Tag: flash fiction

Supporting Anthologies

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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. Busy one here. Family travelling about on different days for various things so it was especially nice to get to a lovely, lazy Sunday evening. Lady enjoyed her different weekend too – she had to put up with me taking her out rather than another family member. I managed to get plenty of writing done but didn’t avoid getting soaked, alas!

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Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, today. Managed to avoid the rain this morning but, alas, not this afternoon. So we are half wet!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Writing To Themes on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I hope that will be useful. The tips I will be sharing here are ones I’ve used for years and continue to use. If you’re writing short fiction and entering competitions, you’ll come across a lot of set themes, which are all chosen because they’re timeless and writers can get so much from them. More to come with the post on Friday.


Hope the week has got off to a reasonable start. Lady had a fabulous time with her best friends, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler, in the park today. All three saw their favourite human of all time, “Pete the Treat” as well so it was fair to say the three dogs went home having had a great time and plenty of treats! We were all pleased to see some sunshine too.

Writing wise, the next couple of days will be particularly busy so I’ll be focusing on getting various bits and pieces done. Did manage to get a fair bit done over the weekend. Am also catching up with reading. Am enjoying some great anthologies/collections of non-fiction work at the moment.

Character Tip: Think about what you can learn from how a character speaks. You should pick up something on their level of education, class, and more. How can you apply this to your own characters? The choice of words used makes such a difference here.


Hope your Sunday has been a peaceful one. Am looking forward to flash fiction Sunday, which I’ll start shortly after posting this.

The one regret I do have with my writing is not starting a lot sooner than I did. All the clues were there early on that writing was something for me. I always loved inventing stories during what was called Composition (part of English Language lessons). I did have notebooks and jotted down thoughts and ideas. Goodness knows what happened to them but the signs were there.

Sometimes on reading a story I didn’t like, I would think I would write the character this way instead, all of that kind of thing. But I didn’t get around to actually start writing seriously until I hit a milestone birthday (and in the same year had a significant life event too).

Next month I’ll hit another milestone birthday which will also tell me it will have been thirty years since I finally succumbed to the writing bug. It’s the only bug I’ve ever been really glad to catch!

Tip of the Day: If you want to write, write. It doesn’t have to be perfect. First drafts never are but make a start and see where the journey takes you and have fun with it too. You want to enjoy as much as you can of the process. You also cannot know how long it will take you to get “anywhere” (the definition of which depends on what you want to come from your writing) so the earlier you can start, the better.


Hope the weekend has got off to a good start. Not bad here. Even saw a little sunshine. Still plenty of mud around and Lady does have a talent for finding it all.

Writing wise, I’m glad to say my latest post Researching for Short Form Fiction Writers (for Writers’ Narrative) is now up on Substack. Link here. Many thanks to all who have subscribed to my Substack over the last few days.

For Chandler’s Ford Today next week, I’m looking at Writing to Themes, which is something I do for Writers’ Narrative, Chandler’s Ford Today and almost all of the story competitions I enter. Post up on Friday for that one.

As ever, am looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow. As ever, again, the weekend flies by!

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I’ve got one of those days today when I may as well have a revolving door as my front door. Now here’s a story prompt thought for you, knowing we all get days like that. Why not put your character in this situation and see how they handle it? Could make this funny or tragic – whatever mood takes you here. But have fun writing your character into a busy situation and see what they do – it may even prove therapeutic to you!

Hope Monday hasn’t been too bad. The usual hectic routine for me. Definitely time for a story then. I hope you like my latest on YouTube – Not Such A Good Idea.

Swapping some dark chocolate for something very different has consequences for two friends. A joke doesn’t always work out as planned.


Every writer has their favourite themes and mine often come up in my flash fiction and short stories. But this is another reason why I love competitions where someone else has set the theme. It challenges me to write something different when the theme is not one of my tried and tested favourites (and it often isn’t).

I’ll be looking at Writing To Themes for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday and will be sharing some tips I’ve found useful here. I hope it will prove to be useful. But in general terms it pays to practice writing flash fiction and short stories to various themes given these are often repeated (and for good reason too – these themes are timeless).

Managed to dodge a lot of the rain today so Lady and I will take that as a win.

Have a flash piece I am hoping to submit to a competition either tomorrow or early next week. Am also enjoying co-judging a flash fiction competition so, as has happened with editing in the past, I am on both sides of the fence at the same time again here. A nice place to be, mind you!

As you know, I mix up how I find ideas for my flash fiction pieces. Sometimes I will use topics connected with a season, most of the different random generators, books of prompts, story cubes and so on. I’ve been inspired by part of an overheard conversation before now too. The trick, if there is one, is to be open to the idea there are ideas out there waiting for you to work them up into stories. I’ve been inspired by characters I loathe (in a reverse way – I won’t write characters like that, I will write them like this instead and that has sparked a few tales). I’ve been inspired by characters I love.

If in any doubt, read more because it will remind you of what you love in stories and that should hopefully encourage you in your own writing. I find this to be the case and see it as a wonderful bonus for writers. We get even more pleasure from reading!

Goodreads Author Blog – Supporting Anthologies

I’ve had the great pleasure of having my work published in many anthologies over the years and some of my flash fiction work has recently appeared in another one (Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction Favourites).

I love reading anthologies too because I get to explore the works of many different authors in one paperback or ebook. Nothing to dislike about that and I’ve gone on to read longer works by authors whose stories I first came across in the shorter forms.

I also “use” anthologies to whet my reading appetite in between novels. I’ve long believed it is good to have a balance of long and short form reading. There are some amazing flash fiction and short stories out there where you do feel another word couldn’t have been added without “diluting” the impact of those tales.

Reading anthologies also helps support the smaller presses who give more authors more chance to have their tales seen and read. That in turn gives us more choice in our reading material. We all win here in supporting the anthologies.

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Review – The Chameleon Theatre Company – Camelot The Pantomime

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

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

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

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

The Chameleon Theatre Company – Review – Camelot The Pantomime


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fairytales With Bite – The End of the Working Week

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

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

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

Food for story thought there, I think.

