Tag: character focus

Writing Competitions

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Wet, wild and blustery here. Writing going well. Am so glad it’s generally an indoors job when it comes to this time of year! Lady has got to see all of her chums already so is pleased with how her week is going.

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Delighted to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post where I talk about Writing Competitions. I look at the benefits of these and share tips, including things to watch out for when you are thinking about entering competitions. And, yes, do watch out for scams.

Hope you find the post useful. I sometimes write the kind of post I wish I had to hand when I was starting out as a writer all those many moons ago and this one does fall into that category.

Writing Competitions

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Delighted to be back on Authors Electric with my latest post – Writing Prompts. As I write a lot of short fiction (short stories as well as flash fiction), I am always glad for prompts which help me come up with ideas and tales I would not have created in any other way. Good prompts encourage lateral thinking, which is always useful. I share other advantages to using prompts and hope you find the post useful.

(Good news: you are never going to run out of prompt types to use – there are thousands if you consider all of the different random generators, proverbs, sayings and other things which can be used as prompts, some of which, like photos, you will have on your own phone).

 

Hope you have had a good day. Lady had a lovely one, getting to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals and all before the rain came in so we all count that as a win.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing Writing Competitions on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above.

Plus I will have further author interviews coming up on CFT in October. Will share more nearer the time.

Looking forward to going to see The Ghost Train which will be performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company in late October, aptly for the Halloween weekend. This was written by Arnold Ridley of Dad’s Army fame. Will be interesting (and a great performance I’m sure).

My next Authors Electric post is out tomorrow. I’m looking at Writing Prompts this time, which is a favourite topic of mine (and a useful one I think). Again, see above. Has been a busy week on the blogging front!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday, the end of the working week for many, and time for another story. Hope you like my latest on Friday Flash Fiction – Getting Better With Time.

I’ll be looking at linked flash for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting next week. For my Seeing The Other Side, I have written more examples of this and found it great fun and a good challenge to do. It’s where focusing on character helps. A good character with a strong voice can be used more than once, which is what I love about linked flash.

One compelling reason to focus on character when writing flash, in particular, is I do want to see and experience the story through their eyes because that is what I want a reader to see and experience. It is also more direct and immediate and that is one of the strengths of flash fiction.

It can help cut word count considerably too because it will be what the character needs to show you that you will focus on – no room for any kind of waffle.

Even when you have a character prone to waffling, they will have to rein it in for the purposes of the story. You will just need to show a “little waffle” but that will be relevant to the character portrayal so readers will understand that. You just can’t go on at length, which is no bad thing!

Fairytales with Bite – Changing Seasons

This year in the UK at least we seem to have gone straight into autumn after a long hot summer with pretty much no or little warning of big drops in temperature and heavy rainfall. Often there is a small period of adjustment weather wise as the seasons change.

In your magical setting, are the seasons the same as ours? If not, how do they differ? How do your characters respond to the changing seasons? I love autumn, my late maternal grandmother did not.

How is daylight affected by the change in the seasons? How would things like clothing, the food your characters would eat, and general activities change as the seasons do?

Are there things your characters look forward to in each season or are there aspects they dread? Could things like magic be affected by the change in atmospheric conditions as the seasons change? Are there specific laws your characters have to follow at certain times of their year? Why were these introduced (public safety could be a good route to explore here)?

There are certain things I look forward to in each season here. I love to see new life appear in spring, love the nice holiday feel to summer, adore the changing colours of the leaves of autumn, and feel the silhouettes of non-evergreen trees in winter time have their own specific beauty.

What would your characters pick and what does this reveal about them to you? Could you use what you find out in further stories?

This World and Others – Geographical Considerations

In your magical setting, what role does the geography play? Is it constant (generally as we know, though we have exceptions like active volcanoes)? Can it be affected by the magic being used in it or is it immune? If it was affected, were the changes in it useful or not? Has that led to rules being brought in about the use of magic and where and when it can be used?

