dark and Back Again
I’ve written a new flash story, The Biter Bit, as part of my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week (and that’s a first). Hope you enjoy!
I found writing a story was the best way to answer the challenge I set in this post (and naturally I was going to meet said challenge myself). Stories are fabulous vehicles for getting points across without preaching or switching people off.
(Oh and a quick update on Tripping The Flash Fantastic. It is available on the Waterstones website too).
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Hope the week has been a good one. Now I usually share news about my Chandler’s Ford Today post over on my Facebook Author page. But this week’s post is different!
Called The Phone Conversation, I issue a fun challenge and share a new flash fiction story in my response to the challenge I set! Can’t really say more than that without giving the game away but link up tomorrow. (See above!).
I don’t usually combine my fiction with non-fiction writing but for the challenge I set, I realised using a flash story was the best way to meet it! More tomorrow. It is the first flash tale I’ve written for a couple of weeks given the cyberlaunch for TTFF etc and it was good to get back to that again.
A huge thanks to #ValPenny for hosting me on her blog today. It’s always a joy to chat about flash fiction. Naturally, Tripping The Flash Fantastic was mentioned too!
(Link to go on my website shortly on my interviews page and later in the week on my next blog post. I have shared this on my author page on Facebook tonight though so do pop across to that if you would like to read this now. Val knows how to set good questions!).
I do have an interview page on my website (which I will be updating shortly to include the mini blog tour I’ve been on with Val today, and #PatriciaMOsborne and #JenWilson last week). If you want to know more about my work and/or flash fiction, the interview page is a good place to start.
(And I will be updating the page again probably over the weekend to include my appearance on #BarryLillie’s blog this week too).
Fairytales With Bite – Is Magic All That Wonderful in Stories?
One thing I don’t think is stressed enough is that magic is not the be all and end all in a story. Nor should it be. If a character can just solve all of their problems with the wave of the old magic wand, well that’s going to make for a very boring story. Wave wand, conflict and story over. Hmm.,, I don’t know about you but I would feel a bit cheated with that.
There should be limitations as to how magic can be used (and I also believe it would have to drain the user of it physically and mentally too). I felt the Harry Potter series covered this aspect well.
Also Lord Vetinari in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series also makes pointed comments about how dangerous magic is especially when countering Moist Von Lipwig’s plea to use the stuff in Raising Steam and call the wizards in to help with a major and urgent problem he’s facing.
So, for me, a good story does show the down side of magic. I also like to see characters call on their own non-magical resources to solve problems. I also like to seem them overcome issues which are caused by magic. And when magic is used, it should be where there is no other option and should be for the good of more than one character.
Also there’s the whole aspect of abuse of magical power to be explored too. How that is tackled or not is to me far more interesting than the magical element itself.
The writer will always need to know far more about their fictional world than the reader does. You will need to know what drives your characters and some of their back story but that doesn’t mean it has to appear on the page the reader enjoys.
What should come through is a sense that the writer really knows their characters and it is that I think readers pick up on.
I love discovering more about the fictional world as the story goes along. I don’t need to know it all at once. And having characters reveal things is also intriguing. What is obvious to one character isn’t to another and that character discovers something new at the same time as the reader does. Always like that.
So it is a question then of working out what it is your reader does need to know and how best to “plant it” in the story. You don’t want a huge block of info all in one hit as that risks sending the reader to sleep (especially if their reading is done at bedtime as mine is!).
But by drip feeding information, that goes a long way to keeping the reader turning the pages to find out more.
Image Credit: All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Image of Lady and I taken by Adrian Symes.
Facebook – General
Final prize winner and runner-up prizes hand delivered locally today. Many thanks to everyone who has tweeted/sent messages to say they’ve got their “prize bundles”. Always nice to get something nice in the post/through the door instead of the usual bills etc. (See tweets at the end of tonight’s post). This is one of the nicest aspects of being a writer!).
Writing wise, I’m working my way back into my “normal” writing life with my CFT post already scheduled for this week. Am hoping to get back to my long term non-fiction project sometime this week and want to start submitting new work to Cafelit etc before long. There are other marketing things I want to do for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. So definitely not going to be short of things to do!
It can be tricky getting the balance right for writing new work, editing work so you can get on and submit it somewhere, and marketing for work you’ve already done.
My overall view is to try and get something done on every aspect in allocated time slots for them several times during the week.
Okay some weeks I will get more done than others but it is making the space available that helps so much here. Tuesday, I’m drafting blogs, Thursday, I’m marketing books etc etc. It is not set in stone and allows room for overlap but does make sure I cover as much as I can over a seven day period.
If I see an invite on a book related blog or FB group to share details of my new book, then I’ll drop things to do precisely that and resume what I was doing afterwards. But you get the idea.
I don’t think there is a perfect system for this kind of thing (and I think I’d be distrustful of anyone who said there was. What works for one person may not work for another) but what I do love about the writing community as a whole is the willingness to share ideas.
I’ve lost count of how many tips I’ve picked up over the years which have all increased my productivity/time management so I get more work done overall. (Scrivener is by the far the best tip I’ve taken advantage of here!).
Hope your Monday has been a reasonable one. I do feel a little like I’ve crashed back to earth again after the cyberlaunch for Tripping The Flash Fantastic on Saturday but I was expecting that.
Mind you, with a day spent washing, rescuing said washing from heavy rainfall, cooking and shopping, well it is definitely life as it is lived once again. Nobody said it had to be glamorous! (Just as well really! 😊😊😊).
