Tag: Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction book

Getting The Hooks In

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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 the week has gone well. Mixed bag with the weather though there have been some nice days and Lady has seen her friends so all well there. Writing and editing going well too. I also have publication news too, which is always welcome.

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Am pleased to share Getting In The Hooks for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I look at the importance of delivering on the hook’s promise, look at their role in non-fiction and writing exercises, the usefulness of opening line hooks, other kinds of hook, and placing your hooks (they don’t necessarily have to be at the beginning). I hope you find the post useful.

Publication News: Nice to finish the working week with publication news. Am delighted to say I’ll be in The Best of CafeLit 15 coming out later this year. Good to see some familiar names will be in that book with me but congratulations to all.

Getting The Hooks In

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Hope the day has gone well. Drizzly and blustery here though Lady was cheered to see her Hungarian Vizler chum again.

Writing wise, am happily preparing my next PowerPoint for the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. Plus my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Getting The Hooks In will be up tomorrow. See above. Am also equally happily editing and drafting bits and pieces for later use. Never a dull moment here but that is how I like things to be.

Character Tip: I always find it useful to work out what motivates my character but, on top of that, to work out what they would be prepared to do when pressurised. The differences between “normal” motivations and those actions which come as a result of dire straits can be interesting and reveal much more about your character to you.

For example, a character who is usually calm because they hate drama, unnecessary anger etc because they know how hurtful it can be, what would make them go away from that state? Would it be to help someone else and why would they help that particular character? Definite story ideas there.

Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal again today and a lovely time was had by both dogs.

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing Getting The Hooks In on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I share thoughts and tips here and hope the post will prove to be useful.

Writing Question: What do I most enjoy about any creative writing? I think it is the creating of something new. Okay, I know it will need a lot of work but there is something new I’ve got down on paper or on screen with potential to be better. And I find discovering that potential to be such a challenging, fun and interesting thing to do. I really do love editing. It brings out the best of those initial drafts and it’s great to get to that point. I’ve also found the more writing I do, the clearer my writing voice becomes and I like that too.

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Hope the day has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback chums today and a lovely time was had by all.

Pleased to discover yesterday I will be in The Best of CafeLit 15 later this year. Always lovely to receive news like that.

Writing wise, I hope to be back to drafting more stories over the weekend, especially on Sunday. That’s a lovely way to wind up the week as a whole. Am thoroughly enjoying reading Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction Favourites. I have some tales in there but the selection is wonderful and I highly recommend this (and not just because I’m in it, honest guv!). Link below.

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As well as writing flash fiction, I also read it. It makes sense to read in your genre. It confirms what you love about it for one thing! It also shows you what is out there already (and you can learn a great deal from that). Also reading the anthologies is simply fun to do and I read these in between reading novels. I like to make sure I read plenty in the short as well as the long forms – again, fun to do and so helpful to any writer as you learn what you like and dislike as you read. That does have a powerful impact on your own writing.

My works, including the anthologies I’m in, can be found on Amazon (as well as elsewhere). Link to my Amazon Author Central page here. (Am so looking forward to when my third collection, Seeing The Other Side, can be on there too).

Twist endings in flash work so well. You don’t have to wait long for the pay-off. Because the story is so short, the impact of that twist is stronger, I think. I often know my twist first so I then jot down different scenarios which would lead to this twist arising naturally and then go with the one which has the most impact on me. Other readers are likely to feel similarly.

I also know the kind of twist I love reading in stories written by others and why I like them. Almost inevitably it is because when I look back at the story again, I can see the clues were there which would lead to that twist and this is why it works so well.

Twists serve the story and the character. It all has to blend together nicely. A twist shouldn’t be thrown in just for the sake of it. It won’t work. But a character doing something and then because something else happens, the twist occurs, that’s fair enough. And I do love it when authors manage to wrong foot me here. I always go back and study how they’ve done it. Always plenty to learn here (which is another aspect of the writing life I love because you are always learning and that is so good for you and your creativity).

Fairytales With Bite – Going Against Stereotype

Fairytales may be seen to be stereotypical but they often go against type. When you think that many powerful magical characters are older men or women in disguise, usually to teach someone arrogant a lesson, the message there is, rightly, don’t write off or treat with contempt older folk.

I must admit I love the Shrek franchise which goes even further here in turning a typical storybook villain into the hero. Thought that was so well done. And it does throw open an interesting question – just who is the hero or villain? These can be very different characters depending on which perspective you use. Robin Hood is a great example of this – if you were from peasant stock, you’d support him. If you were the Sheriff of Nottingham, you definitely wouldn’t.

When it comes to going against stereotype in your own stories, think about what it is you want to change. Do you want to give a fairytale species a better reputation as Shrek has successfully done? Or is it a question of helping a misunderstood character type have their say and showing where it is they come from?

