Where Do You Read?

March 3, 2026Leave a comment

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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 weekend. Lovely one here. Plenty of writing, even had more sun, and it was a refreshing one for us here. Plenty coming up this week including a super interview on Friday on Chandler’s Ford Today.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lovely weather again. Lady and I are so making the most of this. Well, you don’t want to blink and miss it, do you?

Writing wise, I’m sharing a super author interview with Wendy H Jones on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. This is to showcase the latest anthology to come from her – A Right Cozy Historical Crime. The interview will form part of a blog tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines Vlog.

As well as flagging up the other authors in this great book, Wendy and I discuss the joys of blending historical and crime fiction. Am so looking forward to sharing this on Friday. Do look out for it.

Hope you’ve had a good weekend and a promising start to the week. Lovely weather here. Lady made the most of it at the park.

Writing wise, I posted my first flash fiction to my Substack yesterday and I plan to do this regularly. To subscribe to my Substack, just head over to Substack.com/@allisonsymeswriter1

As well as receiving what I post here, you should also receive my articles on Writers’ Narrative. My next one here appears on 7th March, later this week.

Was also delighted to review a flash piece over the weekend and send that in. Will know more about how what does later this month.

Delighted my author newsletter went out earlier today. Many thanks to all of my subscribers and I do hope you find the special pdf which comes with it useful. It was a joy to put it together.

Writing wise, I’ll be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly plus I’ll have article and blog work to do too – all great fun. I like having plenty of writing to do. Literally never a dull moment. Okay, I grant you checking for typos etc is not the world’s most exciting task but given it helps improve my work, I see it as a case of I have got to do it so let’s get it done and done well. Then I can move on to something much more interesting.

Writing Tip: Planning out what you write and when, depending on your other commitments, helps in terms of knowing when you can get the duller side of writing out of the way ahead of doing something much more creative. With the duller bits done, I can go full steam ahead into more creative work and enjoy it more precisely because I have got the duller stuff out of the way. And we all have to do the dull stuff so it is a question, I think, of fitting it in when it won’t get in the way of longer writing sessions. When I have a longer writing stint, I just want to get on with much more interesting work than checking for typos.

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Lovely to see some sun out again today. More flowers appearing too.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing a superb interview with Wendy H Jones for Chandler’s Ford Today next week about her new anthology, A Right Cozy Historical Crime. Several other authors are in the book with her and full details about the anthology as well as a wonderful talk about the joys of historical fiction, will be in my post next week.

So looking forward to sharing this one as it combines several loves of mine – short stories, anthologies (they are great books), and historical fiction. This interview will form part of the blog tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines Book Vlog.

My next author newsletter will be out tomorrow, 1st March, and will have something special to celebrate a significant birthday of mine later on in the month. Do look out for that in your inbox.

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Another hectic day today but I did enjoy a swim and Lady and I both enjoyed the sunshine again. Glad to have sent off a flash piece over the weekend and I shared my first one on my Substack account too. I hope to do more of that in due course.

Why is flash fiction such an addictive form? I suppose it is because having written a 100 word story, say, and it works well, I want to see if I can do this over and over again. The challenge is an ongoing one to have a proper tale with a proper beginning, middle and ending in that word count (or any of the other ranges flash fiction offers up to 1000 words). Also it is such fun playing with genre because I can set my characters anywhere, use the first, second and third persons, and all of that offers up so many more story possibilities.

As ever, it’s a hectic Monday but, hooray, it is at least a sunny one where I am! Much appreciated. Still time for a story though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Apple Seller. No prizes for guessing the inspiration behind this one…

A market stall holder selling apples recalls a strange conversation with an old woman and wonders where Snow White has got to.

Hope the weekend is going well. Mixture of sunshine and showers but I’m seeing more spring flowers emerge every time I take Lady out. That cheers me up no end.

Flash Tip: Read flash fiction collections (and yes I know I’m biased here with two of mine out there) but you will get a good feel for what flash can do and be. You’ll also see how it looks on the page. It can challenge you to raise your game to which is no bad thing, as you’ll inevitably come up with writing you would not have written otherwise. Do check out the independent presses for potential publishers. They are usually more open to unagented writers. I always flag up The Mslexia Indie Press Guide here because it kind of does for the indie presses what The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook does for the bigger publishing houses.

At the end of February already – I suppose you could say it is the “flash” month of the year. Not quite a case of blink and you’ll miss it but it speeds by. What is cheering about it is seeing more evidence of spring coming as the month goes on.

Talking of which, give some thought as to what would help your characters look on the brighter side of life and how this would help them in their story. A story isn’t a story unless there is a point of change and often this is where a character has to do something or change in some way. Their mood and mind set can directly impact on how successful or otherwise they are in changing what has to be changed.

An optimistic character is more likely to see the need for change and implement it. A pessimistic one may well wonder why bother? An optimistic character is more likely to succeed in their quest. They will take the actions and advice needed for this. A pessimistic one may well fail – would they be willing to listen to yet alone take advice which would help them?

Where a pessimistic character may see they need to change, what or whom would help them there?

Goodreads Author Blog – Where Do You Read?

I’m sometimes asked in surveys etc where do I like to read. I love reading in bed just before settling for the night. It’s a fantastic way to unwind, though I grant it is not the time for horror stories, at least it isn’t for me. I also like to read (usually a magazine) at lunchtime.

When away, I usually get to read more during the day. Over the Christmas break, I like nothing better than to curl up on the sofa with a book present and some chocolate (the eating and drinking kinds!).

I suppose a more important question is do you read? I was once at a Book Fair with my table and someone walked past it saying they “didn’t do books”. I had to bite my tongue because I so wanted to ask “what are you doing here then” but deemed it probably wouldn’t help.

What led me into reading at all? Well, I must bless my late mother here because she encouraged reading at an early age and read to my kid sister and I regularly. We also saw her reading. Libraries were (and still are) fabulous places to visit. I developed a love of magazine reading in my teens. That continues but the topic has changed. My focus now is on writing magazines and sometimes things like The Oldie. That will tell you I left my teens behind some time ago!

But what matters is we read and keep reading. It is such a wonderful thing. (And you still can’t beat reading in bed or a comfy sofa for the best location!).

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Where Do You Read? https://t.co/gBhYYKNhUV via @goodreads I celebrate reading and share where I like to read for Goodreads this week. I also look at the importance of early encouragement to read too. Hope you enjoy the post. pic.twitter.com/oAorIrNRQX
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 28, 2026

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As ever, it’s a hectic Monday but it was sunny! Still story time though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Apple Seller.

A market stall holder selling apples recalls a strange conversation with an old woman and wonders where Snow White has got to.https://t.co/OTKKuIPTX3
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) March 2, 2026

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“Lent” and Borrowed

February 24, 2026Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you have had a good weekend.

Pleased to say we’ve had some sunshine and some of my early spring flowers are emerging. Lady is still getting pretty muddy over the park though! Writing going well. Had a good stint, especially on Sunday. Here’s hoping the next few days go well on all fronts!

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Hope today has gone well. Have enjoyed being out and about in the sunshine (yes, really!) with Lady and her two best pals, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow. The topic will be On This Day, which should prove to get our imaginations started. Well, I hope it will!

Have drafted a flash piece which I hope to submit in the next day or so. Was a joy to write.

Also due to have a super interview coming up very soon on Chandler’s Ford Today. More about that nearer the time but plenty going on right no, which is how I like things to be.

Hope your week has got off to a good start. Lovely sunshine today. Cheered me up no end seeing that. Lady was cheered up by having a great time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals.

