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 JANET WILLIAMS FOR PICTURES OF ME AT THE MOST RECENT HILTINGBURY BOOK FAIR FOR MY CHANDLER’S FORD TODAY POST THIS WEEK.
Hope you’ve had a good week so far. Lady is doing well and the writing is also going along nicely. I like weeks like this!
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today
Delighted to share Book Event Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I discuss doing as much prep work in advance as you can, suggest some good things to have on your book table, having newsletter sign up forms ready for these things, and giveaways. I also look at the benefits of taking part in book events.
Naturally I hope to take my own advice at future events once Seeing The Other Side is out. My last launch was back in 2020 with Tripping the Flash Fantastic. It wasn’t the best year to have events!
I hope you find the post useful.
I’m delighted to share my latest post on Writers’ Narrative and hope you enjoy my Comedy Writing in Short Fiction. It can be done! I share thoughts and tips here, which I hope you will find useful.
Don’t forget Writers’ Narrative is free to subscribe to and you receive articles on the theme of the month every few days. The theme this time is Comedy Writing.
My article discusses “natural comedy” which flows from a well developed character and situation. For comedy to work, it mustn’t seem forced. I also look at comedy from dialogue and share one of my stories here to illustrate the point.
Hope you enjoy the post and do check out the other articles.
Hope today has gone well. Lady had a lovely time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler and Coco, the smashing Labradoodle. Tired but happy dogs went home.
Looking forward to an ACW online group tonight. It was great fun!
Will be sharing Book Event Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. The post will have tips I’ve found useful over the years (and hope you will do too) and which I hope to bring into play again for when Seeing The Other Side comes out.
Marketing Tip: Play to your strengths. Be yourself. If certain social media platforms are not for you, that’s fine. It makes sense to enjoy (as much as possible) the marketing work you do. I like meeting with readers, online or in person, so will aim to do both kinds of event. I like sharing posts on Facebook but haven’t got into, say, TikTok.
Whether that changes or not remains to be seen but I won’t try to spread myself too thin. I see any kind of event, including marketing posts, as a way of engaging with potential readers so want these to be as fun as possible for them and, indeed, for me. So it pays to work out then the kind of marketing you know you would be likely to enjoy the most and focus on that.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Hope today has gone well. Lady had a fabulous puppy party in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals, plus Coco put in an appearance.
Looking forward to interviewing fellow flash fiction writer, Esther Chilton, for Chandler’s Ford Today later this month, though it will be her children’s work which will be the focus of the interview.
Planning to work on more flash fiction over the weekend though I will soon need to look at what I’ve got so far. I know I’m close to a potential fourth book. In Seeing the Other Side, there will be acrostic and poetic flashes plus I’ve written more linked pieces and those were fun to do.
Hope today has gone well. Lady came with me to vote today. She loves that. Everyone makes a fuss of her and she is as good as gold. She then caught up with her Hungarian Vizler pal and her “boyfriend”, the lovely Aussie Shepherd. So Lady has had a great day.
Writing wise, I’m sharing Book Event Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. I hope the post will prove useful (and maybe reassuring as well). See above.
Editing Tip: I was asked at an online meeting I went to earlier this week about anything which stands out as a “bug” for me with my editing hat on.
I mentioned two things – inconsistencies with character names and paragraphs which go on and on for ever, amen. These grate because you do expect the writer to get their character names right.
The huge block of text, on screen or on paper, is off putting. See it as facing a great big “wall of characters”. Not everyone will read on. Your editor will be contractually obliged to (!) but you won’t win any friends doing this. Also bear in mind the longer the paragraph, the slower the pace.
Another top tip here is to read a wide range of books in the genres you write in (which you should do anyway) but look at how the authors here have laid out things like paragraphs etc. See how they will mix up short pacy ones with longer (but don’t drag) ones. Studying this will be a great guideline for you.
One of the many joys of writing and reading flash fiction is escaping into many different worlds.
Flash is character led and those characters can be set anywhere (and in any time) so it is lovely to take advantage of that.
I also like writing acrostic flashes from time to time, poetic type ones, all dialogue stories and so on. I also like to mix up the word counts I write to for flash. It all helps to keep me on my creative toes and I think this is why flash remains a constant and wonderful challenge. It’s a hugely enjoyable one too.
Certainly if you love creating characters, you get to do this all of the time with flash fiction so I highly recommend it. It is also a fabulous warm up writing exercise.
Why not give it a go?
Fairytales with Bite – Escaping For A While
It’s good to get away from it all for a while. I love to do this via writing, listening to classical music, getting out and about, reading and in many other ways. Day trips and holidays help too of course.
But what would your characters do to escape for a while? Where would they go to get away from it all? If they’re magical beings, can they switch their powers off to get a real break or do they have to keep them on “low” as a defensive measure? What would your characters read, listen to, watch, do for day trips and holidays? Is your setting similar to what we know here on Earth or so different there is nothing here to compare with it?
Why do your characters need the break? Do they take a break willingly or does someone else persuade them they need one? How does the break help or hinder them in accomplishing their purpose?
Plenty of story ideas there.
This World and Others – Winding Down
We all need to wind down but it isn’t always that easy to do. Jobs to do, places to go, people to see, a never ending (or seemingly so) To Do list etc.
I like to wind down with classical music and funnily enough writing. It is both a challenge and a joy to do so I find it unwinds me but there does come a point when my brain says that’s enough for one day and I’ve got better at recognizing that for what it is.
How do your characters do in this department? How do they wind down? Are they glad to do so, relieved even, or is it a case they know they need to do so because nobody can go on for ever and ever, amen, without having health issues at some point?
I find it easiest to wind down, knowing it will do me good, so no issue for me here but I could see characters resenting having to “stop” and that could be an interesting idea to explore. There will be an impact from that on how they react to others, how well they do with their work and so on.
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Hope you’ve had a good start to the week. Tiring one here. Lady had a lovely time in the park though she didn’t see any pals today. Hope to make up for that later in the week.
Had some thunder and rain today. Has cooled the air down more which is great. Lady isn’t fazed by thunder. But she isn’t keen on it either so takes the approach it is best to stay out of the way and curl up somewhere cosy. You can’t argue with that, can you?
Flash comes in many forms. As well as the different word counts you can use (up to 1000), you can mix up the styles a bit too. For example, I’ve written acrostic flash fiction, poetic flash fiction, all dialogue flash fiction and more. I’ve written historical flash, crime flash, ghost flash, fairytale flash and more. I’ve turned writing exercises in to published flash fiction too. 