Things to come this week. I will be appearing on #ValPenny’s blog later this week and am looking forward to sharing the link for that.
Quick heads-up to the winners and runners-up in the various little games I set on Saturday – your prizes are winging their way to you via Royal Mail so should be with you later this week. Hope you enjoy. It was a great joy to get those off at the post office today (and yes I did tell them what was in the packets!).
There are a couple of you lucky people who live near enough for me to deliver your prizes so I hope to do that tomorrow.
And before I forget, a big thanks for all the entries to the photo caption competition. All of them made me laugh and it was a hard task deciding on the winner and runner-up. This is something I will look to do again. It was great fun. (Photo I used is below. This just had “caption competition” all over it – well it did to me! Image taken by my better half, Adrian Symes).
My Chandler’s Ford Today post is going to be different this week too. It’s the first post I’ve written which is a non-fiction one (as usual) but which also incorporates a new flash fiction story from yours truly. The tale is funny but also gets a good point across. I look forward to sharing the link for that on Friday.
I can’t really say more without giving things away BUT can add I am hoping people will join in with the challenge I set in this post. Oh and the challenge is definitely “do-able” so more later in the week.
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
A HUGE thank you to all who supported my cyberlaunch in any way on Saturday night.
It was great fun to “chat” with so many of you and I had a whale of a time. Hope you did too.
Glad to see that the old Youtube clip of Monster Mash went down so well with everyone. It was great having a trip down that particular Memory Lane!
I’ve always loved the track and see it as a kind of a salute to Bewitched, The Munsters, The Addams Family etc. And given many of my flash fiction tales are on the quirky side, it is such an apt track to pick!
Have happily spent today getting the prizes ready to send to those lucky people who won or were runners-up in my raffle, quiz, and photo caption competition. Am looking forward to telling the good people in my local Post Office what is in the packets before posting them off! Subtle advertising or showing off – YOU decide!😂😂
And the icing on the cake today?
I’m absolutely thrilled to share that Tripping the Flash Fantastic broke into the Top 1000 on Kindle for Single Author Story Collections on Amazon earlier today. This is a first for me and am feeling seriously chuffed, as you do.🙂😉
Thank you, everyone!
PS I do offer signed copies of the paperback and am happy to post them off to you especially if you’re in the UK. Just DM me and we can take things from there. For anyone outside of the UK, I can post the book but will need to allow extra postage costs. Having said that, I do have an Amazon page in various countries so it would be worth checking those out.
Now this was a time related post on Saturday night of course! But I am leaving the link to the discussion page for my event here. Do check out the posts – and the links. I will put in shortly a couple of my videos sharing extracts from my new book.
About 20 minutes to go to my cyberlaunch for Tripping the Flash Fantastic. Hope to see you there. Have got a great pic for a photo caption competition so get your thinking caps on – oh and keep them clean! More to come on the launch page which is at https://www.facebook.com/events/1246876649024453/?active_tab=discussion
I’ve mentioned the use of random generators before and I used one on Saturday night for my cyberlaunch for Tripping The Flash Fantastic. I used a number generator to give all visitors to my launch a unique number. I then used it again later to “draw” the numbers for the winner and runners-up for my online raffle.
Now another way to use the random number generator is to use it to set the word count for your next flash tale. I’ve just used it and generated “25”. So let’s see then… (oh and I am counting the title in the word count).
Twenty-Five
It was my favourite number until I got soaked through thanks to the bus driver speeding his wretched double decker through a massive puddle.
Allison Symes – 13th October 2020
Hope you enjoy!
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.comI found a random generator to be more useful than a pair of dice for the raffle but it is hard to find a picture of a random number generator!
A new flash fiction story from me, which is funny yet still manages to get a good point across, will form part of my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. I look forward to sharing the link on Friday.
When I started drafting my post, I hadn’t planned to put fiction into it. After all my CFT posts are strictly non-fiction but I quickly realised that what I was trying to say would work better as a flash tale in the overall post so that it is what I have done. I am also setting a challenge in this post but it is a fun one so I hope you join in!
I sometimes use flash fiction directly in marketing. (After all I include a flash tale in both of my book trailers for FLTDBA and now Tripping the Flash Fantastic. It is a great way to show people what flash fiction is as well as being a very useful “taster”).
This is where the advantage of a short form comes in useful. I can share a whole story and it doesn’t take too much in download time etc.
What a weekend! Many thanks to everyone for your support for my cyberlaunch on Saturday night.
Marketing for a book is, of course, an ongoing thing, and should always be seen as long term. Last week, for me, was the big push ahead of the cyberlaunch naturally.
Plans now are to continue to find different ways to market the book, get back to flash fiction writing (well, that third collection won’t write itself!), and I am itching to resume work on a non-fiction book too. So no danger of me becoming bored any time soon and that is how I like it!
Now on my original FB post. I did say the following!
I will just finish tonight by sharing the trailer for TTFF again. I share a story, Time For Some Peace, here, and it makes a good place to start if you’re new to flash fiction.
However, I’ve already shared this above so will share here a recording of me reading a very short piece called The Back of Beyond from TTFF. Hope you enjoy.
Note: videos included above but do check out the event posts as they were great fun. The whole Facebook post is far too long to reproduce here and it is simpler to share the link but also check out the music clips here. It was such fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it which I am so pleased about! I had such fun playing with Canva with various things for my FB posts in the run up to the launch – see in the pictures below. Will happily use Canva again.
Difficult question to answer isn’t it? So much depends on the genre chosen too.
