Tag: fantasy

Back At The Theodore Bullfrog With Bridge House Publishing

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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. Many thanks to Paula Readman and Lynn Clement for certain pictures taken at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Most of the pictures for that Chandler’s Ford Today post and screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady has! Delighted to hear one of my festive flash pieces will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday 13th December 2025. Will share the link to the broadcast itself next week. Equally thrilled to say three other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group will have their work broadcast here too. Well done, all!

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Am delighted to look back at last weekend’s celebration event with my Chandler’s Ford Today post, Back At The Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing.

The post gives a good round-up of events and shares something of the joys of getting together with other authors like this (and also being with a splendid independent publisher).

I also flag up the specific celebrations for the publication of The Best of CafeLit 14 and, more recently, Magi An Anthology.

Hope you enjoy the post.

Back At The Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing

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Hope Thursday has gone well. All quiet in the park today so Lady had to put up with just me!

Looking forward to sharing Back at The Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing on Chandler’s Ford Today – link up tomorrow. It was such a fun event, I was bound to write about it. See above.

In other news, I’m glad to share the following link re the Hannah Kate Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday 13th December. I also want to add huge congratulations to the other writers taking part in this, especially three of them who are members, with me, of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. I’m very much looking forward to tuning in to hear a great range of festive flash fiction.

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf 3 Minute Santas Special, Saturday 13 December, 2-4pm

Hope you have had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal so all well there. Lovely sunny day too, the kind of winter day I like.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Back at the Theodore Bullfrog with Bridge House Publishing on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. Then there will be one more post after that from me (19th December) before I take a Christmas break and resume on CFT in the New Year. Just where has the year gone?!

Had a turn down from a flash competition over the weekend. Will have another look at that story in the New Year and see if I can submit it somewhere else. I have had work published doing that.

Writing Tip: Rejections and not hearing back from competitions do happen to everyone so do take some heart from that when it happens to you (and it is bound to at some point). I do try to see this as a chance to have another look at my stories and find ways of improving them. Normally I can see something and I adjust the story, which is why I think I have then gone on to have the story published somewhere else.

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It’s the last day of the Friday Flash Fiction Christmas Competition and I did manage to send in two stories, one per week, for the two weeks the event ran. It was good fun to take part in this. All of the stories in this have to be 100 words exactly (and trust me it is so easy to come in at 102 words or 98 but for this competition it had to be spot on the 100). Good luck to all taking part.

Word association is a great game. I remember playing it often when I was younger. Little did I realise then it was going to become a great tool for writing prompts for me much later on. The reason it is so useful is the game makes you think of links and those are so useful for outlining characters/potential story ideas.

For example let’s take the word festive and see what can be done with that:-
Festive = Christmas = Scrooge = Muppets = films = The Great Escape = bravery.

Now on the face of it, this is just a list of fun, loosely connected words but if I was to use this for a story, it would be the last word, bravery, I would focus on. I love working with traits. They can tell you so much about a character.

Here, I would want to know who showed bravery and why (and it could be a Christmas set story too or not as I chose). Just from this then, I have the sparks of a potential idea.

Do add word association to your prompt generating toolkit if you don’t use it already. It is useful.

Looking forward to an informal chat and sharing of news and stories with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. We usually do have this kind of session at the year end and it is a lovely way to bring our writing year to a close before we head off to our respective Christmas breaks.

Am a co-judge for a flash competition in the New Year so looking forward to working on that. Naturally I’m looking forward to Seeing The Other Side coming out next year. It is highly likely I will be on both sides of the editing fence again. It’s an interesting experience (and useful to me both as a writer and editor. The view from the other side of the fence can be enlightening to say the least).

Fairytales With Bite – The Fairytale Flip Side

There can be a flip side to much in life so why should the fairytale world be exempt? For all of those fairytale characters who have the benefit of magical help, there are so many others who do not. Mind you, the latter can be fun characters to write about and my first story in print, A Helping Hand in Alternative Renditions (Bridge House Publishing), was about Cinderella’s youngest step-sister.

I’ve long believed there are disadvantages as well as advantages to any form of power and that goes for magic too. What would happen if magical characters misuse their powers for their own ends? (I know, I know – as if that would happen here! Oh if only!). How could they be stopped?

Even when magic isn’t misused, what effects would it have on the bodies of the characters? I’ve long thought sustained use of magic must be incredibly draining. Indeed, I can’t see otherwise being the case.

So what would your characters themselves see as the flip side to their magical abilities/their world’s magical abilities? Do your characters have to cope with, say, envying other characters with greater powers than themselves? Would they find ways of developing or, worse still, stealing those powers for themselves? How would they handle powers they’re not used to handling?

Bound to be story ideas there!

This World and Others – Policing

Now given I am sure we can all think of those who misuse their powers in this world, and therefore we must have some kind of policing to try to keep things in order (and protect ourselves as much as possible), how would that work out in your magical setting?

Who would be the police force? Who created them? What are they allowed to do? What are they banned from doing? What would happen to any police authority who misused the powers given to them (and who would have bestowed those in the first place)? What extra magical powers would they need to be able to combat magical crime?

How would policing work and is it with the consent of the people generally?

I do love the Vimes stories in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and if you haven’t checked them out, do as you’ll be in for a treat. Here, the Discworld has magic and magical practitioners in it, but it’s not in the City Watch and Vimes doesn’t like magic. So many interesting tales there.

I think for any successful fantasy world, the writer does have to work out first how things will work broadly at least, which will include who can use magic, what can they do, recognizing crime does get everywhere so there has to be something to combat that.

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The Perfect Read

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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. Plenty of writing and editing done so all good here. Lady continuing to make good progress. Getting significantly colder – have had first frosts – but I prefer that to the wet and the mud as, I suspect, does Lady.

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Hope you had a good day. Cold but bright and Lady got to see her two best buddies again, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler. Lovely time had by all. I resumed a good swim and enjoyed that. Water felt warm – it never is by the way but it confirms it was perishing outside!

Writing wise, I’m delighted to say my author copies of Magi, the Bridge House Publishing anthology, reached me today. My story, The Family Legend, is in there and it is good to be between the covers again with some very familiar names. Some of them I hope to meet up with next month at the BHP celebration event. It’s always nice to receive a parcel of books with your work in them.

It won’t be too long before the next issue of Writers’ Narrative will be out and, in a few days, I will be sending out my latest author newsletter. If you would like to know more about flash fiction, read some of my online stories, and pick up on good writing advice, do sign up at my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Hope you have had a good Monday. Hectic here as ever but Lady did get to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler friends today. They all had a great time.

Had a fabulous writing and editing weekend. Plenty done. Just to flag up (and thanks to Jenny Sanders for letting me know) that Hannah Kate is holding her Three Minute Santas again on North Manchester FM. See the link for more details and good luck if you intend having a go. I hope to again, It’s good fun to write festive flash fiction.

