Tag: mixing up writing prompts

Returning To The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick For 2025

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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. Huge thanks to Penny Blackburn, Joy Wood, and Julia Pattison for supplying some images connected to my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Two images of Lady were taken by Adrian Symes. She missed me when I was away! Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Have spent my time slowly resuming normal routines, including the writing one, after my return from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Think I am getting there now. Have loved getting back to the park with Lady. The weather’s cooler at the moment and much pleasanter for us both.


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Have been looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Well, when I tell you it is Returning To The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick For 2025, you’ll know why.

I share some highlights from what was an amazing few days in Derbyshire and discuss the courses and workshops I went to – it will give you a good idea of the range on offer here. Plus it was marvellous catching up with friends I only see online the rest of the year.

Hope you enjoy the post and maybe see you there next year.

Returning to The Writers’ Summer School Swanwick for 2025

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Looking forward to sharing Returning to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick For 2025 for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Have yet to go through my Swanwick notebook to look up all of the drafts I did in response to exercises set but I hope to do this soon and then rework the pieces concerned. Hope to get at least some of them out somewhere once I’ve had chance to go through them and work on them. It pays too. Once piece I wrote up after a previous Swanwick has made it into my third book, Seeing The Other Side, out next May.

The writing journey is never the same for any two authors. When I started out I was just writing for my own pleasure, just to see if I could get a story down, and doing that kept me going for a long time. But then I felt I should have a go at the writing competitions to see if I could get anywhere there.

Took time but I did get there and in turn that led on to my first story being published in an anthology. That breakthrough moment was A Helping Hand in Bridge House Publishing’s Alternative Renditions which came out in 2009. I can’t believe where the last 16 years have gone either!

Lady had a fabulous time in the park today as she got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal again but also ran around with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Lady came home oh so tired but so happy with it. I managed to sneak in a short swim and found that refreshing. Murphy’s Law has struck again by the way. I swear the centre has turned down the temperature of the showers which would have made sense last week when things were so hot. This week it’s cooler…

Writing wise, am slowly catching up with some things I didn’t get chance to look at while at Swanwick.

Author newsletter will be out again before too long so if you’d like to sign up for writing tips (especially on flash fiction), story links, news and more, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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You can now see the six shortlisted stories for the competition Friday Flash Fiction runs to tie in with the Edinburgh Festival. See the link for that.

Plus the screenshot will tell you more about FFF if you are new to them. It’s a great place for flash fiction writers, especially if you like the 100 word form. Just follow the submission guidelines to the letter and give them a go.

I’d just like to say a huge thank you to all who give me feedback on my stories here. It is much appreciated. 

Looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group next week. Zoom comes into its own here given the members live hundreds of miles apart (though I am hoping to catch up with some of them in person at the next ACW in person event in October). Will be looking at prompts next week too, which is always a useful topic and one of my favourites. You know you can always get something useful out of a prompt!

Flash Tip: It pays to have a wide range of prompt types you know you can use. It keeps things interesting for you (I always like a flash fiction challenge) and it means you will rarely be stuck for ideas because you know you have all of these different kinds of prompt to try out. And you will know you can do them, which is a real confidence booster.

When I take part in Open Prose Mic Nights I narrow down my selection of pieces to read to one or two. I have a third in reserve. That is usually plenty to cover any time slot you are given. I mix up the moods of the stories as well when I know I can read at least two.

I also practice the ones I know I would like to read. I record my stories on Zoom and play them back so I know my timing is right and I can hear how I come across. I know I have to make myself slow down. It is too easy to race through a piece – that’s the adrenalin pumping of course, but it is then too easy to stumble or garble your words.

So playing a recording back is the single biggest tip I’ve found useful here. I’ve also found it to be a confidence booster because I know I’ve rehearsed. It does pay.

If you get the chance to take part in such nights, have fun. It is a great experience.

Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for the photo.

I was reading Time For A Change from my forthcoming Seeing The Other Side here.

Fairytales with Bite – Story Time

I was blessed to have a mother who loved books and stories and my kid sister and I were read to at bedtime regularly. It is a wonderful way to instill a love of stories in children and that is a gift for life.

So I was wondering which of your characters would have a special story time with their young ones? What forms would those stories take? What stories would they tell?

If they told “scary” stories, who would they be warning their youngsters about? Humans, possibly? What would be the basis of their fairytales and legends?

Naturally, you would invent those fairytales and legends yourself as part of your overall story. (Could be separate interesting material to publish later for one thing).

But no matter how fantastical your setting, your invented stories will still have to have that believability factor. Readers as outsiders should be able to understand the stories your characters tell their youngsters. We should be able to understand their monsters, their “goodies”, their “villains” and so on.

