Tag: Finding Out The Hard Way by Allison Symes

Curling Up With A Good Book

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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 weekend went well for you. Okay here. Writing wise, am making good progress on my next author newsletter, have sent some pitches off last week, and am continuing to blog, edit, and write flash fiction – all good stuff. I think it’s sometimes easier to write more as we go into autumn and winter – less temptation to be outside!

Facebook – General

Hope today has been a good one. Lady didn’t get to see any doggie pals today but she did see some human ones so was pleased about that and is looking forward to catching up with her four legged chums tomorrow.

There is one more big flash competition I want to have a go at (deadline is the end of the year) but am hoping something I will draft for Flash NANO (which starts on 1st November) this year may prove to be a good fit for it. Will have to wait and see. What I do draft this year will be an excellent start to my fourth flash fiction collection in due course.

Hope you have had a good day. Lady’s week has got off to a flying start as she met up with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals. Lady and her Ridgeback pal has a lovely play fight, which they both loved. Given Lady is coming up 9 and her pal is 7, they are both still pups at heart.

Writing wise, one of the joys of being interviewed is of course to talk about your work and what you love about it in depth. One fabulous question I was asked by Wendy H Jones in the October 2025 issue of Writers’ Narrative was about whether short form fiction allowed for more experimentation in voice and form.

Do check out the interview for my reply (screenshot below gives a taster) but it was great to share something of what I love about the short forms of fiction and, in a separate question, what drew me to it in the first place.

Hope Sunday has been a good and peaceful one for you. Not bad here. Looking forward to starting flash fiction Sunday soon. Nice way to end the week (or begin the next one, either works!).

Writing Tip: When you come across (as you will) a story which didn’t work for you, take some time out to figure out why this was. You will learn a great deal from this.

I know there are certain types of character I don’t like having read some of them in stories which didn’t grip me at all, so I take care not to produce that kind of character myself. I’ve found it helps just as much to know what you don’t like as it does knowing what you do when it comes to your own writing.

Hope you have had a good start to your weekend. Managed to get the lawn cut (and before it shoots up too high again ) so I count that as a win.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Ending a Piece of Fiction as a nice conclusion to my mini-series started yesterday with Starting a Piece of Fiction. The new post will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

It was lovely to finish the working week with a nice surprise. Naturally, I was thrilled to be one of the two Editor’s Choices for Friday Flash Fiction this week with my Finding Out the Hard Way.

Delighted Jim Bartlett was the other pick for his Safer. Many a word of truth in that one. Do check the stories out on FFF. You can be guaranteed a good read. Link below to my one which appeared yesterday.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

One tip I find useful for competitions with a specific word count (e.g. 53 words, 75 words etc – and I have come across these) is to instantly reserve up to five words for the title. I then know a rough count for the story itself.

If I end up having a shorter title, I can add a couple of words to the story. Often I don’t bother. I see having those “spare words” as a safety net to ensure I am well under the count asked for though there are places which want you to get to the exact limit. In these cases, I know immediately how many words I need to put into the story to bring it up to the right count.

It’s Monday. It’s as hectic as ever. It’s time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Giving It A Miss.

A justly beautiful tourist destination, popular with colleagues, who only visit at a certain time of year leads to my character finding out why. She isn’t planning a return visit. Find out why here.

 

It won’t be too long before I take part in the last Flash NANO. I will be sorry to see that go. I’ve found it so useful for producing 30 draft flash pieces in November for the last few years. Some of those went on to be published (and some will be in my Seeing The Other Side collection due out in May 2026).

I’m looking forward to meeting up with other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group at the ACW in person meeting at the end of this month. It will be nice to step outside our Zoom boxes for a bit. Naturally, we will all be waving the flag for the joys of writing flash fiction!

When I write to a specific word count, as I do for Friday Flash Fiction, the additional challenge of sticking to 100 words each time is coming up with something fresh and different every time, which can still be contained in that tight word limit.

I have found it useful to focus on one character and one moment. It makes me think about what matters so much to my character it has to be written up as a story. Flash is excellent for helping you develop a real feel for what matters here and that’s a good discipline to take across to other forms of writing as well. I’ve found it useful with my blog posts and articles too.

Goodreads Author Blog – Curling Up With A Good Book

One of the joys of the autumn and winter seasons is you get to have more opportunities to curl up with a good book., Okay, I do have to go out with the dog (which is fine) but when you have the chance to just grab a book and not go out in the cold and wet, you’re going to take it, yes?

As the nights draw in, I will often turn to my favourite forms of comfort reading, which is on the lighter side of fiction. There is enough “grim” going on in the world for real for me to want to read more of it in a book, I’m afraid.

Dystopian fiction has never been my thing and it certainly isn’t now. I’m all for books which address issues because they can meet so many needs. For one thing, they can draw attention to those issues and make people think about them.

But I will admit with not having as much reading time as I would like, I am going to focus on an entertaining read. That takes in many genres, funnily enough.

For me, one definition of a good book is it is one that takes my mind off things for a short while and with characters I can root for and come to care about.