Overall, it has to be the characters who grip me. I’ve got to want to find out what happens to them. I’ve got to care about the outcome. It does have to matter to the character and therefore to me as the reader.
For historical fiction, I’m always keen to find out how a writer shares the information we need to know about the period without giving us “information overload”. That is they don’t give a whole wealth of information so you end up forgetting what the story actually is.
I like to see information drip fed to me in an entertaining way. One of my favourite books ever is The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey and that is a great example of how information is shared while keeping the story going and the pace up.
For crime fiction, I want to see how the author gives clues without giving the whole game away and that is not an easy balancing act.
For fantasy, I want to see characters I can identify with in terms of their needs and longings even if their species is totally alien in every sense of that phrase!
For me, a good read of whatever kind is getting the readers hooked to the characters. For non-fiction, that character is the voice of the narrator.
A huge thanks to all who supported my cyberlaunch for #TrippingTheFlashFantastic, my second flash fiction collection, Saturday night. A huge thanks to Chapeltown Books. Thrilled to say I broke into the Top 1000 for Kindle under Single Author Short Stories earlier. A first for me! pic.twitter.com/ivKhWYH0D1
Image Credit:All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today
A self explanatory post from me for CFT this week (well, you can’t get more self explanatory than Local Author Cyberlaunch News – Allison Symes – Tripping The Flash Fantastic – can you?!)
Having said that I do share in this post some thoughts on cyberlaunches, the joy of technology, and how good prep work helps SO much with this kind of event.
Hope you enjoy the post and hope to see you at the Tripping The Flash Fantastic event tomorrow. See both the CFT post for details and the direct link here.
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Well, it has been quite a week but it is lovely to end it looking ahead to the cyberlaunch tomorrow.
I am also delighted to share a fantastic (appropriately!) review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic from Aly Rhodes which came in today. A huge thanks to her and to all of my lovely reviewers so far.
TRIPPING THE FLASH FANTASTIC This is the author’s second collection of flash fiction i.e. where the stories are often very brief ( 100 words) up to maybe 1000 at most; maximum story with minimum wordage. Here in this collection witches play tricks, historic figures give their pov’s (Anne Boleyn), Santa Claus is revealed, dragons fly, and fairy godmothers run rampant.
Symes has enormous fun with these quirky, alternative mini-tales, which often make the reader laugh but sometimes cry too.
My favourites were The Pink Rose, (outstandingly touching), And Then There Are Tuesdays (I was born on a Tuesday so this had resonance for me) and Time To Be Off, the last line cracked me up.
Dip in, sample, taste and savour these short shorts.
And on behalf of ALL writers, I’ll take the chance to say reviews are always hugely appreciated by us all. They don’t have to be long but they help so much.
I use reviews myself as a consumer for everything from book purchases to new groceries to try! So if you’re thinking of reviewing but haven’t done so, perhaps you’re wondering if it’s worth it, then let me say it definitely IS worth it. Please do send them in!
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
Tripping the Flash Fantastic Cyberlaunch ONE DAY TO GO! Where has the week gone? Time for another story I think. Look forward to seeing you on my Facebook event page from 7 pm tomorrow.
As well as celebrating the launch of Tripping The Flash Fantastic (and it means so much to me to have a second book out), I would like to see the launch as a celebration of stories. They are always worth celebrating! Cheers!
Tonight I share one of my favourite tales from TTFF – Being Yourself. You may never look at librarians in quite the same way again…🙂😉
Delighted to share another review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic. Many thanks to Gail Aldwin for the following.
TRIPPING THE FLASH FANTASTIC
The title sums up this collection exactly! These short stories contain characters including dragons, witches, fairies, ghosts, figures from history and contemporary life. Many stories include unusual observations and viewpoints. Some are funny, others pack a punch. If you enjoy a diverse collection of stories, this is the book for you!
When it comes to reading, as well as writing flash collections, I do love a variety of mood and characters. It is always the characters I want to discover and root for/boo hard at (depending on whether they’re the villain or not). Naturally that love of character comes out in my own writing.
And a little later, I’ll be sharing a brief reading of one of my stories from Tripping the Flash Fantastic on my events page, which I hope you enjoy. (I’ve put one of the videos I’ve used up above and will share another here shortly). (Oh and below are three other images I did have in mind for the book cover for TTFF at some point).
Tripping the Flash Fantastic Cyberlaunch It’s storytime as the flyer says. I’m reading Judgement Day from Tripping The Flash Fantastic and then share a little of what led me to writing this story. Hope you enjoy. Oh and before I forget, as if I could (!)… TWO DAYS TO GO! (When I put this on Facebook during the week of course. It has been a busy and exciting week as you can probably tell by now!).
Such good fun to be on a mini blog tour at the moment. I was guest on #PatriciaMOsborne’s blog yesterday. Today I am on Jen Wilson’s blog (see my earlier post for the link). Next week I shall be on Val Penny’s one. And the two things the four of us have in common?
As well as being writers, we are all stalwarts of the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. AND two of us are part of the renowned Prosecco Queens’ quiz team of said Summer School!
(Image below is of me taking part in the Open Prose Mic Night at the School in 2019. Many thanks to #PennyBlackburn for the pic. The other image was taken by Cheryl Holland on my phone and features Val Penny and Jen Wilson and other lovely Swanwick friends. We all can’t wait for Swanwick to resume, hopefully, in 2021).
