Tag: consistency in writing

Starting A Piece of Fiction

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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 week. Lady has – she’s been catching up with her pals. Many thanks for great responses to my posts about the October issue of Writers’ Narrative where I’m the Featured Author. It’s not often you get to be a cover girl in your late fifties but there you go!

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Lady has had a fabulous week in that she has seen most of her friends most of the time this week. I think most of us would count that as a great week.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share Starting A Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Hope you find it useful.

Once I get started on a flash tale or short story, I am generally “away with it” (though I do use outlines to help me). What can be tricky can be knowing where to start and this post shares some thoughts and tips I have found useful over many years to overcome this.

I also share a useful template (which is easily adaptable) which, again, I hope you find useful.

Starting A Piece of Fiction

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Will be sharing Starting A Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. The following week, I will, as you will probably have guessed, be sharing a piece on Ending a Piece of Fiction. I hope both will prove to be useful. After that will be a fabulous interview with John Puzey about his book, Captive Audience, so plenty going on at CFT at the moment. John is also a member of our excellent local theatre company, The Chameleons.

Have been busy this week working on a presentation and pitches. Have sent the latter off. The presentation will be for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. So far it has been a non-fiction heavy week but I will be switching to the fiction side again soon.

And Lady had a great Thursday meeting up with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals so she has had a great day, as did her friends.


Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal today – nice time had by both dogs.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Starting a Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Will be sharing tips I’ve found useful for overcoming hesitant starts to stories. I find once I get started it’s fine. It can be the getting started which can be tricky sometimes. I hope the post will prove useful. See above.

Marketing Tip: Consistency matters. It’s better to focus on a few things you know you can do (and keep doing) than spread yourself too thin. This is why I’m not on every social media platform out there (though that doesn’t preclude me from changing the ones I am on or adding others later). But I know I can post regularly where I currently do so I keep that going. Over time, consistency pays off. Readers know where to find you.

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Am thrilled to be one of two Editor’s Choices on Friday Flash Fiction with my tale, Finding Out The Hard Way. Hope you enjoy it.

Congratulations to Jim Bartlett for his story, Safer, which was the other Editor’s Choice.

Having two stories chosen doesn’t happen often so this was an especially nice surprise today.
We talk about having flashes of inspiration and they do happen but I find they come more often when I am at my desk working out ideas for characters and situations to put them in. Then the flashes can come.

Basically, I’ve got to put the work in, which is fine because I love that.

Where I do a get an idea out of “nowhere”, it usually is because something has been bubbling away in my subconscious for a while and it comes to the surface when I am working on something it could be useful for.

Often that something bubbling will be due something I’ve read so this is another reason to read widely and well, contemporary and classic works, short and long forms, and non-fiction because you want a wide pool to fish from for ideas to bubble like that.

It is also more likely you will get more ideas the more you read (and write).

Another aspect to flash fiction flexibility is mixing up the word count ranges you write to within the overall limit of 1000 words. You do develop favourites over time. My overall favourite will always be the drabble, the 100 worder, as it was my way into flash fiction in the first place, but I often write to 300 and 500 words especially. This is handy as so many flash competitions go to these word count limits. As you can imagine, I’m sure, this is no coincidence on my part!

Also when I have submitted stories for potential broadcasting, I am usually looking at the 200 to 250 word count tops for these, so it pays to practice writing to this kind of count.

You do, with time, get used to seeing/knowing what 200 to 300 words will look like on the page/screen so get better at knowing where to stop your story. You get a feel for what will fit in that word count limit.

I can usually tell at a glance now when I draft a 100 word story for Friday Flash Fiction, by roughly how much I’ve gone over on that first draft (and I always do go over). I’m not usually out by much when I compare my thought to the word count on the screen.

Mind you, that tells me how much I have to edit and I start by removing all of my wasted words (that, very, actually etc). Its amazing what a difference can be made to your word count removing words like that can do.

Fairytales with Bite – Options for Magical Beings

What options do your magical beings have in your setting? Are they born with their powers or do they develop these as they grow up? Which powers come to them as naturally as breathing and which do they have to learn? How would all of that impact on the kind of careers they can have later?

Do your magical creations get any choice at all on their career? Can anyone “rebel” against their “default setting” and do something different? What would the consequences be of that?