This World and Others – Respite

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

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

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

There could be potential for humorous stories here too.

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What Makes A Story Real

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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 for taking an image of me with From Light to Dark and Back Again. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope the weekend went well. Not bad here. Looking forward to attending a Zoom social event with the Association of Christian Writers this week. Lady is hoping to catch up with her friends in a different way of course!

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Hope the day has gone well. Looking forward to a lovely online meeting with fellow members of the Association of Christian Writers later on today. Should be fun. Am always up for a good chat with other writers!

That thought makes me smile as I remember going to my first ever writing event many years ago (over on the lovely Isle of Wight too) and being such a nervous newbie. I knew nobody. By the end of the event, that changed! I’ve always found the writing community to be incredibly supportive and continue to appreciate this. It has been a great joy to go to various events over a lot of the country since.

Marketing Tip: I’m a big believer in scheduling mainly because I do blog a lot. But you can do this with aspects of your marketing too. I think ahead a little about themes for my newsletter, for example. I can then start drafting my newsletter a little bit at a time over the month so there is no mad rush to write it right at the end of the month ready for it to go out on the first.

Talking of which, it won’t be long before my next newsletter is due out. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

It won’t be that long before you can find out what the theme for my February newsletter will be!

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Hope your week has got off to a good start. Busy one as ever here though Lady did enjoy seeing her Hungarian Vizler pal today.

Writing wise, I’m writing various bits and pieces, some of which I’m preparing ahead of tomorrow when I have a lovely ACW event to go to online. It will save me a great deal of time tomorrow (which I’m looking forward to “spending” chatting with other ACW members!).

Looking forward to going to Camelot The Pantomime which is being staged by The Chameleon Theatre Company. Their pantomimes are always good fun – oh yes they are. It will be interesting to see just how much make up the Dame gets to wear this year. It usually is pretty impressive.

Character Tip: I don’t tend to use how a character looks as a way into getting to know them. Their traits and attitudes are more important to me but that doesn’t mean I only use those. If I have a character, for example, suddenly start using a lot of makeup when they normally wouldn’t, there will be a story idea there for me to follow through on.

I’m delighted to be back on Authors Electric with my first post of the year, Approaching The Light. While it is true January does seem to be the longest month ever (and do check out Brian Bilston’s Mnemonic for more on this), on the plus side as the month goes on we are literally approaching the light(er) evenings.

I also discuss liking (as well as writing) light and dark stories. Life has both elements so I think fiction should do too. Too much dark is too grim for me. Too much light can be sickly sweet for me. Neither option is good! I also look at redemption stories and light and dark in our characters for this post.

Hope you enjoy it.

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Hope today has gone well. I cleared up a load of autumn leaves. It makes for a great workout, trust me on this. Lady, naturally, “supervised”.

Will be looking at Spoofs for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’m fond of a good spoof and you can find them in different art forms too. I’ll look at some of these and discuss what makes for a good spoof in my post. Am looking forward to sharing that. As you can imagine from the title, it was a fun post to write.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing my first Authors Electric post for the year and will be looking at Approaching the Light. This topic suggested itself because as January goes on (and doesn’t it just!), you do start to see the lighter evenings and the promise of spring coming again. See above.

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Flash is great fun to write as you can set your characters anywhere you want and in any period of time. I try to take full advantage of that, though inevitably, certain favourite genres of mine do crop up regularly in my writing. I will always have a soft spot for humorous fairytales/fantasy tales.

I like to mix up the moods of what I write too. I do write light and dark tales which inspired the title of my first book, From Light to Dark and Back Again. It reflects life, my tastes in fiction etc.

Characters, like us, do have to work for their success, in whichever form that comes so their stories should reflect this. It inevitably won’t be all sweetness and light (which to me is far too twee to read yet alone write. I want my stories to have some bite to them).

Certain issues you care deeply across are likely to surface in your fiction too. It’s no coincidence that in most of my tales some sort of justice is always seen to be done for those characters deserving that.

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It’s Monday. It’s still January. It’s definitely time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Nicknames.

The receptionist of an exclusive club where nobody gets in without an invite with their name and nickname on it is confronted by someone without this. The character is forceful but will the receptionist stand her ground? Find out here.

Flash encourages focus, as I was discussing yesterday, simply due to its word count restriction. You haven’t got the word count room to go on at length. Over time and with practice, you become better at leaving out wasted words, finding better ways of phrasing things etc., and all of that tightens your writing considerably.

Even better, learning all of this is useful for whatever other writing you do. I’ve found it helps me with my blogs and articles. Plus it is an excellent warm up writing exercise ahead of your main work. You can always use the random generators to trigger a prompt to get started.

And if you are writing longer works, you might, later, want to write some short pieces to share with readers of your newsletter, website etc. A scene with a favourite character which you had to cut from the main work might be turned into a short, stand alone piece. It can act as wonderful additional marketing material and your readers will feel as if they are getting extra from you too.

Hope you enjoyed my Changing My Life 100 words story I shared here yesterday. See previous round up post. The 100 words flash format (also called drabbles) is a great challenge but it is wonderful for twist and punchline endings especially.

It is also long enough to let you think something about a character with the ending either confirming what you thought or surprising you. I do know I wouldn’t want to cross my character from yesterday (whom I deliberately didn’t name – it’s more chilling that way sometimes).

Often with the drabble, I do know the ending first. I can work out the details leading up to that ending and focus only on what you need to know to make sense of the story. I’ve often talked about flash fiction making you focus. The shorter the word count, the more intense that focus is, but it can lead to powerful, emotional storytelling. You’re not diluting the impact basically. It is “in your face” so to speak.

Goodreads Author Blog – What Makes A Story “Real”

What makes a story real for me, regardless of its genre, is when I believe in the characters. They have come to life to me on the page (or via the screen or via audio etc) and so I want to find out more about them and what happens. If I don’t “get” the characters, I’m unlikely to read on.

Now those characters don’t have to be nice but even with the villains, I still have to see why they are being the way they are. I don’t have to agree with them though! But I don’t believe in any character who does something or says something “just because”.

