Tag: motivations

Once Upon A Time

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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 image kindly provided by the Hampshire Writers Society where I have been a guest speaker. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a lovely weekend. Busy but fun one here and so delighted to hear I’ll be in print again later this year, details below. Lady having a lovely time catching up with her pals and enjoying the lovely weather.

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Am pleased to be back on More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. This time my post is called Once Upon A Time.

I discuss how these famous opening words to classic fairytales can inspire us with our own opening lines. For one thing, they show you don’t need too many words to set a scene, genre, and time scale!

Hope you enjoy the post.

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Hope you have a good start to the week. Lovely weather here. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today so all is well in her world.

Looking forward to sharing my review of Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor which I went to see performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group last week. The review will be on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It’s the first time I’ve been to an interactive murder mystery play.

Writing Tip: How easy or otherwise do you find getting into your character’s head so you know where they are coming from here? I find I must be able to do so to understand their motivations properly and be able to write their story up. A few pertinent questions can help here. A good one to always ask is what do you want and why? That alone can give you a good “backbone” for a story.

Publication News
Am thrilled to say my story, The Family Legend, will be in the Magi themed Bridge House Publishing anthology due out later this year. Huge congratulations to all of the other writers who will also be in this book. I share the full list below and it is good to see some familiar names here!

Jane Spirit – A Royal Dilemma
Diana Powell – Adoration
Adam Mizler – Caspar’s Story
Joyce Frohn – Epiphany
Sally Angell – Follow Your Own Star
Michael Rogers – In the Departure Lounge
Margaret Bulleyment – Island Views
Sara Winslow – Lavender
Sara Page – Nativity
Paula Readman – Quizmas Rivalry
Richard Balou – Return of the Magi
Steve Wade – Seosamh, Meryem, the Busker and the Boy
Sharon Keely – Star Over Dartmoor
John Walker – The Census
Allison Symes – The Family Legend
Ian Inglis – The Four Wise Men
Anne Meale – The Gift of Common Ground
Rob Whaley – The Lost Magus of Michigan
Caliman Florentina – The Mysterious Journey of a Soul
Henry Lewi – The Road Trip
Yrev Very – The Second Coming
Liz Cox – They Came from the East Riding on Camels
Sarah Swatridge – Three Wise…Monkeys?
Penny Dale – Travelodge Epiphany

Will share further news such as publication date when I have it. It will be good to be in print again!

Am posting early as busy but enjoyable weekend this time. Hope the weekend is going well for you. Weather forecast for next week looks almost summery which will be nice. Touching to see such a wonderful turnout in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral. TV figures etc will be even higher of course. He will be much missed.

Looking forward to reviewing Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor, recently staged by the fabulous The Chameleon Theatre Group, for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. First time I’ve been to an interactive murder mystery play. It was fun but more on that in my post next week.

Character Tip: What kind of language (and not just swearing!) is your character going to come up with and why? Are there words they always use or words which would never pass their lips?

Give some thought as to why this is and you will find out more about your character, which I’m sure you will find a good use for in fleshing them out more. It is a case the writer always needs to know more about the character than the reader does.

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Am enjoying the sunshine, as is Lady, who got to play with Coco the lovely Labradoodle this morning before it warmed up this afternoon.

Many thanks for the congratulations over my publication news shared the other day. Much appreciated.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow evening. Always good fun.

Flash Fiction Tip: I’ve found it useful to focus on my character and their situation, get that draft down, tidy it up and then and only then worry about the word count. You do need to get your story “right” and I have ended up with a story over the word count of the competition I had in mind but where I really didn’t want to change anything on it. I feel it would spoil something so I simply save that story for another competition instead.

It’s Monday. Okay, it’s a lovely sunny Monday but it is still Monday and time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Pictures.

It is only after her mother’s death Sally discovers why there were never many family photos up at home. Maybe some things were best left hidden after all…

 


Delighted to say one of my longer short stories will be in the Magi themed Bridge House Publishing anthology due out later this year. Meantime will crack on with flash fiction Sunday afternoon!