If your work is long form inventing those shorter stories could be a fun side line.

This World and Others – Who Tells The Tales?

Who does tell the tales in your setting? Which tales are allowed to be shared and which are definitely kept under wraps? Are there nominated storytellers in your setting with a specific role to play in your society?

Are the storytellers valued or is their job saved for those who could literally do little else? Not everyone appreciates stories, sadly, no matter what world you’re in.

How are the stories told aside from the obvious oral tradition with bards going from village to village? For example, is what we would know as technology used to create “virtual storytellers”? Perhaps your characters must have credits to access that virtual world. How would they get their credits? How many credits would you need for a story? Are all stories priced the same way or are there special ones which need a great deal more in the way of credits?

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Writing Events and An Author’s Dilemma

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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. One photo of me holding Creativity Matters and my flash collections to date was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos from Swanwick for my Authors Electric blog. See below.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Slowly getting back to normal after my trip to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Nice to be out walking Lady again. Hope to catch up with some chums in the park later this week.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler chum today. Lovely time had by both. I was back in the swimming pool for a long swim. It was wonderful. Am now suitably tired!

Writing wise, I will be sharing Returning To The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick For 2025 for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Looking forward to sharing that one. Look out for a couple of pictures of Lady in it too – think of them as a before and after selection.

Slowly resuming my normal writing routine. Am preparing another wonderful author interview to appear on CFT in September. Plus I am preparing to be interviewed myself in October so all go here but fun with it.

It’s my turn once again on the Authors Electric blog. This time I look at Writing Events. It is no coincidence I post this just after returning from my annual jaunt to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, Derbyshire.

Naturally I had a fabulous time there but my post looks at the benefits of writing events, including online ones, for all writers. Hope you enjoy the post (and I hope you have a great time at any forthcoming events you’re attending).

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Lovely to be back at church this morning. Peaceful and thoughtful. Just what was needed after a busy but fun week, I think. Looking forward to writing about Swanwick for Chandler’s Ford Today. Will be cracking on with that later today after spending some enjoyable time composing more flash fiction tales. Will resume competition entries I think from next weekend though I am glad I did get my 750 words story in for the relevant competition before heading off to Swanwick.

Writing Tip: It pays to spend a little time working out what writing time you have where. Most of mine is in the evening though I do have some slots in some afternoons. I always plan out what I will do my writing time. I find it helps me make the most of them. It means I get straight with the tasks in hand when I do get to my desk.


I expect every Swanwicker will be doing what I’ve done since getting home on Thursday – working out what I was doing this time last week! I thought of this today as I was back out creosoting my front fence – oh, the glamour of it all! It was a truly fabulous week away and I plan to write more about it for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

Slowly getting back to my usual writing and other routines. Has been great taking Lady out for her walks again (and it may help shift some of the inevitable weight gain most Swanwickers have to face up on getting home again. The Hayes feed you really well!).

Also looking forward to resuming my flash fiction Sunday afternoon tomorrow. Also hope to share news of another fabulous author interview on CFT before long. I will have another interview to share with you later too but this time the interviewee will be me. Exciting times!

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Am looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. It’s amazing how quickly the weeks whizz by.

Friday Flash Fiction is currently judging its recent competition so is not open to submissions at the moment. Will let you know when that changes. (Do check out the stories on there anyway. There is so much amazing work here and I can’t think of a better way to practice writing 100 word stories regularly).

Flash Tip: The one thing I find most fascinating about any length of story is in my wanting to know what happens. Simple as that. And why do I want to know what happens? I want to find out because I’ve come to care for the character(s) in the story quickly. There’s a good challenge for every fiction writer right there.

For flash fiction writers, you’ve probably got the opening line or two to create a character who readers will want to root for in some way. It’s a great challenge! 
It’s Monday. It has been as hectic as ever. Definitely time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Writing Woes.

Writers have all manner of writing woes but this one may come as a surprise to the author in my story here. Find out what that woe is here.

 

I forgot to share the link to the latest serialisation of my Seeing The Other Side on CafeLit last Sunday when I was at Swanwick. Good news, it’s double bubble time, folks.

I share below the link to the stories I forgot to share last week plus I share today’s selection. Hope you enjoy them.

I am glad to say I read one of my new stories (Time For a Change) at the Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night and it went down well. Now to crack on with my flash fiction writing Sunday afternoon too!

Part 1 Serialisation
Part 2 Serialisation 

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As you know, I love writing prompts (and I picked up loads having gone to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick). Sometimes you come across a prompt where you cannot find an obvious immediate use for it but I have found on making myself dig that bit deeper with it, I can usually get a story from it.