Motivation is key here. Show us your character’s motivation, one we can understand (but not necessarily agree with), and then we’ll follow their journey and your story is more likely to work.

Happy anti-stereotype writing! (You do need to know what it is you want to change and why and then start from there).

This World and Others – Fitting In

I’ve always had a soft spot for characters who struggle to fit in but get there in the end, usually with understanding characters who help them and/or where they themselves go to huge efforts here. Sometimes it can be a case of their saving those who are misunderstanding them.

How easily do your characters find fitting in? Is it a natural thing for them or do they have to work hard at this? What parts of their personality do they reveal to make fitting in easier? Equally, what do they hide because they worry it will put folk off?

I always look for character development in stories, yes even the flash fiction pieces I write and read, because I like to see how the situation the characters are in change them for better or worse. Going through a situation could help your characters to fit in better at the end of the story than they had been at the beginning. That is a classic story arc because it works.

In a magical setting, how easy or otherwise would your non-magical characters have in fitting in? Are they treated decently or discriminated against? What can they do the magical kind can’t? These abilities could be the way they would fit in.

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Review – The Chameleon Theatre Company – Camelot The Pantomime

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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.  A huge thank you to Daisy Wilkins (Dazoo Art) for kind permission to use pictures, on behalf of The Chameleon Theatre Company, from Camelot the Pantomime in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Lady has enjoyed seeing her friends. Mud avoidance not possible at the moment though! Glad my copy of Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction Favourites has now reached me and I’m enjoying it very much. I have a few stories in there too.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals again and all three went home tired but happy.

Talking of which, I came home tired and happy after seeing Camelot The Pantomime recently staged by the always excellent Chameleon Theatre Company. I review the pantomime for my post on Chandler’s Ford Today this week and hope you enjoy it. The Chameleon pantomimes are always worth seeing but they do stage other plays during the rest of the year so if you are in my area, watch out for these. I’ve taken in far more stories than I would otherwise have done watching The Chameleons on stage.

Oh and you know the old song from South Pacific, There’s Nothing Like a Dame? Great song, I have wonderful memories of a certain Morecambe and Wise sketch which used it, and it is always true for pantomimes, including Camelot.

The Chameleon Theatre Company – Review – Camelot The Pantomime


Soggy day today but Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals and Daisy the sweet spaniel. Lovely but muddy time had by all.

Writing wise, do look out for my review of Camelot The Pantomime, recently staged by The Chameleon Theatre Company, for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. It was great fun to watch the show and a real pleasure to review it. After a difficult week for various reasons (including Storm Chandra), it was such a tonic to see this. The review will share the “flavour” of the show which I hope you will enjoy. For me, it was also a chance to take in a story in a different format and I always welcome that. See above.

Many thanks for all who’ve liked my recent article on Writers’ Narrative on Substack. Articles will appear in your inbox (if you’ve subscribed to the magazine) every few days. Another one of mine will appear later this month.

Top Tip: For all of my articles, I prepare in advance as much as I can even when I know I can’t write the whole thing up until later. For example, if I need to research a particular topic but cannot do so immediately, I will make a note on my Scrivener file to remind me to check the references out and list them so they are easy to find. So I have these things to hand when I do then have the time to do the research. These notes are in with my draft article.

It’s what I love about Scrivener. It’s so easy to keep things together and even move things around as I need to. I went through a stage when Word kept crashing on me so when I discovered Scrivener, where I’ve had no problems at all, I was only too glad to move over to it. The nice thing is when I need to “compile” a Scrivener document to a Word format (for story competitions where I have to upload a file in docx format), it is so easy to do. I can also “compile” to pdf and many other formats and I’ve found that useful too.

But making a note at the time of what I need to research (and the links) at a later date saves me so much time.


Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler chum and Daisy the lovely spaniel. All three dogs had a lovely time in the park. Nice to see some sunshine about. Think we all appreciated that.

Writing wise, have now received the stories for judging for the flash fiction competition where I am a co-judge. Looking forward to reading the stories. Whether you judge stories or not, every time you read fiction you will learn something which can be useful to your own writing – what you like, dislike etc in characters, for example.

Reading/Writing Tip: If you keep a notebook to hand when you read, why not jot down what you like/dislike about a character and why. A line or two would be enough. These notes will build up over time and may well assist you in creating your own characters. You, having been the reader, will know what it is you want to see from characters. Your notes will confirm this.

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Today, 6th February, would’ve been the Accession Day for the late Queen Elizabeth the Second. Her life and her role in it changed in a moment. While knowing this would happen at some point, it came far earlier for her than expected.

Now how about applying that thought to some characters. Make them face things they are half-ready long before they truly are. How do they manage? How does it impact on their life? What problems does it cause given they were expecting this situation/role later than they inherited it? There will be good story ideas to come from that. Also there’s nothing like having a character face the unexpected (at all or early) to increase the tension/drama in your story.