Every story, even the shortest flash fiction such as the ones I write, has to have a logic about it, even if it is set in a fantasy land. There have to be characters and situations readers will “get” even though we can never be part of the fictional world the author has created.

A story also feels real for me when it “plays out” properly. Even in flash fiction, you can have the Three Act Structure. The acts just aren’t so long, that’s all! But there does have to be a proper beginning, middle, and end. I have to feel as if the characters ended up in a situation which was appropriate and satisfying.

I do prefer happy endings but have read stories where the endings are open to question on that front. Frodo, from The Lord of the Rings, doesn’t get the happy ending Sam did. Rightly so too. It was apt for Sam, not for Frodo but that’s the point. The two characters are realistic. Their story arc is right for them.

I like to see a “right” story arc, regardless of the length of story. Stories fall flat otherwise, for me. What do you think?

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Stories Everywhere

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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. Managed to get plenty of writing and editing done. Also pleased the temperature has come up somewhat. My solitary primrose made it through the snow and frosts! Lady continuing to enjoy getting out and about with her chums and that is how life should be, I think.

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Hope today has gone well. Wet and muddy here today. Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler friend but neither dog nor their owners wanted to be out for long. We weren’t!

Writing wise, I had a lovely time at the online group I went to last night. Am also looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. Zoom is a fabulous thing though the words ‘you’re on mute’ have gone into the general vocabulary of everyone I know.

Will be sharing Pitching on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday and hope it will be useful. I suspect this topic will be another Marmite one (the other is editing) where writers will love or loathe it. But I still hope the post will be handy!

Hope the week has got off to a good start. Lady’s has. She saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and received pets from the shopping delivery guy (I loathe supermarkets).

Writing wise, am looking forward to going to an online writing related group on Zoom this evening so will get some “bits and pieces” of writing and editing done around that. Mondays are always hectic for me so this will be a fabulous way to unwind.

Have started going through the Writing Magazine Competition Guide and have marked up one or two possibles to try out. I hope, later this week, to check the background of these competitions out and maybe start drafting something. I do have a story to write for somewhere else so have started drafting ideas for that.

Hope your weekend has gone well despite the grim weather and even grimmer news. Mind you, I guess this makes me even more glad than I usually am to escape into the worlds of flash fiction and short stories. At least I know my villains will get what they deserve even if it does end up being in a roundabout way.

Am enjoying my usual Sunday flash fiction afternoon. The fact it is cosy indoors helps a lot! On a more serious note, I’ve always loved creating characters and in short form work you get to do this a lot. Know the people (or other beings of choice), know what drives them, and I’m off to a cracking start with a story outline.

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. We don’t usually see friends, doggy or otherwise, at the weekend though today was a nice exception when Lady and I caught up with Daisy, a sweet spaniel, and her owner.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Pitching for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Link up on Friday (which will halfway through January already, hooray!).

Though Friday Flash Fiction has now sadly shut up shop, Sunday afternoons will continue to be flash fiction day for me as I can get a reasonable amount of writing done and I do want that to continue.

Character Tip: What is your character’s level of education? It is worth giving this some thought as it will have a direct impact on the vocabulary and type of language they’re going to use, both of which can show so much else about them (such as likely class etc).

Readers won’t need to know the answer to this directly but will pick up on it subconsciously as they read what your characters say and think. Incidentally, that’s another lovely thing about reading – it’s the nearest we get to mind reading. We can read the minds of characters after all!

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Flash is a great way of helping your other writing as by the time you’ve written 200 or 300 words as a flash piece, you should find you’ve “limbered” up enough to get on with other, longer writing work.

Writing exercises set at events or workshops can only give people five or ten minutes at most to respond so you will “only” get a flash piece in terms of word count out of them but there’s no reason why you can’t go on to polish these pieces up and get them published.

Certainly collect them together, polish them up and you could have a collection on your hands.

It’s Monday. It’s January. It’s winter weather. Okay not unexpected but very few enjoy it! Definitely time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Done List. Collie owners will especially appreciate this one!

Everyone has a To Do list, even when they can’t write them down. Find out why my collie character was happy to get their two jobs done, even though their Mum wasn’t.

Chilly again today. I don’t think Lady was that sorry to get back indoors again. It is during cold spells I really appreciate writing being an indoors job!

Glad to catch up with some Swanwick friends on Zoom last night. Hope to be back on Zoom again later on.

Writing wise, it’s flash fiction Sunday for me so will be cracking on with some new pieces in a while and, later, continuing the editing work on my Seeing The Other Side. All great fun.

Also a nice bit of news. I’ve often sent in pieces, and had them accepted, by Christian Writer, the magazine of the Association of Christian Writers. I now have a column in there called Allison’s Advice (I do like a nice spot of alliteration every now and then and it seems I’m not the only one!).

I’ll be sharing 100 word writing tips here. First one appeared in the magazine I received yesterday. I hope people are going to find the tips useful. It’s lovely getting some flash non-fiction published.

I love mixing up the mood of my stories and think this reflects life in a way. It is a mixture of funny and sad and I like my tales to reflect that. This is where I think a collection can work so well because it can show a range of emotions.

Naturally, I’m biased here, but I’ve always loved story anthologies, long before I became published in them, because I loved the variety of moods they can show. I still love them, of course.

If you write flash pieces over time, would it be worth you seeing if you have enough to get a collection together? The independent presses or self publishing would be the best routes here. But it is possible. Two collections later, with a third due this year, I can confirm it is worth doing.

One of my favourite parts of putting a collection together is grouping the stories. It’s fun as I can group character types or moods of story as I see fit. Okay, my editor may want to change this later and that’s fine but I do enjoy this process.

Goodreads Author Blog – Stories Everywhere

I like the thought of there being stories everywhere. Okay, I’m biased because I love reading and writing them. Inspiration for stories of my own can and does come from various sources too. There’s nothing to beat being inspired by what you love reading yourself, in my view.

