Tag: Clockwork by Allison Symes

Random Generators, Endings, and Exercise

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Image Credit:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
A good start to the week – new story up on Friday Flash Fiction and a new video to share. Also getting closer to the Brechin/Angus Book Festival (19th to 21st November 2021) and am so looking forward to taking part in that.

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Hope you have had a good day. Busy but enjoyable one here. Managed to get out for a swim today and set a personal best so well pleased with that. When I started swimming regularly, I did think I would use the time in the pool to think out story ideas etc. Not a bit of it!

I just don’t think of anything other than trying to keep count of what number length I’m up to but I guess in some ways that is the point. I come out of the pool refreshed and it is that which helps get the writing brain going again after a break from the desk.

So having found this to be the case, it gives me reason to plan out my exercise spots to ensure I do get regular breaks from the desk. Writing is wonderful, great for the brain, but is stationary so the swimming and walking the dog are the two things I do to balance that out a bit.

Busy start to the working week. I submitted a new story to Friday Flash Fiction yesterday and created a new story video for my YouTube channel. Sunday is rapidly becoming flash fiction and story day! Not that I mind. I find it helpful to have a writing structure for the week as a whole. It also means I tend to get straight into my writing day by day and end up getting more done so it does pay to plan out what you’re doing over a week.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be about book lists. I prepare two of these a year – one for my birthday and the other for Christmas. I look at the value of lists like this. Let’s just say it makes me easy to buy for! But posts like this are great fun to write as it is a celebration of books in general and there is always time to write posts like that!

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Pleased to share a link to my recent feature in Mom’s Favorite Reads. My theme for this month was Light and Dark in Flash Fiction. You can have a lot of fun with both of those themes. I share several ways in which you can take these themes too. When I was putting my debut flash collection together for Chapeltown Books, I found my stories fell into these two basic categories so used that to inspire the title – From Light to Dark and Back Again.

Do check out the flash fiction stories other writers have come up with to my theme. There are some fabulous stories coming into the magazine. Don’t miss out. It is free and a good read.


Hope you are having a good weekend. Can’t get over how quickly it gets dark now and we haven’t even turned the clocks back in the UK yet.

A huge thanks for all the comments coming in on Clockwork, my latest #FridayFlashFiction tale. Much appreciated.

Advance notice: I’m not going to be about on 1st November so I will be sending out my author newsletter on 29th October, a couple of days early. This time I’m doing this deliberately! If you’d like to receive said newsletter, please head over to my website at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com – the landing page takes you straight to the sign up form.

It’s going to be a busy few weeks. I’m off to see Murder with Ghosts staged by The Chameleon Theatre Group on Thursday and I’ve a number of writing things I want to either wrap up and schedule or prepare to take with me as I enjoy a short break from the end of next week.

And I’m getting ready for the Brechin/Angus Book Fest too in November and am looking forward to that and joining up with fellow Bridge House Publishing authors at their celebration event in December. In between all of that, I might just get ready for Christmas!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I use a variety of random generator (words, numbers, adjectives, questions, nouns – just to list a few) as all of these give me different trigger points for getting “into” a story. They also make me think outside the box a bit too which is a good thing. It keeps me on my toes. It also means I will never run out of prompts!

And practicing writing to these different types also gives useful practice at writing to different prompts set in writing classes, conferences, and the like because you can never know what will come up with those. (Well, not unless you’re the speaker and you set the things anyway!).

I’ve found it gives me even more fun in coming up with stories precisely because I’m stretching myself here to use things I would not ordinarily have come up with by myself. I’ve written a story this week where I had to use the words egg and bear in it. Done. Submitted it. But I would not have come up with those two things in one story. They’re not an obvious combination.

You can also think of using generators as a warm up writing exercise. Write for five/ten minutes on what comes up. Edit and polish later. Submit later!

Hope you enjoy my latest YouTube story, About Time. This story was triggered by my using a random time generator (yes, really!) to give me the time that appears in this tale. I realised after coming up with the title that it was even more appropriate than I realised when I first read through my initial draft of this. Serendipity perhaps? Maybe but I like it when it happens.


Endings don’t have to be happy in stories. They do have to be satisfying though. The ending has to make sense of what has gone before and be appropriate for the character. In the case of A Christmas Carol, that ending would not have worked unless we had seen Scrooge undergo his transformation from the greatest miser to someone who has learned the value of generosity and kindness. It took something spectacular to shake Scrooge up – and he got that in the form of the three spirits. (I refuse to believe that’s a spoiler now after all this time!).