Naturally geography will play a role in how well or otherwise your characters do on any journey or quest they undertake. Certainly it can give them added complications. How would your world arrange things like its transportation system to overcome geographical complications for getting around (mountains do tend to get in the way!)?

Are there certain geographical areas which are uninhabitable and what could make a character have to go through that area to get to somewhere else? How would they manage this? How did those areas become uninhabitable if they were not always like that?

Story ideas there I hope!

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Broadcast News, Writers’ Narrative, and Dates

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Image Credits:- All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you had a good weekend. It was lovely being back on Hannah Kate’s Bookshelf show on North Manchester FM on Saturday. Flash and radio/audio formats work so well together. And if you like horror, do check out the latest issue of Writers’ Narrative – link further down. Lady has had a good start to her week too, getting to play with her best girlfriends.

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Facebook – General

Another meeting this evening so another early post from me. Trust you have had a good day. I’m talking about Quizzing Your Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Find out why I do this and why it has paid me to do it then. Will also be talking about Autumnal Writing for More than Writers (the Association of Christian Writers blog spot) on the same day. Plenty of tips in both blogs.

Why are blogs like London buses? None for a while and then two come along at once!

Looking forward to the Flash Fiction group meeting on Wednesday for the Association of Christian Writers. We’ll be looking at opening and closing lines, vital for any form of writing. For flash fiction, because of the form’s brevity, these lines carry even more weight. So well worth looking at what makes these work and practicing writing them then.

Often when I edit, I realise a better opening line than the one I first put down is a little further on in the text. That’s fine. I change the opening line accordingly. And, as ever, I am thinking about the impact on the reader here.

Easy to miss things editing on screen though there are things you can do to help mitigate that

Pleased to say the latest issue (the October 2023 edition) of Writers’ Narrative is out and given Halloween is not too far away, this magazine focuses on horror as a topic. There is a wealth of information and tips here plus author interviews.

I talk about The Telling Details here. I look at why it pays to work out what is going to be scary in your story and why. Also I discuss why your “star” here should be as fully thought out and rounded as the “good guys”. Horror takes many forms and it doesn’t have to be all guts and gore.

One of the scariest films I’ve watched is Duel which doesn’t show the “enemy”, there is a complete lack of guts and gore, but builds up the tension as the film goes on. It always keep me riveted to the edge of my seat and I know the film! There is a lot to learn from films for writers in any genre.

Hope you enjoy the magazine. Do check it out (and details of how to sign up for it – for free – are in the magazine itself – see Page 40).

Today would have been the 63rd wedding anniversary for my late parents and yesterday would have been the 94th birthday of my late mother-in-law so a strange weekend in some senses. All much missed, along with many others.

Occasionally a story idea will occur to me which is loosely based on truth. One of these is The Pink Rose in Tripping the Flash Fantastic. I do have artificial pink roses on my desk which had been originally given to my mother on behalf of various members of the family. They had been kept in her care home in a place she could see them.

Don’t forget symbolism can have a powerful impact in stories too. So if you have a character with a special fondness for roses, for example, why not explore why that is and what do other characters make of it? Could that special fondness be used to help the character or against them (and who would want to do the latter)? Food for thought there.

Roses remain one of my favourite flowers

Delighted to be taking part in the Autumn Equinox special on Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM today. My story, The Natural Look, is on during Part 2 of the two hour show but do check out the whole programme. It is a joy for those who love the written word and stories work so well on radio/audio formats.

Part 1 – https://podcast.canstream.co.uk/manchesterfm/index.php?id=49866

Part 2 – https://podcast.canstream.co.uk/manchesterfm/index.php?id=49867

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Well, you can tell it is autumn here in the UK because my central heating came on over the weekend and, with it, comes that unmistakable aroma of hot dust! Thankfully that soon goes and you will gather from this I don’t like dusting.