Hard to believe we’re racing towards the end of February already. Talking of which, it’s almost time for my next author newsletter and the one for March will be special. I celebrate a certain landmark birthday next month so have prepared something special to go with that newsletter when it goes on out on 1st March.

To sign up for this, and to receive news, tips, story links and more, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

As ever, a huge thank you to all of my subscribers.

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Hope your weekend has gone well. Managed to see some sunshine! Lady didn’t. She was too busy with her head to the ground “tracking”!

Looking forward to getting on with flash fiction Sunday. I’ve yet to find somewhere I can regularly submit work to as I did with Friday Flash Fiction but will do so eventually I’m sure. Meantime I’m judging, editing, and writing so I’ve got plenty to be getting on with.

Every so often I check out the Book Brush hints and tips videos and did so again recently. Am looking forward to implementing some of the ideas coming from those.

Flash Fiction Tip: I know it sounds odd but leave worrying about the word count until later. Get your story written, rest it, edit it, then worry about what word count you want for this piece. When I am specifically writing a 100 word story (as I hope to do later this afternoon), I know what will work out as about three short paragraphs. So I have my character and situation in the first paragraph, the problem worsening in the second one and a resolution in the third one. It’s a loose structure but it works.

Hope you have had a good start to the weekend. Still pretty muddy over the park though I am seeing more crocuses and spring flowers out now.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Catching Up on Chandler’s Ford Today next week. It will be a round up of my most recent news. Not long after that I’ll be sharing a super author interview. More on that nearer the time.

Character Tip: Have you ever written characters you dislike? I have. It’s an interesting challenge because I need to figure out why I dislike them and then what makes them act in the way that makes me dislike them in the first place. You do have, I think, to be able to work out where your characters are coming from. You don’t have to agree with them though. I can think of several of mine I disagree with but I do know why they acted the way they did.

I have to get into their heads and mindsets and keep mine out of the way. Understanding motivation is pivotal to this. This is another reason why asking my characters a few pertinent questions is a good idea. I get to “see” them and their way of thinking and then I can write their stories.

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Prompts for any kind of fictional writing come in a variety of forms and I like to use a good selection. They all challenge me to think laterally. I also like not being reliant on only a couple of prompt types because you can never know what can come up in competitions so the more prompt types I can put my hand to, the better. I also think it is great fun creatively too. My most recent YouTube story – Learning From the Past – was inspired by a proverb and I hadn’t used those for a while. So I like to revisit old favourite prompt types from time to time too.

There is no such thing, I think, for a writer as running out of sources of ideas. I think the problem can come in when working out where to start looking and how to hone things down so you’re not overwhelmed. It’s why when I use the random generators, I only set a few things to be generated at a time (you can generate loads). I’ve found limits, including the word count for flash fiction, to be an aid to creativity, not a restriction. I think it is because you have to work with what you have got and that certainly compels me to get on with it.

Hope your Monday has been less hectic than mine. I do know it’s time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Learning From The Past.

Will Annabel get through the Flying Fairy Test this time? Can she avoid the mistakes which made her a laughing stock amongst other FFT inspectors? Find out here.

For flash fiction, I need to come up with characters and situations continually so need various ways of doing this. This is why I use the random generators, the books of prompts, proverbs and phrases, story cubes and much more. All of these things encourage you to think creatively and links start to form. From there, I get the beginnings of a possible story outline.

But you need to have something for that initial spark which is why knowing where to start can be the issue rather than the actual drafting of the story. I like to have loads of different ways in which to start! Options here are always a good thing and mixing up the things I use keeps me on my toes too. I don’t want to be stuck only being able to create stories in one or two ways.

So if you have tried and tested favourites for story ideas, why not try out some new ones to add to your repertoire? I’ve done that with the various random generators and have found it has paid dividends as I’ve come up with many stories I wouldn’t have done in any other way.

As ever, I’m looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow. It’s a lovely time to get some new pieces drafted. It won’t be too long before I start thinking about putting another collection together.

Flash is fabulous for those times when you haven’t got much time to write but it does take crafting to get it right and that does take time. This confirms my belief I’m right to write first and edit later so I can see, with suitable distance, what needs improving. There always is something but that’s the nature of writing anything.

Looking forward also to next week’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. Hope to get some work drafted then too.

Goodreads Author Blog – “Lent” and Borrowed

I couldn’t resist the pun on “lent” given we’re in the Christian season of Lent but it led me to think about our beloved books. Have you ever lent books out? Have you ever borrowed books from friends? I must admit I’ve only done these occasionally. My main borrowing, especially when I was younger, was from the libraries (those wonderful institutions). (Confession time: yes, I do need to make more time for more visiting here).

Many of my friends are fellow writers and we all have great reading collections of our own. I’ve long thought writers have two joys – the joy of creating stories and of reading those stories which inspired us to write in the first place.

It is a joy that some of my shelves contain books written by those friends and signed for me. Every time I pass those shelves, I smile. Books in themselves can be associated with fabulous memories. When they’re signed for you by the authors, even more great memories are created.

I like to buy and keep my books. I do end up with the occasional duplicate but I usually donate those. (Though that isn’t so easy to do these days). I buy paperbacks mainly but use Kindle to try out authors new to me. If I like their work, I’ll usually go on to buy future paperbacks from them.

I am always happy to recommend books though (and can’t get in enough plugs for the fabulous The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey).

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ALLISON SYMES ON SUBSTACK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

: A very special book in my memory! My first printed story, A Helping Hand, was in here!

: Six of the seven books my stories have appeared in (okay in the case of Limerick Nation, one limerick!). Baubles is the other book. Image taken by me.

: Transforming Being. Image by Bridge House Publishing.

: Where my stories are in print. Image by Allison Symes

: My latest published story is in The Best of Cafelit 6.

: My tale Evergreen – Never Old and Good to Go – is in this collection from Bridge House Publishing

: Many of the Cafelit, Bridge House, and Chapeltown authors contributed to this book by Gill James. There is a prompt for every day of the year.

: Lovely to see my books on a bookshop shelf!

: I contributed to this. Image from Bridge House Publishing

: Image from Bridge House Publishing

: Image from Bridge House Publishing

: I was in this Bridge House anthology. Picture taken by Allison Symes

liked Allison Symes's blog post: "Lent" and Borrowed https://t.co/gbSzGthxFy via @goodreads I look at lending books and borrowing them for Goodreads this week. I also discuss books and memories. Hope you enjoy the post. pic.twitter.com/FscrNI654K
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 21, 2026

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Hope you like my latest tale on YouTube – Learning From The Past.

Will Annabel get through the Flying Fairy Test this time? Can she avoid the mistakes which made her a laughing stock amongst other FFT inspectors? https://t.co/2rfJ8TSsaR
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 23, 2026

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Spoofs

January 23, 2026Leave a comment

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Image Credits:- All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you have had a good few days. Lady needed an X-ray but is fine and recovering well. Writing going well too. And mostly Lady and I are managing to avoid the rain so we always take that as a win.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am pleased to share Spoofs on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. A great spoof has to mimic what it is spoofing successfully so people will “go along” with the spoof and enjoy it (and what it is mimicking). This requires an in depth knowledge of the original work and, I believe, a great love for it. You have to know exceedingly well what it is you’re spoofing.

But when done well, this format is a delight. It isn’t just found in books either and I name two films and, separately, a TV series, which I think spoof brilliantly.

To find out more do check out the post.

Spoofs

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Lady is pretty much back to her old self today (needed an X-ray the day before, see below) and it was particularly nice she caught up with her two best pals, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback today. Seeing them perked her up no end and they all had a lovely time, despite the mud.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Spoofs on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Looking forward to sharing that. I look at what makes for a good spoof and if ever there was a time of year to enjoy them, I think it is now while we are still in the depths of winter with spring still a fair way away. See above.

