Tag: Memories by Allison Symes

Questions and Answers For Characters

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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 few days. Unbelievable weather here – heavy rain, gale force winds etc. March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. No sign of the lamb yet! (I also know parts of the country have had snow too). Am always grateful writing is something to be done indoors! Writing wise, will have a very special interview coming up on Chandler’s Ford Today in early April. Looking forward to sharing more about that a bit nearer the time.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

29th March 2024 – CFT
Second blog from me today and it is my usual weekly post for Chandler’s Ford Today. This time I talk about Questions and Answers for Characters. This ties in nicely with my More than Writers post for ACW (see further down) too given I look at how little details can make a story seem more believable to readers.

Well, getting little details right about your characters will help make them more believable to readers too. For this post, I share what I think are five useful questions to ask of your characters which would, I’m sure, inspire story ideas for them to “serve in”. I’ve long found outlining my characters does then trigger story ideas and I think is well worth doing. Hope you find the same.

Questions and Answers for Characters

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29th March 2024 – MTW
It’s double blog day for me today. First up is my post for More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. (Well, it was first up when I put my posts on Facebook!). This time I talk about Easter Stories and Little Details. I share how the little details in the biblical accounts make them more real for me.

I also go on to discuss how getting the little details right in your stories will help make your characters and tales seem more believable to readers too. This ties in nicely with my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. More on that in a moment. (See above). Hope you enjoy the MTW post.

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Can’t believe the weather today – heavy rain and gale force winds! I was walking Lady earlier when another local commented it feels more like November. It does too. For those of you who have had snow, I’m sorry!!

On to happier matters. I’ll be looking at Questions and Answers for Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. Some of what I share in here could make a useful template if you’re not sure where to start in finding out what you need to know about your potential creations.

It will be a double post from me tomorrow as I’ll also be sharing my More than Writers post tomorrow for the Association of Christian Writers where I’ll discuss Easter Stories and Little Details. Again see above! Blogs can be like buses – none for ages then two or three at once!

I often find little details make a character/story for me because it helps to make them seem more real and believable, no matter how fantastical or otherwise the setting is.

Also had a lovely time at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting last night. Lots of great ideas were shared. I take part in the writing exercises I set on the night of the meeting. I love live writing exercises. They fire up the old imagination and I now have some promising opening and closing lines to investigate further in due course. That will be fun!

 

Strange weather again today though Lady did see her Hungarian Vizler chum and we managed to get damp rather than have a thorough soaking. I guess that counts as a win.

Looking forward to tonight’s Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom. Will be looking at Endings and Beginnings. Apt as we head into Easter.

Will be looking at Questions and Answers for Characters on Chandler’s Ford Today on Good Friday. See above. I’ll be sharing tips on what I’ve found useful in getting to know characters before I write their stories up. Hope it will prove useful. Also pleased my copy of Christian Writer arrived yesterday. I have a humorous piece in there this time which I hope ACW members will enjoy.

And don’t forget the April issue of Writers’ Narrative is already out in good time for a fantastic Easter read! Check it out at the link.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to say my second entry for the Andrew Siderius competition for Friday Flash Fiction is now up on site. This one, Memories, has the theme of manipulation and is in the 151-500 words category. Hope you enjoy the story. Let’s say my sympathy here is for my alien character and there is none at all for Mrs Evans. See what you think. Link here.

Screenshot 2024-03-29 at 09-29-35 Memories by Allison SymesFlash fiction is great for sharing different moods of story. I’ve written funny tales, scary ones, and the poignant kind, just to name a few examples.

One of my latter type is Judgement Day from Tripping the Flash Fantastic. It is a story I often read out at Open Prose Mic Nights and the last line has a “punch to the gut” ending appropriate for the character and their situation. With this tale, I did know the ending first and worked out what would lead to that ending.

If you’d like to find out more, do check out my Amazon Author Central page.

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A useful writing exercise, which I’ve used to kick start flash fiction ideas, is to just jot down ideas for titles and then one or two lines working out which direction you could take those titles.

