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. A huge thank you goes as ever to The Chameleon Theatre Company for supplying the photos for my review of their pantomime for Chandler’s Ford Today this week.
Hope you have had a good week. Author newsletter out this week, as is the super duper bumper issue of Writers’ Narrative for January and February 2024. Plus I review The Sleeping Beauty pantomime for Chandler’s Ford Today. Lady has seen her friends all week so she has had a great time too and I’ve spotted first daffodils out. Spring is on its way at least here in the UK.
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today
So pleased to share my review of The Sleeping Beauty recently performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company. Great show. Wonderful performances and The Chameleons prepare all their own sets too.
My review looks at the classic ingredients for a perfect pantomime. Did The Chameleons deliver on these? You can find out via the link – oh yes, you can!
Review: The Chameleon Theatre Company – The Sleeping Beauty
Author newsletter out today, I’m glad to say. Given it is a Leap Year this time around I shared 29 tips/prompts which I hope my subscribers find useful.
Will be sharing my review of The Sleeping Beauty as staged by The Chameleon Theatre Company on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow (see above) and I hope the review reflects the fun of pantomime. It was a great laugh when I went to see the show last week. This is always a sign of a great pantomime wonderfully performed.
Have two stories to work on and submit over the next day or so. Have also got a number of possible competitions to check out in the Writing Magazine guide that came with the February issue. Looking forward to checking these out.
Delighted to say the super-duper double issue of Writers’ Narrative magazine is now out covering January and February 2024. Lots to read with plenty of superb interviews and advice. Hope you enjoy it (see link below).
I have two pieces in here. I talk about New Beginnings for Characters on Page 14 and ask Flash Fiction Romance – Is It Possible? on page 40. But to find out the answer to that question, do check out the magazine.
If you haven’t already subscribed, there are links to do this within the edition itself. It means you won’t miss an issue and it will come straight to your inbox. Happy reading!
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Down Time. Find out why a robot would like to dream here and what it tries to smuggle into its shed on its down time.
Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her youngest friend, Coco, the small Labradoodle today. Both dogs happy. Coco did not want to go home. I guess that’s a good sign!
Flash fiction has many joys to it, including being able to write in different genres and moods with it, but it is also adaptable when it comes to working out what you do with your finished pieces.
Some of mine are reserved for future collections. Others are sent in for competitions. Others go to Friday Flash Fiction and still more on to my YouTube channel. Flash is easy to share as part of your marketing. It shows what you do and, hopefully, gives some entertainment for potential/actual readers. I find the dribbles and drabbles (the 50 and 100 worders respectively) work best for this.
Pleased to be talking about flash fiction again in the double issue of Writers’ Narrative magazine where I look at Flash Fiction Romance – Is It Possible? (Check out the link to find out more).
One of the joys of flash fiction is it has to be character led, as you haven’t got the word count room for lots of description, and you can set said characters wherever and whenever you want. I love doing this. I’ve written crime fiction, historical fiction, monologues, fantasy flash fiction etc. I’ve written from the viewpoint of a mother dragon and from an alien curled up inside a ping pong ball! Had a ball writing both of these two as you can probably imagine.
The only limitation is that upper word count limit of 1000 words but there is plenty you can do effectively up to that word count. Some of my most poignant stories come in at this count or under (see They Don’t Understand in From Light to Dark and Back Again and The Pink Rose in Tripping the Flash Fantastic).
Fairytales with Bite – Character Ambitions
What ambitions do your characters have? Where magic is involved in your setting, is it a question of your characters getting any magical powers at all or is it a case they wish to top up on what they already have?
Would their ambitions be easy to achieve because they’re expected to have ambitions like that and there is a clear career path, or would they have to fight to get to where they want to be? If magic is restricted to only those of a certain background, how would those of other backgrounds get access to magic? Who breaks the barriers and how do they do it?
If your characters fulfil their ambitions, does this bring them what they were looking for, or are they left feeling let down, frustrated even? If the ambition is a “good” one, what is your character hoping to do by achieving it and are they seeking this “good” ambition for its own sake, for others, or just for themselves?
Are character ambitions limited to whatever class your characters are in? Is there only so much a character could hope to achieve because of their background? When it comes to limitations, who brought them in and why? Were there logical reasons for stopping a certain kind of character achieving something others are allowed to achieve?
Good potential for stories there! Characters who break the moulds set on them by others are always fun to write and there is no lack of tension and conflict, which means there has to be some sort of resolution as well. Pretty much an inbuilt story structure going on here.
This World and Others – Types of Character
One of the fun sides of world building is working out what kinds of character you will have populating it. Are they based on human biology or on something different? Give some thought as to whether your characters will determine the kind of geographical location they can live in or whether the latter dictates the kind of the characters you have to invent who can live there.
A water based world, for example, is likely to have aquatic creatures, which may or may not be the stars of your stories or may threaten/be helpful to your other characters who are the lead, as the case may be. In a water world, would your characters, assuming they are roughly humanoid, be expected to swim and do they have features we do not? For example, would they have gills and fins attached to a human like body?
Also give some thought as to type of character based on intellectual ability or the complete lack of it.
What kind of characters to you need to bring your setting to life? For any setting to seem plausible to a reader, you need to show something of how it works and one great way to do that is by showing your characters at home in their environment as part of the story.
If they’re on a journey, what transport would they use, for example? In showing, say, they can hire flying cars, readers will assume there is a whole industry behind producing said flying cars, which immediately highlights your setting as being reasonably well developed.
Where you have different types of character, you can also show how well or otherwise they get on, what the politics between the different types are and how this affects your characters, amongst other things. (There will be a history behind whether types of characters get on with each other or not so you can imply/show some of that history. If an outsider queries why Character Type A does not get on with Character Type B, a third one can reveal it was because of the war in the year 18,006 and Character Type B’s people committed atrocities. You don’t have to give a lot of information. My example here would be a line or two in a conversation between two characters).
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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAllison Symes – February 2024 – Leaping Into Flash – https://t.co/HVzDAHy1zN pic.twitter.com/3u4p8zvONn
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 1, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsDown Time, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/pGQVTvPVP3 Delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Down Time. Find out why a robot would like to dream here and what it tries to smuggle into its shed on its down time. pic.twitter.com/BFJK3CmCYL
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 2, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsReview: The Chameleon Theatre Company – The Sleeping Beauty https://t.co/Up5pKtJmLK Pleased to share my review. Fab performances. My review looks at the classic ingredients for a perfect pantomime. Did The Chameleons deliver? You can find out via the link – oh yes, you can!
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 2, 2024
Allison Symes: Collected Works 