Many thanks to #JenniferCWilson for hosting me on her blog today. It is always great fun to talk about flash fiction. Knowing Jennifer’s own love for history, it was particularly nice to discuss this aspect of my flash fiction writing with her here.
Flash fiction has the huge advantage of being character led and I can set those characters wherever and whenever I want. Great fun! But with Tripping The Flash Fantastic, for the first time, I have written historically based flash fiction. See the article for more about this but it is something I hope to do more of at some point.
Jennifer C Wilson and book fair. Image kindly supplied by her.
Tripping the Flash Fantastic Cyberlaunch I’m on a mini blog tour at the moment with fellow stalwarts from the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. It was a pleasure to chat yesterday with Patricia M Osborne on her blog.
Next week I shall be on Val Penny’s blog and it has been great having slots ahead of the cyberlaunch and again just after it.
As I know Jen writes historical paranormal (do check out her Kindred Spirits series), my focus for this blog spot was on my historical flash stories in TTFF.
I’ve mentioned on my posts before that one thing I love about flash fiction is it has to be character-led. That means I can set those characters wherever and whenever I want!
For the first time with TTFF, I have set stories back in time. There are stories in here which are from the viewpoint of Richard III and Elizabeth of York for example, as well as my trademark “fairytales with bite” fiction.
All good fun to do and, of course, history is full of wonderful and not-so wonderful characters. This is an aspect of flash writing I hope to do more of in future.
Time for a listen I think! I had the great joy of being a guest on #WendyHJones’ excellent podcast, The Writing and Marketing Show, earlier this year. My first time on a podcast, great fun to do, and no prizes for guessing what I talked about (though there is a huge hint below!).
Do check out Wendy’s show every Wednesday. All of the episodes are jam packed with tips and advice.
One of the challenges of any form of fiction writing is ensuring readers can tell your characters apart by the way they speak etc.
Now with flash fiction where I often focus on one character per story, that isn’t a problem as such.
Where the challenge DOES come in is ensuring that in a collection like From Light to Dark and Back Again and now Tripping the Flash Fantastic as well, the characters in the books as a WHOLE are nicely varied. Readers should be able to distinguish between the stories (and thus the characters).
It’s another reason why I like a good variety of mood and tone in my books as that helps with this aspect enormously.
Sometimes when I write my flash tales, I have the character in mind clearly and I then need to think of something for them to do! At other times I have the ideas of a situation to write about but need the right person to “fill” the role, so to speak. So this is why I jot down ideas for stories but also for characters.
Let’s say a competition theme is one of honesty. I could go one of two ways here – use an honest character and highlight the theme via them directly. Or I can use a dishonest character and contrast them with the honest situation. Both would work. It’s then down to me to decide which of the two characters I think is the strongest and I will then write their story up.
Gill, Dawn and I will be talking about the writing life and working with a publisher on 26th September 2020 via Zoom. Pixabay image.
This week is going to be focused on my launch for Tripping the Flash Fantastic, of course, but I am looking forward to sharing a couple of readings from the new book. (See above!).
How do I choose stories for reading for things like this or for Open Prose Mic Nights and the like? I try to go for a balance of mood. If I read a funny tale, I will read a darker one too. I also go for a balance of lengths too. If I read a 100-worder, I will also read a 250 or something that is a little longer than the first tale I read.
Above all, I try not to go on for too long. Recordings are best kept fairly short (as it effects download time etc). Also a short recording or reading makes it easier to keep your listener’s interest.
Pic below is of me reading at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School’s Open Prose Mic Night (and there’s a phrase you don’t want to say quickly!). A huge thanks to #GeoffParkes for the pic.
Fairytales With Bite – The Sting in The Tail
One of the joys of flash fiction writing, which is my big love, is it is a great form for twist in the tale endings. Also, as the form has to be character led, you can set those characters whenever and wherever you want. Your characters don’t have to be human either. I like all of that!
One great thing about using non-human characters is you can use them to reflect aspects of us. Animal Farm by George Orwell does that brilliantly. (Definitely not flattering either).
The most effective stings in the tail are for me where:-
1. The character is an aggravating one and deserves whatever is coming to them!
2. You think a character you’re rooting for has little chance of winning and things change at the very last moment so that they do win out. (The classic fairytales often work on this basis. Think of Cinderella when the Prince insists that all of the women in the household have to try the glass slipper. Had the Prince not been so persistent….)
So think about how and where in your story you are going to place your sting. In my Calling The Doctor from From Light to Dark and Back Again, my sting is in the very last word.
Both book trailers below. (For me it is lovely seeing them side by side).
Hope you enjoy the stories and do think about how you can make your sting have the maximum impact on a reader. Sometimes you can know the sting fairly early on. It is then a question of finding out whether the character deals with that sting in a good way or not and that can be fun too.
This World and Others – Conjuring Up Your World
What do you want readers to imagine when they read your stories? What aspects of your created world are the most important for them to read about and how can you convey that?
I’ve mentioned before it is often the telling detail placed in the right place in a story that has the maximum impact on a reader. I don’t necessarily need to know Character A lives in an “upside down” world.
I do need to know Character A walks on what we would consider to be the sky and a brief showing of how that is done. (For the characters that live in this world it would all be perfectly natural of course, but often a story changes dramatically when a stranger comes into the world and someone has to show them the ropes).
Readers need a sense that if your world were to exist somewhere, it could exist. That is your characters can find food, drink, shelter, there is some sort of government etc. You can unveil this a bit at a time and I can think of no better example to use than Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. You find out more about how Ankh-Morpork is “run” as the series goes on. What he gives you in each story is enough for you to make sense of that story.