After the 100 worders, I think my favourite flash category is the 300 words one because that seems to be the word count I write to most often after the good old drabble. It is also a common competition category for flash tales so well practising writing for.

In my collections I have a few stories which are between the 750 and 100 words limit but the majority are either 100 or between 100 and 500. I literally do average out at about 250 or so!

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting next week on Zoom. Will be looking at genres. This is just one aspect to flash I love and take advantage of a lot – the fact I can put my characters anywhere and everywhere in stories so I do.

When I have a competition with a set theme I take time to work out what kind of character would be best suited for it. When it’s an open theme, I work out what theme I ‘d like to write about and then figure out the best fit character from there. You do want a good match up here.

Goodreads Author Blog – Family Stories

What do you think about stories based around families? I loved the Little Women series based on the March family from Louisa May Alcott and still have a very soft spot indeed for Jo. I still have the books (bought from a local newsagent back in the days when they would often stock popular titles. Indeed the Little Women series was part of a “Deans Classic” collection).

I also adored Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series (and again still have a very soft spot for George).

But the novel which always “got” to me was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. I loved the whole idea of a story told by the horse and the Gordon family I thought were lovely. (That idea was explored further in the old Southern TV series which was based on the novel and ran with the basic idea while remaining faithful to the spirit of it, not an easy balance to get right, when it was a popular weekend teatime serial and more stories were wanted once they’d finished with the novel itself!).

I don’t specifically seek out family stories though it is funny how many of my childhood favourites are based on them (another one was Heidi).

Mind you, some of the classic fairytales show families which are far from ideal – check out Snow White and Cinderella to name but two!

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Getting The Story Down and Hooks

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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. Weather still hot and cold (literally) where I am right now. I guess that’s a kind of bank holiday tradition in the UK!

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Writing Tip Number 5085 (or thereabouts): When set a writing exercise or responding to a prompt, just get the story down as quickly as you can. Go with your imaginative gut here. You can tidy things up in the edits. It is what edits are for! (And yes there will be more than one).

I’ve mentioned before I always feel a certain sense of relief once I’ve got my first draft down. This is because I know I have got something to work with and improve. I’m not worried about the fact it will need improving. Shakespeare didn’t write a perfect first draft. Neither did Dickens.

Guess what? I’m not going to either! But that’s okay. What matters is having that something to work with in the first place. As someone wiser than me once said, you can’t edit a blank page.

Editing has its creative side too

Hope those of you who had a Bank Holiday today enjoyed it. It was overcast and cold today so we got the traditional weather associated with most UK bank holiday weekends!

Have loved the movie music special that’s been on Classic FM today. As ever, the theme from Jaws gave me the creeps. Am so glad I only ever swim in a swimming pool! Am still hoping the Pink Panther theme will come on. (Apologies for those of you who, like me, are of a certain age, as you too will now have an earworm on the go).

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be my review of The Dragon of Wantley, the latest production from the Chameleon Theatre Company. Link up on Friday. (Many thanks to them for sharing with me some fabulous pics – I look forward to sharing them via my post).

I’ve been using the old random generators again. I used the random noun one this time and chose two items – a waitress and a tiara, an interesting combination! I’ve used both for my story which I hope will be on Friday Flash Fiction later this week. I used just one of them for my YouTube video, which I will share over on my book page shortly. See below for link.Screenshot 2022-05-03 at 20-53-53 From Light to Dark and Back Again Facebook
Happy reading Sunday! Am glad to report the May edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads is now out – see the link. For my column this month, I look at Objects in Flash Fiction and share how these can be used to create some great stories. It helps a lot that the reader can picture the object you choose.

The object I chose for this column was a silver teapot and I share my story here. But do check out the other flash pieces that came in as a result of the challenge I set. There are some wonderful tales here. And you can always make yourself a nice brew in a silver teapot while you enjoy a good read!

