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Glad to say the presentation of prizes for the children’s poetry competition run by Chandler’s Ford Authors with the Hampshire Library service went well. The only regret was I couldn’t be there as the readings looked fun. A good reader adds so much to the text they read out and can bring it to life for people. On the way back from my trip at the weekend, a proud Granny was reading nonsense verse to her grandchild. Wonderful reading (and I think it was Edward Lear she was reading).
I read aloud (lessons in the church being the most obvious example) and also find it a useful thing to do when checking to see if my dialogue in my stories is as good as I thought it was! I don’t know what it is about reading out loud but it does show up where words don’t flow well, where your readers could trip up, and I also find it highlights where I could simplify what I’ve written (never a bad thing!).
You can’t beat a good read and reading aloud is a great way to literally hear if your dialogue is as it should be. Image via Pixabay.
Being a Drabbler…
Trying to catch up on some magazine reading. Pleased to send From Light to Dark and Back Again off as a prize today. Am working my way though future Chander’s Ford Today interviews. Hope to send these out to the right people in the next couple of weeks.
It was thanks to being at Swanwick Writers’ Summer School this year I found out my 100-word tales are known as “drabbles”. Like the term. It means I’m a drabbler! (Better than being a dribbler perhaps!).
A lot of my flash fiction ends up with a twist in the tale ending. I think this kind of thing ideal for flash as you don’t have room to expand much detail, every word must count, and you are looking to make an impact on the reader. A good twist in the tale achieves all of that in one hit!
Flash Fiction should leave an impact on the reader. Image via Pixabay
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Sometimes a story can come from taking a proverb or a saying and expanding on it from the viewpoint of a character you wouldn’t usually come across.
In The Truth in From Light to Dark and Back Again I have an honest character give their view on something but the twist is who that character is. Making the Grade is an exam story but the character is probably not one you would particularly want to go to school with. So taking an ordinary situation but using an extraordinary character can be a great way of developing new stories.
Also, certain things like truth are open to interpretation so a writer can have fun here with their characters. One character’s truth is another’s lie, which can be a good source of a conflict and once you have a conflict, you have a potential story.
“Twist” characters can spark off all sorts of ideas for stories. Image via Pixabay.
Quirkiness!
I love reading and writing quirky fiction (and flash fiction fits perfectly into this. Some of my characters are very quirky indeed (!) and their stories are ideal as short moments in time. A standard length short story would probably be too long to convey this or would dilute the quirkiness too much).
A lot of my tales are told from the first person perspective because it has the immediacy which is brilliant for flash fiction. My quirky characters like people to know where they’re coming from (even if you don’t like what they’re doing!).
I find knowing what my characters are like dictates how I present them. Some are best shown in the third person with us the readers looking in at what they are up to and others in the first person with us beside them as they get up to their various actions.
I’m not the only one who loves quirky characters! Image via Pixabay.
Allison Symes: Collected Works 