It’s my experience too that humorous writing, of any kind, while it may be easy to read definitely isn’t easy to write. I salute anyone who manages it. This is partly because humour is subjective, of course, and not of all it “reads across” well. Also especially with a spoof, you do run the risk that those who love the original you base your spoof on will loathe the take you put on it!

But a good spoof is a great joy and you can find them in many art forms. More in my post tomorrow.

Hope the day has gone well. Has been a strange one here as Lady had to have an X-ray. She’s okay and we have had confirmed what we thought was the problem but it is manageable and things will get better from here because we know what it is. So glad to have her home again. The house has felt very odd without her here.

Writing wise, I loved the ACW Connect session run by the Association of Christian Writers last night. It was good to see old friends and chat with new ones. I’m also looking forward to the next session of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. I’m off to the panto next week too – oh yes I am!

I’ll be sharing Spoofs on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I like a good spoof and share some of my favourites as well as discussing what I think a good spoof should be. It was fun to write, as you can imagine.

Writing Tip: My week is made up of writing sessions where I can get lots done in one go and lots of smaller sessions. Writing flash is great here because I can use the smaller time slots I have available for that. But a good idea is to save the smaller sessions for those writing tasks you’re not so keen on (e.g. marketing, editing etc) so you have the longer ones for longer stretches of creative writing, which is where most of us get the maximum enjoyment from our writing.

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Lady was delighted to catch up with her Hungarian Vizler friend today and two chums she hasn’t seen for a while – the lovely Coco and Charlie. Lady is much more herself after her X-ray earlier this week.

Flash Fiction Tip: Always focus on the lead character (in stories under 250 words or so, you are likely to just have the one character in your story). Think about their purpose. What are they seeking to achieve? Do they do so or fall flat on their face (which you can exploit, of course, for a humorous tale)? What drives them? What gets in their way? All of those questions would be good to answer for longer works too. Motivation matters for our characters. It is that which does so much to make them believable to readers.

Hope to get around to looking up some flash fiction competitions over the weekend. I know of a couple of possibles but it will be a case of having the time to check them out before I draft anything. It always pays to check the details to avoid the risk of being scammed etc. Sadly rogues target any industry including the writing and publishing ones.

Also some competitions have very restrictive conditions which may well make you think twice about going that route. I avoid those who want to take all of my rights, for example, on the general principle I really don’t like this. The author is unlikely to do well out of this.

Having said that, when I’ve found suitable competitions, I love the challenge of getting something into them. It is fun to do. And you do have to be in it to win it after all.

It is possible to write flash without realising it. Any novelist who prepares a blurb or the shorter kind of synopsis will be writing up to the 1000 words maximum (and probably closer to 500 words). It would count as flash!

Any writer who takes part in writing exercises at online or in person events will be writing flash as you never have enough time to write more than about 100-200 words or so in the time you’re given for these things.

So why not look at those pieces you’ve drafted and polish them up and submit them? I was asked last night at the ACW Connect session (which was fabulous) where I submit my flash. Well, I build up stories for collections, of course. I also send them into competitions. I also share some in my newsletter/on my website (all counts as marketing).

Why not see if you can get your flash work out there and see what can be done with it? If you win or are shortlisted, anything like that, it also gives you news to share.

Flash Tip: Think about the purpose of your story. How do you want your readers to feel on reading it? Are you trying to make them laugh, cry, scream etc? From there you can work out the kind of character(s) which would be best suited for the story.

Fairytales With Bite – Starting Over

All of us need to start over at some point, whether it is starting a new job, new writing project etc. Why would your characters want or need to start over? Do they welcome or fear the prospect? How easy or otherwise do they find taking a new path in life? Is there support available?

What do your characters want their starting over to bring to them? There should be some advantages, otherwise why bother? If it is a question of necessity rather than wanting to start over, what brought them to this point? Could they have avoided it? If not, what advantages could they gain from dealing with the position they’re now in? Could something good come of the having to start over again?

Alternatively, is your character the one forcing someone else to start over? If they’re a fairy godmother or similar magical being, they could well need to use magic to bring someone to their senses to force them to face up to something and then change their ways. This is common theme in fairytales. Here, could you look at what was the last straw for your character which made them decide now is the time they are going to make Character X change their ways?

This World and Others – Finding A New Place

If your characters have to start over, as I discussed in Fairytales with Bite, would this involve finding a new place? Where would they go? Where are they coming from? Is the new place somewhere they want to go or are they out of options?

How easy or otherwise is it for your character(s) to find a new place to be? If they can choose where they want to go, given they can’t stay where they are for whatever reason, what would they be looking for? If they find this, does it compensate them for having to leave their old place at all? What does make them have to/want to leave?

In a magical setting, are characters expected to live in certain areas depending on their species? Or are the different species encouraged to live together and how does that work out? If it works out well, what would they do if someone from outside tried to change that? Would anyone be forced to find a new place because of this? (Sadly it is nothing new and we still see plenty of examples of it here).

Also, natural disasters can cause the need to find a new place. What kind of natural disasters could happen in your magical environment? Can the use of magic make things better or worsen them?

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WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

News: Writers’ Narrative will soon be moving to Substack. Subscription IS still free to the magazine. Have shared a link with an older version of the magazine below. Do enjoy and look forward to the next issue soon.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Spoofs https://t.co/IPU7qd3BOZ
Glad to share Spoofs on CFT. A great spoof must mimic what it is spoofing successfully so people will “go along” with it. Spoofs are found across the arts. I name two films and a TV series which I think spoof brilliantly. Hope you enjoy the post.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 23, 2026

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Stories Everywhere

January 13, 2026Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goodreads Author Blog – Stories Everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Stories Everywhere https://t.co/iDxdx5FzjG via @goodreads I celebrate the thought of stories being everywhere for Goodreads this week. Find out why I think this is the case here. pic.twitter.com/ssYO1ueShr
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 10, 2026

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It’s Monday. It’s January. It’s time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Done List.

Everyone has a To Do list, even when they can't write. Find out why my collie character was happy to get their jobs done, even though their Mum wasn't.https://t.co/XDdZbFIxJq
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 12, 2026

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Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier

October 3, 2025Leave a comment

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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 the week so far has gone well. Lady has had a lovely few days with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal and I’ve kept busy with the writing and editing. Also went to a fun ACW Zoom group (on science fiction and fantasy). So not a bad week at all so far here.

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Pleased to share Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Have focused on writing things here. Am sure there are plenty of thoughts here which most writers will identify with!

Hope you find the post useful and encouraging. I think it helps to know you’re not alone as a writer on things like the topics (time taken to get published, rejections, opportunities which may not seem as if they are at first etc) I share in this post.

Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier

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Hope you’ve had a good Thursday. Lady had another fabulous time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal (they’ve had a terrific week!) and saw her lovely spaniel friend, the gentle Daisy, too.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up for that tomorrow and I restricted the post to just being about writing otherwise the post would’ve been far too long! See above.

Later in the month I’m off to see The Ghost Train (written by Arnold Ridley of Dad’s Army fame) performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company. I’ll also be off to the Association of Christian Writers in person meeting at Egham where I’ll be pleased to catch up with members of the flash fiction group in person, as well as other ACW members I haven’t seen for a while.

Plus I will have further author interviews coming up on CFT too so plenty to look out for and plenty going on with me at the moment. But then that is how I like it to be.

Lady was overjoyed to see and play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback friend again today. Lots of cuddles were exchanged. Sweet to see.

Pleased to see my author newsletter went out this morning. I was looking at short fiction forms for this one (and that will be the theme of the October Writers’ Narrative which is due out at any time).