For example, if I used a title such as The Open Door, I would then write a line or two indicating what kind of mood I would want the story to be, what kind of character would best serve that mood, and then I’d jot down some notes for a potential character. All of that would be about a paragraph, similar to this.

But it is enough of an outline to get me started and I find that in itself is enough to fire up other ideas. I often find it is the starting of a piece which can prove tricky. Once I have a way in, I can then get on with the first draft.

I can then judge the piece as a whole later and make suitable amendments (and there always are some!). But you have to have something down in the first place to be able to do that. Getting over a blank page/screen, for me, is vital.

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Fairytales with Bite – The Biter Bit

One of the things I’ve always loved about fairytales from an early age is that justice will be done. Sometimes that justice can be on the rough side – a case of the biter bit. But for those characters who are kind and honourable, you know somehow things will work out for them in the end. (If only that was always true in life!).

The phrase The Biter Bit would make a great theme for many stories. Who would deserve to be bitten like that? What have they done to deserve it? And where does magic come into it? Is it a case of an annoyed magical being doling out the punishment here (as is often the case with the fairytales) or would they be on the receiving end? Who would be powerful enough to do this?

Thinking about your setting as a whole, how would the justice system operate? Who would make sure any kind of poetic justice, especially if a magical kind, wasn’t overdone?

Story ideas there too I think!

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This World and Others – Sayings

Proverbs and sayings are so useful for giving theme ideas for stories. I’ve sometimes used them directly as titles too. But for your alien setting, what kind of proverbs and sayings would they have? Would they be similar to ours or something totally unknown?

Many of our proverbs and sayings come from the Bible, Shakespeare etc. Where would your setting’s sayings come from? What would be the texts your characters would treasure and how have these influenced their culture/outlook/treatment of aliens (including humans)?

There is no reason either why you couldn’t use our sayings to influence how you portray your alien characters and/or settings.

For example, take the saying Truth Will Out. If your character is an honest one in a setting which isn’t, how would that play out? What led to your character becoming counter culture here? If the setting is based on truthfulness, what would it do to characters who were not (and again what led them to being counter culture here? I think it would take more than just greed here too. To go so against your own culture would take strong motivation given the risks involved, especially if your setting has the death penalty. So the drive behind this would have to be more than material, I think).

Again, interesting story idea potential here.

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Emotions, Solace, and Books With Meaning

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. As you can imagine it has been a strange and sombre week here in the UK following the death of Her Majesty the Queen. Some of my posts below reflect that.

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Facebook – General

13th September 2022
The scenes around Buckingham Palace tonight are moving. Especially when you consider the last time there were crowds like that it was for Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. You are and will be much missed, Ma’am.

Portraying emotion in fiction can be tricky. I like to let my characters show you how they’re feeling by what they say (and you will also pick up how they’re saying it from context). Sometimes I use gestures to back that up. I can show you a character pacing up and down for example, muttering to themselves. I can also show them biting their nails. I don’t need to tell you they’re worried. You’d have seen that from what I’ve shown you through them.

I like to build up a character picture with small touches like that. For me that is more realistic. I don’t want”over the top” emotion here because it can spill too easily over into melodrama and that for me is a huge switch off. Why? For me it simply doesn’t feel real. And I have to be convinced by my characters. If I’m not, nobody else will be.

We need to care about the characters we read

12th September 2022
I thought the ceremonies from Scotland today for the late Queen were wonderful and most moving. The Honours of Scotland are beautiful (as is the country. Am not on holiday there this year but did enjoy my visit as part of the Scottish Association of Writers Conference earlier this year).

Many thanks for the comments coming in on On That Day, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. If you missed the story, you can find it here.

I’ll also be discussing Hooks for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

Screenshot 2022-09-09 at 09-12-26 On That Day by Allison Symes

11th September 2022
I liked the line up of tractors as a farming salute to the late Queen on Her Majesty’s final journey. I thought that was nicely done – and also the line up of horse riders further down.

