Tag: discussing what you write

Author Interview – Gill James – Natascha’s Story

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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 few days. Still no sign of any sunshine here, I’m afraid. Writing wise, am busy preparing blogs and a presentation as well as my usual fiction work. So glad to be able to do that indoors!

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m delighted to welcome back author, editor and publisher, Gill James, to Chandler’s Ford Today for an in-depth interview about her latest book, Natascha’s Story. This is aimed at the younger end of the children’s market and Gill wrote this book with her daughter, Ashleigh James, illustrating the book.

There is plenty of interest for all writers here with useful thoughts and tips we can all use, especially on marketing and writing.

Oh and do discover what domestic object Gill uses as a portal in this story. It’s not something I would have thought of!

Hope you enjoy the post.

Author Interview – Gill James – Natascha’s Story

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Another cold and murky day but Lady did get to play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, today and both dogs had a riotous time running around the park, which was great to see.

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing a wonderful interview with Gill James about her latest book, Natascha’s Story, on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow and there will be plenty for all writers to enjoy from this. See above.

Writing Thought: A question all writers need to be able to answer, regardless of what form you write in, is the classic What is your story (book) all about? The ideal is to be able to reply in one line. This is worth practicing as a writing exercise.

I usually say I write flash fiction and short stories, with flash being up to 100 words. If I’m asked about a specific story, I will share something about the character “star” of that tale.

Hope today has gone well for you. Still grey and murky here though Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal today which cheered both dogs.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later this month. Am also working on articles for Chandler’s Ford Today and Writers’ Narrative, as well as the flash fiction and short stories.

I love the mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Am never short of things to work on either. Over the course of a week, I end up spending about the same amount of time on each. My reading reflects my love of both types of writing too. Always keep it interesting!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s good to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with another story. It’s a great way to finish the standard working week. Hope you like my latest here – Judging It Right. You can find out if my character, Beth, did judge it right after all (and many thanks for the comments in on this one so far).
When asked about what I write, the next question I often face is just what is flash fiction. I say it is any story which is 1000 words or fewer. I also then share the advantages of writing it.

It has to be character led but you can set those characters anywhere and at any time you want, so this means you can have a great deal of fun with genre here, including setting tales back in time. I also set them forward in time so I can have some fun with science fiction and fantasy here too.

What can often start off as a writing exercise (because you never get time in a lot of workshops to write more than a couple of hundred words or so at the time) can be polished up to become published stories. Nothing to dislike there!

A huge advantage to flash fiction writing is because it tends to be character led, you can not only put them where and when you want, but you can change their moods too!

I’ve written grumpy characters, sad ones, ghost ones, and characters who will put a smile on your face, amongst many others. All fun to do.

But taking one character and changing their mood in the course of a story could make a good structure for a tale or several. Why do they change? Is the change a positive one? Can they change back again? You get to decide but I know as a reader I am always fascinated by what makes a character change. I have to find out how and why and whether this is for the best or not so I keep reading.

So think about what would cause your character to change their mood – you will often a theme emerging from this too.

Fairytales with Bite – Love Is In the Air but Is It Magical or For Real?

I write this with St. Valentine’s Day fast approaching. With regard to your magical setting, do your characters have an equivalent day for celebrating all things love related or is something which simply isn’t done there and they would find us a bit odd for doing this?

Is magic allowed to be used to get characters to fall in love or is this banned? Where it has been allowed, what have been the consequences (and could there be funny ones here?).

Equally where magic is banned from this, how would your characters meet and form attachments with others? Are some things like love meant to be kept “real” with no suspicion of magic having been used to compel people?

Also, whichever way the rules work in your setting, could you write about characters who defy the rules? Again think of the consequences here because there could be some great stories resulting from that idea.

This World and Others – Relationships

Romance may not be uppermost in your mind as your write your fantasy stories, (I write this with 14th February almost with us once again), but could it form an interesting back drop to your main storyline? Even if not, what kinds of relationship do exist in your setting and between which characters?

Do any of your characters defy conventional expectations here and, if so, how and why? It’s always easiest to go with the flow rather than against it, especially if it isn’t just the immediate people around you who are against you. Why would anyone be prepared to defy what their whole society expects?

What other kinds of relationship exist in your setting? Are there families as we know them or are the makeup of these things literally alien from what we know?

When the relationship is a friendship rather than a blood relationship, how did the friendship come about? How is it going to be tested to the limit in your stories? (Should be too. Good example set here by Sam Gamgee and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings!).

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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