I am also looking at Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link for that up on Friday. To prevent the post from being far too long, I have limited the topic to things associated with writing! Am sure you will identify with a lot of what I will be sharing here. Again, see above, and if I hadn’t limited the scope of the post, I really could have written chapter and verse on the topic!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my Lighting Up. I hope you enjoy the story and would you like Marian as a friend or relative of yours?

Flash gives me the opportunity to have fun with genre as I have written flash crime stories, flash historical ones, flash fairytales, and many more types. I love the variety here. I have to lead with my characters given there isn’t room for much in the way of description though that in turn makes you focus.

I show you what the character needs to show you. The character only gives you the dialogue and internal thoughts you need to make sense of what they are doing and why. But given I can put my characters anywhere, I do take advantage of that. It makes life more interesting for me and I hope for my readers too.

Certainly for the collections, it leads to a good variety of stories. I love reading those as well as writing them so know I want to see plenty of story types in my collections.

Hope the day has been a good one for you. Not bad here. Looking forward to going to an ACW Zoom group tonight – always good fun.

Am pleased to know a few of the Flash Fiction Group will be going to the in person ACW event later this month. It will be lovely for us all to come out of our “Zoom boxes” and meet in person”! Naturally we will put in the word about the joys of flash fiction at some point (and I will be sharing some of this in the October Writers’ Narrative which is due out at any minute I will share the link as soon as I can).

Character Tip: One of the strengths of flash fiction is it does mean you have to focus which is why I recommend for our story to focus on one character and one moment in time, especially if your story will be 500 words or fewer. I like to think of this as not “diluting” your story.

Fairytales with Bite – Natural Light

As I write this in October 2025, the autumn season is well under way. The nights are drawing in, the leaves are changing colour (which is one of my favourite sights at this time of year) and the acorns are coming down rapidly (you should hear the sound as they hit the car roof!).

Now much as I love autumn, it is always a shame to see the amount of natural light fading. While it is lovely to cosy up inside with writing and good books, I also love being able to enjoy the natural light as long into the evening as possible. So this led me to wonder, how does light “work” in your setting? Do they have a sun (or more) as we know this? How are your characters affected the amount of natural light available?

Can natural light be created artificially? Does your setting have electricity as we know it? (I always loved the old character Catweazle describing it as electrickery. For those who don’t know, this was a 1970s UK children’s programme and many have fond memories of it. Catweazle was a time travelling wizard effectively).

How does the geography of your setting, including light and darkness, challenge your characters? How can they use natural light, or the lack of, to their advantage?

There will be story ideas there.

This World and Others – Character Types

How many character types does your setting have and are they anything like what we have here? Are species easy to differentiate? Is there a clear hierarchy in terms of magical power etc? Is there a dominant species and what led to them becoming that way?

I have an interest in hierarchies in settings because I am always looking out for the underdog in a story and seeing what they get up to. I guess that comes from my long love of the classic fairytales where the underdog often turns out to be the hero/heroine.

I also have a soft spot for non-human characters but then I have written from the viewpoint of a mother dragon before now. As long as readers can understand why your characters (of any kind) are the way they are, why they have the attitudes they do, why they act the way they are, then the story will follow through. I also think variety in character types is a good thing. The Lord of the Rings would be much poorer without that.

Why does your setting need the character types it has? I would expect to see geography and climate to have an impact here given we have different species suited to different conditions so it would be odd if a fantasy world didn’t have something similar.

Also give some thought as to how your character types developed the skills, magical or otherwise, that they have? Is there evolution going on here? If there is an overall creator in your world, how do they control how things/characters develop? Is there a limit to how far they can go?

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my Lighting Up. I hope you enjoy the story and would you like Marian as a friend or relative of yours?https://t.co/EzKlukaIIi pic.twitter.com/YjW7mL6WCK
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) October 3, 2025

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Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier https://t.co/kTNNHONOft Pleased to share Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Am sure there are plenty of thoughts here which most writers will identify with! Hope you find the post useful and encouraging.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) October 3, 2025

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Quizzing Your Characters

July 11, 2025Leave a comment

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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. One photo of me holding Creativity Matters and my flash fiction collections (to date anyway!) was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hope you have had a good week so far. Lady has seen some of her friends and I’m making good progress with writing and editing. Will have news of something else soon I’m helping with. Looking forward to sharing about that. Plus there will be another great author interview on Chandler’s Ford Today soon.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with my latest post, Quizzing Your Characters. I’ve long believed if you know your characters well enough, ideas for stories to put them in will occur.

For this post, I look at outlining your characters and using templates and/or traits into coming up with new creations time and time again (which is something I need as I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories).

Hope you find the post useful and do see the templates I share here as guides because there is nothing to stop you coming up with your own.

Indeed, I often mix up the types I use because I won’t necessarily need to know the same thing each and every time about characters I am creating. In certain settings, for example, I will need to ask specific questions relating to that setting and how it effects my character, for example.

Quizzing Your Characters

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Lady and her Hungarian Vizler pal had a nice time in the park this morning before it became too hot. I loved my swim today, as you can imagine. Did not want to get out of the pool.

Don’t forget Quizzing Your Characters will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above.

Less than a month to go now until The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. (Okay only just but I am so looking forward to this).

How do I get ideas for my CFT and Writers’ Narrative articles? Well, our lovely editor at Writers’ Narrative does set a theme, which is always useful, but for CFT, I know I’m writing to fellow writers in my area so I try to focus on aspects of our craft which I hope they will find interesting.

Whatever I write, and this goes for fiction too, I am always asking myself what is in this for the reader. It is a good approach to take because it makes you focus on their needs and what you come up with, as a result, should be more useful to them.

Lady had a lovely time in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Will need to watch the weather in the next couple of days as it is due to get very hot again but I’ve found the mornings have been okay.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Quizzing Your Characters on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It may seem like an odd thing to do but I’ve found it has paid dividends in being able to continually create characters. Best thing of all – you work out which questions suit your style of writing best. More in the post later this week.

Flash Tip: My favourite form of flash fiction has to be the drabble, the 100 worder. A short sharp story and punchlines/twist endings work well for this word count.

I find it helps to have an idea of the ending first for these. Then I work out what leads to it. It also means I know my punchline or twist ending will have a solid foundation behind it because I know what will lead up to it. It will seem natural, as if there could be no other ending, which is what you want here.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday again and another hot one where I am. Definitely time for an end of the working week story then. My latest on Friday Flash Fiction is called Dates. Hope you enjoy it. Just what will Dawn do about her date dilemma? Find out here.
With the exception of Friday Flash Fiction where I know I will be writing to 100 words, I focus on getting the story down.

I then edit it after a break away from it, and then and only then do I worry about the word count. Sometimes the solution will be an obvious one. If my finished story comes in at 105 words I will edit it again to get to 100. If say, it comes in at 145 words, I will find a 150 words competition for it instead.

What matters is I am happy with the story in terms of its character portrayal and I’ve ensured I’ve delivered on the premise of the story. So if I am I will leave a story at a higher word count and find alternative homes for it rather than try to force it to fit the original home I had in mind for it.

A lovely review for my Tripping The Flash Fantastic included the line “A lovely little collection of quirky and often surprising stories and poems. Fairy godmothers who aren’t what they first appear.”.

Many thanks to my reviewer for that, but seeing it again reminded me characters who aren’t what they seem are (a) a common trait of fairytales and (b) need to be worked out carefully because the reader should have the hint there is more to this character than meets the the eye.

The surprise mustn’t come out of nowhere. Readers should be able to look back at the story and see “aah, I should’ve spotted that.” I love this when authors do it to me (especially in crime novels). It’s great fun to do as a writer too.