Tip: I always record my submissions for Hannah’s show on Zoom and then play them back. I can literally hear how I come across and, just as good, the Zoom recording confirms the time I’ve taken to read my story. All useful as Hannah needs stories which are no longer than three minutes (the clue is there, folks!) and I can ensure I come in just under this limit doing this.

Festive Stories Wanted for Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM

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Hope the weekend has gone well. Lovely church service this morning followed by walking the dog and heading home for lunch. Nice day today too though on the cold side.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon which will begin shortly and include responding to today’s Flash NANO prompt.

Writing Tip: What would I say was the most useful writing tip I’ve received and still use? Difficult to say but on balance I think it has to be the write first, edit later tip.

When I began writing seriously, I spent ages trying to get the first sentence or two right but just ended up getting frustrated. It was much better when I began just getting the story down, having a break from it, and then looking to improve it. I wasn’t interrupting my writing flow. I was treating writing and editing as two separate and different creative tasks. I enjoy them much more, keeping them apart from each other.

I also know now in a way I didn’t back then nobody writes a perfect sentence. Everybody has to edit at some stage so why not enjoy the creative writing first, then work out how to improve it? I also find it much easier to figure out what does need improving (and why) if I can see the whole story. I know what I’ve got to work with for one thing.

Hope today has gone okay. Horribly soggy here. Good day for staying indoors and getting on with some writing then!

Writing wise, I plan to share Short Story Collections on Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I’ll be sharing the joys and challenges of writing for these plus share tips on how to make the best of any set theme. I hope it will prove useful. After that will be a fabulous author interview – more on that nearer the time.

Looking forward to looking at memories and story ideas resulting from that topic for the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week.

And if you’re starting to think about book related presents, why not check out an anthology? Your recipient will receive a mixed bag of stories and hopefully will discover many authors new to them. Why not check out Magi (Bridge House Publishing)? See link.

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I can hardly believe we’re almost at the end of the last ever Flash NANO. Will be getting on with the latest prompt later this evening. Where has the time gone? The variety of prompts have been fantastic and a good challenge.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting tomorrow evening. The focus will be on memories and how we can use these for flash fiction and flash non-fiction. Our December meeting is always an informal chat with sharing of news and stories. Christmas jumpers, hats etc are optional!

Have drafted a potential festive flash fiction story which I hope to submit later this week. Still want to pick out some earlier drafts for competitions but hope to get to do that later this week. Deadlines, thankfully, aren’t for a while yet.

It’s Monday. It gets dark far too early for my liking. It has been hectic as usual. Time for a story then and I hope you like my latest on YouTube – Book Signing.

What secret is Allison keeping from Linda and where does a book signing come into it all? Find out here.

Note: No authors were harmed in the making of this video! Neither am I confessing to something here, honest!

 

I found fairly quickly after getting into flash fiction writing seriously, I did need to have a title as a “peg” to work with. I would say I leave 90% of them unchanged. But I do need something to help me get started and a title is a big help here, even when I know for sure in advance I’m likely to be changing it. It is the way of it too that sometimes as you write, a better idea for a title comes along so I then go with that.

I like shortish titles, especially those which are open to interpretation. You can have a great deal of fun with those in playing with expectations and either delivering on them directly or springing a good twist on your readers. Certainly when I’m reading flash fiction/stories, a title I can guess will be open to interpretation will always grab my attention.

Flash NANO continues apace and I will have a go at today’s prompt later. All good fun (and it has been lovely to receive great feedback on stories I’ve shared on the FN Facebook page. A little encouragement goes a long way as any author would tell you!).

Also congratulations to Hannah Kate for the 10th anniversary of her Hannah’s Bookshelf programme on North Manchester FM. Flash fiction has often featured on Hannah’s show, especially at Halloween and just ahead of Christmas. Flash is a great format for radio – short enough to be entertaining. Not too long to switch people off either!

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf Anniversary Special, Saturday 22 November, 1-4pm

 

Goodreads Author Blog – The Perfect Read

Provocative title for this post? Maybe? Is there really such a thing as The Perfect Read?

I think there can be but it depends on what you like to read and your mood as you read it. For example, I will often read something by P.G. Wodehouse in the darker months because I want something lighter to cheer me. It always does and so, whatever I choose by him here, it will be the perfect read.

When I’m reading an author new to me, having been captivated by their blurb, book cover etc, I simply want the book to deliver on its premise. As long as it does that, it will be a perfect read for me. What I don’t want is to have expectations set up and then not delivered on unless there is a superb twist or something like that, which I always love because I never mind when an author wrong foots me like that.

What I don’t want is a promising book but the author wrong foots me by delivering something which comes across to me as dull. (Mansfield Park by Jane Austen does this for me I’m afraid but I do love her other works).

The perfect read, in a more general sense, always occurs for me when I can get behind the characters, whether I’m rooting for them to succeed or fail. (There is nothing quite so satisfying as booing a good villain, even if I only do so metaphorically!).

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Review – The Business of Murder by Mike Standing

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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. One image of Creativity Matters was kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good few days. Started the week feeling poorly but much better now. Enjoyed going to Penny Rogers’ online launch for Amelie at The Window. I interviewed her for Chandler’s Ford Today recently. Busy editing and other writing going well and Lady continues to make good progress and loves seeing her chums so all okay here.

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Am delighted to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with another review. This time I review the murder mystery play, The Business of Murder by Mike Standing, which was recently staged by the Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church Senior Thespians. It was great fun and I look at some of the joys of this kind of play in my review.

Hope you enjoy the post and if you get the chance to check out murder mystery plays near you, do so. They are a great format.

Review – The Business of Murder by Mike Standing

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady enjoyed being with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today and I was pleased to get back to swimming, though it was for a shorter session than I usually do. It was nice being in the pool again though and before you think I’m daft here, the water was lovely. Mind you, it only feels like that when it is either (a) perishing outside as it is today or (b) so hot outside the water feels refreshing by contrast (as it did in the summer)!

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing my review of The Business of Murder by Mike Standing which was recently performed by the Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church Senior Thespians. The murder mystery was great fun and I share more about it on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Am making good progress with Flash NANO. Hard to believe we’re at the two-thirds through mark already.

Will be sharing a super author interview in early December on CFT too and am looking forward to that.

Marketing Tip: Seeing marketing as a way of being creative with your writing is one way of making doing any more bearable. I know many authors don’t particularly like marketing. We’d far rather be writing, right?

But we also want readers to see our writing so deciding what marketing we will do and being creative with it is another way to play with words and promote our written works. I do enjoy using Book Brush to help me create graphics. I love preparing little videos for my YouTube channel.

In both these things, I can put my imagination to work and get some marketing done. Win-win there, I’d say.

Hope you’ve had a good Wednesday. Bitterly cold here though we’ve managed to escape the snow for the time being. Lady doing well but she, like me, wasn’t sorry the walk was a relatively short one today.