Okay, there are stories I try to avoid, most notably the news which is so grim. There is a focus on negative rather than positive stories there and I would like to see a better balance. But I guess knowing this, it does encourage me to read more and escape into the world of books. Nothing wrong about that.

Where you have characters, you have stories. Where you have any society, you have stories. The fun with fictional writing is, of course, in inventing your own. The fun with reading is discovering what other authors have invented.

And the great thing here is the sky isn’t the limit.There are no limits. Fantasy and science fiction especially are great vehicles to explore other kinds of character and societies and I find these fascinating. What can also be fun is spotting the other books and stories which have clearly influenced the author. Quest stories, I think, will have some kind of nod to the ultimate quest story, The Lord of the Rings.

Stories being everywhere is excellent news for all of us who love reading. We will not lack variety or number of stories to enjoy. That’s definitely worth celebrating.

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Story Inspiration

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Hope the first full week back after the Christmas and New Year break has gone well. Lady has been pleased to catch up with her friends. Weather is what you’d expect for January! Writing and editing are going well and I have booked my big writing event for later in the year, which has cheered me no end.

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Hope your Friday has been a good one. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and her Aussie Shepherd boyfriend, who, by far, had the best coat of anyone for coping with the bitter weather today.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share Story Inspiration for Chandler’s Ford Today this week and hope you will find it useful. I look at various useful “hunting grounds” where inspiration is likely to strike (and has done for me many times). These include books of lists, prompts, Kipling’s honest serving men and much more besides.

I hope you find these thoughts useful to encourage your own inspiration as it never does any harm to encourage that as much as possible.

Happy writing.

Story Inspiration

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Hope today has gone okay. Bad weather coming in this evening as I write this. Keep safe. Lady saw her two chums, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback, again today. Thankfully it was only light rain this morning. I don’t think any of the dogs would’ve been that sorry to get back indoors again.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Story Inspiration on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. I hope it will prove useful as I share some good ways to find inspiration. I always feel it is better to hunt for it than wait for it to come to you. There are various good “hunting grounds” for inspiration, some of which I’ll be sharing tomorrow, and which I hope will add to your “store” of places to look for sources of story ideas.

Hope today has gone well. Lady saw her best buddies, the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback, today. Ice and snow pretty much gone, just in time for the storm to come in tomorrow! Oh well, at least the temperature has gone up somewhat.

Writing wise, am looking forward to meeting up again later in the month with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. We’ll be looking at Ways and Paths as a topic. Plenty of story ideas to come from that and I hope we will start drafting some on the evening.

Also have a story to get on and draft for a future submission. Plus I’m beginning to go though the Writing Magazine Competition Guide for possible places to try.

Looking forward to joining in with another ACW genre group online this evening. It’s always good fun and a great chance to socialise. Zoom continues to be a blessing when you can’t get together with other writers in person. Though I am looking forward to my big annual event in August – The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick – as well. Thinking about that cheers up a gloomy January for me somewhat!

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My way into flash fiction writing was the 100 word story, also known as the drabble. CafeLit issued their 100 word challenge and I responded to it and haven’t looked back since.

Flash Tip: I’ve often found the best way into writing a 100 worder is to focus on the ending first. How do I want the story to end – with a laugh or with something else which will move readers in other ways? Is a line of dialogue to bring the story to an end the right way to go or should I finish the tale with an “event” which must finish the tale?

Once I have a rough idea of the likely ending, I can work backwards from there to the likely beginning. Knowing a likely ending also shows me the likely lead character who will be finishing the story. I can then work out more about them.

Having the tight word count means I have to only focus on that which is relevant but this is a good thing. I’ve found writing the 100 worders does encourage tighter writing elsewhere and helps me fight any tendency to indulge in purple prose.

As well as flash fiction, there is such a thing as flash non-fiction. Many blogs would count as this given often they come in at about the 500 words mark.

But have you given thought to writing a short piece sharing how you came to write one particular story, say? This would be of interest to other writers and your readers. Works best when kept tight but could give you excellent additional material to add to your website/blog.

Counts as part of your overall marketing, of course, as well.

Glad it’s warming up a bit outside. Spotted a primrose out in my garden just around Christmas time. Is still out. Seems to have survived the frosts and snow – at least so far. (Am putting the qualifier in because I recently said we hadn’t had any snow and, guess what, overnight we got some so I don’t want anything happening to that poor little primrose!).

Now, we all face tricky conditions at time but this can be fabulous for our characters. It is perhaps just as well they cannot tell their creators what they think of them for this. I do love dropping mine in the mire as much as I can.

So what traits do your characters have to help them handle the situations you put them in? Are they already resourceful or do they have to learn how to be so? Many great story thoughts to come from that, I think.

Traits are an invaluable way of gauging a character. You could also use them to figure out how they could develop others.

For example, if your character’s main trait is honesty, would they develop bravery to ensure honesty in their world continued? Would they fight to save what was good in their world and stop it from being obliterated by the greedy?

(And if anyone’s thinking there are parallels with what’s going on here right now, you’d be right but we can use some of this at least as inspiration for story ideas. When you know what’s driving someone, you can get stories out of that).

Fairytales With Bite – Resuming Normal Life

It always takes a little while to resume normal life after any kind of break and perhaps more so after a break like the Christmas/New Year one. Am slowly resuming normality myself!

But how would your characters get back to what is normal for them? How long would that take them and what does count as normal for them? What kind of breaks would they expect to be as part of their overall life?

What official breaks does everyone in your setting have to take? Are they appreciated or resented? Could the events themselves be “commercially exploited” (and that does tend to lead to resentment in some quarters)?

Do any of your characters use official breaks to get out of something they ought to be doing? Does that work or does it cause further problems later on? Does anyone resent having to resume normal life again?
Could enemies of your setting use the break to cause havoc and how would they do this?

Story ideas there, for sure.

This World and Others – Routines

I must admit I do like routines. I have one for my writing and have had this for years. Every so often I adjust it to take in new writing/editing work etc but, on the whole, I’ve found it useful to help me make the best of the time I have available for writing and/or editing on any one day. But I know not everyone likes routines. There are many who would find them restrictive.