Book Trailer for Tripping The Flash Fantastic – thought it would be nice to share it again.

Fairytales with Bite – Problem Solving

How do your characters solve their problems? Do they instantly turn to magic (or other form of powers we don’t have here) to help them out or do they save that? Does using this kind of power drain them so much it isn’t worth doing unless you absolutely must use it?

If they’re not using magical or other artificial aids, what can they use without causing them further problems? Would they use logic, ask others for help etc as we would do? Are your creations able to ask others from outside their own species for assistance or is this frowned on? What would be the consequences if they did ask for that help when they shouldn’t? Could it lead to positive changes in your setting?

Are some of the problems your characters and/or setting face due to not being willing to interact with others when they could do so usefully? What gets in the way here?past history? Prejudice? Both? How can that be broken?

Problems can be useful for writers – you can get some cracking stories out of them!

This World and Others – Developments

Which developments have been welcomed in your magical/sci-fi setting and which weren’t? What problems did the latter cause and how were they stopped? Has your world copied inventions/developments from other worlds, including ours? How did these go down at home? Not everyone welcomes imports!

In terms of magical energy or other forms of energy your world has, how were these discovered? How have they developed? What new things have been added to them and why was this done?

Thinking about the different species in your setting, how did they develop their societies? Do all of them have the same opportunities for employment, education etc? If species were made to develop in different ways, who imposed that and why? Doesn’t necessarily have to be for evil reasons.

One good reason to keep them apart would be if they could never get along and separating them so they developed in their own way was the only way to stop the fighting. (That does sound a depressingly familiar tale, does it not?).

Story ideas for sure here! Happy writing.

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It’s Friday again and another hot one where I am. Definitely time for an end of the working week story then.

My latest on Friday Flash Fiction is called Dates. Hope you enjoy it. Just what will Dawn do about her date dilemma? Find out here. https://t.co/4kgkLMIp7I pic.twitter.com/JfHd2kqRxf
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 11, 2025

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Quizzing Your Characters https://t.co/DY6WY9IetN I’ve long believed if you know your characters well enough, ideas for their tales occur. I look at outlining characters and using templates and/or traits to help you invent new creations time and time again.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) July 11, 2025

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Faith In Stories

April 30, 2024Leave a comment

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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 weekend. Weather still chilly but sun is appearing more often. I’ll take that. Really enjoyed the play I went to see last week – review on that coming up on Friday on Chandler’s Ford Today. I have CFT to thank for introducing me to the joys of local theatre and National Theatre Live. Must try and catch some more of the latter again soon. I see theatre as enacted stories – another way of taking tales in.

Hope you have had a good day. Enjoyed a great swim this afternoon and caught up with friends there.

I’ll be reviewing Waiting For Gateaux, recently performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group, for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Looking forward to sharing that.

Author newsletter goes out again tomorrow. (1st May 2024). How come it is the end of April already? (Lovely to see all the bluebells out in my part of the world though).

Writing Tip: If you do have or are thinking of having an author newsletter, do have items you can always share which will be useful to people regardless of whether or not you have any news to share.It pays to plan out what you will do with your newsletter long before you set one up. I have done this with mine and find it pays off.

I often find I have lots of items of news at once and then none at all for a bit so I will share what I have when I have got it but also share advice and tips useful to writers. There is no use by date on those!

Think about what you could talk about here as well – for example your writing process, what you have found useful to you, favourite stories of yours and why you like them and so on. You’re engaging with your readers directly here so make it fun and useful. I try to go for a bright cheery style with mine. Okay if you write horror, that style might not be so apt (!) but there has to be something of value to your readers for them to keep reading what you send out.

Pleased to be back on More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. This time I’m talking about Faith in Stories where I look at having belief in the process of creating your tales. I share what the biggest single thing any writer can do to help themselves (reading, no surprise there) and discuss why it helps. Hope you enjoy the post.

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Nice quiet day here. Lovely way to wrap up the weekend.

Don’t forget my next author newsletter is out on 1st May. If you’d like to subscribe head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

When I draft a new story, I start with the character(s) but have different ways of bringing them into being. I use a simple template a lot where I jot down a name, their species (where apt), their main trait, and anything else I think I might need to know.

Sometimes I write down something I just know they would say or think and then work out what it is that makes me feel this because that will indicate the underlying trait of this character I will want to bring out more in the story itself.

Sometimes I write down a line of dialogue or internal thought and then work out what kind of character would come up with this. All are fun ways to create characters.

When it comes to competitions, especially those with a set theme, I like to work out what kind of character would best serve that theme. When there is an opening line competition, again I would work out what character would come up with this line, or if it is a description, what character would be noting this and then work out why it is important to them.

But for all stories, regardless of who writes them, for me it is all about the character. I have got to get behind them to want to read on and I take the view most readers will take the same view with my creations.

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Hope you are having a good weekend so far. Nice quiet one here. Lady got to see an old pal, Miller, today. Dogs do get so much from being with their pals.

Am looking forward to reviewing Waiting for Gateaux for Chandler’s Ford Today next Friday. Will also be having a smashing author interview coming up on CFT towards the end of May which will continue into the early part of June.

Many thanks for the lovely comments coming in on my most recent Friday Flash Fiction tale, Deception. In case you missed it, please see the link.

Also the next issue of Writers’ Narrative will be out soon. Do look out for it if you subscribe.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I’m fond of poetic justice stories and flash fiction suits these well. You set up the situation. You show the character who is either on the receiving end of said poetic justice or is the one to dish it out. You finish by delivering on that justice in the last line.

One example of this is my The Circle of Life from From Light to Dark and Back Again. This one is just under 100 words and I get my character to share their story in the first person where they show you what they want to do something about and why and then finish with how they are going to do it. Let’s just say those on the receiving end of the plans here deserve it.

It was a fun and satisfying story to write and I hope readers like it but the important point here is if you have set something up in your tale, you must deliver on it. Else there is no point. What I love about flash fiction is the restricted word count means you do have to ensure everything in your story is necessary. You haven’t the space for anything irrelevant. This does wonders for your story pacing too.

It’s Monday. It’s been a long day. It’s time for a story. (Plus side it isn’t raining this week!). Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Something. The lead character may seem familiar to all fairytale lovers.

Am happily working my way through some of my own answers to exercises I set for the ACW Flash Fiction Group back in March for story ideas for my YouTube channel and Friday Flash Fiction. Am looking forward to tackling what I came up with for the April session in due course as well.

The March session involved possible opening and closing lines (two of my favourite writing exercises as my recent Chandler’s Ford Today post on the topic highlighted).

The April one saw the return of my character creation template and there are at least two possibles here I am keen to get to work on soon. When a character possibility grips you like that, it is a great feeling. Mind you, I feel the same way when I read a story by another author and I really “get” their character. Sam Vimes from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is a classic example of that as are Jeeves and Wooster from P.G.Wodehouse’s fabulous works.

I was looking at genres and flash fiction for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Wednesday night. As flash has to be character led (no room for lots of scene setting basically so you must lead with characters), you can set those characters wherever and whenever you want. Those characters don’t have to be human either.

I also use a simple template to help me create some potential characters. I put those ideas aside for a while and then come back to them later. If the ideas still grab me after that break, I will write them up. I know there are at least two from Wednesday’s session I drafted I will come back to at some point. Looking forward to doing that.

But it is the time away from your jotted down ideas which matters. You need objectivity and time away from your notes helps you get that. The positive thing for notes like this and for draft flashes that time away doesn’t have to be a long one. I usually find a few days is enough. What matters is your being able to come back to your work and be able to see it as if for the first time. It is that which will help you see the strengths and weaknesses of your ideas. You can then of course do something about the latter.