Am looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. Will be looking at the topic of memories – apt for a month where remembrance is so important. Memories can be a huge source of inspiration for story ideas as well as showing you something about the characters they come from.

It won’t be too long either before the last author newsletter of the year comes out from me. My, does the year fly by. If you want to sign up for news, tips, story links and more do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and a huge thank you for the support shown, it is much appreciated.

Character Tip: Think about the kinds of memories your character could have. Which would they select to share? Which would they ensure remained only with them? There will be story ideas there. Happy writing!

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It’s Friday. It’s time to end the working week with a story. Hope you like my latest drabble on Friday Flash Fiction – Standing Out. Find out here if monsters can be embarrassed and, if so, who by. Hope you enjoy the tale, it was fun to write.

Had a lovely response to my Flash NANO 19-words story yesterday. Thanks, all. It was great fun to do and it’s not a word count I usually use, so it was a good challenge. Will be having a go at the latest prompt shortly.

Mixing up the word counts I write to with flash is something I do regularly. For Friday Flash Fiction, it is always the classic drabble (100-worder) I write but most of the competitions I have a go at are anything from 100 to 500 words. (I’d say 250 to 300 is probably the most popular I’ve come across).

What matters though with any flash fiction is you have a complete story – a proper beginning, middle, and end. It is never truncated prose. There must be a feeling that nothing more could be added to the flash piece (though much will be implied).

It should have impact, whether it is to make a reader cry, laugh, scream, wince or what have you. There should also be a feeling nothing could be taken away from the story too.

I have a lovely Flash NANO prompt for today (19th November) where I have to write to a specific word count. Always a good challenge to do. Always good fun too. This kind of prompt does make you think about what really matters for your character. There will be no room for anything else. Will be cracking on with this prompt later.

Don’t forget the wonderful CafeLit is a great home for short stories and flash fiction. To find out more why not follow the link? Am looking forward to catching up with CafeLit, Bridge House Publishing and Chapeltown Books authors at next month’s Bridge House Publishing’s celebration event. A lot of writers getting together in convivial surroundings – there will be lots of story telling for sure! (Not least of which will be what we’ve all been up to writing wise since we got together last time!).

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Fairytales with Bite – Musical Magic

One thing which is on my bucket list is to go and see The Nutcracker at some point. I love the music. I love the storyline. I just need to go and see it! But I just love the idea of a magical musical story in the run up to Christmas. For me, that’s fitting.

I love most forms of music, especially classical. There is something about music which can be soothing, uplifting, inspiring and so on. So what does your magical world have in the form of musical magic? Do they have music at all? If so, is magic used to create it/perform it or is at an area where magic is banned (on the grounds magic is in the music anyway if you have the right attitude to it)?

What forms of music are available in your setting? Is it available to all? Would your characters appreciate it?

Is our love of music here something which might redeem humans (a bit) in the eyes of your setting? Does your setting appreciate its composers (and do they copy anything from Earth though they may refer to it as “sampling”!)?

Has music always been available in your setting or is it a recent discovery? If the latter, where and how did they discover it? (By exploring what other worlds including our own do here, perhaps?).

Definitely story ideas here.

This World and Others – Time Off The Magic

When you live and breath magic (or an equivalent form of power/energy), would you want time away from it? I am sure you would.

So how would your characters get to have this time off and what would they do to ensure they had a proper break before resuming work related duties again? Does using magic all of the time get tiring enough the powers that be in your setting recognise the need for their folk to have that proper break?

How are proper breaks organised? I am not including things like the need for sleep here but things like days off, holidays etc. Would there be times your entire setting has down times or do these have to be staggered to ensure the setting doesn’t leave itself defenceless, for example?

Do your characters need to ensure some level of protection for themselves when taking a break and who/what would they need that protection against? Tiredness can kill and not just in our world!

When it comes to having a break, where would your characters go to have it? If they go to our equivalent of hotels etc., is magic used there to ensure good service or is it all done “manually”? If the latter, is that because your characters on a break can absorb magic from around them so if it is used in their presence, they don’t really get a break from it.

How would your characters react if their needed break was interrupted by a threat of some sort? How would they handle this? How would not having their full break impact their performance?

Again story ideas here.

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Why Write Fiction

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Hope you have had a good week so far. Not bad here. Keeping busy writing wise and Lady is having a lovely time at the park. It is the simple things in life….


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Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with a question which might seem odd for me to ask. My topic is Why Write Fiction and I discuss this in terms of the value of stories.

I also look at how they provide escapism, entertainment, and education and how fiction encourages empathy because you identify with the characters you’re reading about.

Hope you enjoy the post and comments are welcome in the CFT box.

Why Write Fiction

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Despite some damp weather this morning Lady had a lovely time at the park and managed to meet up with her Hungarian Vizler pal. Both were pleased to see each other which is always lovely to see.

Don’t forget my Why Write Fiction post will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow (see above) and I plan to share something of the lovely time I had at The Chameleons Open Evening the following week. Their history is a remarkable one.

Pleased to say there will be a smashing author interview coming up towards the end of July too. Always good to have things to look forward to, I find!

 

Hope today has been a good one for you. Has become very warm again today.

Enjoyed a great discussion on an online editing meeting today. We were thinking about what editors (and I would say this applies to writers just as much) can do to help themselves when the weather does get hot. My thoughts here were on ensuring you keep up a good fluid intake (the non-alcoholic kind!) and having more screen breaks. Mind you if you do drink more to keep fluid intakes up, as you should, the screen breaks will follow out of necessity a little while later.

But it is important to think of these things. Not enough fluid intake will lead to concentration levels dropping. As a result, you will feel more tired more quickly so it is worth doing. This is where Lady helps me. I have to take her out every so often so I get a “furry induced” screen break and that usually leads to a good drink for both of us when we get back again.

Writing wise, I do a lot of my writing in the evening, which is usually a lot cooler and that helps a lot too.

But do look after yourself.

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Delighted to be on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Fifty. Find out how Melanie comes to the aid of her neighbour Jane, who is not looking forward to hitting a landmark birthday. Mind you, Jane does have a good reason. Find out what here.

Another reason to read widely and well is it will influence what you write. I love fairytales, history, crime, and many other types of fiction so all of those things come into my flash fiction and short stories (not necessarily all at the same time). Reading inspires your own creativity as well as being the single best way to support the industry you want to be part of.

So investing in books (and I do see them as that) is a good idea. I often test out authors new to me by trying their ebooks first and then there are the libraries. Borrowing from there supports them. There are all sorts of ways to develop your own reading and it will encourage your own writing. I’ve found this to be the case.

We all build on what has gone before. Even Isaac Newton acknowledged this when he talked about if he had seen further, it was because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. It’s just as true for writers.


Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later this month. Will be looking at the theme of perspective.

Talking of which, do you find you have a favourite perspective? Flash fiction has encouraged me to write more in the first person but I do try to balance that by ensuring I write plenty of third person stories too. I sometimes write in the second person but limit this as I think it can come across as gimmicky but for short works it can be effective. You do need a strong “you” character for readers to get behind though.