Screenshot 2022-05-03 at 20-57-08 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine May 2022 eBook Publishing Goylake Howe Hannah Smith Melanie Fae Sylva Jones Wendy H Macleod Sheena Symes Allison Amazon.co.uk Kindle StoreHope you have had a good Saturday. Spent some time in the garden. Lady loves it out there. Next couple of weekends will be busy so it has been nice to have a quiet one this time.

My monthly author newsletter goes out again tomorrow. Now sent but do sign up on my landing page! I’m planning to review the wonderful The Dragon of Wantley for Chandler’s Ford Today as next Friday’s post. I will resume my In Fiction series after that.

Many thanks for the comments in on Reflection, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. This is an object lesson in not being vain and/or greedy, literally an object lesson. Also it acts as a reminder to be careful about what you wish for.


Screenshot 2022-04-29 at 19-00-20 Reflection by Allison Symes

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Bank holidays are lovely but they always make me feel as if I’ve somehow skipped a day all week. Throws the dog a bit too (suddenly wonders where everyone has gone!).

Now how do your characters approach holidays? Do they take any? Could your flash piece be a story about what happened on a holiday?

The nearest I’ve got to that I think is my Camping It Up from Tripping the Flash Fantastic where a vengeful fairy disrupts a camping site. Good fun to write.

Holidays are where the normal routines are suspended for a while so that in itself could lead to interesting story ideas.

Framed Flash Collections


It’s (bank holiday) Monday and time for a story. Hope you enjoy Putting on a Good Front, my latest YouTube video. Let’s just say my sympathy is with Marjorie. See what you think.

 

Hope you have had a good Sunday. The rain is back and the temperature has dropped again – welcome to a UK spring!

My latest flash fiction column is out in the May 2022 edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads. I talk about Objects in Flash Fiction this time. Yes, I do use a random object generator to trigger these.

The huge advantage of that is I don’t know what will come up so I “raise my game” to meet the challenge set by the object which has been generated. Making yourself think in different ways encourages creativity. I know I’ve produced far more stories due to doing this.

I like to have a mixture of ways into writing a story as it keeps things interesting for me (and hopefully for future readers too), stops me from falling into a rut, and there is always a challenge to be faced and dealt with. I love that. And I get to do my favourite writing thing all the time – invent new characters to write about!

Screenshot 2022-05-03 at 20-58-14 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine May 2022

 

Almost at the end of another month but at last the weather is warming up a bit.

I sometimes write poetic justice stories. As with the twist endings, I tend to work out what that poetic justice should be first. I want to ensure that is right. I can then ensure my character motivations tie in to it nicely and that the character on the receiving end of the poetic justice really does deserve it! Mind you, it is huge fun working that out!

Whatever my kind of story, everything in it has to make sense. A reader should be able to see where a character is coming from and to understand why they are the way they are.

Motivations need to be strong enough too. This is where asking “what if” helps a lot. I ask what if X happened, would I then really do Y or could I be talked out of it? Or if I was to do Y, what would be the X behind that? There has to be an X here! Characters won’t do things without good reason to do then, any more than we would, which is another way in which fiction reflects what we know.

Character Needs are everything

Goodreads Author Blog – Hooks

As a writer, I think about hooks a lot. I want different ways in which to “lure” a reader into reading my stories, of course. And with my reader’s hat on, I want to be lured into reading by a promising character, an intriguing opening line, a promising idea on the book’s back over and so on.

What I need to make sure of as a writer is that I deliver on my promise to the reader to give them a good read. And with my reader’s hat on I want to find out that character was even more promising than I thought, the intriguing opening line led me into a wonderful story, and the idea on the back cover was fulfilled. The good thing with the latter is that if the author delivers here, I am far more likely to want to read more of their works.

Hooks matter then but delivering on them is even more important. You don’t want the reader to feel let down. Neither do I, as reader, want to feel let down. In situations like that I am highly unlikely to read anything by that author again.

When I’m browsing books, I do turn to the blurb first and then look at the first few opening lines. If I like both, I’ll get the book. The hook has worked!

My favourite kind of hook is the intriguing character one because I want to find out what happens to them and that keeps me reading.

Screenshot 2022-05-03 at 21-09-40 Hooks

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