Goodreads Author Blog – Holiday Reading

Am looking forward to a break away in May but I already know what my holiday reading will be. It will be whatever I am currently reading on my Kindle. The ebook comes into its own for this kind of thing, of course. No packing of heavy books. No limitation on what you can take to read either. All I must remember to do is pack my charger (especially since it does my phone as well!).

I don’t read what is normally known as holiday reading. Not really my genre though I can appreciate why the lighter reads are wanted for the summer season. (They’re even more important to cheer people up if the weather is a wash out as it can be in the UK).

For me, my light reads are the humorous books I love – Wodehouse and Pratchett works especially. I usually get to listen to some Pratchett audio books on the journey to and from my destination so get some extra stories in that way.

All counts as holiday reading in my book, some pun intended! I’m just listening to the tales rather than reading them but audio books are fantastic inventions. I get to take in even more stories and revisit old favourites -nothing to dislike about that.

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Holiday Reading https://t.co/h400kIQIXO via @goodreads I share the joy of ebooks and audio books for holiday reading for Goodreads this time. pic.twitter.com/RY2z7LZrIT
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 27, 2024

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In today's More than Writers post, @AllisonSymes1 gives helpful tips on how to have faith in the writing process https://t.co/mpQflrM2WM
— ACW (@ACW1971) April 29, 2024

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Something https://t.co/2ZU1F32Wqr via @YouTube

It’s Monday. It’s been a long day. It’s time for a story. (Plus side it isn’t raining this week!). Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Something. The lead character may seem familiar to all fairytale lovers.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 29, 2024

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More than Writers: Faith in Stories by Allison Symes https://t.co/4zmAyfLEfl For my Faith in Stories, I look at having belief in the process of creating tales. I share what the biggest single thing any writer can do to help themselves (reading, no surprise) and why it helps. pic.twitter.com/l9gDmWu1VW
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 29, 2024

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History – Fact and Fiction/The Joy of Author Interviews

April 19, 2024Leave a comment

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

Hope you have had a good week. Glad to be talking about history, something I adore, for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Lady has been out and about with her closest girlfriends and we’ve had more sunshine. (You make the most of that while you have it. Lady shares that view!).

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share History – Fact and Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I’ve loved history from an early age in fiction and non-fiction forms.

I recently gave a PowerPoint talk on two women united by one king (Richard III – the women in question are Josephine Tey and Philippa Langley) and fiction as well as non-fiction can do so much to bring the past to life. My post looks at the advantages of both forms of writing when it comes to history and I also share how music can help enhance historical portrayals too.

I’m currently reading Double Cross by Ben Macintyre and loving that. If you have any suggestions for good historical reads, fictional or otherwise, do pop across to the CFT page (link below) and share in the comments box. Would be good to get a reading list going!

Hope you enjoy the post.

History – Fact and Fiction

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Pleased to be back on Authors Electric. This time I’m talking about The Joys of Author Interviews. I look at conducting them (I do this often for Chandler’s Ford Today) but also what I find fascinating about interviews I listen to/read which are conducted by others. Hope you enjoy the post.

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Sunshine again today! Lady and I made the most of that.

Looking forward to sharing History – Fact and Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. I love history. Historical fiction can bring out truths which cannot be proved in the traditional sense but which could be said to be reasonable supposition based on what is known.

I use reasonable supposition for my historical flash pieces such as in My Girl (Tripping the Flash Fantastic) where the viewpoint is from Queen Anne Boleyn on the eve of her execution.

For fictional characters, having worked out their main trait, their attitudes and behaviours will be based on that. I like to think of that as “following through”. If a character’s main trait is slyness, then they will act in that way and their attitude reflect it.

Characters have to seem true to a reader to convince them to follow the character’s story.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

End of the working week means it’s time for another story. Hope you enjoy my latest on Friday Flash Fiction. This one is called Sharing Is A Mug’s Game. Find out why my character George comes to this thought – is he right?

Flash fiction is ideal for Open Prose Mic Nights. Doesn’t take too long to read. You can mix up the mood of the stories you pick for this too. But I do practice what I read beforehand. Find it helps with the nerves (and there should be some good nerves here – some adrenaline is useful for a performance. I find it gives me a kick start!).

I like to mix up the mood for the stories I put in collections but you can pick a big enough topic to write about only. Dawn Kentish Knox did this with her excellent The Great War, which contains 100 tales of 100 words each. It also has to be a topic that is of huge interest to you. You need the commitment to that topic to be able to produce that number of stories.

For assortments of stories, which so far has been my route, it is a question of getting the balance of stories right – literally from light to dark and back again.

I’m a huge fan of outlining but I focus on ensuring I know my character(s) well enough. I work from their major traits and what attitudes/actions these would be likely to lead them to and that in turn helps ensure their motivation is understandable.

If a reader understands why a character is acting the way they are, the character will come across as more believable, regardless of how fantastic the setting might be. I see doing all of this as my bedrock for a story.

Once I know my character I can then see what kind of situations they are likely to end up in. A forthright character, for example, is likely to cause upset simply by being tactless. What is then fun is working out what that leads to – one of my stories with a character like that ending up cutting up someone in a car park who later on was revealed to be the judge for a story competition they’d entered. Oops!

Following through to ensure everything about your character makes sense pays dividends. You’re less likely to have plot holes for one thing because you have already figured out what Character A would be likely to do/feel in the situation you’ve set up.

Fairytales with Bite – Breaking the Magical Rules

For your magical setting, it pays to let readers have some sense of the rules early on. For example, can all of your characters use magic? If there are limits, why have these been imposed and are they imposed fairly?

What are your characters allowed to do with their powers? What are they expressly forbidden to do and how are these rules enforced? What would happen to anyone who broke the rules accidentally? What would happen to someone who did this deliberately? I would hope there would be a difference here!

Give some thought as to who in your creation set the rules for magic. If these were imposed on your setting by a superior power, why was this done and by whom? Why are they not involved with your setting now? Are they likely to come back?

Most of us understand and accept most laws but there will always be some which niggle, which seem petty or bureaucratic. What would the equivalent of these be in your setting? Does someone breaking rules like that get away with it? Could it lead to petty laws being repealed? What would your character be seeking to change here and are they doing it for the greater good of their society?

Sometimes there could be a point to breaking the magical rules, especially if these were being misused. So who would challenge the status quo here and what has led them to do so?

Story ideas there!

This World and Others – What is Normal Anyway? (Settings)

I think this is a good question to answer regardless of what your setting is! For your world, what would be considered normal behaviour? Would it equate with what we consider normal behaviour? What would your world make of humanity and the ways we organise our countries etc?

In an alien setting, where there are special powers/magic/greater scientific discoveries etc, what would be considered normal there? Would someone we consider to be a genius be seen in a different light in your setting because intellectual capacity is so much greater?

What would be the normal use of magic, special powers etc? What would be considered excessive?

Within your communities in your world, what is the range of expectations? If you have a magical community, what would be considered normal for elves to be able to do, dwarves to be able to do and so on? Do the different groups co-operate to make things better for all? (And yes we could do with more that here!).