All stories pivot on a point of change and it is the character who changes in some way. Not all change has to be positive though!

In my story Rewards from From Light to Dark and Back Again, my character’s point of change is when she gets rid of someone who has been in her way for far too long. You’ll have to read the story to find out what my character did and why and what the outcome of that was but the point remains – change does not have to be positive. We read stories to find out what happens so must ensure that something does happen!

This is why for my twist tales I write that twist down first and then work out what could have led to it. This ensures I do go the best plot line leading to this point. And it means I have my appropriate ending all set up good to go. I just need to go back to the beginning and fill the rest in but I do know where I am heading.

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I’m busy preparing for the Brechin/Angus Book Fest which is from 19th to 21st November 2021. I’m running a flash fiction workshop here and giving an author talk.

So looking forward to doing that and catching up with writer friends at this event too. Always happy to spread the word about flash fiction (and often at events one of the best ways of showing what flash is and can be is to read some. That has always gone down well. I’ve often felt adults like being read to as much as children love being read to – it’s just it doesn’t happen so often for us).

See below for more details on the Brechin event. There is a rather familiar looking book in the top right hand corner! This festival will be my first in-person book fair kind of event for at least two years and it will be lovely chatting to people in that kind of environment again. Book festivals are always great fun (and of course are great places to go if you want to get on with your Christmas shopping!).

Goodreads Author Blog – The Role of the Indie Press

Now I’m not unbiased here. I’m published by the indie press and the big thing they do for the world of literature is give many more authors a voice. The world of books is richer for that. There is more choice out there. It is just a question of knowing where to look (and why it is even more vital for authors to have their own websites so we can point people in the right direction!).

Naturally authors like me who are published by the indie press will support said indie press. It is literally in our own interests to do so but I would like to encourage others to try out books brought out by them too. The indie press does provide more variety so why shouldn’t we have that on our book shelves?

And a lot of the indie press will bring out short story, flash fiction, and poetry collections. That give us so much more variety in our reading and what’s not to like about that?

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Good Writing Topics

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Image Credit:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. A huge thank you to Fiona Park for taking the picture of me book signing at Swanwick.
Has been a busy few days but am pleased to share a new story (Friday Flash Fiction) which was inspired by my using a random time generator. Yes, there is such a thing. Now if I could only use it to help me be in two places at once when I could do with that facility!

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share Good Writing Topics, my latest post for Chandler’s Ford Today. I look at what makes for a good topic and apply this to fiction and non-fiction writing. I also suggest a few ways of picking good topics (so hopefully these ideas will give you a useful place to start). And I discuss some pointers for research too.

I mix up the way I approach my fiction writing because that keeps me on my toes, encourages me to think laterally and outside of the old box, and I do the same for non-fiction. Yes, there are certain tried and tested methods which are my favourites and which I use the most, but I make myself go another way every now and again precisely to trigger ideas and thoughts which would not occur if I stuck to my favourites all the time.

Good Writing Topics

Glad to say my story Clockwork is now up on Friday Flash Fiction. This one was inspired by a random time generator I found online. Hope you enjoy it.
 
Screenshot 2021-10-22 at 18-41-38 Clockwork, by Allison Symes

 

Brrr… it turned cold today. Not that Lady noticed as she had a “puppy party” with several of her pals over the park today. All went home tired and happy. Job done there then!

I was chatting about random generators as part of the ACW Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom last night. I use these a lot as they are excellent ways to trigger ideas for stories. The story I’ve submitted for #FridayFlashFiction was inspired by a time generator. Yes, there is such a thing. Yes, I too can “manipulate time” although only for the purposes of a story!

You set parameters (I used 9 am and 5 pm) and how many times you want to trigger between them. I went for five and yes my story made use of them all. Hope to share the link to it once it is, hopefully, up on the FFF site. Good fun to write and a great way to make use of time in your stories too. Link to story, aptly called Clockwork, shared below.

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Managed to get my flu jab today so well pleased with that. Lady wanted to come with me (well, after all I have to take her to the vet for her booster jabs!). Looking forward to the ACW Flash Fiction Group meeting this evening. Always good fun.

