Tag: Flaky by Allison Symes

Characters Who Surprise and Unexpected Reviews

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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.
Fabulous weekend with the flash fiction workshop on the Friday and the Book Fair on the Saturday. More about the latter to come in my CFT post this week. Hope you have had a good weekend too. Lady has been busy catching up with her girlfriends so she has had a nice time too.

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As well as selling my books, I was selling books I've contributed to - those went well too

Facebook – General

Changeable weather today – managed to avoid the rain. I got wet instead thanks to a swim! Much more fun.

Reading wise, I’m now back on the non-fiction after reading a hugely enjoyable crime novel. (And there were good examples of both kinds of book at last weekend’s Book Fair too).

Writing Tip: Never expect perfection from a first draft. It’s not what the first draft is for. I is just where you get the story down. Then you can work on improving it. It will need improving. All stories do. But unless you get that draft down, you won’t see where to improve it. And take comfort from the thought that every fiction author is in the same position here!

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see her two favourite girlfriends today – good time had by all. Busy day after a lovely weekend but then Mondays are always like that.

Can you remember the first character (or an early one) that took you by surprise? Mine was The Little Mermaid from Hans Christen Andersen. (Definitely not the Disney version!). Why? It was news to me that fairytales did not always have a happy ending. Okay, be fair, I was a kid at the time but that was a useful lesson, even if you don’t realise it is one at the time.

Another story which captivated me early on was The Snow Queen. The girl is the hero in this one! I loved that (and still do). Bearing in mind I grew up a long time ago and that kind of thing was a novelty, trust me. (It’s why I always have had a soft spot for Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds as well).

To this day, I have an even softer spot for the feisty female lead in a story who knows her own mind and acts on it, whether she gets it right or not.

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Met a fellow dog walker in the Recreation Ground today. No surprises there but she bought From Light to Dark and Back Again from me at the Book Fair yesterday. She came over and said, with a big grin on her face, she’d read the book this morning and she felt I had a “wicked sense of humour”! As I replied, that is a review! (Oh and guilty as charged here by the way. Not at all sorry!).

Looking forward to sharing a write up of how things went at the inaugural Book Fair here for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Will be an especial pleasure to share that one!

Oh and a huge thanks for the great comments coming in on Flaky, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated. If you didn’t get chance to spot this one, do check out the link (and check out the other stories too. You’ll be in for a good read).

 

Had a fantastic time at the book fair at The Hilt today. It was lovely to meet fellow authors, some I knew, others I didn’t, but we all got chatting to each other and to the many people who came. I’ll be writing more about this for my Chandler’s Ford Today post next Friday but it was a great event and I hope this does become a regular thing. Many thanks to the organisers, to those who kept the writers well supplied with tea and coffee etc., and to all who supported the event.

It was nice to finish my day with a meal out with family. Much appreciated. I never mind not having to cook!

Writing Tip: Never worry about your first draft being rubbish, They are kind of meant to be. It’s the editing which will polish the work and make it better. Do see the writing and the editing as two separate creative tasks. They each have their challenges and I find if far easier to keep the two tasks separate. I need to know what my story is and what really matters before I can do any editing work on it. (Oh and this ties up with the writing tip given above but I can’t stress this point enough. Write first, edit later. It really does pay.).

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the lovely comments in on my post yesterday regarding Counting which is my latest tale on YouTube. Much appreciated. These videos are great fun to do and are another way of highlighting what flash fiction can be. Who says marketing can’t be fun?

Was at an interesting Zoom talk last night and it flagged up another source of research. For me, non-fiction has often sparked ideas for stories.

Why? Because you often come across intriguing characters and events in non-fiction. You can ask yourself what would your character do if they faced something similar. If in real life a personage did Action X, you could explore alternative history stories here by getting your character to do Y instead and work out what the consequences would be.

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It’s Monday. The weather’s changeable. It’s still Monday. It’s time for a new story from me on YouTube. Counting is a result of a random number generator prompt where I generated three numbers in sequence. Thought I’d put them all into a tale and mix them up, apt for this story especially.

 

So nice to see authors I knew and those I met for the first time yesterday. Plenty of networking went on at the Book Fair (which is how it should be too).

One aspect to flash which might be overlooked is, if you’re not sure where to start with writing, the short form is a great place to begin.

Why? Well, for one thing, you’re not overwhelmed by the thought of having to come up with 80,000 to 1000,000 words for a novel. Also, with work, practice, and persistence, you can get stories submitted and hopefully build up publication credits which you could then list in a query letter to a publisher/agent when you are ready to submit a longer piece of work somewhere.

I mentioned a few times yesterday that writing flash has helped with my other forms of writing. You don’t just tighten up your editing in one form only here! The skills you learn writing the short form come in useful for the longer works too! Win-win.

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It was a fantastic opportunity to spread the word about flash fiction at the book fair at The Hilt today. I was pleased to meet others who write flash too. Also great to see many authors who write a wide range of books here. More about this in my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. So good doing live events like this though.

Glad to say the flash fiction workshop went well yesterday and it was lovely meeting everyone in the writing group online. It has been a lovely end to the week.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Book Fairs and Events

I was at a Book Fair local to me recently and it was great fun. As well as celebrating books, it was fantastic to meet other authors and readers. There was a good range of books on offer too covering a wide range of tastes which is exactly what you want from an event like this. (The organisers also kept the writers well supplied with tea and coffee, which was also appreciated!).

Going to events like this is a fabulous way of supporting authors you know, as well as discovering writers new to you. It’s a way of bringing books to you, especially if your nearest bookshop is some distance away.

I hope the organisers of this event do it again. It would be lovely if it became a regular event.
If you get the chance to go to such things near you, do go. You may well be surprised at the range of books on offer. Every book event I’ve been to has been seriously impressive here.

 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Taking Part in the Book Fair at The Hilt

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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.
Again thanks to Vie Portland for the Book Fair poster photo in my CFT post. From many moons ago, many thanks to Janet Williams, my lovely editor at CFT, for the photos of me at Chandler’s Ford Railway Station carrying out a book signing. Also thanks to Jen Wilson for images of me at Swanwick signing a book for Val Penny. Am pleased to share again a fabulous picture of me signing a book at Swanwick taken by the much missed Fiona Park who left this world far too soon.
Hope you have had a good week. Busy end to it as I run a flash fiction workshop and go to the Book Fair. Nice way to end the week, mind you. Lady and I have appreciated the cooler weather and even the rain (the latter more so when we’ve not been out in it!).
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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share Taking Part in The Book Fair at The Hilt – 8th July 2023 for Chandler’s Ford Today. I’m a great believer in self explanatory titles!

As well as publicity for the event, I look at how things like this support writers and the value and importance of books. If you’re in the area and can pop along, every author taking part including me would be glad to see you!

(Oh and a huge thank you to the writing group I ran a flash fiction workshop for earlier this afternoon. It was lovely meeting you all online and you made me so welcome. Much appreciated and I hope you go on to discover the joys of flash fiction – there are many of them!).

Taking Part in the Book Fair at The Hilt – 8th July 2023

Are there times I don’t get as much writing done as I would like? Oh yes. Happens more often than I’d like. Suspect this is the case for most writers. I don’t fret about it the way I once did though. Why?

Because I know these things can come along in peaks and troughs. Also because on the flip side, there are plenty of times when I write more than I thought I would. Also what matters is writing what you can when you can and, generally, enjoying what you do (at least most of the time).

There was a survey I came across a while ago which showed that while many people wish to write a book only a small percentage do so yet alone go on to be published.

Depressing thought? Not really. If you have the stamina to do the work to write a book, well done. And every writer I know (and the vast majority of those I’ve read) faced rejection after rejection after rejection etc.

I still get turn downs. I always will. It is part of the life but it helps enormously having supportive writing friends who know exactly what it is like and to know it isn’t just you (or them either come to that).

Enjoy your writing – being creative in any way is a good thing. I know it has helped me in so many ways (and did so long before I had anything published).

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I’ll be chatting more about the Book Fair on Friday in my Chandler’s Ford Today post. See above. (Still not too late to book a ticket for that by the way. The event is free but if you pre-book, your name is put into a raffle and you can a £10 voucher to use towards a book of your choice at the Fair).

Looking forward to meeting the writing group I’m running a flash fiction workshop for on Friday. Zoom is a great way to bring writers together.

Will also be off to the next Chameleon Theatre Group performance – Lilies on the Land – later in the month. It’s a historical play based on the Women’s Land Army so should be interesting. I do love stories which are based on historical fact but which show an “imagined” reflection by the characters about what they’re going through. So I expect this to be right up my street, so to speak.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Glad to share Flaky, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Also great to see some familiar names having more stories on this site this week. Well done, all. My tale relates the utter tragedy of attempts to have an ice cream in peace. Hope you enjoy it and many thanks for the fabulous comments coming in on this one already. I have clearly hit a nerve here!

Certain things stick in the mind. Today would’ve been the birthday of one of my grandfathers. What I always remember about him is is his love of the horse racing and quiz shows. He liked to see people win!

So that started me thinking about what I would want my readers to remember about my characters. Having that in mind helps me hone said characters. I can give them a turn of phrase or an attitude which sticks in the mind – it doesn’t have to be some kind of quirky attribute.

I am wary of the latter – these can come across as gimmicky. But an attitude – well, you can usually see why a character has that. These are far more relatable, at least to me.

All authors seek reviews for their work. It helps with publicizing what we do writing wise. And reviews don’t have to be long. This is especially apt for me as a flash fiction writer but a one or two line review is still useful to a writer even if you have written an epic saga! So if you know a writer, do bear this in mind as another way of supporting them. As a certain supermarket says, every little bit helps.

Two favourite quotes from some of my reviews are:-

Allison Symes can pack more into 100 words than most people can into 1000. Politicians take note!
The storytelling was beautiful in so few words which takes the talent and skill of a practiced author.

Both of these are from the reviews for Tripping the Flash Fantastic.

If you’re coming to the Book Fair on Saturday, and want to know more about flash fiction I will be only too pleased to talk. Oh and a huge thanks to those who have reviewed me!

Screenshot from my Amazon Author Central Page.

Fairytales with Bite – Magical Law Enforcement

This can be a fun topic to write humorous flash fiction/short stories about. I’ve written a number about dodgy fairy godmothers breaking their own code of conduct (one was about the Tooth Fairy who decided she needed to carry out a raid and grab some chocolate. Another was about the Tooth Fairy stand-in who resented having to do the round and was taking pliers to deal with a kid she knew wasn’t nice. She was going to carry out her job according to her law ).

It can be so satisfying getting a character to have their well deserved comeuppance in this kind of tale. Plus there is always the option to show how, say, a magical police force does its job. How would they rein in the more dodgy elements in a magical society? How would a court system work? Could powers be taken away from the misbehaving ones and how would this be done? Could they have powers restored later?

What would your society define as magical law and how did they come to decide which laws should be included? I would expect some things here to have been found out the hard way so people realised certain elements had to be included.

You could also look at how characters try to avoid magical law enforcement. Are there petty laws which everyone ignores.

And, yes you can write crime stories in a magical setting. What would be the consequences of being caught for a criminal? How would you confine someone who might be capable of making themselves invisible and slipping away literally unseen, say?

This World and Others – The Justice System

Following on from Fairytales with Bite, you could have stories set entirely in the justice system. Is your setting based on a fair legal system or not? If it isn’t fair, are there campaigners seeking to change that and how would they carry out their campaigns? What interest groups would support them/be opposed? What would they be seeking to change and are they successful?

If you’re writing humorous stories, as I often do, what could be funny about the justice system in your setting which you could exploit here? For example, if you have a system where traffic offenses were dealt with every other Monday, does that open up to the possibility of there being traffic abuses every other day in between? I could see farcical stories emerging from that.

You could also think about key figures in the justice system to write about and do consider those behind the scenes. How would a Clerk to the Court operate in your world? Do they carry more influence than might at first appear to be the case, simply because they can control access to the judge etc?

There are also stories to be had about those on the receiving end of the justice system especially when that has been unfair. How can they clear their names? How robust or otherwise is your setting’s justice system? There are always those determined to commit crimes, bend rules etc so how would your setting deal with these? There would, I think, have to be something to hold people/beings of choice to account.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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