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Authors Electric: The Joys of Author Interviews by Allison Symes https://t.co/yFZhmEPhSr I’m talking about The Joys of Author Interviews for AE this time. I look at conducting them (I do so often) but also what I enjoy about interviews I listen to/read. Hope you enjoy the post. pic.twitter.com/T3mZWcZcHk
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 18, 2024

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Sharing is a Mug's Game, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/63JXc2vCLj End of the working week means it’s time for another tale. Hope you enjoy my latest on Friday Flash Fiction – Sharing Is A Mug’s Game. Is George right for coming to this conclusion? pic.twitter.com/BmC7sbhUf1
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 19, 2024

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History – Fact and Fiction https://t.co/3Aw9CYpFLz I recently gave a PowerPoint talk on two women united by one king (Richard III, the women are Josephine Tey and Philippa Langley). Fiction and non-fiction can bring the past to life. My post shows how music plays a part here too.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 19, 2024

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Caring for Characters and Story Twists

April 2, 2024Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

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

Hope you have had a lovely Easter weekend. I’ve loved the church services and, separately, listening to the Classic FM Hall of Fame for 2024. (When will Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams make it to No. 1? So deserves it. You feel like you’re going back in time listening to that!).

Am so looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a very special two part interview with Sophie Neville for Chandler’s Ford Today. Sophie is best known for her role as Titty in the classic children’s film Swallows and Amazons but she has done so much else too. More to come in the interviews. Part 1 up on Friday.

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Shorter swimming sessions for the next couple of weeks due to the Easter holidays. Lady may well be getting longer walks in the afternoon, not that she’ll mind. She loved seeing her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback buddies today. Lady came back from that tired but happy (which is my standard look when I come back from a swimming session!).

Writing Tip: What is it about your characters which appeal to you the most? What makes you care about what happens to them? Sorting that out so you know will help you create characters which appeal to readers too.

Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Labradoodle pals this morning. Bank Holiday Mondays (as today is in the UK) always feel like a strange kind of Sunday to me. It was nice to see some spring weather though.

Newsletter went out this morning. No April Fool’s about that! Link to the current edition here but if you like the look of this and would like to sign up do head over to my landing page at my website. Separate link for that here.

Managed to get a fair bit of writing done over the weekend and am going through PowerPoints I’m due to present (one next week!). Am so looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a wonderful two part interview with Sophie Neville (Swallows and Amazons) for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Be sure not to miss. Sophie discusses her incredible creative life. Very inspiring.

Happy Easter! Nice to have some spring weather to go with it, though I understand the rain is due back again later, alas. Lady had a nice surprise today as she got to see her Hungarian Vizler chum at lunchtime.

When do I know a character will “work”? There’s no one single thing, to be honest, but when I can know how and why they would react in any given circumstance, that is a good sign. It shows me I’ve outlined them deeply enough.

Sometimes I will come across or think of something which will make me think Character X in Story Y would say exactly that, and this is another good sign. Sometimes I can come across something a character of mine in a story would not say and that, funnily enough, is useful as well because it then makes me think of what they would come up with instead. (I’d also know why here).

Knowing my characters well enough has been an enormous help to me. Having different ways to create characters (crucial as I am inventing characters a lot!) is invaluable. And knowing the characters gets me a long way to knowing what their stories will be and why. Story structure is not a glamorous thing but, for me, it underpins all the fiction I write.

It’s the small victories in life which really make you want to cheer at times. Today (30th March 2024) is the first day this year I’ve had my washing out on the line and got it dry! Yippee! Also happy to see my bluebells are beginning to emerge.

Many thanks to all who have subscribed to my author newsletter since last time. Welcome aboard and many thanks to the longer term subscribers too. Your support is much appreciated. (Next letter due out on 1st April – not an April Fool’s, honest!).

Writing wise, I am so looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a very special two-part interview with the lovely Sophie Neville on Chandler’s Ford Today. Sophie is still very well known for her role as Titty in the children’s classic film, Swallows and Amazons. She has gone on to have a superb career in TV (in front of and behind the camera) and in writing and has recently won awards for her scripts too.

There is so much to discuss with her (if anyone could be said to have immersed themselves in the creative life, it is Sophie) and I am so looking forward to sharing the first part next Friday, 5th April. Link up on Friday. Don’t miss!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

The joy of flash fiction and story collections is in having “bite size” reads which are so easy to dip into. I often mention using pockets of time for writing and that is a great and useful thing to do. I’ve found it has made me more productive because I’ve got ideas waiting for me to assess and then write up.

But why not use pockets of time for your reading too? I tend to use my lunch break for this but it helps me to read more and that is never going to be a bad idea!

What I like about the CafeLit and Bridge House Publishing anthologies especially is getting to read other authors in one book. That shows me whether I like their style or not and, assuming I do, it makes it far more likely I will check out their own longer works of fiction.

If you would like to know where to start, why not check out the Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop which covers the works of authors writing for Chapeltown Books too. So am not unbiased here but well produced story anthologies are a joy to read so why not check them out?

It’s Monday. Okay it’s a Bank Holiday Monday in my part of the world and we’ve even had some sunshine, hooray! Still time for a story though. Hope you enjoy Unfair, my latest on YouTube. (Short and sweet this one).

Happy Easter! Don’t forget my author newsletter is out again tomorrow. Not too late to sign up. Just head on over to https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com for that.

What I find useful in compiling my newsletter is adding bits and pieces to it throughout the month as thoughts occur to me and then editing appropriately a few days before it goes out. I also do a couple of test runs to make sure all is okay.

Flash is great to share on a newsletter too. Doesn’t take up much room(and this is another reason why I also add links to my stories on Friday Flash Fiction here as well. Easy enough to click on a story title that takes your fancy and have a quick read over a cuppa. Challenge to me? Coming up with intriguing story titles but it is good to be kept on the old writing toes here!

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My flash fiction collections, From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic, are square books. The design makes them stand out and they are ideal gift books, as someone rightly pointed out in a wonderful review for the latter.

Fabulous collection of poems and flash fiction. Some made me giggle, some made me gasp, all surprised me! I found it a real page turner, as the stories had such unexpected twists and turns! Some were actually quite moving. Highly recommend this! Makes a lovely present as well, with its (to me) unusual shape.

All of the Chapeltown flash collections are in this shape as part of an overall branding style. I think it works well though I accept I am biased (and bound to be so) here! The paperbacks are a great size to fit into pockets, bags etc so again are ideal for a train/bus ride read. Very easy to take with you (and even easier still if you go for the Kindle version of them!).

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Twists

I love twists in stories as long as they suit the character and situation. An early one I came across was in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie, whom I understand received complaints about what she did here. Can’t say more without giving things away but it is a great book and I highly recommend it especially if you like twists.

I use twists a lot in my own flash fiction. For a very short tale like this, often my closing line is the twist. I have done this with the “standard” twist but have also written humorous twist endings. All good fun to do.

The tricky bit is ensuring that the twist does come across as “natural”. It must fit in with what has been revealed about the character and their situation, otherwise it will look like a “fix” to get the author out of a tight corner. My favourite twists are when I look back through the story, having read it through, and then spot the clues to the twist which is about to be revealed. Naturally I learn a good deal for my own writing studying things like that.

This is where I think writers are so lucky. To write well, we need to read well and widely. So if we ever did need an excuse to have a book in our hands, that’s it, right there, regardless of whether there is a twist or not!

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Story Twists https://t.co/5HUyAaAUsU via @goodreads I look at story twists for Goodreads this week. An early favourite was in an Agatha Christie novel. For a twist to work it must fit in with the characters and situation. Hope you enjoy the post. pic.twitter.com/YUGuyoQGMn
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) March 30, 2024

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It’s Monday. Okay it’s a Bank Holiday Monday in my part of the world and we’ve even had some sunshine, hooray! Still time for a story though. Hope you enjoy Unfair, my latest on YouTube. (Short and sweet this one).https://t.co/y68QSxdFan
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 1, 2024

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Newsletter went out this morning. No April Fool’s about that! Link to current edition below but if you like the look of this and would like to sign up do head over to my landing page at my website. Separate link for that below.https://t.co/SAMeT8yz7k https://t.co/4PWkpgevt3
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 1, 2024

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Writing Tips and Writing Progress

March 5, 2024Leave a comment

Screenshot 2024-02-28 at 16-25-51 Allison Symes - The Society of Authors

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 great weekend. Pleased with how mine went – lots of writing and some gardening done (prefer it that way round!). More signs of spring in my garden and elsewhere – do find it cheering. More submissions sent out (in one case recorded and sent out). Good to see signs the daylight is lasting that bit longer. Makes it nicer for Lady’s evening walk.