My topic for Chandler’s Ford Today this week is Good Writing Topics. I’ll be sharing some thoughts on what makes a good topic and developing ideas from them. Link up on Friday. See above. Ironically the topic itself is a good one as many threads can come from it (for example you could focus purely on fiction for this one or use it for non-fiction articles etc. Equally take a category you’re interested in such as history or fashion and think about how you could get stories or articles from that.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I was walking the dog with my better half earlier this afternoon when we overheard a wildlife squabble. You can’t mistake the noise. One of the parties was a jay, we didn’t get to see what the other annoyed creature was. All I could think of on hearing the racket was, if they were speaking in human languages, both of them would have been swearing profusely and calling the other all the names under the sun. There was just something about the tone of the noise which told me the bird language being used here was anything but polite!

So what has that to do with flash fiction? Simple.

You don’t need a lot of words to convey tone (and imply character attitude).

A few well chosen words will have depth to them. Telling someone where to go is vastly different between characters who are arguing and one character helpfully giving directions to another one because they’ve got lost!

So if you have two characters in an argument, think about what the reader needs to know. They won’t need to know all the ins and outs of how the argument started. You won’t have the room for that but you can drop hints in what the characters do say to each other and let your reader pick up the rest from context. And they will.

I love it when authors leave me enough that I can work something out for myself. It is a question of leaving the right clues so a reader can do that. I dislike it intensely when an author feels they have to spoon feed a reader and I am likely to stop reading.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. When I name a character it is for specific reasons.

I want the name to indicate likely age. I do this in my story Identity from Tripping the Flash Fantastic with my character, Walter. Highly unlikely to be a young person’s name.

I want the name to indicate class/likely social economic background. This can save a lot on the word count! But someone called Charles is likely to move in upper circles unlike someone who goes around known as Chas. I’ve used this for a conman story where my character takes advantage of having a posh sounding name to fleece the unwary.

I often write about characters caught up in unexpected magical events so their having ordinary names helps emphasize the unusual circumstances in which they find themselves.

Also because I do write flash pieces set on other worlds, I can use my character names to immediately flag up this being is not from our planet.

And you can use not just character names, but the names of things like the shops they go to as ways of indicating their background.

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Am off to the online Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting tonight. Interesting chat, exercises to have a go at, markets to hear about – what’s not to like there?! Networking for writers can take many forms and Zoom has helped enormously here.

Best bit of all? You will find out info useful to you. You may well be able to give useful info out to others. Nobody knows it all and sharing knowledge and tips is the best way to develop as a writer. Networking can also help you avoid the scammers out there. And I’m all for that!

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Fairytales with Bite – Charms and Spell

C = Character casting a charm but will be it be for good or ill?
H = Have a wish or three but respect the giver.
A = Always respect the wish granters or
R = Risk humiliation at best and probably worse.
M = Magical people don’t always look like they are.
S = Showing humility in a magical world is always a good idea.

A = Arrogance tends to be punished here.
N = Not unknown for animal transformations to be the result.
D = Do you really fancy that? Hmm… choice made. Your life is changing.

S = Spending your life as a wild beast is not fun.
P = Praying your one true love will turn up but now knowing if they will.
E = Eternity – you know a thing or two about what that feels like.
L = Living an animal life is far removed from what you’ve known
L = Love cannot come quickly enough to rescue you.

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This World and Others – Interactions

How do your characters interact with each other? Is technology, as we know it, available in your created world or is it far in advance of what we know? If your characters can use telepathy, are there any rules on how they can use it? If not, what would happen if someone “pushes the bounds” of what is acceptable in your world? Not everyone is going to want their thoughts read and could react badly (or will find ways to disguise what they are really thinking and that may well frustrate the potential eavesdropper here so how would they react to that?).

How does your world interact with other planets near it? How do the countries in your world react with one another? What political systems exist in your created world? Does politics get in the way of more positive interactions between individual characters and/or countries?

Interactions are not single things. One interaction will trigger another. Someone has to respond to it but it will be how and why they respond as they do that will keep the reader’s interests. How can you ratchet the tensions up here? Conflicts have to be realistically based.

Readers need to be able to see why Character A wants what they do and why Character B is determined to prevent Character A getting what they want. Also think about what the trigger for the initial interaction will be – the classic one is someone wanting something desperately enough to do anything to get it. How could you use that? What could you bring to the mix to make it unique? What if other characters don’t understand your Character A’s desperate need for whatever the object or objective is and actively get in the way as they think it will be in Character A’s best interests not to get it?

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Plenty going on with Twitter this time as I was on Twitter duty for the Association of Christian Writers over the past few days. I share useful writing tips on these so thought I would share again here.

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