Flash is a constant challenge given I have to keep on inventing characters but, given this is my favourite aspect to storytelling, it’s a challenge I love. For me, characters are the reason I keep reading any length of story. I’ve got to want to see what happens. The lovely thing with flash, of course, is you get to see what happens quickly. I love that too.

It does mean I have to work out what I need to know about my characters first before I share them in stories. I have to focus on what matters for the story only. Everything else has to be cut out. That in turn helps me meet the word count requirement.

Delighted to say my copy of Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction Favourites arrived today. Am looking forward to reading that. Good to see familiar names here (and often with more than one Editor’s Choice too, so well done all).

Have started sending in competition entries towards the end of January/beginning of February. I’ve started a little later than last year on this (various reasons for that) but am pleased to have made a start.

Competitions stretch me and it is always a great challenge to rise to a set theme.

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Fairytales With Bite – The End of the Working Week

I suspect most of us are glad to get to the end of the working week, even if we love our jobs. By the time we get to Friday, we’re usually more than ready for a break. (I salute all those who work shifts by the way, not something I could do).

But how would your characters, magical or otherwise, feel about what would be their working week? What would they do to unwind ready for the daily grind to begin again on their equivalent of Monday? Is it a case of switching magical usage off altogether and “discharging”? Or it is a case of using magic for more relaxing purposes instead of their daily work? What would their work be? If your setting is run on magical systems of any kind, I would imagine they would need “engineers” and “maintenance”. Someone has to carry out those roles.

How would time work in your setting? Would it have a week as we know it, or is their equivalent longer or shorter? Who decided who would work when? How did your world realise their workers would need a break to recharge? Nobody, even with magical powers, can keep going all of the time. There would be a price to pay there.
In the UK our weekends really began as a result of campaigns to have Saturday afternoons off in the Victorian era. That gave workers that time and Sundays off. What would have happened in your world to trigger a change in their working patterns? How has your magical world benefited from the changes? Did they have magical campaigners here?

Food for story thought there, I think.

This World and Others – Respite

Linking in with Fairytales with Bite above, how would your characters get their respite from their magical or non-magical work? Would there be sports, dancing etc and would they resemble anything we have here? If your characters prefer to listen to music or read books (or do both together), what would be available for them?

If your characters need a longer period of respite, how would they take this? As an official holiday, a sabbatical, or would they take unpaid leave? What would trigger them to have longer respite periods? Also, what would holidays look like in your setting, is everyone entitled to them, when would they be taken and how long for?

Could you set your characters in stories where they are away from their normal routine, enjoying some needed respite, when adventures intervene and how would your characters handle this? I am fond of crime stories, especially those by Agatha Christie, and you know when she sends Poirot or Miss Marple somewhere something is going to happen which means they need to use their detective skills again. Could you do something similar with your magical characters? What kind of adventures would interrupt their respite?

There could be potential for humorous stories here too.

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A New Chapter

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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 your weekend went well. Not bad here. Spotted first snowdrops out in the garden – spring really is on the way at last. Have news to share about Writers’ Narrative moving to Substack and I discuss being open to opportunities too. More below. Lady is now back to her full self after her X-ray too.

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Had to get the dog out early today but Lady didn’t mind. Any time is a good time to go to the park. Dogs really do keep life simple.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to working on the topic of Ways and Paths with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow. Am hoping we will get to draft some useful flash pieces to polish up at a later date. It will also be lovely to see everyone again since the last meeting was our informal just before Christmas gathering. Yes, it does seem ages ago now.

Will be reviewing Camelot The Pantomime which is being staged by our excellent local theatre company, The Chameleon Theatre Company, after seeing the performance on Thursday. It should end up being my first Chandler’s Ford Today review for this year plus my first one for February, which as a month I much prefer to January. It’s shorter for one thing and as it goes along you do see even more evidence spring is on its way – oh yes it is.

Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals so her week has begun well.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing my next author newsletter soon. The good news here, folks, is that does mean January is almost over! I’m working on blogs and a couple of stories for competitions at the moment. I hope to start submitting stories again from next weekend onwards. It also won’t be long now before I’m a co-judge for a flash fiction competition for a writing group and am looking forward to that. Judging stories is always a privilege, joy, and an enlightening experience.

The ACW Flash Fiction Group meet on Wednesday and I’m off to our local theatre’s pantomime on Thursday so it promises to be an interesting week.

My news today is about Writers’ Narrative moving across to Substack. I now have an account there as well and you can find me at Substack.com/@AllisonSymesWriter1

For the moment at least, it will be mainly my Writers’ Narrative work on there but I may develop other ideas on Substack in due course. As ever, it is a question of finding the time but there are possibilities here which I would like to explore in due course.