Fairytales with Bite – Everyday Upsets in a Magical World

How are everyday upsets coped with in your magical world? You know the kind of thing – everything from someone not putting the loo seat down (or up) to putting a spoon in the wrong place in the cutlery drawer.

We might moan at our loved ones on this but what would your magical character(s) do?
Would they just moan or would they do something else given they would have the powers to do so? Or are there rules preventing that kind of thing?

Is magic only allowed to be used for specific purposes? Is it banned from being used for settling petty squabbles and how is that policed? What led to the rules being brought in? Story ideas there, I’m sure.

What would count as an upset in your world with regards to the legitimate use of magic? What would count as a break of the rules? Are minor indiscretions overlooked (student pranks etc) or is every break, no matter how minor or otherwise, clamped down on? Who would do that? What happens to those who cheat and how are they found out? What damage could they do if not stopped?

Again story ideas there. I think there would be potential for humour too.

This World and Others – What Magical Worlds Might Envy from the Non-Magical Ones

This might seem like a strange topic. Surely it would be the other way around? But I think there are possibilities when magical worlds might envy those without such powers.

For one thing, would the magical worlds believe the non-magical ones have fewer complications simply because of the lack of that source of power? Would your magical government have to use extra resources policing the system so it isn’t abused (see Fairytales with Bite above)? Who would it have to rein in and how successful are they in doing this?

Also consider the climate of your setting. Has damage been done to it by too much magic going through it (which would be a good reason for your magical government to envy those without it)? What is done or will be done to deal with that damage?

Also would our world have things your magical world might prefer (such as our beautiful environments, especially if theirs has been damaged due to magic)?

Food for thought there, especially if their world had once been as lovely or better than ours.


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Tips, Writers’ Narrative, and Defining a Good Read

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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. Image of me holding Creativity Matters, From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. A huge thank you to The Chameleon Theatre Company for permission to use the photos in the bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post shared below.
Hope you have a good weekend. Mine encompassed the glamour of wood treating a fence panel to getting on with my writing. Both creative in their way though, I suppose!

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Today has been somewhat soggy but Lady didn’t mind. She got to see her Hungarian Vziler pal again today and Lady never frets about the rain. She’s got a good coat, she can shake it all over Mum, so why worry?

Writing wise, hope to share some exciting news soon. Looking forward to being able to do that. Watch this space as they say.

Apologies for forgetting to put a title to my June newsletter – oops! But many thanks to all my subscribers. Your support is much appreciated. Other than that little faux pas, I have found the transfer over to MailerLite to be painless, I’m glad to say.

Character Tip: Whatever kind of character you create – and I have many non-human ones in my cast list – they still have to be understandable to readers.

So motivations and wants need to be clear and we should be able to see why someone would do something. Nothing is to “come out of the blue” – nobody ever believes that.

Hope Monday hasn’t been too bad. Busy one here as always. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal today so her week has got off to a good start.

Writing Tip: Want a quick easy outline for a story? Just ask two questions.

  1. What does your character want?
  2. What gets in their way?

In fleshing the answers out to those, you will be off to a flying start with your outline and the resulting story. All stories need a structure and those two questions give your tale a great “backbone”.

Hope the weekend has been a good one for you. Still can’t quite believe it’s June already.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Thoughts on Editing for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It is always a timely topic and I share tips which have proved useful for me as a writer and as an editor.

Looking forward to popping along to The Chameleons’ Open Evening later this week too.

Pleased to say my author newsletter went out again today. It’s only the second one I’ve sent using the new service provider. All well so far and pleased to be able to schedule it too.

Glad to catch up with some friends from Swanwick on a Zoom session last night. Good way to keep in touch.

31st May –  First Post – Bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post
Two posts from me tonight. First up is a bonus Chandler’s Ford Today post. As you know, I often go and see plays performed by our excellent local theatre company, The Chameleons. They’re celebrating their 60th anniversary this year and are holding an Open Evening next weekend (Saturday 7th June). More details in the post but if you can get along, they will be pleased to see you.

The Chameleons – Open Evening – 7th June 2025 – Celebrating 60 Years of Drama

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31st May – Second Post – June 2025 edition of Writers’ Narrative

Second post and I’m pleased to say the June edition of Writers’ Narrative is now available. See link below.

The theme is on Worldbuilding (which comes into various forms of fiction and not just fantasy and sci-fi – e.g. crime fiction has to set its world too, you need to know era for one thing).

I share Five Top Writing Tips, useful for whatever you write. Do enjoy a cracking read.

 

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Flash fiction helps with other forms of writing in all sorts of ways.

Writing to one line sentences, as I set recently for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group, can be used to help practice writing straplines. Longer flashes (say up to 500 words) can be used to help get you used to writing to the word count needed for a synopsis.

Plus it can be used as a warm up exercise ahead of your main writing work and, as I’ve mentioned before, you could polish those pieces up and get them out for competitions etc.

Well worth trying. I find writing flash to be an absorbing challenge.

It’s Monday. Time for another story. Hope you like my latest one on YouTube – Taking Time.

Can the old Master of Time live up to his reputation when put to the ultimate test? Find out here. This is one of my fairytales with bite.

 

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. Need to look out some more competitions soon to have a try at but that may well need to wait until next weekend. Am happily busy elsewhere, writing wise.

I’ve always loved the way The Bridport Prize describes flash fiction – as the “art of just enough”. Sums it up so well. Inference is a powerful tool in the flash format. Picking the right telling detail about your character and/or setting can leave much else to be inferred but readers will pick up on this.

I know I love it in any length of story when an author doesn’t tell me every single thing. I like to work things out. All that is needed are the right clues to do that.

Flash fiction writing is great practice in working out what you do need to reveal and what you can leave to be implied. As such it is an excellent writing exercise. But the better news is there are opportunities for being published and competitions for those flash pieces you come up with.


Had a lovely morning wood treating a fence panel – I know it’s all glamour here! Lady was enjoying the cool indoors. (I also cannot trust her to not want to stick her nose in the wood treatment pot. She is a curious animal but sometimes there is such as thing as too much curiosity!).

Writing wise, pleased to say the June 2025 edition of Writers’ Narrative is out – theme is Worldbuilding. Every fiction writer does this to a certain extent. Even in flash fiction I have to show a reader where my story is, sometimes indicate era and so on. Link to the magazine shared via my author page. See above.

Last but not least, my author newsletter is out tomorrow. Can’t believe we’re almost at June already. I share news, tips, and links to my flash stories online in the newsletter. To sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Goodreads Author Blog – Defining a Good Read

How would you define a good read? For me, it is any story of any length and genre, where I have to read through to the finish. Usually it is the character which grips me. Sometimes it’s an intriguing premise. The very best stories have both of those.

But I have been just as entertained and gripped by a well crafted 100 word story as I have been by the other end of the scale, a 100,000 word novel.