Often these are especially good stories precisely because I have had to dig deeper. I have had to not use what might seem to be an obvious idea.

I also think it good practice to deliberately mix up the prompts I do use though it is always good to have something to fall back on it. I will always have a soft spot for the random words to go in a story kind of prompt but am also fond of the opening line type.

When I get one of the latter prompts, I will make myself list some ideas to come from it. I never go for the first few I jot down either. By digging deeper, my experience has been you can come up with some truly great work in the ideas which are further down on your list.

Goodreads Author Blog – An Author’s Dilemma

There is one dilemma no author minds that much. This is where you go to a writing event and bring home as many or more books than you took of your own to sell! I have done this again this year having just returned from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.

Mind you, my trip this year has also enabled me to add to my growing collection of books signed for me by my author friends. Whenever I pass the shelves these books are on, I smile and recall where I first met the author. I like things like this.

Books are important for more than just the stories or interesting non-fiction between their covers, vital though they are. They can encourage positive memories. For example, I still have The Readers’ Digest Collection of Fairytales. Both volumes were given to me by my late father. I loved looking at those books long before I could read them for myself. Wonderful illustrations and lovely memories to go with them.

Books, stories, memories – lovely things as a rule.

Incidentally, the only thing which did stop me from going completely overboard with how many books I brought back from Swanwick was knowing I was travelling by train and had to be able to put them in my suitcase! Sometimes you need the discipline of that!


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Writing Difficulties and Favourite Openings

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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. Had a marvellous time at the pantomime last week, review to follow in Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Good to see more signs of spring emerging too – the snowdrops are out and the birds are busy nest building. Writing wise, have got a draft of a story down for another competition so will come back to that in a few days and work on it again.

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Chilly today but Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal this morning and happily showed off (I.e. racing around with her ball) in front of said pal (who looks on vaguely amused or so it seems to me. The Vizler is older than Lady).

Looking forward to sharing my review of The Sleeping Beauty as performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Do check out your own local amateur dramatic companies by the way – you are bound to find gems. I have! And going to the theatre is another way of taking in stories, when all is said and done.

Amused to see I have another one star review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic over on Amazon but no comments to go with it. Every author gets these so I guess it is a sign I am part of the “club” here then!

When I review books myself, I always pick out something I have liked to comment about. I don’t review books I dislike. Don’t think that’s fair to the author simply because no one author or book is going to please everybody. Things don’t work like that. And that’s fair enough. Tastes differ.

I have varied tastes in books but some things are just not for me so I give them a wide berth. But I’ve long believed the hatchet jobs say more about the reviewer than whoever is on the receiving end. That doesn’t just apply to books of course.

Don’t forget my author newsletter is out this coming Thursday. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Newsletter with envelope imagePleased to be back on More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers, for my first post here of the New Year. I talk about Writing Difficulties this time. We all get them. We start a piece of work full of enthusiasm and then get bogged down.

My post looks at what I find can trigger struggling with writing for me (being overtired really does not help) and how I handle that. Being aware of what can trigger writing difficulties is so helpful because you can work out how to overcome these. It isn’t always possible to avoid them but it helps a lot as well to know you’re not alone here.

Hope you find the post useful.

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Hope the weekend has gone well. Spotted first snowdrops today.

When I’ve got odd moments of time when I can write something, but not necessarily enough time for a flash piece or short story, I jot down ideas for titles, promising opening lines etc.

I also start drafting blog posts, perhaps an opening paragraph or so. It is great to have something to come back to later. Those pockets of time do mount up as I’ve mentioned before. I also make a point of starting the next blog posts as soon as I can after publication of others.

So for the monthly Authors Electric and More than Writers I am starting to draft the following month’s posts as soon as the current ones have been published. I can then add to these pieces throughout the month. I usually find I have a post finished, edited, and pictures selected for it about ten days before my posts are due for these two places. I like that.

What I try not to do is leave writing a post until almost the last minute. That doesn’t work for me. I find drafting my newsletters over the course of a month also works well. It means I just have to send myself a test email a few days before it is due out. I can spot anything I need to add in or change, do so, and then I know the newsletter is good to go on the first of the month.

I am a big believer in taking pressure off myself. Knowing I have something drafted helps with that a lot. For fiction, I do similarly with competition entries and use my diary to ensure I get things off in good time. It may be old school using a diary but as I mentioned recently it works.

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Hope you have had a good day. Great to see some signs of spring appearing. Am spotting daffodils beginning to emerge.

Looking forward to sharing my review of The Sleeping Beauty performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company this week. Pantomime is a great tradition in the UK and long may it continue.