What would your characters make of routines? Are there those who thrive on them (and if so, how)? Are there others who would feel routines are like straitjackets? What would happen if you have a character of each type stuck together and they have to work out some sort of routine to get them though to the time when they’re free to do their own thing again?

Does your setting have a routine in terms of characters have to work at certain times, relax at certain times etc? What would its views be on those who don’t follow the general pattern here? Could a setting with a fixed routine face enemies who would exploit the disadvantages of being too rigid? What would the enemies be seeking to exploit on your setting itself?

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A New Year, A New Promise, A New List (Maybe)

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I hope you had a lovely Christmas and may I wish you a Happy New Year. The round up below consists of posts for pre-Christmas and in between Christmas events plus my usual pieces. I hope you enjoy a bumper read! Lady, naturally, had a fabulous Christmas seeing family and Santa Paws was as generous as ever.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her “boyfriend”, the lovely Aussie Shepherd, Bear, today. They both had a lovely time with Chuckit balls – at least the pair of them had the coats for the bitterly cold weather today.

I am sad to report Friday Flash Fiction is closing in the New Year. I am so grateful to them for their support, for getting me into regularly writing 100 word stories again (which was my way into flash fiction and being published in my own right), and the sheer fun of joining in and reading the other fabulous stories on this site. It will be greatly missed.

Will I keep on writing the 100 word stories? Oh yes. They are a great challenge and fun to write. It is amazing what you can convey in such a short word count.

29th December – More Than Writers

How can the year have gone by so fast? Yes, it is time for my final More Than Writers post for 2025 and I look at A New Year, A New Promise, A New List (Maybe). I discuss why I don’t make resolutions but I do review what I think I might like to achieve writing wise for the coming year.

I share why I think doing this is helpful and the great thing is it doesn’t matter where you are in your writing life. Even if you are just starting out, taking time to review where you are and where you would like your writing to go is a good idea. I also share some thoughts as to what could go on to your “review list”.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

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27th December

Hello again. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Lovely time here. Will be back to my usual writing routine on Monday but thought I’d pop by just to say I hope you received lots of fabulous books as presents. Don’t forget the next best thing you can do for any author is to review their books. Aptly since I’m a flash fiction writer, I will say reviews don’t have to be long. A line or two is great. Make a writer’s New Year – give them a good review!

I’ll be back on Chandler’s Ford Today next Friday too with a post about Winter Stories. Will share that on Friday.

I will be sending out my author newsletter on New Year’s Day too. To sign up for tips and stories and more, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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24th December – Christmas Eve

Hope your Christmas Eve has gone well. Busy one here but am set up ready to go for tomorrow. Lady is always interested when Mum is busy cooking in the kitchen. I wonder why….

Looking forward to a lovely church service tomorrow and then later catching up with family and favourite films. However you spend Christmas, I hope you have a great and enjoyable day.

It was great to have a quick catch up chat with my Chandler’s Ford Today editor, Janet Williams, this evening. Will be posting again on CFT from January. Tonight, I plan to just write a few odds and ends. I find doing some writing helps me unwind after a a busy day. I think it’s because the writing gives me some time to be creative and I seem to thrive on that.

Happy Christmas! Seems so long ago now but it was less than a week as I prepared this! Mind you, even with Christmas now over for another year, it is ALWAYS worth celebrating the wonderful world of stories.

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Am happily working on an edit of my Seeing The Other Side at the moment, as well as editing for someone else. It was way back in 2020, the year we all prefer to forget, when I was last on both sides of the editing fence at the same time. It’s an interesting and enlightening experience.

Will be co-judging a flash fiction competition from the end of January and am looking forward to donning my judge’s hat again. Judging stories is also an enlightening experience and a great honour to be asked to do.

It’s hard to say what the single thing is I most love about flash fiction writing and reading, but a strong contender would be the impact such stories have on you. There is no dilution of the emotions the stories are meant to produce. You get the pay off for twist stories quickly too and I find I then want to read even more short twist tales, it is like an addiction but this one is harmless at least!

29th December
The time between Christmas and New Year always does seem strange. What I do know though is today, 29th December, is still a Monday and therefore it is time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Approaching Time.

Even anthromorpic beings with a limited shelf life make the most of the time they’ve got, even when they are parts of Time herself.

 

27th December
Just popping by to write some brief pieces. Have thoroughly enjoyed my time off (and will be off again tomorrow) but it is also nice to be back at the desk for a short while tonight.

One of my nicest tasks when I get back to a proper writing routine will be to start selecting flash and short story competitions to have a go at in 2026. I did enter more competitions this year and want to keep on doing this (as it makes me write more and what isn’t accepted in one place may be accepted elsewhere, that has happened for me before).

I also want to find new competitions to try. It stretches me and my writing and that’s a good thing. It will be a while before I send anything into Friday Flash Fiction but hope to do that again sometime in January when the new editor gives the word to go. Sadly, I received further news since writing this that Friday Flash Fiction will be closing at the end of 2025 but I will keep writing 100 word stories. There are a number of competitions for these so I hope to try some of these.

24th December – Christmas Eve
Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy Christmas. Naturally I hope you receive many wonderful books (including flash fiction collections, of course) tomorrow! Mind you, I am obliged to add flash fiction isn’t just for Christmas!

Joking aside, I will also say a huge thanks for your support this year. I continue to love flash fiction in all of its forms and look forward to getting back to writing more after the Christmas break.

Meantime, I hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year. See you here again soon!

Fairytales With Bite – Festivities

I write this on the evening of Christmas Eve 2025 so naturally festivities are very much to mind at the moment.

Now festivities come in a huge range of forms and are held for various reasons, including personal festivities, religious ones etc. Which type or types would your setting have? How did they originate? Have the way they are celebrated changed over time and what brought about the change?

What do your characters make of the festivities? Do they look forward to them or dread them? Is there the equivalent of the last minute Christmas shop? Are the festivities a time for everyone to “down tools” including magical ones? How would your world ensure it was secure enough during its “down time” or is it secure enough to know it doesn’t have enemies? (Good story possibility there for someone to prove them wrong!).

Who organises the festivities? (I’d want to know who does the catering but I have a vested interest in that one given I do the catering here).

Also a festivity could be a useful break/time of respite for a character who needs it. Story ideas there for sure.

This World and Others – Marking the End of a Time Period

As well as thinking about Christmas as I write this on 24th December 2025, the festive season also includes marking the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.

What time periods operate in your fantasy world? Are there periods of time they mark when they pass? How does time operate in your setting? Is it the same as ours or do they not have things such as days, weeks, years?

When it comes to periods of light and dark, which is the greater in terms of length or are they the same? We base our time system on the thought there are twelve hours of daylight, twelve hours of night (especially in mid summer) but what would your world base their system on if they don’t use natural light to base it on?

Now I admit I did use to stay up and see the New Year in but these days I tend to take the view the New Year can come in without me witnessing it as I do appreciate my sleep more! In your setting, would everyone be obliged to mark the passing of a set period of time? How would those commemorations happen? Who did say what the time periods would be at all?

Goodreads Author Blog – Happy New Reading Year

I hope 2025 brought lots of lovely books into your life and that you have an excellent and Happy New Reading Year too.

The time between Christmas and New Year can seem a bit odd, it’s almost as if you’re in limbo, but it is a great time for getting on with reading all of those lovely books you received as presents. (And a lovely New Year’s present to the authors can be to leave them a review here on Goodreads and elsewhere, of course).

The New Year will bring a new book into my life too. In May, my third flash fiction collection (Seeing The Other Side – Bridge House Publishing) will be out and I am looking forward to that, naturally.

Am also currently enjoying editing works for others. It’s a lovely job. Also it makes me think about my own writing and this can be enormously helpful.

I do know, above all else though, I will continue to love and appreciate stories and books. They are some of the best things about humanity. (Okay, folks, I do have to include chocolate and classical music in that list too!).

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A Year In Flashback

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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. Many thanks to Lynn Clement, Paula Readman, and Penny Blackburn for images from the Bridge House Publishing Celebration Event and The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick held earlier this year.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady has enjoyed seeing her chums though the weather has been frightful at times. Am slowly winding down for a Christmas break. There will be one more round up post (Tuesday 23rd December and the one after that will be on Tuesday, 30th December). Meantime I hope all of your Christmas preparations go well – still plenty to do here!

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Pleased to share my last Chandler’s Ford Today post for 2025. I look at A Year In Flashback and review my writing year. I also share the link to the recent Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM hosted by Hannah Kate. I was pleased to have a festive piece broadcast here (and thrilled three other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group had their work broadcast too).

This post was a joy to write as I look back at events I went to and review my news of the year, especially the forthcoming publication of Seeing The Other Side (Bridge House Publishing). Hope you enjoy the post and I would recommend taking out some time to look back at your own writing for the year. You may well find you’ve achieved more than you thought. I’ve written more stories than ever this year, for one thing.

A Year In Flashback

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The weather has been ghastly today (Lady didn’t go out this afternoon and it has to be really bad for that to happen) but I do hope my latest post on Authors Electric might bring some seasonal cheer.

I look at Approaching Christmas and A New Year this time and discuss the joys of taking in seasonal stories whether it is by book or film (many of which are based on books in any case). I also share some film ideas here too – if you haven’t seen Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, I highly recommend it. Plus you can’t beat The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Hope you enjoy the post and I hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year. See you here again in 2026, all being well!

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Hope you have had a good Wednesday. Lady had a lovely time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals which was sweet to see.

Looking forward to tonight’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. We’ll be sharing chat, news, stories etc. Christmas jumpers and so on are optional. Should be fun and it is a lovely way to wrap up our writing year here. It was great fun!

Will be sharing A Year in Flashback for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I will be back on CFT after that early in the New Year. A huge thank you to all the lovely authors I’ve interviewed this year. Am hoping for more of the same in 2026. See above for CFT post.

Writing Tip: As Christmas approaches, I do slow down on the writing and then stop for a few days. The break is wonderful and gives me chance to catch up on some reading too. Never be afraid to take a break from writing when you feel you need one. It will still be there for you when you are ready to resume it (and I find I am raring to get back precisely because I have had that break).

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No story to share on Friday Flash Fiction this time but I will just say the winner of their Christmas competition will be announced shortly after 19th December 2025. Good luck to all who took part in the competition too.

I will start sending stories in again in the New Year and look forward to doing so, though the break will also be lovely (and I am sure that will be the view of the FFF people too!).
Will be sharing A Year in Flashback for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Will be my last CFT post for 2025. See above.

I hope to draft some flash and other pieces during the holidays but don’t plan on writing much. I do hope to catch up on some reading though.

I will be sending out my author newsletter on 1st January as normal though I will admit to preparing a lot of this in advance. It helps! I share news, tips, story links and more here. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and for those who already subscribe, may I say a huge thank you for your continued support.

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Last meeting for 2025 for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tonight. (On Wednesday 17th December and it was good fun).

Also am glad I got my final flash and short story competition entries in a couple of weeks ago. Things are starting to become more hectic in the run up to Christmas. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be surprised by it really. We all know Christmas is coming but the last week or so seems to creep up on you. Am looking forward to taking part in some carol services too. These are always lovely.

I try to use some of the Christmas break to catch up with stories (via books, films, audio etc).

Flash fiction comes into its own during busy times. It means I will always have time to read some stories, even if they are only 100 words long a piece!

Fairytales with Bite – Minor Characters in Fairytales

I have a very soft spot in my heart for minor characters in fairytales. One helped me get into print with A Helping Hand in Bridge House Publishing’s 2009 anthology, Alternative Renditions. I have written many fairytales with minor characters taking the lead for once since then.

Flash fiction works brilliantly for this given I think this kind of story works at its best when kept tight. For one thing, you don’t need to go into much detail about the story the minor characters have come from as folk will know this already. All you do is hint there was more to come and that is where your story comes in, of course.