I like a wide variety of genres though my favourites are fantasy, fairytales especially, history (fiction and non-fiction) and crime.

Thankfully I have not abandoned many stories of any length because they haven’t engaged but in those cases where it did happen, I know it was because I wasn’t convinced by the characterisation, yet alone gripped by it. Still in a way this is useful. I know what I like and dislike here so I can avoid making the same mistakes in my own work.

Life is too short to not have good reads in your reading pile!

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Review – The Chameleons – Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor

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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. A huge thank you to those lovely people at The Chameleons (especially Daisy Wilkins) for their kind permission to use their wonderful photos in my CFT post this week. Also thanks to various Swanwick friends for taking various photos of me book signing etc at that wonderful place!
Hope you have had a good week. Has been a good one here weather and writing wise. New issue of Writers’ Narrative is out, I have writing news, and am relieved my first author newsletter went out okay on the new service provider. Always a bit of a nerve wracking moment this! Think it looks good too as I took the opportunity to freshen up the newsletter look. See screenshot below.

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Am delighted to share my review of Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor, which was recently performed by my local excellent amateur theatre company, The Chameleons. Hope you enjoy the post. It was a joy to see the show and to write about it.

The Chameleons are also celebrating their 60th anniversary this year so will be having an open evening later in the year for locals to find out more. I hope to get along to that in due course.

Review – The Chameleons – Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor

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Delighted to share the May 2025 issue of Writers’ Narrative which has the theme of Worldbuilding. My article in here is on Worldbuilding and the Shorter Fiction Forms. Do check out the excellent range of articles and interviews here. Have a great read (and remember it is free to subscribe as well. What’s not to like there?).

 

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Another glorious day and Lady got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals so it was just perfect for her. I also enjoyed a fantastic swim today – perfect conditions for it. I can’t always say that!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this evening. It was a good session!

Author newsletter out again tomorrow (how can it be almost May already?).

Have a story I want to get out for a competition at the weekend and am working on edits for another one. Managed to get the edits done and sent the story back to the publisher.

Last but definitely not least, look out for the next issue of Writers’ Narrative, It is due out very soon. I wasn’t wrong, was I?  See above! I will share the link when I have it. 

Meantime do check out the back issues which you can find via the publisher’s link. Plenty of great and useful reading here.
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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my The Camera Never Lies. This is a good example of my writing to a well known phrase and seeing what I can do with it. Hope you like this one.

Lady had a lovely time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler pal. I had another fantastic swim today too.

Had a good session at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group last night on Zoom.

Writing News: In other news, I’m pleased to announce I am now the ACW Flash Fiction Adviser. Paid up ACW members (and those who buy the quarterly magazine, Christian Writer) will see details of all of the advisers, including me in there. Looking forward to sitting down with Christian Writer which came through my letter box today. (1st May 2025).

Lovely day today. I don’t always use the weather and the mood it can generate to help me with my stories though occasionally I have. More often, I’ve written darker pieces on beautiful spring days and lighter hearted tales on dark wintry ones. That of course may just be me being quirky and writing “against” the prevailing mood from the weather!

I focus much more on the mood of my characters and why they are in that state in the first place. There is always something! Great stories can result from exploring that, especially if the cause turns out to be other characters, as it so often is!

Fairytales with Bite – Wishes

I suspect Cinderella might have one specific wish when her fairy godmother deigned to turn up. She would have wished said godmother had turned up a lot earlier than she did. A lot of upset would have been avoided to put it mildly! I’ve wondered if good old Cinders, prior to her wedding, could look at her rats, lizards etc in quite the same way again when they were returned to their normal forms. (You could also wonder if the animals saw her in the same light too!).

If you have characters doling out the wishes are they able/allowed to grant their own? If not (and I would hope not as you can see the corruption possibilities immediately!), when they do need a wish granted, who would they turn to and why? Is this official or does your character have to go the “back streets” route here and are they found out?

Are there rules about what characters can wish for? Is anything banned outright?

If your world setting is able to survey what other worlds do, can they copy the other worlds’ “sciences” and adapt them to their own magical world? It could look like magic there and be ordinary “run of the mill” stuff on the world they’ve copied it from. Could anything go wrong with this? Or does the magical world get new material they can genuinely use? Is there anyone who wishes they’d found this sooner?!

Also ask what would be the downside to wishes being granted or withheld? There could be some interesting story thoughts here. Would be bound to generate reactions and therefore actions in your characters.

This World and Others – Work and Recreation for the Magically Inclined

What would work look like for your magical characters? For example, do they create the spells they use or are they reliant on the work of others long before them to give them the material they need here? If they develop spells themselves, how do they do this? Are they reliant on natural materials in their world to create these things (think witches and eye of newt! Have always felt sorry for the newts here)?

Or do they use things like metalwork, woodwork etc to create their implements and other things they need to work with and use them to make anything else needed?

When it comes to time off, what do your magical characters do? After a long day working, granting wishes, what would your average fairy godmother like to do when she can hang up the old wand for the evening?

Are there “clubs” for the magically inclined to relax and recuperate or would your characters just prefer to be at home? Would they use magic to help them with domestic chores ore are they only too glad to leave the magic behind after a hard working day?

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The Joys of Fairytales

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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.
Brrrr…. Has been a cold one this week. Not that Lady has minded. Very little slows her down. Writing wise, am looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom later this month and had a most enjoyable one as part of another ACW group on Wednesday this week. All good fun and useful.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Hope you have had a good first full week back into normal routines. Still pretty cold here but Lady had a lovely time in the park playing with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Coco, the Labradoodle, pals so they’ve all had a great time.

Pleased to share The Joys of Fairytales as my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. A gem of a topic as far as I’m concerned and I hope you enjoy the post. I look at fairytales and the reading diet, fairytales and the writing craft, as well as share my own life long love of the form and why I think we shouldn’t stop reading them because we’re no longer children. Hope I can persuade you to keep reading them!

The Joys of Fairytales

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Lovely time in the pool today. When the weather is cold outside, the water feels like a tepid bath by comparison. Trust me, it isn’t. It only feels that way by comparison but it does help me to get going with the swimming.

Will be discussing The Joys of Fairytales for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above.

Pleased to be getting back to preparing my monthly blogs in different places and scheduled the first one of those yesterday. Makes me feel like I’m getting back into the swing of things again. Like this. Can take me a while to get going again after the Christmas break. Just like with my swimming really! Having said that, I am also busy editing at the moment and am glad that is going well.

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Hope the day has been okay. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler today and both dogs were so affectionate with each other. So nice to see. Some sleet, a little snow, but not a chance of it laying as the ground is so wet. (Hope I don’t wake up tomorrow to regret saying that but it is the case as I write this!).

Will be looking at The Joys of Fairytales for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ve loved fairytales for as long as I can remember so this piece was a particular joy to write. Very much a labour of love. Fairytales were my introduction to the fantasy genre as a whole too and I’m so appreciate of that. Can’t imagine not having read The Lord of the Rings or the Discworld series now but fairytales gave me my way in to finding those books.