Are your characters happy with the skills they are born with and/or go on to develop? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them? Could any of your characters with powers envy those without them and why would that be? (Simpler lifestyle and less complications would be one thought springing to my mind).

This World and Others – Careers

In your setting what kind of careers are available for your characters? Is this dependent on magical skill set (see Fairytales With Bite above) or can anyone go for these careers as long as they’re willing to learn and work hard? How have the careers developed in your world? Is magic an advantage here or not?

Also are there careers not possible in your setting but which are still needed for your society to function?

Could magical power get in the way of these needed careers so your world has to import people /other beings of choice to carry out these vital roles? How does that happen? (There could be many a tale of alien abduction here – at least it would be for a reason that made sense!).

Are there careers your characters are desperate to avoid or get? How can they avoid/get them? Why do they feel this way? Could a story involve a character facing up to having to do a career they don’t want for a greater purpose?


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Consistency and When Is A Story Truly Finished?

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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. One image of me with books was taken by Adrian Symes.
Hope you have had a good weekend. It was a Bank Holiday in the UK. Also commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day this week. Lots of fascinating and brave stories will come to light this week and it is good we remember. Stories are wonderful things for helping with remembrance.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady had a lovely time playing with her two best doggy pals again (and should hopefully get to do the same again tomorrow).

Looking forward to sharing Building On What Has Gone Before for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. All writers do this. We need to do it too. More in the post later this week.

Consistency plays a huge part in my writing routine. I focus on certain aspects such as my author newsletter, regularly updating my blog, having time set aside for flash fiction writing and so on. I find it works. I work out my writing tasks over the course of a week and find I cover what I want to do most of the time doing this.

Sure, life gets in the way sometimes, but I just pick things up from where I’ve left off and that’s okay. It’s taken some time for me to be able to reassure myself it is okay but I’ve got there! Learning not to beat yourself up over what you can’t get done because… well, it takes time.

What is, for me, even more important is ensuring I enjoy what I do writing wise. That matters. It is what helps keep me going when life does get in the way because I have it to look forward to again and that cheers me up a lot.

Hope you have had a good start to your week. It’s a Bank Holiday here in the UK and I was pleased I did get to see the flypast over Buckingham Palace to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Nice to see some of the talks with veterans too.

Lady had a fabulous time at the park with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals so her week has begun well. Nice to see the first rhododendrons out too.

Didn’t get to sort out my competition entry as hoped but I hope to do that this week. Having said that, I did have a good weekend writing wise with plenty of other work I needed to get done finished. It’s another reason I give myself plenty of time ahead of any competition deadline. Things like this happen. I’ve got used to that idea and it no longer throws me the way it would once have done.

Hope the weekend has gone well. Enjoyed catching up with some of my fellow Swanwickers on Zoom last night. 

Friday Flash Fiction are having a brief break from taking story submissions but will be reopen again soon. See screenshot.

Question for the Day: When is a story truly finished? It isn’t necessarily when you write those magical words The End. For me, that is the end of Stage 1, getting that draft down. But there does come a point when, having edited as well as possible, you do have to let your story go and get it out there. So for me a story is finished when I have submitted it and it has been accepted.

When it isn’t, I have another look at it, make any improvements I can now see thanks to the break from it, and then have another go at finding a more suitable home for it. Sometimes I can’t see any obvious improvements to make so again try to find a more suitable home.

Sometimes stories are turned down because the editor has recently accepted something on a similar line. It isn’t necessarily the case there was something wrong with your submission.

But I do see the end of my story is when I have placed it somewhere. To me that is happy ending!

Hope you have had a good start to your weekend. Have started wood treating a fence – I know, I know. The glamour of it all!

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Building On What Has Gone Before for Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up next Friday. This topic is something which is true for most people/most industries and writers aren’t exempt. Looking forward to sharing more of this, and why building on what has gone before is a good thing, next week.

Writing Tip: Mix up how and where you get your title ideas from. It will keep things fresher and interesting for you. Also it is a good idea to have more than one way of generating these in any case. I like to have a Plan B, a Plan C etc etc!

I use phrases, proverbs (and sometimes subvert these), as well as using part of my character’s dialogue or their thoughts for a title which I hope acts as a hook to get the reader to find out what the story is about.

I always ask myself would this title interest me if I came across it if it was written by someone else. It’s a good thought to have in mind, I find. Always think of the reader.

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Flash fiction is wonderful for capturing those moments which are lovely to write and read but shouldn’t be stretched out or padded to make a standard length short story. Padding never works and I think most readers can easily spot it.

I also like flash for thoughtful slice of life stories which I feel work best when kept short and to the point. Flash helps a lot there with its word count limit!

It’s Monday. Okay, it is a lovely sunny one (mainly) and it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK but it is still Monday. Time for a story then.

Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Acting the Part. Members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group who were at the most recent meeting may well recognise the opening line here! Hope you enjoy the story.

You work so hard at your job. You know standards are slipping. You think of something which will improve things. How does it go? Find out for this Dark Lord here.

 

Flash fiction has many advantages, including its ability to be a useful warm up writing exercise for those writing longer works. Best of all there is nothing to stop you revising those draft flash pieces and submitting them as well at a convenient time. You have a market for these things now.

Marketing Thought: You’ve written a long piece of work (novella/novel). How about writing some flash pieces to use as advertising for the book itself? For fans, these could be added material to run with your novella/novel. It will be a bonus for them and a way in to the longer work for others.

As ever am looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow. I hope to get a flash piece out for a competition then too.

Have sent in today a six worder for a fun flash competition linked to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Great fun to do. Never let anyone tell you the short form is easier than the longer forms of writing. It isn’t necessarily so!

But do bear in mind the six word form makes a great writing exercise. Why not try it sometime? You could also develop the stories further later if you wanted to do that.

Goodreads Author Blog – Short Novels

Most of the novels I read come in at around the 80-90,000 words mark. There are exceptions. The Lord of the Rings is a mammoth of a book but so wonderful.

But I do read under this standard word count. A lot of the anthologies I read/have work in can be under this count but there is a novel too, which stands out for me, and it is always a joy to re-read.

This book has had a huge impact on me (and many others). It comes in at under 60,000 words. It is the magnificent The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, which made me think again about Richard III. It remains the only fictional work to make me change my mind about a known historical figure.

It is a story about Inspector Alan Grant, confined to a hospital bed, who looks into whether there is a case for Richard III being guilty of the murder of the Princes in the Tower. It is thought provoking to say the least.

What is lovely about this novel is it does what it has to, so to speak, without a word wasted. There is no padding. I can learn from that as a writer. And it does prove short novels can work as well as the much longer ones. Highly recommend checking this one out.

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Triggering Writing Ideas

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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. Many thanks to Julia Pattison for taking the image of me at an editing workshop for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady has got to play with pals, get a soaking with yours truly, play with pals again, get another soaking – yes, one of those weeks. Pleased to say the editing workshop for the lovely people at Medway Mermaids went very well. Always enjoy running these workshops and it is good to know they are useful.

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Post 2 of 2 from me tonight. Post 1 below. It’s a fact of life you can have days where there is lots going on and other days where there is nothing! Having said that, it is always fabulous to have plenty of news and posts to share.

Am pleased to share Triggering Writing Ideas for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. It’s proved to be an apt topic given I talk on Gill James’ blog this week (see below for more) about how I took her theme of gifted for the Bridge House Publishing anthology of the same name and used it for my story in there. An idea was definitely triggered by someone else setting the theme. (This is another advantage to taking part in Flash NANO too).

Hope you enjoy the CFT post and find it useful.

Triggering Writing Ideas

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Bonus Post

Post 1 of 2 from me tonight. Many thanks to Gill James for hosting me on her blog to talk about my contribution, Desperately Seeking Talent, in the Bridge House Publishing anthology, Gifted, which is out and would make a great present for someone. Find out what I love about the short story form as well and why I took the theme of gifted the way I did with my tale. Link to blog here.

Screenshot 2023-11-17 at 10-06-01 Allison Symes talks to me today about her involvement in our Gifted anthology

My sport of choice is swimming. I go regularly and you get to spot other regulars there and start chatting usually as you come out of the pool. (One good thing about it being cold today was it did encourage me to get something of a move on in said pool!). Anyway, one of those regulars complimented me about being consistent and disciplined about my swimming. I find I have to be otherwise it would be too easy not to go, especially during the winter months.

But it occurred to me the need to be consistent is a good thing for writers too. It doesn’t matter what your routine is – writing daily, writing every other day or what have you. It is the regular turning up at your desk to get on and write which matters. It is the regularity of writing which will build up your stories, novels etc. I’ve found this to be the case and know I have submitted far more pieces than I might otherwise have done simply by being consistent. It’s an underrated quality I think.

And if you want some inspiration, I’ll be talking about Triggering Writing Ideas for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. See above.

 

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal. Great run around by both of them and a massive zoomies session to finish with. Lady came over and “flumped” down in front of me as if to say, ‘Mum, I’m done!’. Takes a lot to do that to a collie!

I’ll be looking at Triggering Writing Ideas for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ll be looking at some of the methods I use here and hope the post will prove to be useful. See above.

Don’t forget the November issue of Writers’ Narrative is out. The theme is on Writing Novels this time and you can find the magazine at the link below. A perfect free read packed full of fabulous advice and interviews.

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Glad to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Maisie. Does Maisie the dog know better than her owner as the world falls apart around them? Find out here. I hope you enjoy the tale and a big thank you for the comments already coming in on this one.
Screenshot 2023-11-17 at 10-04-57 Maisie by Allison SymesGlad to report Hannah Kate is having her Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM again this year. Full details via link here. Do give it a go. It’s great fun.

Top Tip: When you’ve got your story ready, do record yourself on Zoom and play it back to yourself. You will pick up on things like characters stumbling over dialogue etc but also get your timing right. The stories need to be a maximum of three minutes long and I’ve found it so useful to use Zoom here as that will give you an exact timing.

Good luck! Yes, I’ll be having a go again at this myself this year and am looking forward to tackling Day 16 of Flash NANO later today.

Screenshot 2023-11-16 at 16-59-30 🎅 3 Minute Santas 2023 is Open for Submissions! 🎅

Looking forward to having a crack at today’s Flash NANO challenge later on. I have to cut something already drafted in half. I’ve done this kind of exercise before. It’s a great discipline and takes longer than you think too. This time I have to add a specified object in. That will be fun. The object in question, well let’s just say I’m going to have to find a legitimate way of working it in! It wasn’t an “obvious” object but I did work the thing into my story legitimately.

I have used objects in stories before as one kind of exercise and cut a story in half as another but this will be the first time I’ve combined these two.

If I had to nominate a favourite writing exercise, it is the opening line one. Why? Because I can work out what possibilities could come from what has been set and a character to suit it.

I then go for what I like best. It is always the one that has the most impact on me whether it makes me laugh or cry or what have you. I figure if I react like that, readers will too. It is always a good sign when you remember the impact a story has on you.

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Fairytales with Bite – Laughter

In your magical world, is there much in the way of laughter? Do magical students give their teachers many a laugh when getting things wrong as they develop their skills? And that’s just to name one example. I can easily visualise this happening. (The Harry Potter series touches on this too, especially with Ron Weasley and his wand held together with Spellotape).

Does your setting encourage its inhabitants to laugh? Are communities made up of a wide mix of species type or do the different magical types not mix at all? Where folk really don’t get on, the latter is probably the best solution, but a better one is where they do mix and they live and laugh together.

Equally is this something your characters do get on with even though the powers that be may not entirely approve?

Laughter can be a great bridge builder and comedy the source of that laughter so how does this play out in your setting? Laughter can bring about understanding.

Is there one species type that is better at producing laughter than the others? Is this a talent or is it a case everyone else laughs at them and how do they handle that? Laughter makers can also be bridge builders. How could this be put to good effect in your stories?

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This World and Others – Sources of Information

We live in an age where sources of information have never been so readily available. If you don’t know where to find something of this nature, a quick search of the internet is likely to throw up ideas as to where you can find out what you need to know. Plus there are always the reference libraries and museums often have their own libraries. I’ve spent time at a lovely steam railway exhibition looking at their displays and then having a good read in their archives.

So in your world setting, what sources of information exist? Is there an equivalent of the web? Are there papers, media etc and do these operate freely or are they limited in what they can share with the general populace?

Also how well educated are your characters because that will make a huge difference to what they can access even if there are no other restrictions? Who publishes papers and periodicals and where do they get their information from?

Think back to the history of your setting as well. What does everyone “know” (or more accurately think they know) about it? What information in archives backs this up or challenges the accepted view (hence it was archived and kept out of sight!)?

What information would your characters need to make to fulfil their stories?

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