Image Credit:All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today
A self explanatory post from me for CFT this week (well, you can’t get more self explanatory than Local Author Cyberlaunch News – Allison Symes – Tripping The Flash Fantastic – can you?!)
Having said that I do share in this post some thoughts on cyberlaunches, the joy of technology, and how good prep work helps SO much with this kind of event.
Hope you enjoy the post and hope to see you at the Tripping The Flash Fantastic event tomorrow. See both the CFT post for details and the direct link here.
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Well, it has been quite a week but it is lovely to end it looking ahead to the cyberlaunch tomorrow.
I am also delighted to share a fantastic (appropriately!) review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic from Aly Rhodes which came in today. A huge thanks to her and to all of my lovely reviewers so far.
TRIPPING THE FLASH FANTASTIC This is the author’s second collection of flash fiction i.e. where the stories are often very brief ( 100 words) up to maybe 1000 at most; maximum story with minimum wordage. Here in this collection witches play tricks, historic figures give their pov’s (Anne Boleyn), Santa Claus is revealed, dragons fly, and fairy godmothers run rampant. Symes has enormous fun with these quirky, alternative mini-tales, which often make the reader laugh but sometimes cry too. My favourites were The Pink Rose, (outstandingly touching), And Then There Are Tuesdays (I was born on a Tuesday so this had resonance for me) and Time To Be Off, the last line cracked me up. Dip in, sample, taste and savour these short shorts.
And on behalf of ALL writers, I’ll take the chance to say reviews are always hugely appreciated by us all. They don’t have to be long but they help so much. I use reviews myself as a consumer for everything from book purchases to new groceries to try! So if you’re thinking of reviewing but haven’t done so, perhaps you’re wondering if it’s worth it, then let me say it definitely IS worth it. Please do send them in!
Tripping the Flash Fantastic Cyberlaunch ONE DAY TO GO! Where has the week gone? Time for another story I think. Look forward to seeing you here from 7 pm tomorrow. As well as celebrating the launch of Tripping The Flash Fantastic (and it means so much to me to have a second book out), I would like to see the launch as a celebration of stories. They are always worth celebrating! Cheers! Tonight I share one of my favourite tales from TTFF – Being Yourself. You may never look at librarians in quite the same way again…🙂😉 Smile and wink emojis. BY recording.
8th October
Delighted to share another review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic. Many thanks to Gail Aldwin for the following.
The title sums up this collection exactly! These short stories contain characters including dragons, witches, fairies, ghosts, figures from history and contemporary life. Many stories include unusual observations and viewpoints. Some are funny, others pack a punch. If you enjoy a diverse collection of stories, this is the book for you!
When it comes to reading, as well as writing flash collections, I do love a variety of mood and characters. It is always the characters I want to discover and root for/boo hard at (depending on whether they’re the villain or not). Naturally that love of character comes out in my own writing. And a little later this evening, I’ll be sharing a brief reading of one of my stories from Tripping the Flash Fantastic on my events page, which I hope you enjoy. (Oh and below are three other images I did have in mind for the book cover for TTFF at some point). Use TTFF images 1, 2, 3. See TTFF folder.
Tripping the Flash Fantastic Cyberlaunch It’s storytime as the flyer says. I’m reading Judgement Day from Tripping The Flash Fantastic and then share a little of what led me to writing this story. Hope you enjoy. Oh and before I forget, as if I could (!)… TWO DAYS TO GO! Use the jpg download of the flyer AND from my TTFF drive on E drive the Judgement Day story OR use Dropbox to create a link as I did for CFT. Might be better to do that though may be worth trying to import video directly.
7th October Such good fun to be on a mini blog tour at the moment. I was guest on #PatriciaMOsborne’s blog yesterday. Today I am on Jen Wilson’s blog (see my earlier post for the link). Next week I shall be on Val Penny’s one. And the two things the four of us have in common? As well as being writers, we are all stalwarts of the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. AND two of us are part of the renowned Prosecco Queens’ quiz team of said Summer School! (Image below is of me taking part in the Open Prose Mic Night at the School in 2019. Many thanks to #PennyBlackburn for the pic). Swanwick 2019 folder
Many thanks to #JenniferCWilson for hosting me on her blog today. It is always great fun to talk about flash fiction. Knowing Jennifer’s own love for history, it was particularly nice to discuss this aspect of my flash fiction writing with her here. Flash fiction has the huge advantage of being character led and I can set those characters wherever and whenever I want. Great fun! But with Tripping The Flash Fantastic, for the first time, I have written historically based flash fiction. See the article for more about this but it is something I hope to do more of at some point. Just to confirm the link for my launch event on Saturday can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/1246876649024453
Tripping the Flash Fantastic Cyberlaunch I’m on a mini blog tour at the moment with fellow stalwarts from the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. It was a pleasure to chat yesterday with Patricia M Osborne on her blog. Today I chat with Jen Wilson on her blog at https://jennifercwilsonwriter.wordpress.com/2020/10/07/spotlight-allison-symes-tripping-the-flash-fantastic/ Next week I shall be on Val Penny’s blog and it has been great having slots ahead of the cyberlaunch and again just after it. As I know Jen writes historical paranormal (do check out her Kindred Spirits series), my focus for this blog spot was on my historical flash stories in TTFF. I’ve mentioned on my posts before that one thing I love about flash fiction is it has to be character-led. That means I can set those characters wherever and whenever I want! For the first time with TTFF, I have set stories back in time. There are stories in here which are from the viewpoint of Richard III and Elizabeth of York for example, as well as my trademark “fairytales with bite” fiction. All good fun to do and, of course, history is full of wonderful and not-so wonderful characters. This is an aspect of flash writing I hope to do more of in future.