It is amazing how long admin tasks connected with writing can take. I’ve had to change my email over the Christmas period and getting everything updated has taken longer than I thought. I am there now though (or at least I believe I am, time will tell!).

On a much more fun note, I’m glad to say the flash fiction group meeting (for ACW) went well on Wednesday. I’m also going through the Writing Magazine competition guide and marking up several possibilities for flash fiction and short story competitions. Am looking forward to checking these out and giving them a try.

Next issue of Writers’ Narrative magazine will be out soon. Watch this space. Will share the link once I have it.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

One of my favourite openings to a story of mine comes from Decisions from Tripping the Flash Fantastic. It reads He could watch the world end or jump on to the alien spaceship that encouraged visitors.

You’ve got to read on and find out what happens, right?

That’s the whole point of having a strong, intriguing opening line. You want to draw those readers in but you do need then to deliver on the promise given by that opening line.

This is why I outline. I work things first out and then write my draft. It helps me ensure I do deliver on that promise.

TTFF with social media iconsIt’s Monday. It’s slowly getting lighter in the evenings. It’s still Monday and time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Sunset.

Inspiration for this came from a random phrase generator which I then adapted further. I often use these things as a starting point. I also will take phrases and proverbs and change one word – that can affect the mood of the story I then write. It’s good fun to do – why not give it a go?

One aspect to Flash NANO I loved was the variety of prompts but this included those I wasn’t so keen on. I thought this was a good thing.

It made me go outside of my comfort zone for one thing. For another, it encouraged me to think laterally as to how I would tackle those prompts. And I did produce something to these, as well as for those I knew I could do having done those kinds of prompts before.

It does pay you to try different kinds of writing prompt because it will prepare well for writing to different themes for competitions. It’s also not a bad idea to mix up the word counts you write to for flash as mentioned yesterday. See further down.

I try to think along the lines of what can I do with this rather than have not done this before, can’t do this. You can. This is where I think jotting down your prompt and then working out what could come from it helps. Think along the lines of flowcharts and spider diagrams here. There is something about the act of writing something down which helps me to kick start the imagination.

For example one prompt I hadn’t done before last year was the one sentence only/stream of consciousness writing one. I wouldn’t usually write like that. I did do something for it. I won’t use this prompt directly but what came out of that prompt may form the basis for a longer flash piece at a later date. What I came up with was part of an early memory of mine.

Now I could take that and apply it to a character. Or I could get a character to tell me “their” early memory. But there are ideas I could work up here. That is the point of any writing prompt – to make you see what you can do and there will be something, even if it takes you longer than normal to think of something.

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I like to mix up the word counts I write to when writing flash stories. For some sites like Friday Flash Fiction, I stick to the 100 worder (aka the drabble) but elsewhere most of my stories end up at between the 100 and 500 words mark. A lot of flash fiction competitions are based around the 100 to 500 words mark so it is not a bad idea to practice writing to these word counts. I’ve found it pays!

But sometimes when I have a character who has more to show us, then I will write to the 750 to 1000 words mark. Sometimes I do need the full extent of flash fiction to show the full depth of a character because a reader needs to see that to make sense of the tale. So I get the story written first, edit it, and then and only then think about what the word count should be.

For Friday Flash Fiction, where I know what I am writing to word count wise, that tells me just how much I can show via my characters. It has to be short and sharp – so my works are. I can show one incident and one character.

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Goodreads Author Blog – What Books Do For Us

Aptly, I could write chapter and verse on this one but I will limit it. Books are one of the best inventions we’ve come up with as a species. Books entertain us and take us away from our cares for a while. Books educate us. Books inspire us.

Reading encourages empathy as we follow what characters do and root for them to succeed. In the case of villains where we’re normally rooting for them to fail, there is still some empathy here usually for what the hero has to overcome. Sometimes you can see where the villains are coming from but still don’t agree with their actions. So again there is some empathy. Encouraging empathy is good for us per se.

And then there are the stories of the writers who bring us the books we love. The stories of how they overcame difficulties and became published authors inspire so many and do continue to inspire me though I am now published myself.

In writing books, authors have to think about their characters, what they’re going to do, what the plot line is going to be and so on. Working all of that out has to be beneficial for the brain, I would have thought. Certainly I know writing inspires me to try and write more and better. The striving behind writing and bringing books out is a good thing too.

I’ve loved the rise of the indie press, partly because I am published by them, but mainly because they are bringing more books to more people and giving more authors a voice.

Last but definitely not least, there is a genre and format of book to suit everyone – ebooks, audio books, crime fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, and all manner of other genres and formats.

Books are meant to be enjoyed. Long live the book!

Screenshot 2024-01-27 at 18-45-51 What Books Do For Us

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