Gestures have so much meaning and they are something that can be used in fiction too. Does your lead character have a gesture they use? It doesn’t even have to be a conscious one. A character twiddling with their hair may not be aware they’re doing it but it is an immediate signal that character is nervous about something.

Gestures can be a great way to show and not tell given most gestures are immediately understandable and we can picture the character giving these out.

You can also think about what you would like your character to signal. If it is respect, do they bow their head? Doff their hat? Just say still for a moment when they don’t strictly have to do that? Readers will pick things up from context here too.

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10th September 2022
Music and books are two things that bring great solace to me – the other one is chocolate but that’s not such a healthy option, I admit.

I’ve found bringing my characters to life so I can visualise what their tastes would be and things like that means I write about them with more conviction. So working out things like what would bring them cheer, their minor vices (like chocolate!), and so on can make them seem more real to you. I think something of that does get through to readers as they read your tales.

Using your own tastes can help you work out what your characters might like. I love classical music, my characters might like hard rock, but my taste in music has given me a way in to working out what I need to know about my character. It is the way into a story that matters, I think. Once I’ve got that way in, off I go happily with my first draft.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Flash captures a moment in a character’s life – the single most important one. This is why it is such a great tool to help you focus on what really matters to your character and to figure out just what story it is they have to share.

I always like to think of these things as my characters’ stories. I don’t want my author voice getting in the way. By taking this view, I am getting into my characters’ heads more effectively and I hope end up writing their stories with more conviction.

I also focus on getting the story down and then working out how I can improve it. I don’t worry about the word count at all until I know I’ve got everything in place and then I can figure out what word count would suit the story best. Often it isn’t what I had in the back of my mind initially but that’s okay. There’s plenty of different markets and competitions for different word counts out there.

Flash Fiction focuses on THE important aspect of a character's life

It’s Monday so time for a story again. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – this one is called Memories.

I like using flash fiction to show moments in a character’s life which are complete stories in and of themselves. They’re just smaller than the ones you see in the magazines. But that’s fine. Sometimes something is best said in 100 words or so than it would be in 1000. (You can dilute the impact for one thing).

I also think slice of life stories probably work better when kept short. You get an interesting insight into a character and enough time to develop empathy for what they’re showing you but not enough time to be bored or to think they’re whining!

It’s also why monologues/first person narration work so well in flash. Enough but not too much. The Bridport Prize describes flash as “the art of just enough” which is one of the finest descriptions of the form I’ve come across.

Flash Fiction Impact


Flash is brilliant for those ties when you might not feel/be able to write much – life does get in the way. How you feel can feed into this too but flash does mean you can write something that will be a complete piece of work. There are markets and competitions for it too so there are opportunities out there for you to do something with your work.

Even when you’re on a roll with your writing, you can still use flash an excellent warm up exercise for your “main event”. I like the flexibility of flash with regards to genre and the different word count brackets. I don’t write drabbles (100-worders) all the time. I like to mix things up.

Above all, it is lovely to write something for fun and then see what you can do with it. Flash does give more opportunities here simply because by its nature it is quicker to produce than a novel. If you can get your work out there, you get the payback of publication quicker too. And it can make a great way to build up a track record to tell a publisher about when you are sending longer works somewhere.

Advantage to flash is setting characters anywhere

Goodreads Author Blog – Books With Meaning to You

All books have meaning. For me, I have a few categories here. There are the books written by and signed for me by author friends. I love seeing those books on my shelves, Then there are the books left to me by my late mother. Then there are books I saved up to buy when I was much younger and which I still have.

Then there are books such as The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey which opened up my eyes to the idea there is a whole story behind Richard III that needs further investigating. Do not take Shakespeare as gospel!

Then there are the books which make me gasp as I take in their full scale and scope – The Lord of the Rings is the obvious one.

Then there are my childhood fairytale books – The Reader’s Digest books here were my first introduction to the wonderful (and often scary) world of the fairytale. They remain a great influence on me as a writer too.

Then there are the shelves with my collections of books by P.G.Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett – the laughter shelves if you like.

So which books have special meaning to you and why?

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