This kind of story can be great fun to write as you can set the record straight, if you wish, for the minor characters who will be your “stars”. You can also show behind the scenes material the original story didn’t cover. For example, what did go on in the Palace kitchens on the night of Prince Charming’s ball? What was the gossip (and you can bet there would have been plenty of that, especially after midnight!).

What matters is showing why you want to write about the minor characters you pick. What made them special enough for you to write their tales up? That is where the story will “spark” and catch not just your imagination but those of your readers too. So what does need to be told about these characters and why?

These tales are a great vehicle for humorous stories too. Have fun! (I continue to do so here).

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This World and Others – The Role of Your Setting

What role does your setting play in your story? Why have you set your story there? How does it help or hinder your characters? How would it appeal to your readers? What would we picture about it to make it seem real to us?

Setting can almost be a character in its own right. Think Mordor or The Shire from The Lord of The Rings. Both of those places conjure up different images (and of the characters likely to live here too).

If your world setting is an old one, how has it changed over time and has that been due to natural factors or things like magical power misuse? If the latter, has anything been done to correct it?

Your setting could be the story in its own right – what happened to it, why, and what was done to rectify it and who led the way to things being put right (or as right as possible).

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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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Meeting Up With Other Authors and Broadcast News

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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 for taking the shot of me holding up From Light to Dark and Back Again at the recent Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Screenshots and photos from the recent BHP Celebration event were taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope all is well.
Had a fabulous weekend with other half celebrating our anniversary and then going to London for the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Lady is doing fine and getting to see most of her mates most of the time so all well there, though we consider it to be a win if we manage to duck the rain and strong winds.

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see both her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today. Lovely time had by all but all three dogs were told off for trying to eat the mud! Why, oh why, oh why…

Character Tip: What would your character want for Christmas (or in their setting their equivalent event) and why? What does it reveal about them? What would they never want to receive and why? What would happen if they received the unwanted present? Could be some fun stories to write (and read) there.

A wet walk with Lady this morning but did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and, as ever, the two chums were pleased to see each other.

Delighted to start the week with great news. My festive flash fiction story which I submitted to Hannah Kate for her Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM will be broadcast on said show this coming Saturday, 13th December. I plan to listen live but will share a catch up link as soon as I can (probably early next week). It is always a fun show to listen to so heartily recommend it.

Hope your weekend has gone well. Busy one for me being out and about but had such a lovely time in Dorset and London. Relishing a quieter Sunday though and I’ll be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly.

I will be looking back at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Looking forward to sharing that (and am enjoying reading the books I brought back with me from that event. Well, you can’t NOT do that, can you?!).

Am currently having a go at the Friday Flash Fiction Christmas competition. Can submit one more entry and I hope to do that as part of my flash fiction Sunday afternoon a little later today.

Festive Flash Tip: You can write these regardless of the time of year. If good ideas occur to me in the summer for this, I go for it and write the stories up. I must admit I prefer my festive flash fiction pieces to be 300 words or fewer. I think they work best at this word length because you’re generally looking for a lighthearted fun piece and you don’t want to dilute the sense of fun by having too many words for it!

6th December – Bridge House Publishing event
Have had a fabulous day at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event today. It was so good to catch up with friends. It was also nice to be back at the wonderfully named Theodore Bullfrog pub. Will write more about the event for next week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post though it was great to travel back with fellow Swanwicker, June Webber. Naturally we had a good natter!

Has been a busy weekend so far getting out and about. Nothing for ages, then loads of trips out. Suspect I will get something from the various journeys to inspire some flash fiction pieces.

Character Tip: I don’t usually worry too much about what my characters look like. I’m usually far more interested in their attitudes to life. But occasionally if I spot an interesting hat, say, I might wonder what character of mine might wear something like it. I have been known to wonder which character of mine wouldn’t be seen dead in a hat like that. These thoughts have given me ideas for characters and, from there, story outlines.

Images below were taken by me at the BHP event. Not long after the first shot was taken, the room was full of very happy BHP authors including me. For the second photo, it was good to be back on the BHP book table with Lynn Clement, whose The City of Stories I edited, and Rosemary Johnson, who is a dear friend from the Association of Christian Writers.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Looking forward to listening to Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM on Saturday. Delighted to say I have a story on there. The show is great fun to listen to – I hope to share a link early next week.

Is it difficult to think of different themes for festive flash each year? Depends.

I think because I go for character first, not plot, it helps a lot. So I examine the stories we know around Christmas, the Biblical as well as the secular ones, and look for characters who perhaps are not the main star of the show (some pun intended and I expect at some point I may well write a story around the Star of Bethlehem). You can have a lot of fun with characters like this.

Also give some thought to your favourite fairytales. They come up so often for pantomimes at this time of year so you could write festive flash around characters in these too.

It’s Monday, another wet and dismal one, so definitely time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Diet Change.

What on earth did Eliza wish for to make Santa read her note twice to ensure he hadn’t misread it? Was her wish granted? Find out here.

 

It was wonderful celebrating flash fiction and short stories in London yesterday at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event. Now back to the desk to get on and write more flash fiction!

As ever at events like yesterday’s, people shared news of websites etc which take flash and I hope to look into some of those after Christmas. Know I won’t get much time to do this before then.

When it comes to writing seasonal flash, I look at one specific character or someone associated with them. For example, for some of my festive flash I’ve written about Santa, the elves, Mrs Christmas, a young shepherd who was worrying about leaving the sheep behind when they all went off to Bethlehem.

I think knowing the character for this kind of flash story is essential because you look at their links with the festive season and that in itself is usually enough to trigger story ideas.

Lovely to chat with fellow flash and short story writers at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event today. I find I get a real buzz from being with other writers like this. It was good to share the joys of short form fiction with each other. Loved hearing the stories being read out. Am not often read to so make the most of it when I am.

Flash Tip: Focus on one moment, one character for your stories. Your story will have a much better impact because of that and it will be easier to stick to your word count.

Image below taken by me is of June Webber, my dear friend and fellow Swanwicker, reading her excellent story, Marmalade, at today’s BHP event.

Goodreads Author Blog – Meeting Up With Other Authors

Meeting up with other authors at various events is one of the joys of the writing life and one I greatly appreciate. It is lovely talking about stories and writing with those who understand why you have the drive to write at all.

Other authors are also fabulously supportive given we all have to market our own books. Most of us would far rather be writing.

Naturally a huge attraction at these events are the book rooms and book tables. Always a joy to buy books from writers I know and am always pleased to add more to my shelves.

If you can support author events, please do. Every writer I know will be pleased to see you. That goes for me too!

Happy reading!

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The Darkest Hour and Themed Anthologies

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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. Wild weather. Lovely church service with a special presentation for a long standing member/elder. Cake followed. That went down well with all. Lady is making the most of being out and about. Am thankful she dries quickly and doesn’t mind being tried. She sees it as cuddle time with Mum, which helps. Writing going well. Hope to submit competition entries this week, the last for the year I suspect.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady had a lovely time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals today. It was so nice not getting soaked!

Writing wise, I’m sharing a fabulous interview with fellow Swanwicker, Heather Beveridge (who writes as Hetty Waite), about her new novel, Evolve. Amongst other topics, she’ll be sharing what she loves about dystopian fiction. Be sure not to miss. Plenty of tips and useful thoughts in this interview too. Link up on Friday.

Hope to submit my final story competitions for the year later this week. Hope to review and send tomorrow if I can. Busy editing at the moment too.

Writing Tip: Never be afraid to write rubbish. In all first drafts, you will find something of value and plenty to discard! This is the way of it but unless you get something written, you will never find that something of value to work on further.

Hope you have had a good day. Ghastly weather but Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler friend so that was a big plus. Mind you, we weren’t out for long! Even Lady wasn’t sorry to get home.

Writing wise, my last author newsletter of the year went out earlier today. Where has the year gone? Theme this time was on festive flash fiction.

Had a good writing weekend in that for the three story competitions I want to enter, I now have three pieces prepared. Handy that! Am just now resting them for a couple of days before I review and hopefully send in but that will be it for competitions for me for 2025.

Am so looking forward to the Bridge House Publishing Celebration Event on Saturday. It will be lovely catching up with everyone again. I also get to meet up with friends from Swanwick and the Association of Christian Writers here so I see that as even more of a win!

Hope the weekend has gone well. Crisp, cold, and dry here unlike yesterday which was milder, wet and soggy! Mind you, Lady goes out in all weathers and has her humans to clear up after her so she never worries about the weather.

Writing wise, I am looking forward to introducing Heather Beveridge, who writes as Hetty Waite, to Chandler’s Ford Today next week to discuss her new book, Evolve. This interview is part of a blog tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between The Lines Book Vlog.

Heather/Hetty and I have a friend in common – Val Penny – and The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Interview is a fabulous in depth look of Hetty’s writing journey to date, the blurb for Evolve is intriguing, and I look forward to sharing the interview on Friday.

After that I will be looking back at my writing year – yes, it is almost that time again.

As ever, am looking forward to commencing flash fiction Sunday afternoon soon. Last ever Flash NANO prompt though – boo hoo! Still, I’ll enjoy the challenge of that later today.

Delighted to be back on More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers, with my latest post, The Darkest Hour.

I look at the topic from the viewpoint of characters facing their darkest hour. They all do. It is at that moment the pivot of change in any story usually occurs as the characters have to find a way of dealing with that darkest hour. Will it overcome them or will they overcome it? We read on to find out of course.

Hope you find the post useful.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Have three final flash stories to submit for competitions and hope to get them in tomorrow. I suspect I will end up drafting new material for competitions in the New Year. I try to get as much written as I can before Christmas, then have a few days off, then back to writing again.

But it is useful to me to have something drafted to come back to and it has also proved useful to set myself a deadline by which time I will have submitted my final competition entries for the year. I do dislike last-minute-dot-com-itis when it comes to sending any written work in. Mind you, this isn’t new. I was like this with my school and college work too!

It’s Monday. It has been a dark, windy and very wet Monday. So glad to be indoors. It’s definitely time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Toy Snowman.

Some things always have meaning. Find out what a toy snowman means to my character and what is on its scarf to give it even deeper meaning.

 

Flash fiction gives you a glimpse into a character and their world, shows you a moment in their time, but it should leave you feeling as if there was nothing more to be shared. The impact of any story is crucial. It shows it “lives” and is resonating with readers, whether it is to make them laugh, cry, scream, or what have you.

This is another reason for me why, in the character -v- plot debate, character always wins out because unless they make me care enough to want to read their story, I’m not going to get to the plot at all. It always pays to ask yourself honestly how does your story make you feel as it is likely to be the response a reader will have.

I can hardly believe we’re at the penultimate day of the last ever Flash NANO already. Am looking forward to having a crack at today’s prompt later on.

I’ve picked out two stories for one competition (where you are allowed to send in two entries for one fee) and another longer piece. All ready for editing and I hope to submit them maybe towards the end of next week.

Will be having an informal chat and sharing of stories at the December meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. That is always fun and it makes for a lovely way to end the year.

Pleased to say I will be a competition judge again in the New Year for a flash competition. Looking forward to that.

So there’s plenty going on I’m glad to say. Also my next author newsletter will be out very soon indeed.

Do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com if you would like to sign up for flash tips, stories and more.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Themed Anthologies

I love anthologies. Okay, I’m biased because I have short stories and/or flash fiction in many of them over many years. My latest, The Family Legend, is in the recently published Magi (Bridge House Publishing).

But I love anthologies because they’re not only great to write for, they are wonderful to read. You get to read the styles of many different authors. I always find it fascinating to read how many writers come up with so many different takes on the same theme (and practically every anthology does have a set theme).

I find anthologies useful for discovering authors new to me. If I like their short work, I’m highly likely to love their longer tomes. Also, naturally at this time of year as we think of Christmas presents, they can be great gifts for the readers in your life, especially if you don’t know what they’ve got already in terms of novels etc. They’re also superb ways of supporting many authors in one go too.

Why not give them a try? You are bound to find many with themes which appeal.

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