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Hope to have stories of mine on Friday Flash Fiction to share here from next week but just to flag up the submissions window is now open again. Link  takes you to where you can find out all you need to know for submitting 100 word stories, which is where they prefer you to start.
Screenshot 2025-01-10 at 09-57-33 100-Word Submissions - Friday Flash FictionCold again but better than yesterday – no sleet!

How can you use the weather in a flash tale without resorting to cliche? I don’t do this often but when needed, I tend to use what a character is wearing as a way of doing this. If my character takes half an hour to dig out their scarf and gloves, I don’t need to say otherwise the weather is cold, do I?

It also shows you what kind of character they are – not an organised one! Writing the weather like this makes it more fun to write and, I hope, to read as well.

473008266_10162940845417053_8634434704547746209_nA grey day today, weather wise. One lovely benefit to creative writing is it can help you escape all of that. For a start, you’re usually indoors in the warm. Secondly, by getting caught up in what your characters are up to and what happens next, that means you can forget at least some of what is going on outside!

The latter thought is another reason why I am so fond of writing light hearted flash fiction pieces. They seem to me to be a brief moment of cheer and we could all do with those!

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Quick Fact:  The above picture was going to be part of the cover for Tripping the Light Fantastic but as a rectangular picture cannot fit into the square frame of Chapeltown Books’ covers, I had to choose another image. Pleased with how things worked out though, see below!

Escape with a Good Book - TTFF.jpg

Fairytales with Bite – Twist Endings

Now given almost anything can happen in a fairytale, as magic is prevalent, what could possibly count as a twist ending here?

One answer to that is to get your characters doing the unexpected. For example, they don’t use magic when it was expected they would do, but ensure their reasons are strong enough to justify this. You can then have fun working out what consequences would occur because they haven’t done something. Would they also get into trouble with the powers that be because they should have used magic and didn’t?

Also, what would happen if a character, who is not supposed to use magic, does so? There is, of course, the glorious example of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice here (and I can still see visions of Mickey Mouse and those brooms from Fantasia here) but what if the character develops a real gift for it and proves to be useful. Could they break down prejudices in their setting and set something positive in motion here, a positive twist if you like?

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This World and Others – Stories as Told In Other Worlds

Now I know so many of us appreciate the fairytales – those who wrote them, collected them, and in some cases those who did both. We think of Charles Perrault, Hans Christen Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm.

But in your setting, who would write the stories? Who would collect them? Are they aware of stories from other cultures in their world? Are they aware of stories from other worlds such as ours? Would they “import” stories from worlds like ours?

In what formats would their stories be shared – orally, in print, both? Do they have ebooks or something better? And who can access the stories? Are they for everyone?

How would their stories differ from ours and why would this be?

Story ideas there!

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What I Look For In A Good 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. Many thanks to Lynn Clement and Janet Williams for publicity shots of yours truly above. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you’ve had a good few days. Has been bitterly cold, not that Lady appears to have noticed. Looking forward to listening to all of the 23 festive flash pieces, including mine, which are due to be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on Saturday 14th December from 2 to 4 pm on North Manchester FM. Should be a fabulous afternoon of being read to!

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Delighted to share What I Look For In a Good Story for Chandler‘s Ford Today this week. I share an ingredients list for what I think is crucial for a cracking read, look at character -v- plot, and ask short or long term fiction or both. Hope you enjoy the post and you end up with even more good stories to enjoy over the Christmas period.

What I Look For In A Good Story

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Another cold day today though Lady was too busy running around with Coco, the fabulous Labradoodle, to notice. Both dogs had a fabulous run.

Will be sharing my What I Look For In A Good Story on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. Comments are always welcome in the CFT comments box. And I hope Santa provides plenty of chances for you to discover even more good stories this Christmas time!

The following week’s post will be a festive flash and other news round up and I hope to include the link to the Three Minute Santas show as part of that.

I will take the chance to say a big thank you now to all those I’ve interviewed on CFT this year. Without exception, the resulting articles have been excellent. I hope to conduct more such interviews in 2025 of course.

Meantime, it’s back to finishing various bits and pieces off ahead of 31st December. It’s the nearest I get to finishing the year with my desk clear (and I really mean my electronic desk aka my laptop as my actual desk, while reasonably tidy, cannot be said to be uncluttered! I was cheered up enormously when I saw a picture on Facebook of Albert Einstein’s desk as he left it. I felt so much better on seeing that – there is hope for me yet!).

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Hope you have had a good Wednesday. Another chilly one but Lady was overjoyed to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal again this morning. Plenty of running around. Those two didn’t feel the cold.

Don’t forget I’ll be looking at What I Look For In a Good Story for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. And on Saturday once I’ve heard the Three Minute Santas show, I would have heard 23 good stories! I hope to be talking about that show and the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event in more detail for CFT on 20th December, my last pre-Christmas post for the year. It’s amazing where the time goes, is it not?

Am not entering any more competitions until the New Year now though I have entered the festive and/or flash related ones I wanted to try.

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my second story for their Christmas competition. This time the word featured is good will. See what use I make of it in my story, And To You, Pal.

I am sure that is something we have all said or thought at some point but hope you enjoy the story anyway! Find our why my character thinks the way they do and whether or not for once poetic justice is seen to be done. Can my character be full of goodwill after all?

Screenshot 2024-12-13 at 09-54-02 And to You Pal by Allison Symes - Friday Flash Fiction
Hope the day has been a good one for you. Busy working away on various pieces I want to put to bed before the end of the year. Making good progress. (Also making some on the festive preparations – have started wrapping some presents much earlier in the month than I usually do!).

Flash Tip: It is worth having some flash pieces drafted on always topical themes such as hope, light, darkness etc. These topics come up often and it means you’re a little ahead of the game here. Also think along the lines of having some flash pieces connected to genre – there will be competitions for flash crime stories, love theme ones etc.

Something you’ve started as a flash piece could always be expanded out into a short story. I’ve occasionally done this when a character has gripped me and I want to share more of their tale but then I save this as a short story only and submit it to the appropriate market. But without the idea for the flash piece in the first place, I wouldn’t have gone on to have done this.

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Plan to look at my Flash NANO drafts sometime in January. It’ll give me enough time away from them to evaluate them properly. I will be issuing an author newsletter on 1st January though I suspect most reads will take place much further on in the month! I’ve just found the first is the easiest day to remember for a newsletter. I receive a number of author newsletters myself on the same day so am clearly not the only one who thinks this!

Looking forward to a more informal Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting this time next week as it is a wonderful way to wrap up our writing year. Plan is to share any flashes for feedback and to discuss all things writing related. It has been a great year for the group with four of us having festive flashes broadcast this coming weekend. More power to our pens and PCs, folks!

Fairytales With Bite – Fairies and Festivities

What involvement do your magical creations have with any kind of festivities? My thoughts are always drawn to the line by Slade on their fabulous Merry Xmas Everyone to the line about “fairies keeping Santa sober for a day”. Am assuming that takes some work!

But what do your fairies to to help or hinder festivities? (Forget the one about sending a young princess to their doom via spinning wheel needle – it’s been done!). Is magic welcome at celebrations or does it get in the way? How do fairies celebrate their festivities? Is food created magically or is that done the old school way? Is magic saved for fireworks, decorations, music etc? What would your fairies celebrate in the first place? Do they allow other species to join then or it is just for the fairies only?

I would imagine there would be some sort of celebration when a new fairy graduated and “got her wings” (sorry, couldn’t resist that one) so what format would this follow given this would be likely to be a tradition.

I would certainly hope your magical creations had a great deal of fun, as I hope you do too with your Christmas traditions.

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This World and Others – Managing Celebrations

As well as private events, I would expect your setting to have some sort of official public celebration for varying things. There will be commemoration events. There will be something to indicate the end of a certain time period as we do here every 31st December.

Within your setting and if you have specific countries, there will be historical events to commemorate in some way – some of which will be sombre in tone and others anything but.

So who would be responsible for ensuring public events were conducted “properly”? In the UK we have an Earl Marshal who organises coronations etc. But who would your creation be and what would they have responsibility for exactly? Are celebrations managed well or otherwise?

Has historical precedent meant there has to be someone organising it all now? What would happen to anyone who went against what is expected in terms of public behaviour here?

Above all, do your characters have fun at these things. Do the events serve as a way of the public letting their hair down (including magically) without it all going horribly wrong?

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WEATHER, PLANS, AND THE WRITING JOURNEY

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Must admit I struggle a bit in the heat, due to being asthmatic (much easier to breathe in cooler air). But then I still don’t really associate Britain with heatwaves, really. It just doesn’t feel right for this country.

And yes I do remember the summer of 1976. Government appointed a Minister for Drought and within about a week the heavens opened. Someone liked a laugh there!

I don’t tend to use the weather in my stories but how your characters react to (a) standard and (b) unusual conditions can help your readers find out more about them. I wilt in the heat. Others get edgy. How do your characters react? Does their behaviour and attitudes change notably?

Food for thought when outlining your characters as, even if you don’t use this in a story directly, just knowing how they would react helps you as a writer to show something of that in the situations you do put them in.

Characters no matter what their world should resonate with readers. Image via Pixabay
Assemble your characters, assemble your world. Image via Pixabay
Your blog, your topic, your theme – just be sensible on copyright and libel issues. Image via Pixabay.
View from near where I was staying in Scotland. You wouldn’t want to rush away from this. Image by Allison Symes
Is it Time for a Change for the dragon in my story on Cafelit? Image via Pixabay
Lovely nib! Image via Pexels.
What stories will come from this pen? Pexels image.
Heading to the light. Image via Pixabay.
From Light to Dark and Back Again perhaps? Image via Pixabay (and so beautiful)

Time really does fly – hard to believe it’s July already. Still, on the plus side, it’s just over a month to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. Really looking forward to that.

Need to get some more submissions out so will try and focus on that. (Third flash fiction book coming along nicely though). Am also beginning to look at some non-fiction work I’d like to do. Would like to make good progress on that by the end of the year.

Am reading well, which is great. I see reading as the fuel to writing. How can you know what you like to write unless you know what you like to read? Deliberately mixing up my reading formats. Sometimes I focus on the Kindle, other times good old fashioned paperbacks, still other times catching up with magazine reading. All wonderful material.

Part of the lawns at Swanwick. Image by Allison Symes.
What characters will you come up with? Image via Pixabay
A lovely place to reflect during Swanwick. Image by Allison Symes
Writing is rewriting. Image via Pixabay.
Planning your characters. Image via Pixabay.
The Hayes Conference Centre, home of the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. Image by Allison Symes
Always good advice. Image via Pixabay.
Chapeltown Books have a distinctive central image in a frame such as with mine. Image by Allison Symes
The lakes at The Hayes. Image by Allison Symes

When you first start out as a writer, you look to improve what you do (and this is something you continue to keep on trying to do). Then you aim for publication. Then you see if you can be published again and again and again etc.

All the time you are trying to improve what you do in terms of output and quality. You are also getting to grips (or trying to!) with marketing and promotion, arranging book events, using social media effectively to attract a readership and so on.

So at no point in the writing journey are you standing still and that is a good thing.

But it does pay every so often to stop and look at where you are and what you would like to do next (and then go for it!). Focus on enjoying what you write – that enjoyment will help you keep going through the tougher times.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Flash fiction is a good outlet for one liners which sum up a character.

One of my favourites comes from Making the Grade: “Still, as I told Mother, if this is what I can do when I’m honest, just think of the possibilities when I’m not!” Attitude to life, feisty character all in one line!

Flash fiction is the epitome of economical writing! This is another reason why I love it. It challenges me to convey as much information as possible in as few words as possible. All good fun!

Content is indeed king. Image via Pixabay.
Your blog, your topic, your theme – just be sensible on copyright and libel issues. Image via Pixabay.
Fiction can take you anywhere. Image via Pixabay.
Fiction should show you new ways of looking at the world. Image via Pixabay.
Whenever and whatever you read, enjoy. Image via Pixabay.
Books are the keys to knowledge. Image via Pixabay
Escape with a good book. Image via Pixabay.
Books have their own sense of time and space. Image via Pixabay.

I love an intriguing first line
Be it in flash or short story.
But what is wonderful and fine
Is the ending in its glory.

Allison Symes – 1st July 2018

I’m partial to some doggerel too! Having said that, intriguing first lines are fabulous but the story has to follow through on them. The story must never peter out. The ending must back up all that has come before. You want your reader to feel they’ve had a satisfying read, whether it is a funny tale or a grim one.

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Flash is a great vehicle for sci-fi and fantasy, even though both are known for (a) epic novels and (b) world building (which leads to the size of said epic novels!). Why?

Because you can conjure up a world with a few well chosen words and leave the rest to your reader’s imagination. In my The Truth, I refer to a Mark 3 Intergalatic Spacecraft with the latest time warp technology. I haven’t room in this 100-word story to tell you more than that, but the great thing is YOUR vision of what such a spacecraft would be like is as valid as mine would be. And you can picture the kind of world that would have such a thing in the first place.

I like to have fun with my flash stories in giving the one telling detail a reader would need to know and leaving it at that! I’m not being rotten, honest. I think a reader engages much more with any story if they have gaps to fill in. I know I love this when I have to fill in gaps on stories I read.

N.B. Do you think they have trouble changing head light bulbs on your average UFO given the trouble most of us have trying to do the same task on our cars? Just a thought…!

There can be reality behind fairytales. Image via Pixabay (and image used as part of book trailer for From Light to Dark and Back Again)
Let the writing flow and if music can help it along even better! Image via Pixabay
Let your stories have impact. Image via Pixabay
Use flash fiction techniques to help you develop other forms of writing so you grow as a writer. Image via Pixabay
Characters seeking to change the world are often on a physical journey too. Image via Pixabay.
The art of the flash (fiction). Image via Pixabay
You can almost feel the mood from this picture. Image via Pixabay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DRAFTS, TLAs AND FAVOURITE GENRE

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Managed to draft a few flash fiction stories on my train journeys yesterday. Great use of time, made even better with my headphones plugged in so I can enjoy classical music while I write. She will indeed have music wherever she goes… unless the train goes into a tunnel of course!

I sometimes draft blog posts on this kind of trip too. This has come in extremely useful. It means I always have ideas drafted down I can refer back to and then flesh out when ready to do so. I did take my Kindle with me yesterday meaning to read as well but ran out of time. Still, I made up for that later…

It did strike me though, as I looked around the carriages to see practically all of us plugged into our phones, what a bizarre sight this could seem for an outsider looking in. All of us in our little virtual worlds, all with a kind of invisible barrier up around us. Hmm… I strongly suspect there’s some story ideas to be had from that image! Good luck…

 

Seen on a desk near you… image via Pixabay
The writer’s basic toolkit – image via Pixabay
Ebooks and print – both have their own frustrations when it comes to publishing. Image via Pixabay
Books are the keys to knowledge. Image via Pixabay
Time flies when reading or writing. Image via Pixabay
Let the creative process flow! Image via Pixabay
Many thanks to MIBI Gift Shop for stocking my book.
The world of the imagination should play a role in your stories. I can’t imagine any world without some form of the arts. Image via Pixabay.

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TLAs turn up everywhere. And it’s fine if you know what the three letter acronym is for. You can feel a bit of a twit if you don’t. Apparently, HFN means Happy for Now and HEA is Happy Ever After, both used in romantic fiction. I can’t think of any TLAs for flash fiction writers (do share if you know any but keep them clean!).

You could use TLAs as part of an outlining process for your characters.

ABB = Awkward but Brave
SBK = Stupid but Kind
NBT = Not (to) Be Trusted
DBD = Daring but Dim

Hmm… some interesting character possibilities there I think What TLAs would you use for your own characters and why?

Great characters = great books. Image via Pixabay.
Even in the heart of a city, books can provide escapism. Image via Pixabay.
“Real” books or Ebooks? See what Gail Aldwin thinks in my latest CFT post. Image via Pixabay
My first book! Am finishing off my second. Image by Allison Symes
Let the writing flow and if music can help it along even better! Image via Pixabay
There can be reality behind fairytales. Image via Pixabay (and image used as part of book trailer for From Light to Dark and Back Again)
What impact do your stories have on your readers? Image via Pixabay

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What is your favourite genre (whether writing or reading it) and can you sum this up in one line? Name an example.

Mine is fantasy because, while taking you to other worlds, it can also shed light on this one. My example would be The Lord of The Rings. The traits of the main characters, for good or ill, can all be found on our own planet. The places such as The Shire or Mordor can be compared to places on earth (and this is made even easier thanks to the fantastic film version).

The battle between good and evil is something to be identified with too (though, from a fictional point of view, the very “best” villains don’t consider themselves villainous at all. They see themselves as having a just cause. They’re wrong and it’s up to the hero/heroine to prove them so). Can treachery be overcome (it so often isn’t in life)? Will justice be done (it so often isn’t in life!)? Fantasy then can be a vehicle for resolving injustices we know so often aren’t put right on our world.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I enjoy a lot of flash fiction collections on my Kindle. It’s helped me widen my reading of contemporary fiction (which is no bad thing) and flash does read so easily on a screen.

It is a huge advantage to those who prefer technology to paper books. I hope it encourages those who wouldn’t pick up a paperback to discover reading electronically is absolutely fine and flash is such a great format for that.

I like downloading story magazines now too. I love magazines in any event but one problem is storage space for those ones you really do want to keep. No worries about that for e-magazines!

What an upgrade from Shakespeare’s quill! Image via Pixabay
Technology has helped short story writers. Image via Pixabay
Love ebooks. Image via Pexels
The perfect way to relax. All writers love to read. Image via Pixabay.
The wonderful world of writing should include non-fiction, which benefits from creative techniques too. Image via Pixabay.
The writer’s desk. What do you hope will emerge from yours this coming year? Image via Pixabay.
Reviews can have global reach. Most impact I think can often be local to the writer.
What are the changes your characters seek to make? Are you showing your characters doing this rather than telling us? Image via Pixabay.
The world of the imagination should play a role in your stories. I can’t imagine any world without some form of the arts. Image via Pixabay.
Where almost all stories spring from these days. Image via Pixabay.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s difficult to say what I like best about writing flash. It is great when you have completed a piece, have edited it well, and after leaving it aside for a while, you come back to it and discover it is actually a good story! (One of the biggest enemies of all writers is the demon known as self doubt).

I like the process of writing the story out and then going back through it, removing what I realise I don’t need, and discovering it is a much stronger tale as a result. Of course, you don’t realise what is unnecessary material until you’ve completed the story, look again at what its theme is and then know what you have to take out, so the theme is not undermined.

What I do know for sure is there are no shortcuts and you have to persist, while learning from your mistakes too.

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Goodreads – Author Programme Blog

I’m a bit of a traditionalist in that my favourite place to read is in bed shortly before I head off to the land of Nod.

However, the Kindle has widened my choices of location when it comes to reading. I sometimes read from it on a train trip (unless I’m too busy writing something via my phone). I always read from it when I’m travelling up to Scotland for my annual holiday.

One of my favourite things about e-reading is I no longer have to worry about how many books I can take with me when I’m away. I can have loads! I do find I want to get back to paperbacks when I’ve “feasted” on the Kindle for a bit though. Not that this is a bad thing!

I must admit I do hope we get some good weather in the UK soon. It would be nice to be out in the garden again, with book or Kindle in hand, and a glass of something nice close by. I suspect I may have to wait to August for that!

This notice may make you smile though. Image via Pixabay.
Decisions, decisions and a not terribly helpful signpost. Image via Pixabay.
Great way to relax. Now where are those biscuits? Image via Pixabay
I read three stories from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Many thanks to Dawn Kentish Knox for the picture!
Paula Readman, Dawn Kentish Knox and I celebrate where our stories have appeared! Many thanks to Paula Readman for the picture.!
Reading out loud is a joy for writer and listener.
Well, why not? Image via Pixabay.
Escape with a good book, it’s good for you! Image via Pixabay
Never give up, work hard, be disciplined… all valuable traits for success, whether you’re a tennis player, a writer or a character in a story! Image via Pixabay.
The virtual library. These days ebooks and emagazines are available at libraries. Chandler’s Ford library are running surgeries about them. Image via Pixabay.