My first two articles for Writers’ Narrative on Substack will be appearing in early February. I’ll share more nearer the time about these.

Writing Development Tip: I see things like my news as part of my ongoing Continuing Professional Development as a writer. Inevitably there are “teething” issues to begin with but these do soon settle down (it’s my experience there is always someone you can ask for help and who will help!) and you end up with more strings to your bow, writing wise, as a result precisely because you have stretched yourself to try something new. After all, I could easily not have responded to CafeLit’s 100 words challenge and therefore missed out on the joy of flash fiction.

So I try and see new things as opportunities to explore. Most of them work out really well. Occasionally I come to the conclusion something isn’t quite right for me but unless I give it a go, how can I know?

It’s important to be open to writing opportunities. It’s how I’ve become a flash fiction writer, a competition judge, an editor, and write for Chandler’s Ford Today and Writers’ Narrative.

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start. Lady back to her playful self after a trying week for her.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Top Ten Author Newsletter Tips for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I hope that will prove useful (and the post is effectively an update on earlier CFT posts on this topic).

In other news, Writers’ Narrative is moving to Substack and there will be a final “hurrah” from Friday Flash Fiction. The Editor’s Choice anthology is coming out on 2nd February 2026 and I do have stories in there. Meantime do check out the reel below for a quick look.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1259365916073203

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I love a good title which can be taken in more than one direction for all of my stories, flash or otherwise. Especially for flash, the title can do some “heavy lifting” in indicating the story’s likely mood without using up my word count allowance.

Most places don’t include the title as part of their word count limit, though it pays to check this always as some places do include it. I always allow up to five words for a title usually so if a word count limit has been given as 50 words, I will make sure my prose comes in at 45. The only exception to this is if the title is excluded and the market still then wants 50 words to the dot.

An open title gives the writer plenty of possibilities to play with and I love that aspect. I want my stories to be an entertaining read. I want to be entertained as I write them too. I think it matters that writers enjoy (most of the time) what they do. It is what helps to keep you going after all.

It’s Monday. It’s been hectic as usual. It’s so good to be sat down at my desk. Definitely time for a story then.

I hope you like my latest on YouTube – Upside Down.

Marbella teaches Risbanda the value of working out at the gym rather than just working at magic all of the time but does Risbanda appreciate it? Find out here.

 

I’m looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. We’ll be looking at Ways and Paths, which is a fabulous topic to write stories, of any length, around.

Am also delighted my first Allison’s Advice column for Christian Writer, the ACW quarterly journal, is now out. The magazine landed on my door mat recently. Appropriately it is a flash non-fiction piece coming in at around 100 words, as future columns will be too.

A lot of the themes and questions generated by random generators can also be put to good non-fiction use.For example, for this post I’ve generated the question What are you a natural at?

For flash fiction, you could write a story where your lead character shows the answer to this question and it makes a huge difference to the story outcome.

For non-fiction, you could write a piece answering the question for yourself or from the viewpoint of a historical figure.

January is almost over, honestly, and it will soon be time for the next author newsletter from me. I will be sharing an exclusive 100 word story in this. To find out more, and to receive useful writing hints and tips (which can be applied to all branches of fiction, not just flash), do sign up via my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Am looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow and I finally hope to get around to marking out some more flash and short competitions to try. This week has been busy, next week’s will be as well, and I usually find the weekend is the best time to go through the competition guide and see what I like the look of here.

Next week will see me go off to the panto (oh yes, I will be!) and leading the next session of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. Both of these will be great fun but in different ways!

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Goodreads Author Blog – A New Chapter

New chapters turn up in life of course. Writers’ Narrative, whom I write for, is moving platform to Substack. In my writing, new chapters crop up a lot though the best, to date at least, was the discovery of flash fiction and being published in that form.

When it comes to reading, with the exception of Terry Pratchett who didn’t use chapter breaks for his Discworld series (he did for his Young Adult books), I do appreciate chapters. They give me a breather when I’m reading a lot. They give me somewhere to read to ahead of sleeping. Yes, I often do give into the temptation to just read one more chapter and before you know it, the clock has moved on alarmingly! We’ve all been there.

I generally prefer shorter chapters. I suppose this may come from being a flash fiction and short story writer. Anything over 1000 words will seem long to me! But I also prefer them because I like a good pace to my own stories and those I read and short chapters help a lot with that.

A new chapter is always, I think, an exciting part of a book when you’re reading it for the first time. It holds all the promise of you finding out what does happen next.

As for story collections of the kind I write, each story acts almost like its own chapter but I hope they encourage reading on to find out what happens next in the next story.

 

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Hope you enjoy the above back issue of Writers’ Narrative. Will share the latest issue when I can. Meantime have a good read. It is a fabulous magazine but you don’t just have to take my word for it!

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