Facebook – General

Hope you managed to avoid the heavy rain earlier today. Lady and I didn’t! Got a good soaking. March has come in like a lion, as the old proverb says. Can only hope it does go out like a lamb. Mind you, am seeing more spring flowers about so something has got the benefit of all of that rain!

I’m looking at The Task of the Opening Lines for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I like to hit the ground running with my stories and posts and will be sharing my thoughts and tips on opening lines in this post. Hope it will prove useful.

Opening lines don’t necessarily have to be the ones you started with in your first draft either. I often change mine once I’ve had chance to judge my piece objectively. I will often spot a stronger opening line further down so just move things around. Much easier to do this day and age and, yes, I did use to have to literally cut and paste. I really don’t miss that!

Writing Tip: When you’ve got a few minutes and you want to write something but don’t know what and time is short etc., why not grab a notebook and jot down some potential opening lines? What you need is a character, an action, maybe a sense of setting.

For example one of mine is ‘What gave me away?’ Maisie scowled. This is the first line from Visitor Expected (Friday Flash Fiction). You can come back at a later date and work out what could come from your draft opening lines. I like the idea of having something to come back to like this and I get to use up pockets of time for some useful writing after all.

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback girlfriends. All three dogs very happy about that.

Am making progress (finally!) on my long term project and am investigating possible homes for it when I’m ready to submit it.

Making very good progress on a fourth flash fiction book too. A lot of what I do here goes on around the backdrop of my blogging, regular story submissions etc. It means I always have something of interest to work on (I don’t like being bored, life is too short for that). There are certain things I would like to get done by the summer and am on track so far.

I also love writing the short forms of fiction because they give me a lovely imaginative “break” from the longer work I’m doing. Plus I can get those shorter pieces out and submitted and hopefully receive publication credits in the meantime too.

Nothing to dislike here but it does mean planning out my writing time. I have found that pays off. Some days I do write more than others. That’s the way of it but what I want to do is make the most of whatever time I’ve got whether it is ten minutes or four hours.

Hope today is going well for you. Lovely to see some sunshine after the frost this morning.

Looking forward to sharing some smashing author interviews on Chandler’s Ford Today in the next couple of months. More details nearer the time. It’s always a joy to host these as I find I learn so much from what other writers do. I’ve picked up lots of tips on time management for one thing – and these have paid off for me too.

Writing Tip: Put yourself inside your character’s head. What can they see and hear? Why do they feel the way they do? When you know what your character is doing and why, it simplifies writing their stories up. You will know what they would do. You will also know what they wouldn’t. Their reactions will seem like second nature to you too. All useful.

Hope you are having a good weekend. Good to see some sunshine. A huge thank you for the lovely comments coming in on my latest Friday Flash Fiction story, Visitor Expected. Am thrilled even more comments have come in since yesterday. If you haven’t had chance to check the tale out, see the link. I like the Mrs Harrises of this world. Think you will too.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post for next week is on a topic close to my heart – The Task of the Opening Lines. Especially for flash fiction, the opening line is so important. I like to hit the ground running with my openings because that helps me to make the most of my word count and it also helps to hook the reader in immediately. Link up on Friday.

Screenshot 2024-03-01 at 09-40-46 Visitor Expected by Allison Symes

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I like to mix up the flash fiction word counts I write to because (a) it’s fun, (b) it’s a good challenge, and (c) there are a wide range of competitions out there, all of which want differing word counts. So it pays to be able to turn your hand to several of them!

Have just submitted a flash piece and am working on a sub-300 words piece for another competition. Mind you compared with what I write for Friday Flash Fiction 300 words seems a huge amount!

You do get better, over time, at judging word counts when you see something written (on paper or in screen). When I guess, I am usually within 30 words or so. But being able to visualise what different word counts look like is handy as it helps me to gauge for this story I might need three paragraphs, for another I might only need the one. So just knowing that gives me a rough story structure immediately.

It’s Monday. The heavy rain’s back. It’s Monday. It’s time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube -We’re Off.

Motivation is vital to the success of character portrayal in any story. In Tripping the Flash Fantastic, I have a character who is out for revenge because their boss put them on a duty they really did not want (Camping It Up). I ended the tale with their revenge carried out but if I had decided to write a longer piece here, I could have had the consequences of that revenge come home to roost for my character. That would have been as understandable and believable as the character’s initial wish for revenge.

When I do use revenge as a motive, regardless of length of story, I always ensure there is a good reason behind it. You have got to understand where your characters are coming from. You don’t have to agree with them though and I often don’t agree with mine!

I occasionally write flash in poetic form. It’s good fun to do and an interesting challenge. One example of this is Choices in Tripping the Flash Fantastic. The key point is I always work out what the story will be first and then decide whether it would suit a poetic form and, if so, which kind.

I usually go for four or five line stanzas with a simple rhyme scheme as I have a soft spot for rhyme. (I’ve read some spectacular free verse by the way but my preference always has been for rhymes).

The editing challenge here is interesting too as I have to ensure my syllable count is consistent. Where I need to change words to fit that, I still need to ensure it makes sense for the story. Basically the joins shouldn’t show!

Writing a flash piece in poetic form is an interesting writing challenge too. Why not give it a go?

Forms by Allison Symes
This writer says give poetic flash a go.
But do remember you will still need to show
A proper tale with a start, middle and end.
Check all is well with your words before you send
Your story out there into the big, bad world.

Allison Symes – 2nd March 2024

Goodreads Author Blog – Taking In Stories

One of the things I love most about stories is there are so many ways to take them in. My favourite will always be the paperback, followed by the hardback, followed jointly by ebooks and audio. I especially love audio books for long journeys and will look forward to hearing some old favourites again when I go on holiday later in the year.

But don’t forget audio itself comes in more than one medium. Stories on radio work astonishingly well, whether they are readings from books or plays (which are scripted stories). Also film and TV can share stories amazingly well.

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson got members of my family into that terrific story. They would never have read the book. I had read it, loved it, and thought the film trilogy did the original justice. (Though I must admit I would have liked the films to have included what really happened to Saruman after Sauron’s fall).

I also love the fact adaptations to help breathe new life into classic books. Win-win for the written word there I think.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Taking In Stories https://t.co/Y6mCZmgpJa via @goodreads I celebrate the various ways in which we can take in stories for my Goodreads post this week. pic.twitter.com/oOykSHXqui
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) March 2, 2024

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It’s Monday. The heavy rain’s back. It’s Monday. It’s time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube -We’re Off.https://t.co/7wnwwDeYN2
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) March 4, 2024

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Allison Symes: Collected Works

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.

Tag: characterisation

Spoofs

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Fairytales With Bite – Starting Over

This World and Others – Finding A New Place

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Stories Everywhere

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

Facebook – General

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Goodreads Author Blog – Stories Everywhere

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Quizzing Your Characters

Image Credits:-

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Fairytales with Bite – Problem Solving

This World and Others – Developments

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up
WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Writing Tips and Writing Progress

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.

Facebook – General

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Goodreads Author Blog – Taking In Stories

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES