Tag: Dialogue in Fiction

Writing Tips and Characters and Development

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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. Lovely to see some sunshine out. And more proof spring really is on its way. Lady has loved that too. Writing wise, have been submitting stories, am prepping another one for a competition, working on blogs and am working on a author interview which will be on Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. All good! Hope your week goes well.

Facebook – General

Another lovely sunny day and again Lady had another puppy party with her best pals. All dogs went home tired but happy. Enjoyed my swim too. Good to see more spring flowers out. And yes it is good to be reminded the natural world is far better than anything else, especially at the moment.

The other thing which is better is creative writing, of course, or indeed any form of creative art. Hats off to those who can draw anything because I can’t! Enjoying classical music more than ever at the moment – it does calm.

Writing Tip: Dialogue in fiction has to resemble natural speech but cannot be an exact replica of it. Why? Simply because we all um and ah too much and that would so boring to read in print! The odd one or two, yes, but no more.

Hope your Monday has gone well. Another lovely sunny day today and Lady got to have a puppy party with all of her best pals – the Rhodesian Ridgeback, the Hungarian Vizler, and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. All of them had a great Monday! They had a great Tuesday too – see above!

Had a good writing weekend with plenty of work done. Looking forward to the week ahead. Creativity of any sort is good for you, I think. It makes you focus on something positive.

Plan to review a story later this week and then hope to submit it by the weekend. The story is pretty much there but a final review before submission pays off. I see this as my final, final check. Usually it is just to confirm all is okay. Occasionally I pick up an error (the lesser spotted typo!) and I can then amend it, of course. But I factor in time to allow myself to do that and this is another tip I picked up from years back which I continue to use.

Lovely sunny day. Was good to be out and about with the dog, both of us enjoying that.

I’ve picked up a lot of writing tips along the way, as you do, and most of them I still use regularly. Most transfer happily to all forms of writing such as write first, edit later. That one has been a game changer for me.

I remember trying to get each sentence right before moving on to the next and all I managed to do was hamstring myself. I found myself enjoying writing much more when I knew it was okay to write a rubbish first draft, it is what the first draft is for, and it was fine to come back and sort it out later. I’ve not looked back since.

Having enough time away from a piece before judging it properly is another tip I use constantly and again I find it pays off. You can‘t judge something properly the moment you’ve finished writing it.

I found I either I thought it was the greatest thing ever written or, much more often, this is total rubbish, neither of which was true. It was work with promise which needed tidying up, pruning etc. And many of those pieces have gone on to be published thanks to going through that process.

1st March – Newsletter
Glad to say my author newsletter went out earlier today. I know. How can it be March already? I looked at titles as my theme for this one. I sometimes use those pockets of time we all get to brainstorm ideas for title, opening lines etc. I review them later after a suitable break and write up the ones which still make me feel I have simply got to write this one up.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at The Benefits of Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Link to go up on Friday.

Character Tip: We all have certain attitudes towards things, based on personal experience, to an extent how we were brought up, faith (or lack of) and so on. But there will be reasons behind those attitudes so what reasons do your characters have for the attitudes they have? Can anything/anyone make them think again or are they right to take the view they do? Plenty to explore there for story ideas.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you’ve had a good day. Despite the news, it’s not been too bad here.

Flash Fiction Tip: Focus on the lead character and what they do because that is your story. You have to focus on what is the most important thing. I can’t give you chapter and verse in any flash tale, there isn’t the room for it, but I can show my lead character doing one particular thing and that having a pivotal impact on them.

Naturally that will make the reader react but what is fun is deciding what that reaction is likely to be and then working out how to achieve it through your character. So if I want to make a reader smile, I’ll probably get my character doing something a bit daft.

This is one reason I went for a lighthearted story on YouTube yesterday (Socks) aside from feeling we could probably do with some lightheartedness right now.

It’s Monday. It’s a cold but sunny Monday where I am but nothing takes away from it being Monday. Time for another story on YouTube from me then. Hope you like my latest here – Socks. Time for a light hearted one I think!

My character comes up with one plausible explanation for why socks go missing, though it doesn’t seem to please her husband. Find out why here.

Almost time to start my flash fiction Sunday! Have picked a random word from a generator to use as my prompt for this afternoon’s stories. I like doing this because I can often get more than one story out of one generated prompt (or any other kind of prompt come to that) and I can change the mood of the stories too. So I may end up with one funny one, another will be a deadly serious tale, and all from the one prompt. I call this a win!

I have found it to be true the more you write the more ideas come to you. I see this as working the old imagination muscle and it is fun to do. Writing exercises, as I will be talking about in my Chandler’s Ford Today post next week (The Benefits of Writing Exercises), are a great way to work that muscle and are great if you don’t know where to start with your writing. Find a set prompt and give it a go.

Hope your weekend is going well. Pleased to see more daffodils out in my garden and more crocuses emerging too. I have always loved spring but am finding it especially cheering this year to see things like this emerging and reminding me there is a better world out there – the natural one.

Looking forward to Flash Fiction Sunday afternoon – I get quite a bit done in this and it is a highlight of my writing week.

Flash Writing Tip: I find it useful to work out who my character is (broad brush strokes here). For example, I know my character is a lady of a more mature age, likes certain colours in her clothes and other colours for her handbags etc. I then work out the kinds of attitudes they are likely to have.
In this case my character is likely to hate certain colours and won’t wear them.

From there I can work out what kind of events those attitudes could lead them into. Again in this case, I could put this lady into a situation where she must wear a hated colour and cannot get out of it so how does she handle this? Good potential for humour here too but you can mix up the mood as well here.

I can decide if I am going to get a laugh out of my character or take a more serious view in getting her to see how her attitudes can cause conflicts with others and over something relatively silly too. Does she change her ways?

Goodreads Author Blog – Characters and Development

One of the things I love about reading series novels is you can see how characters develop over time. The master on this for me was Sir Terry Pratchett with his Discworld novels. The development of Sam Vimes is magnificent. Start with Guards! Guards! and work your way through to Raising Steam. Men at Arms is an excellent police procedural as well as a funny fantasy and I think it is where you see Vimes come into his own so much more.

Now for short stories and flash fiction this kind of development is harder to do because you literally have far less of a word count to do this in but it is possible. You can have linked flash fiction/short stories where the same character turns up in more than one story, for example. Each flash piece/short story must stand alone but when you read the two more more together you should be able to see how the character has developed, whether it is for good or not.

The advantage to the novel is you can see how the character develops over the course of one novel. A lot can and does happen over one book and even more in a series.

But whatever type of fiction you go for, it should be the characters who grab you and make you keep on reading. I know they do for me. I want to see how they develop and change even if I don’t always agree with how they do so.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Publication/Broadcast News and Author Newsletters

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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 had a good weekend. Great start to the week with publication and ALCS payment news. Lady got her week off to a cracking start by having a good run round with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Hope the rest of the week continues to go well. Spotting more spring flowers out too. They cheer me up so much. I love the colours.

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Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Glad to share a Mixcloud link to Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM on Saturday. Always easier to share one link rather than two! (I had shared two links to both halves of the show over the weekend but will only share this one link here). It was great fun taking part in the flash fiction slot here and do check out the other stories. They were a good mix. Hannah’s Bookshelf is on every Saturday between 2 and 4 pm. If you like books, stories, and radio, well here is the show for you!

Separately, I will be talking about the joys of PowerPoint for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Will be sharing tips and what I’ve found useful here.

Screenshot 2024-03-19 at 10-01-58 Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special - 16_03_2024

Busy night tonight. (18th March 2024 – you know how you sometimes get several things on one day, mine this week was Monday!). First post. Delighted to say I am back on CafeLit with a story called Zoom. Hope you enjoy it. Oh and I will leave you to decide if the character in this one could be in any way related to yours truly!

Screenshot 2024-03-18 at 16-52-14 CafeLitMagazineSecond post. (Told you Monday, 18th March 2024 was busy for me!). Glad to share my latest Authors Electric post where I discuss Author Newsletters. I discuss how I approach writing mine and share some tips. Hope you find it useful.

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Hope you are having a lovely weekend. Pleased to see some sun this afternoon.

Will be back on Authors Electric tomorrow, talking about Author Newsletters. Will also have a story on CafeLit tomorrow. Gets the week off to a good start! See above. I like Mondays like Monday 18th March – lots happening!

Listening to Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens on Classic FM as I write this. (Well, I had been!). One of my favourite pieces, I always vote for it in their hall of fame chart. Also used a free to use version of it for the book trailer for From Light to Dark and Back Again. It is apt!

Am busy preparing some wonderful author interviews to go on Chandler’s Ford Today in due course.
It was lovely listening to Budding Betrayal on North Manchester FM live yesterday. I often have to use catch up but it was great listening to the variety of tales, all of which were spring related in some way, and it made a nice change to get to do so at the time of broadcast.

Writing Tip: I regularly have brainstorming sessions where I jot down potential ideas for titles, opening and closing lines, and so on. This is great and I find it so useful. But what do you do when the brain decides now would be a good time to give you a fabulous idea to write up but you are not in a position to write anything? I sometimes find this when I go swimming. It’s not a great time for inspiration to strike.

All I do here is repeat the idea to myself (silently!) until I can get to my phone and type myself up a quick note. I can then flesh that note out further when I have more time. What matters is getting the nugget of the idea down. Do that and you should find it will remind you of what else you thought about and then you can jot it down.

431477653_10161784215797053_7292184455729948731_nHope you have had a good day. Delighted to hear my story Budding Betrayal on North Manchester FM in Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show this afternoon. Many congratulations to the other four writers who had stories on. It was a great mixture of tales! All of the stories are on the second half of the show. See single Mixcloud link further up.

What I do when I’m thinking of submitting something for broadcast is edit my story and then I record it on Zoom. I can then play it back and hear how it sounds but I can also check my timings. For Hannah Kate’s show, you send in your stories via Voicemail and you have three minutes maximum on this so your timing does have to be spot on.

As with Open Prose Mic Nights, getting your timing right is crucial but Zoom helps you here. It is also fine to come in at under the maximum time. It is never okay to go over. Word count, I find, for a three minutes slot like today’s one is usually around the 250 mark but it always pays to check as you need to allow for your own reading time here.

The playback is helpful again because I can hear whether I come across clearly or not. No garbling, rushing, or big gaps here. I also find reading out loud and playing a recording back is also great practice for future Mic Nights. Nothing to dislike here basically.

And do enjoy the stories!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I don’t always name a character in my flash tales. (I always do for my longer short stories). I sometimes do this as leaving a character as an “it” can be more scary if I’m writing a darker flash piece. But at other times the name is not the most important thing about the character. Their attitude and back story is more important to know.

An example of this is my The Past – Ready or Not? from Tripping the Flash Fantastic. The story slowly reveals what you do need to know about my character but the name didn’t matter at all!

Most of the time I do name characters of course and use those names to help readers picture them but it isn’t always needed. It is a case of knowing why you are doing (or in this case NOT doing) something which matters most. There has to be a good reason for anything to be in a story.

433567827_10161787404767053_8155201244053768680_nIt’s Monday. Finally the evenings are getting lighter for longer. Having said that, it is still Monday. Time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest YouTube flash tale – Next Time. Dog owners especially will relate to this one.


When I have a theme set for a competition, I take some time working out what could come from that theme. It pays. I find the first few ideas are the “obvious” ones but as I write down more possible thoughts, I find I come up with something which isn’t so obvious. I will then explore those ideas further and see if there is anything I can do with them. Often there is and I will go down this route, knowing I’m producing a story which fits the theme but, hopefully, will stand out a bit as being “different”.

If you’re going for the more obvious takes on a theme, think about what would make your characters stand out in that story. What is it unique to you which you can bring to the mix here? A striking character can transform an “obvious” storyline.

But the time taken to work out ideas, I’ve found, has saved me considerable time and grief later. When I pick the idea to write up, I already know I have thought it through, worked out any potential issues with it, and then I get on with the first draft.

431465653_10161784218007053_4015866457362570123_nGood to hear flash fiction on the radio. I enjoyed tuning in to Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM this afternoon (16th March 2024) and hearing five flash pieces, including my Budding Betrayal, broadcast.

Flash works well on radio. Flash has to keep to the point and to word counts. That in turn helps with timings (crucial for radio shows). When I do need a scene break in my flash tale, and I did with Budding Betrayal, I use a slight pause to indicate a change of scene is coming. Only way you can do it but it does have to be a brief pause, otherwise folk will think there’s something wrong.

All dialogue stories would work well on radio but you do need to find a way of distinguishing between your characters. Yes, you can use names but it is also handy to have one character speak in a specific way and another character to speak in another. You can use turns of phrase to good effect here.

If one character in a two character tale uses a certain word or two, we will know who they are just by the use of those words. We will also know who the other character has to be by default because they won’t use them.

For flash with its tight word count, it would pay to ensure any turn of phrase is kept short and it should be repeated (ideally once or twice maximum depending on your word count here) but, as with any good writing, it pays not to overdo it. I think flash helps here. It forces you to keep things tight. Repetition is used as a deliberately chosen effect (which to my mind is the best way to use it at all).

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Goodreads Author Blog – Dialogue in Fiction

One thing writers need to be aware of is dialogue in fiction can’t match exactly what we come up with in life. Well, nobody wants to read lots of hesitations, repetitions which are not done for effect (and look like mistakes by the author), info dumps and so on. So dialogue in fiction has to “tidy up” what we would come up for real. Dialogue in fiction has to serve the needs of the characters (and, even more importantly, the readers).

The truly great stories get this spot on. You can imagine the characters speaking. What are they saying moves the story on and you are gripped by their conversation. That is the purpose of fictional dialogue.
Dialogue in fiction serves many purposes. It shares information. It reveals information from one character to another which furthers the plot. But whatever the intention of the author here, the dialogue must make us want to read on.

As readers, we need to be convinced by the dialogue the writer is sharing with us. (We have to be convinced this is what characters, as portrayed, would say if they were real).

I love writing dialogue. What I have to watch is to ensure I am putting dialogue into a story for a good reason. I could easily get my characters into conversational ping-pong. So what I do to ensure I don’t do this is ask what does this dialogue do for the story? If it helps in any way, which it should do, it stays in. Else it gets cut.

Great fictional dialogue shows you so much about the characters. In the Wodehouse stories, I can’t imagine Jeeves and Wooster speaking in any other way. The way the two speak (generally and to each other) confirms their portrayal and is so wonderfully done. That’s just to name one example.

Agatha Christie is consistent with how she gets Poirot and Miss Marple to speak. That matters too.

Consistency confirms characterisation. It is what we expect from the characters we like and loathe.

Character dialogue adds so much to the stories and books I enjoy, when done correctly. It acts as a good challenge for me to get it right with my characters too!

Screenshot 2024-03-16 at 17-34-46 Dialogue in FictionWRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Dialogue in Fiction

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Image Credits:-
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.
Hope you have had a good week. I hope to be on a train on my way to Derbyshire by the time this goes out (and it will be lovely to meet up with members of the Association of Christian Writers Committee once again, I’m their Membership Secretary). I’ll be at The Hayes, Swanwick – and I got to book my place for that in August this week so it has not been a bad week at all!

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I look at Dialogue in Fiction for my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. I also include internal dialogue (aka thoughts in this and discuss the use of dialect. I also share my policy on whether a character should swear and list what I think the functions of dialogue should be in any kind of fiction. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Dialogue in Fiction

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Hope you have had a good day. Has been a bit mad here. Glad things are winding down a little. Posts from me over the next couple of days will be at differing times as I am away on Association of Christian Writers business for a couple of days.

Before you ask, Lady isn’t coming but she will be spoiled rotten while I’m away. She always is! She’ll sulk a little when she knows I’ve gone (she tends to look around my side of the bed just to double check I’ve not sneaked back during the middle of the night) but will mug me for all she is worth when I do get back.

Now what is it that you like best about books? Yes, I know. It’s a question of where to start on this one, isn’t it? For me, it’s where I’ve got to the point in the story where I’m rooting for the character to succeed or fail because I know the book has now gripped me and I will just have to read on to find out what happens. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m reading a flash piece or an epic fantasy trilogy, that point doesn’t change for me.

My next favourite bit is getting to the end of the tale and finding the author has made good on their promise – the character has succeeded or failed, as is appropriate for them and the story they’re in. I must admit I do feel so disappointed if I’ve read a story with promising and interesting characters and then find the ending falls flat. But the best ending in the world won’t work for me if I’m not gripped by the characters in the first place.

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Many thanks for the views on No B Gratitude, my latest YouTube story. This is a short and fun tale and I manage to get a pun in on the choice of music for this too. I’m off at an ACW Committee Retreat soon so I may well be putting up a video later than usual next week. Will just have to see how things go. Likewise for getting a piece in to Friday Flash Fiction but I am really enjoying producing something for both of these things once a week. Keeps me on my toes and I am finding more uses for the random generators I love so win win!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I hope by the time you read this I will be in lovely Derbyshire on Association of Christian Writers business for a couple of days. (I’m their Membership Secretary). But right now it is the end of the week and time for my weekly drabble. Glad to share my latest on Friday Flash Fiction and this one is called Timing. Again I used a random generator for this and the question behind it was what was the most recent silly thing you did? So I got my character here to answer that one! All great fun and I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/timing-by-allison-symes

Screenshot 2022-02-04 at 08-57-53 Timing, by Allison Symes

Screenshot 2022-02-03 at 21-31-38 Friday Flash Fiction

 

Your first audience for any story you writer is, of course, you. If you’re not gripped by the characters and the situation they’re in, nobody else will be. This is why I outline my character so I can get a “feel” for who they are, what they’re capable of, and as a result I can determine whether they really do have a story in them that should be told.

With flash fiction I reach that “yes, got to write this character up” stage very quickly indeed and you get better over time (and with practice) at spotting promising characters earlier. I don’t always know the length of the story at this point unless I am writing to a specific word count market such as Friday Flash Fiction, but I don’t let that worry me. I get the story down. I edit it. I leave it for a bit and then look at it again and read it as a reader would. I ask myself tough questions particularly of the “do I really need this in here” variety! That question is useful because you have to be able to say an emphatic “yes” to that one.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her best pal, the Rhodesian Ridgeback today. Two tired and happy dogs went home again. I do sometimes write flash pieces based around dogs. One of them is Jumping Through Hoops from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Let’s just say I am very much on the side of the poor dog in this one!

Fairytales with Bite – Dreams and Nightmares

Most of the classic fairytale characters go through a nightmare stage before their dreams come true (though it is always useful if you have a kindly fairy godmother turn up armed with a large wand and bigger pumpkin!).

In your fictional world, are your characters able to make their dreams come true and is this dependent on magic (whether it’s their own or someone else intervening to help them)? What would count as a nightmare situation for your characters and how do they overcome that?

Of course one person’s nightmare could be someone else’s dream – the villain wants their schemes to succeed, it would be their dream come true. How can you ratchet up the tension between Character A trying to make those schemes succeed and Character B who desperately needs them to fail? There should be plenty at stake here – just what do your characters have to lose or gain?

In a magical world, is the meaning of dreams taken seriously? Who interprets them? Do they do this honestly and do your characters act on what they have been told? What are the consequences of that?

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This World and Others – Interactions

Fiction is dependent on interactions between characters. Story is dependent on conflict and resolution (even if the latter is not a happy one) so there has to be a case of a character wanting something and something/someone else getting in the way of them obtaining that.

Sometimes the conflict can be an internal one – the character wants to change some aspect of themselves and struggles to do so. You see glimpses of this with Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. There are times Frodo’s more positive attitude towards Gollum seems to be paying off and other times when Sam’s cynical view of Gollum is justified.

So yes a character can interact with themselves and Gollum does that a lot. Not necessarily to his own benefit either. For the record, I see Gollum as a tragic, evil character whereas Sauron is just evil. There is a huge difference here. I don’t like Gollum but the possibility of redemption is there – whether he takes it or not is another matter.

How do interactions between your characters play out? Does on character always seem to get the upper hand or is there more of a balance? The problem with dominant characters, as with dominant people full stop, can be they cause resentment (and rebellion) in others. Interactions matter – they fuel the conflict which is the heart of any story.

So give thought to what you want your characters to do and why they are the way they are. With Gollum, you can see what led him to become the creature he became. Your readers need to do that with your characters – and indeed with mine!

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