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Back issue time as I’ve shared the October 2025 edition above. Hope you also enjoy the issue below and remember it is free to subscribe.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Starting A Piece of Fiction

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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 week. Lady has – she’s been catching up with her pals. Many thanks for great responses to my posts about the October issue of Writers’ Narrative where I’m the Featured Author. It’s not often you get to be a cover girl in your late fifties but there you go!

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Hope you have had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Lady has had a fabulous week in that she has seen most of her friends most of the time this week. I think most of us would count that as a great week.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share Starting A Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Hope you find it useful.

Once I get started on a flash tale or short story, I am generally “away with it” (though I do use outlines to help me). What can be tricky can be knowing where to start and this post shares some thoughts and tips I have found useful over many years to overcome this.

I also share a useful template (which is easily adaptable) which, again, I hope you find useful.

Starting A Piece of Fiction

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Will be sharing Starting A Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. The following week, I will, as you will probably have guessed, be sharing a piece on Ending a Piece of Fiction. I hope both will prove to be useful. After that will be a fabulous interview with John Puzey about his book, Captive Audience, so plenty going on at CFT at the moment. John is also a member of our excellent local theatre company, The Chameleons.

Have been busy this week working on a presentation and pitches. Have sent the latter off. The presentation will be for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. So far it has been a non-fiction heavy week but I will be switching to the fiction side again soon.

And Lady had a great Thursday meeting up with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals so she has had a great day, as did her friends.


Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal today – nice time had by both dogs.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Starting a Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Will be sharing tips I’ve found useful for overcoming hesitant starts to stories. I find once I get started it’s fine. It can be the getting started which can be tricky sometimes. I hope the post will prove useful. See above.

Marketing Tip: Consistency matters. It’s better to focus on a few things you know you can do (and keep doing) than spread yourself too thin. This is why I’m not on every social media platform out there (though that doesn’t preclude me from changing the ones I am on or adding others later). But I know I can post regularly where I currently do so I keep that going. Over time, consistency pays off. Readers know where to find you.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am thrilled to be one of two Editor’s Choices on Friday Flash Fiction with my tale, Finding Out The Hard Way. Hope you enjoy it.

Congratulations to Jim Bartlett for his story, Safer, which was the other Editor’s Choice.

Having two stories chosen doesn’t happen often so this was an especially nice surprise today.
We talk about having flashes of inspiration and they do happen but I find they come more often when I am at my desk working out ideas for characters and situations to put them in. Then the flashes can come.

Basically, I’ve got to put the work in, which is fine because I love that.

Where I do a get an idea out of “nowhere”, it usually is because something has been bubbling away in my subconscious for a while and it comes to the surface when I am working on something it could be useful for.

Often that something bubbling will be due something I’ve read so this is another reason to read widely and well, contemporary and classic works, short and long forms, and non-fiction because you want a wide pool to fish from for ideas to bubble like that.

It is also more likely you will get more ideas the more you read (and write).

Another aspect to flash fiction flexibility is mixing up the word count ranges you write to within the overall limit of 1000 words. You do develop favourites over time. My overall favourite will always be the drabble, the 100 worder, as it was my way into flash fiction in the first place, but I often write to 300 and 500 words especially. This is handy as so many flash competitions go to these word count limits. As you can imagine, I’m sure, this is no coincidence on my part!

Also when I have submitted stories for potential broadcasting, I am usually looking at the 200 to 250 word count tops for these, so it pays to practice writing to this kind of count.

You do, with time, get used to seeing/knowing what 200 to 300 words will look like on the page/screen so get better at knowing where to stop your story. You get a feel for what will fit in that word count limit.

I can usually tell at a glance now when I draft a 100 word story for Friday Flash Fiction, by roughly how much I’ve gone over on that first draft (and I always do go over). I’m not usually out by much when I compare my thought to the word count on the screen.

Mind you, that tells me how much I have to edit and I start by removing all of my wasted words (that, very, actually etc). Its amazing what a difference can be made to your word count removing words like that can do.

Fairytales with Bite – Options for Magical Beings

What options do your magical beings have in your setting? Are they born with their powers or do they develop these as they grow up? Which powers come to them as naturally as breathing and which do they have to learn? How would all of that impact on the kind of careers they can have later?

Do your magical creations get any choice at all on their career? Can anyone “rebel” against their “default setting” and do something different? What would the consequences be of that?

Are your characters happy with the skills they are born with and/or go on to develop? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them? Could any of your characters with powers envy those without them and why would that be? (Simpler lifestyle and less complications would be one thought springing to my mind).

This World and Others – Careers

In your setting what kind of careers are available for your characters? Is this dependent on magical skill set (see Fairytales With Bite above) or can anyone go for these careers as long as they’re willing to learn and work hard? How have the careers developed in your world? Is magic an advantage here or not?

Also are there careers not possible in your setting but which are still needed for your society to function?

Could magical power get in the way of these needed careers so your world has to import people /other beings of choice to carry out these vital roles? How does that happen? (There could be many a tale of alien abduction here – at least it would be for a reason that made sense!).

Are there careers your characters are desperate to avoid or get? How can they avoid/get them? Why do they feel this way? Could a story involve a character facing up to having to do a career they don’t want for a greater purpose?


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