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. Weather changeable – April is living up to its reputation for showers – though it hasn’t stopped Lady and I getting about. Writing and editing going well. Am off to a church event on Saturday in Salisbury and am looking forward to that (chance to catch up with some folk I know too).
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today
Delighted to share my latest post on Chandler’s Ford Today – Character Moments. I share some of my favourite character moments (which I am sure will ring more than one bell with you!) and ask some pertinent questions, which I hope will help you create your characters. I also discuss how using your own love of stories by others can help so much here and what character moments can mean to their author. Hope you enjoy the post.
Character Moments
Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler chum today. Nice to catch up with her and her owner again today.
Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Character Moments for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday. See above. My next post Authors Electric will be up later this week too.
Character Tip: I’ve long found creating characters to be my favourite part of storytelling. Coming in at a close second is giving said characters the words to say/thoughts to think. It’s at that point they take on “life” for me. I can understand who they are and where they come from and what they want. From there I can figure out what kind of story these characters would best be suited for.
So it is worth taking time over creating your “people”/beings of choice? Definitely. But only you can figure out what it is you need to know about them. I always need to know what drives them. Others may need to know the character’s appearance and from that work out the kind of situation where the character would work best.
Sometimes what you need to know will change a bit from story to story, especially if you are working for a market or competition where the theme has been set. If, for example, the theme is love, you can work out what kind of love you want to write about (as it may not necessarily be just the romantic kind) and from that the kind of characters who would work best.
But prep work in terms of thinking things through does pay off. I’ve only abandoned two stories in my time and in both cases it was because I hadn’t thought things through enough. I’ve written hundreds of tales since…
Hope your day has gone well. Mixed bag weather wise here.
Writing wise, don’t forget it won’t be long before my author newsletter is out once again. To sign up for news, tips, and stories do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com
Have booked tickets for a multi book launch Bridge House Publishing are having in May. Am already looking forward to that. Online launches have the huge advantage of making it easier for people to get to them. I’ve attended several over the years where I know I couldn’t get to an in person event. Naturally I hope to have something like this for Seeing The Other Side in due course.
Launch Tip: You can think well ahead of time here about questions which are likely to come up and prepare some answers ready for the event. Also if you are planning to read from your book, take you time selecting what you will read. You obviously don’t want any spoilers but you do want something which will encourage your audience to want to find out more. And once you’ve found the right extract, do practice reading it out loud. It will help steady your nerves on the night of the event because you know you’ve rehearsed. You know you can do it basically!
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Hope the day has gone well. Nice to see some sunshine about. Am off for a day trip tomorrow and hope to get to do some writing though it won’t be as easy as usual. Will be on a replacement bus service rather than the train. Mind you, I suspect I can probably write some horror flash pieces about replacement bus services at some point!
Am happily working away on my third book – all is going well, I’m glad to say. So looking forward to Seeing The Other Side seeing the light of day in due course.
I’ve always loved writing dialogue for my characters and, sometimes with my flash fiction work, I write tales which are all dialogue. These stories have a great pace to them but the challenge is always to ensure it is clear to the reader who is speaking. Every line of dialogue must move the story on in some way, just as any other component in a story should do. I find it useful to establish character names in the first couple of lines and then maybe one repeat later down in the tale.
I also like to give my characters slightly different ways of speaking. One will use certain kinds of vocabulary, the other character might use slang etc. All of that helps readers.
It is great fun to do and it makes for a good writing exercise too. Why not try it? Set yourself an exercise of an all dialogue story to, say, 100 words. Good luck!
Flash is a wonderful format for exploring genre. I’ve written, and continue to write, flash tales in a wide variety of genres and moods. It’s fun and a fabulous ongoing challenge and that’s before I get to the limited word count bit!
Flash encourages you to think about your choice of words and whether or not you can express something better. A lot of the time you can do that but you need the first draft down first to be able to see it. I like to see the first draft as just getting the ideas down and then it’s a case of refining them further and getting the best out of them.
And you need to give yourself time for that. Sometimes I think that can be the hardest thing of all – to make yourself wait for a bit before revisiting a story and being able to evaluate it properly. I make sure I’m working on other things during these times. I have something else to focus on and it means I do get the time break I need.
Fairytales with Bite – Cloudy Weather For Characters
How do your magical characters cope when things are clouding over for them, when they can’t see a way through to resolving whatever their main problem is? This is where grit, determination, and some luck come into play (though I must admit I especially love those stories where you can see the characters doing something to “earn” having some good luck go their way).
It’s at this moment of a story you usually find out whether a character’s friend really is their friend or not. Tests of character are not only for the lead characters after all and not everyone passes that test. Naturally when a friend fails the test, things become even gloomier for the lead and that will be the moment they will be tempted to give up. Totally understandable to feel that way too. But what does keep them going? What keeps them believing there will be sunshine beyond the gloom?
If magical help is available to clear those clouds away, what form does it come in and who is willing to provide that help? What do they stand to gain by offering this? If it is genuine goodwill (which I would hope would be the case), is it a case of their having gone through difficult times themselves and they want someone else, your lead character, to also get through?
Story ideas there!
This World and Others – Smoothing The Way For Good or Evil
Which characters clear the way for your lead to either be the hero or the villain? Generally, these folks don’t work alone. In the case of villains, they need their minions. In the case of heroes, they need their guides.
Are your characters here motivated by ideology or something simpler like greed? Or is it a case they want to make sure they’re on the winning side and so will (a) survive and (b) reap rich rewards later on?
Do any of your characters end up regretting the choices they make here or does it all work out well for them?
When a character is helping the villain, what happens to them when the villain fails? Often the villain will make sure their minions suffer ill effects long before they themselves do!
When a character is helping the hero, what happens to them when the hero succeeds? Do they end up being disappointed by the rewards they receive? (I’d make sure they weren’t in the hero’s shoes). If somehow the villain succeeds, can this character escape any inevitable retribution the villain would want to impose?
Also, can there be the possibility your character’s ideas of who the hero and villain are could be wrong?
Again, story thoughts to explore there.
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https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsCharacter Moments https://t.co/XWm9CX1Vvi For my new CFT post, I share some favourite character moments and ask questions, which I hope will help create characters. I discuss how using your love of stories by others can help and what character moments can mean to their author.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 17, 2026
Allison Symes: Collected Works 