I have every sympathy with the poem Dust If You Must by Rose Milligan. Do look it up. It’s a great read. (I totally get why you need to keep kitchen, bathroom clean etc. I even don’t mind hoovering but dusting…argh! Also Lady is scared of the cobweb brush I use. She runs away whenever I get that out. Mind you, she doesn’t like spiders much. My first dog ate them, my second one considered them beneath her notice, and Lady decides to take herself out of any room a spider happens to be in!).

What do your characters dislike so much they would go out of their way to avoid? What led them to develop that dislike? Do other characters mock them or are they sympathetic?

Now being the kindly soul I am I would be unable to resist the temptation here to ensure my character does have to face up to their dislike in the story I put them in, even if that’s not the main part of the tale. I’d use this as something they’d have to overcome on the way to their final goal. It would be fun finding out how they would manage.

You can then decide if your character overcomes that dislike so it doesn’t bother them again or they just cope with it for the story because they have no choice (naturally you would ensure that being the kindly soul you are!) but resume their dislike once the story is over. Here I would imply that is the case.

Oh and apologies for forgetting to do this yesterday. Despite it being Tuesday, we can still have a story, can we not? Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Anniversary.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her two best girlfriends today. All three dogs went home tired but happy.

Will be talking about Quizzing Your Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Yes, I do quiz my characters for my flash fiction. I have to know where my characters are coming from and why (and this is where knowing their major trait is useful because that reveals so much.

If I know someone is honest, I can put them into a situation where they have to face up to being dishonest – how would they cope with that?). I share thoughts and tips. It is a question of working out what you need to know before you write your stories up.

Given my focus on reading stories is always on the character, when it comes to writing tales, my focus is again on the characters. I have to care about them to want to read on to find out what they do.
Link up on Friday (and it will be a double blog post as well this week given I am also on More Than Writers, the Association of Christian Writers blog spot on the same day. For them, I will be talking about Autumnal Writing. Plenty of tips in both blogs. Looking forward to sharing them both).

I have interviewed characters before now

Do dates have any meaning for your characters? It doesn’t necessarily need to be an anniversary or a birthday. Such a date could be linked to a historical event they care about.

For many of us 22nd August 1485 has meaning given it is the date of the Battle of Bosworth where Richard III was killed, the last English monarch to be slain in battle. But in a fantasy or sci-fi story, does your setting have dates in the way we understand them and, if so (or your setting has something similar), what dates would have meaning there and why?

How do your characters respond to such dates and can it change the outcome of their stories?

The most important anniversary - 11th November

So pleased to be sharing the joys of flash fiction again on Hannah’s Bookshelf (hosted by Hannah Kate) on North Manchester FM. Links shared over on my Facebook author page

Flash works brilliantly on radio (and audio generally) because it is so short. As well as being an ideal bus stop read, it is a great quick listen as well. Flash is great as a discipline for a writer, not only because you learn to write tight and edit ruthlessly, but because you have to find ideas and keep on coming up with ideas. I will be sharing some tips on how I keep on finding ideas in my author newsletter (due out on 1st October). You can sign up to that at my website landing page. 

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Goodreads Author Blog – Young Adult Books

Just to show how old I am, Young Adult books weren’t really a thing as I grew up. Honest. There were children’s books. Then you went straight into adult fiction. I would’ve loved the YA category when I was growing up.

Mind you, I’ve made up for this since. I have read YA books and loved them. Some of the children’s books I read at the time (or could have read if I had got around to it then!) may well count as YA now. Where would you put Watership Down or The Hobbit for example?

So I think having this category is a great idea. It makes sense to have a natural progression from younger age range books to YA to adult and, as I say, I still like reading YA books now and again. Great books can always be re-read. The Tiffany Aching books from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld would count as YA. I’ve read them as part of the overall Discworld canon and while I will always prefer characters like Sam Vimes, I did enjoy these books too. Certainly wasn’t going to let my ripe age stop me reading them!

Screenshot 2023-09-23 at 18-01-45 Young Adult Books

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