SECOND POST Time for a listen I think! I had the great joy of being a guest on #WendyHJones’ excellent podcast, The Writing and Marketing Show, earlier this year. My first time on a podcast, great fun to do, and no prizes for guessing what I talked about (though there is a huge hint below!). Do check out Wendy’s show every Wednesday. All of the episodes are jam packed with tips and advice. See https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-writing-and-marketing-show/e/67280384
From Light to Dark and Back Again – General
9th October One of the challenges of any form of fiction writing is ensuring readers can tell your characters apart by the way they speak etc. Now with flash fiction where I often focus on one character per story, that isn’t a problem as such. Where the challenge DOES come in is ensuring that in a collection like From Light to Dark and Back Again and now Tripping the Flash Fantastic as well, the characters in the books as a WHOLE are nicely varied. Readers should be able to distinguish between the stories (and thus the characters). It’s another reason why I like a good variety of mood and tone in my books as that helps with this aspect enormously.
8th October Sometimes when I write my flash tales, I have the character in mind clearly and I then need to think of something for them to do! At other times I have the ideas of a situation to write about but need the right person to “fill” the role, so to speak. So this is why I jot down ideas for stories but also for characters. Let’s say a competition theme is one of honesty. I could go one of two ways here – use an honest character and highlight the theme via them directly. Or I can use a dishonest character and contrast them with the honest situation. Both would work. It’s then down to me to decide which of the two characters I think is the strongest and I will then write their story up.
7th October This week is going to be focused on my launch for Tripping the Flash Fantastic, of course, but I am looking forward to sharing a couple of readings from the new book. How do I choose stories for reading for things like this or for Open Prose Mic Nights and the like? I try to go for a balance of mood. If I read a funny tale, I will read a darker one too. I also go for a balance of lengths too. If I read a 100-worder, I will also read a 250 or something that is a little longer than the first tale I read. Above all, I try not to go on for too long. Recordings are best kept fairly short (as it effects download time etc). Also a short recording or reading makes it easier to keep your listener’s interest. Pic below is of me reading at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School’s Open Prose Mic Night (and there’s a phrase you don’t want to say quickly!). A huge thanks to #GeoffParkes for the pic. Swanwick 2018 folder
Fairytales With Bite – The Sting in The Tail One of the joys of flash fiction writing, which is my big love, is it is a great form for twist in the tale endings. Also, as the form has to be character led, you can set those characters whenever and wherever you want. Your characters don’t have to be human either. I like all of that! One great thing about using non-human characters is you can use them to reflect aspects of us. Animal Farm by George Orwell does that brilliantly. (Definitely not flattering either). The most effective stings in the tail are for me where:- 1. The character is an aggravating one and deserves whatever is coming to them! 2. You think a character you’re rooting for has little chance of winning and things change at the very last moment so that they do win out. (The classic fairytales often work on this basis. Think of Cinderella when the Prince insists that all of the women in the household have to try the glass slipper. Had the Prince not been so persistent….) So think about how and where in your story you are going to place your sting. In my Calling The Doctor from From Light to Dark and Back Again, my sting is in the very last word. Do check it out on my book trailer for FLTDBA at https://www.facebook.com/fairytaleladyallisonsymes I’ve also had fun with this technique for the trailer for my new book, Tripping The Flash Fantastic. See my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/ for more (and the trailer for FLTDBA is here too). Hope you enjoy the stories and do think about how you can make your sting have the maximum impact on a reader. Sometimes you can know the sting fairly early on. It is then a question of finding out whether the character deals with that sting in a good way or not and that can be fun too.
This World and Others – Conjuring Up Your World What do you want readers to imagine when they read your stories? What aspects of your created world are the most important for them to read about and how can you convey that?
I’ve mentioned before it is often the telling detail placed in the right place in a story that has the maximum impact on a reader. I don’t necessarily need to know Character A lives in an “upside down” world. I do need to know Character A walks on what we would consider to be the sky and a brief showing of how that is done.
(For the characters that live in this world it would all be perfectly natural of course, but often a story changes dramatically when a stranger comes into the world and someone has to show them the ropes).
Readers need a sense that if your world were to exist somewhere, it could exist. That is your characters can find food, drink, shelter, there is some sort of government etc. You can unveil this a bit at a time and I can think of no better example to use than Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. You find out more about how Ankh-Morpork is “run” as the series goes on. What he gives you in each story is enough for you to make sense of that story.
Image Credit: Pixabay/Pexels. Scottish pics and images of Lady, the daft but loveable Border Collie cross, were taken by me, Allison Symes.
Book cover images for The Best of Cafelit 9 and Tripping The Flash Fantastic supplied by my publishers – Bridge House Publishing and Chapeltown Books respectively.
Facebook – General – andChandler’s Ford Today
Pleased to share the link to Part 2 of my Lessons series on CFT. This week I look at lessons learned from the writing life, all of which are useful beyond that.
So over to you. What lessons have you learned from writing and how have you applied these in other areas of life?
Went back to Dunnet Bay. Such a wonderful beach. Lady thinks so too! Walked for miles though it always seems further on sand than it actually is!
Plenty of brisk fresh air. Managed to see buzzards fairly close up (could make out the colouring underneath. Don’t usually get to do that). Also spotted a kestrel, sand pipers, and oyster catchers.
Now drum roll please… Very exciting news on Tripping The Flash Fantasticto come soon but in the meantime, take a peek at this!
Achievement of the week and possibly the year for me – I climbed 600 feet in about a mile exploring the track that runs behind where I’m staying. Yes, it was a very steep track! But see the views below.
Lady bounded up it with no issues at all before going on to have a splendid playtime on Dornoch Beach later in the afternoon. Result? One tired but happy dog!
What would be the perfect day for your characters and why? What would they do to anyone or anything that got in the way of them having that perfect day?
There are story ideas there for a start but also use questions like this for outlining your people. Work out what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Different writers have varying requirements here but what you do need is enough for you to get going on a story with characters who deserve to be written about.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
I’ve learned so much from the writing life as I discuss in this week’s CFT post. The great thing is I know that learning will continue.
My hopes with regard to flash fiction is to continue to develop characters and stories.
Maybe try different genres within flash? Maybe write a novella in flash one day – who knows?
But while I know there is writing to do and things to try within that, I know the buzz of writing won’t diminish. And I love that!😄
Big news is that I can now do a book cover reveal for my second flash fiction collection, Tripping The FlashFantastic. Will be sharing more news soon on this.
I will be talking about TTFFas part of an author talk with Gill James and Dawn Kentish Knox on 26th September.
More details next week and my CFT post on 18th September will give details on how to register for the FREE Zoom event at the end of the month.
Am I a happy bunny right now? You bet!
Lovely day back at Dunnet today. One great thing about dog ownership is that our pets break down barriers. I’ve had far more lovely chats with people since owning a dog than before!
Although 2020 has been an awful year, I am so pleased to hear in one week The Best Of Cafelit 9,where I have flash stories included, and Tripping the Flash Fantastic, are “out there”. (Kindle only at moment for TTFFbut paperback to follow).
Would still like 2020 to dramatically improve though and I know I’m not alone there.
I love autumn. I love the changing leaf colours. And the heathers on the hills around where I’m staying at the moment are such wonderful colours.
But there is a sense of transition this early in September as we leave summer behind.
Flash fiction is great for demonstrating those senses of transition in your characters.
They go from one state of being to another – that is the story you’re writing after all.
What you need to figure out is which moment of transition is the important one to write up.
Fairytales With Bite – Favourites
My favourite part of most fairytales when I was a kid was when the fairy godmother etc turned up and you knew somehow from that point, everything was going to work out okay.
My favourite part of a fairytale now is harder to define but I like to see characters contributing to the fairy godmother’s efforts to help them.
I also like to see the villains get their comeuppance.And I know that last like is something I’ll always have!
I refer to a lot of my work as fairytales with bite precisely because they are not twee. Nor am I writing to the children’s market (Roald Dahl was the past master there in my view!).
I’ve never liked it when someone dismisses something as “just a fairytale”. There is no just about it. Fairytales are deeper stories than some give them credit for!
This World and Others – Geography
I don’t refer to geography a lot in my flash tales but did use it in my unpublished (as yet!) fantasy novel.
I needed to know something about the landscape my characters inhabit and whether that gets in their way. Also I wanted to look at the differences and similarities with our world.
This is where photos come in handy for sparking ideas. I totally understand why so many fantasy works have a map with them. (I must check out the Discworld one for The Streets of Ankh-Morpork as that is one map which will be fun!☺).
The nice thing now is there are far more avenues of research available now. Archives, libraries, the web etc. I guess the danger now might be you could have so much fun researching, the writing takes a back seat!
So it would pay I think to plan out your research just as much as you would plan out the story itself.
Think about what you need to know, jot down where you think further research might be needed later, and write.
Also make a note of sources of research in case a publisher asks and in case you need to retrace your steps. It happens!
Image Credit: Pixabay/Pexels unless stated. Also a big thank you to Richard Hardie for the images supplied for my second CFT post which appeared over the weekend, more below.
Facebook – General – bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post
A busy week on CFT for me this time. My second post this week shares news from YA author, Richard Hardie, about his link with Doctor Who. All very exciting and a feather in the cap for Richard. Well done! Check out the post for more details.
Facebook – Association of Christian Writers –
More Than Writers blog spot – Creating Characters
It’s my turn on More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers.
I talk about Creating Characters and share hints and tips, including a list of questions that will help you outline your “people”.
Hope you find it useful. (And many thanks to those who have commented on this. Much appreciated).
A good TV or film adaptation of a book only works if the images shown roughly coincide with the images I had from reading the text. The Inspector Morse series did this, as did the Poirot and Miss Marple series (with David Suchet and Joan Hickson). Film wise, I thought Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings had it spot on.
Are there any books you would like to see made into series or films? Which ones and why? Are there adaptations that haven’t worked for you? (I couldn’t get on with the Marple series. For me, Joan HIckson was perfect in the role and that was that).
When it comes to writing my stories, I put myself in my character’s shoes and see the world their way. I don’t always like my characters by the way! (Oh and a big thanks for a tremendous response to my ACW post on More Than Writers yesterday which was all about Creating Characters. Glad it was useful).
What I have found is you DO have to inhabit your character’s space so you can write about them/for them effectively.
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One very tired Lady on the sofa tonight. Had a great big play with several pals, including her “boyfriend”, a lovely Collie gent, and her best pal, a Rhodesian Ridgeback. I should imagine they’re pretty shattered as well!
Enjolyed listening to the Movie Music Hall of Fame on Classic FM today. I was right about the top two and pleased about them too. Must remember to find out where the Pink Panther theme came in (and there’s an earworm for anyone of a certain age!).
I usually write with classical music on as I find it helps me relax and when I relax, I’m more productive with the writing. Other things I have to have on my desk are my dictionary, my Scrivener for Dummies guide, my publisher guides (Writers and Artists and Mslexia) and plenty of pens (I know! I’m using a laptop, what do I need pens for? I guess I just like to see them around!).
I don’t have any rituals before writing. I just open my laptop and get on with it but I do like to see the accoutrements on my desk. I suppose it’s a case of Allison going into her comfort zone sort of thing.
And now I am IN my comfort zone, time to get on with more writing then!
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I can’t say a particular writer made me pick up my pen and start writing. I’ve loved books and stories for as long as I can recall. I loved writing stories in English lessons at school (and I’ll be talking a bit more about that in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week).
But it took me a long time to figure out I really ought to get around and write seriously. It took two major life events to wake me up here! My only serious regret with writing is NOT starting a lot sooner than I did.
But it is wonderful to say that all of the writers whose books are on my shelves (and the electronic one too!) have added to my love of stories and storytelling. For that I will always be grateful. And then there’s the joy of discovering new writers too.
If I could invent things I would invent:-
1. Elastic time so I never run out of time to read or write. 2. Calorie free chocolate. 3. Calorie free prosecco. 4. A stamina “topper-upper” for those times you could really do with it!
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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
I don’t know about you but I find it unsettling it is 8.30 pm in August in the UK and it is pitch black out there! (Not due to the weather either). The seasons are definitely shifting. Talk about going from light to dark!
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favourite writing exercises is writing to a set opening line. The ones that work best for me are the ones that can be taken in more than one direction. For example:-
1. The door remained locked despite her efforts. 2. He was on time, as the note insisted, but nobody was about. 3. The fairy godmother was on early shift.
Now all three opening lines here have comic as well as dramatic possibilities. (The door could remain locked because it took her a while to realise she was using the wrong key. He might be on time but what if he turned up at the wrong place and forgot to check? As for the fairy godmother, what could she expect to have to do on early shift that she might not face later on in the day? Definitely scope for humour there and that would almost certainly be the way I’d take these story ideas).
I find it useful to jot down initial ideas from an opening line and then go for the one that is a little way down my list. That is the idea which is not likely to be the obvious one and could well be open to my putting a twist on it, which I always love doing.
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One of my favourite stories in my new book, Tripping the Flash Fantastic, involves a librarian and a snake. Can’t say more than that at the moment but it was great fun to write! By all means, let your mind boggle at the thought of that!
But then that is the fun of fiction. You can write in any genre, any time period, and the impossible isn’t so much in things like fantasy, magical realism etc.
Whatever you write, it is important to enjoy it. I mentioned to a friend and fellow author (the lovely #ValPenny) that you have to enjoy what you write, especially if it is a book, because you’ll be promoting said book for a long time.
You as the writer have got to be able to live with what you’ve written and enjoy living with it too! That’s an aspect to the writing life which isn’t often considered I think.
But commitment to what you write shows up here and not just in the hard work it needs to get those stories written in the first place.
Writing is good for you as it stretches you and develops your imagination. It is also good fun experimenting with different forms of writing and discovering where your strengths are. But even when you’ve found the style of writing that suits you best, writing should still keep pushing you.
Pushing you to keep on producing good work.
Pushing you to discover new markets/competitions for your work.
Pushing you to get better at editing your work and polishing it as well as you can to give it its best possible chance out there in the big, bad world.
Pushing you to develop new skills including but definitely not limited to reading your work to an audience, making the most of technology to produce items that can help you market your work more effectively, and so on.
What writing doesn’t do is allow you to rest on your laurels and that’s a great thing. Why? Because you want to keep on developing. The writing journey should be as much fun as possible. Different things come up along that journey, things you would not have expected when starting out, and by developing you will be ready to tackle those things and have more strings to add to your bow.
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Am looking forward to taking part in the Zoom session with #GillJames and #DawnKentishKnox on 26th September. I hope to be reading a story or two, including one from Tripping the Flash Fantastic. You did hear it here first!
I will share the link to the event later in September. You do need to register but the event is free. I’ll also be flagging it up via Chandler’s Ford Today in due course.
Flash is great for reading aloud at events etc. It doesn’t take too long to read. It makes an immediate impact and the “deeper” stories resonate with you and linger long in the memory afterwards. Nothing to dislike there!
And I’ve said before it is a good idea to read your work out loud so you can hear how it flows, whether the dialogue etc comes across as smoothly as you’d like etc. If you trip over your words, a reader almost certainly will. Again with flash, this doesn’t take long. I’ve spotted things I’ve needed to change many a time doing this.
Well, there is the obvious one of which book you are going to read next from your naturally huge TBR pile.
I refuse to believe that doesn’t give you pause for thought from time to time! (I get a little annoyed with myself for doing this. I realise the half hour I spent deciding what I’ll read next could have been spent on reading!).
Then there is the dilemma of whether you’ll reduce the TBR paperback pile or the one on your Kindle.
Then there is the dilemma of whether you’ll read short stories or another novel or non-fiction.
There is no one right answer to how you answer these.
I find I read a load of things on my Kindle for a while, then switch back to paperbacks for a bit, and that’s fine with me.
I just need to stop wasting half hours every now and again making up my mind and just get on with what matters – the reading!
Allison Symes: Collected Works 