Tag: Nancy Stohlman

Questioning Characters and Flash NANO

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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, as was the photo from the lovely Kielder Viaduct in Northumberland.
Why is the first week after a holiday so tough to get through?! Has been lovely catching up with friends again (and Lady would say the same if she could). Autumn well and truly here now as the temperature plummets. I like crisp autumn days though. It’s the cold, wet ones I could do without!

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Hope you have had a good day. Managed to get a good weight loss after my week away thanks to plenty of good fresh Northumberland air and loads of walking. Temperature has plummeted at home but I guess I am already acclimatised to it!

When do you know a story is special to you? For me, it is when the characters stand out and I can easily quote lines from the tale. I’ll be talking more about this in my More than Writers post for the Association of Christian Writers later this month.

Meantime, I’ll be talking about Books on the Radio for Authors Electric tomorrow and will share the link then. Books are meant to be read and listened to, I think. I cherish memories of being read to as a child.

My love of books started right there (and is one reason why I was thrilled my late mother got to see my first story in print and, later, my late father got to see From Light to Dark and Back Again). Radio is a fabulous way of keeping the oral storytelling tradition going too.

Don’t forget to check out the October issue of Writers’ Narrative. As the nights draw in earlier, what more encouragement do you need to settle in for a great read?

 

I’m pleased to say Jennifer C Wilson will be back on Chandler’s Ford Today this week talking about The Joy of Writing Groups and Workshops. She leads the North Tyneside Writers’ Circle and their anthology, Black Coal, White Sands, has recently been released. More about this on Friday but she will be sharing lots of wonderful advice on what to look for in a writing group if you are considering joining one. Am looking forward to sharing this – I know it will be useful to many.

I mentioned yesterday I’d be writing about Scene Setting as well for CFT. (See post below). That I hope to post on 27th October. So plenty of good things coming up!

I must admit that writing regular columns, whether they’re weekly or monthly, soon shows me how quickly the year is passing!

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Have spent the day catching up with various things after our break. Nice to get Lady back to her usual park walk and play. She loved it too. Managed to get some writing done too last night though back to normal routine today.

I plan to look at Scene Setting for Chandler’s Ford Today soon. One bit of sad news is that The Chameleon Theatre Group have had to cancel their production of Wyrd Sisters. I do hope they can come back to this at another time as I know they’d perform it brilliantly (and the story itself is so good). Their next production will be the pantomime in January. My wait to see a Discworld play goes on a bit longer then!

Anyone watching their weight may well sympathise with my character, Shelley, in Lucky Thirteen, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction. If my Slimming World consultant is reading this, I was not guilty of this on my recent holiday, honest!
Screenshot 2023-10-13 at 15-50-30 Lucky Thirteen by Allison SymesNow home from a great holiday in Northumberland. Very grateful for good weather too. Loved all the walking. Lady loved it too though was very tired each night. Mind you, we averaged a 5-6 miles walk each day. It is good to be home again though too.

Do you send your characters on holiday or enjoy reading works by other writers who do? I must admit I don’t do this myself but my favourite book along these lines is probably Nemesis by Agatha Christie. It’s amazing what Miss Marple can ferret out when sent on a coach trip!

Many thanks to those who took part in my recent poll over a topic for the next Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting later this month. Votes noted and will be honoured! Next topic will be Marketing Your Flash Fiction.

Always a joy to talk or write about flash fiction

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I’ll be taking part again in Flash NANO which starts on 1st November. I did this last year and ended up with thirty new stories, some of which I have since worked on and submitted to online websites and to Hannah Kate’s festive flash fiction show. Find out more about Flash NANO at Nancy Stohlman’s website below.

I had a ball drafting my thirty stories last year and am looking forward to repeating that experience this time! Unlike NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where you write 50,000 words over the month of November, with Flash NANO you are given a prompt for each day of the month.

I found it useful to draft something each day and then I came back later when I had more time to finish pieces off. Sometimes I completed the first draft on the same day but what matters here is getting something down. I also found the range of prompts interesting too, some of which I had done before, others I had not.

If you’re interested in flash fiction, I strongly recommend giving this a try because even if you can’t do it for the whole of November, you will still get more stories written.

 

It’s Monday. It’s my first Monday back after a much appreciated holiday. It’s cold. It’s still Monday. Time for a story then. My latest on YouTube is The View and is loosely inspired by my recent break. Hope you enjoy it.

 

I mentioned yesterday (see below) I ask questions about/of my characters but I also quiz myself when I’m outlining a story. I want to ensure I am committed to the idea and that it is as strong as I first thought. So I ask myself what mood I want the story to be, which character would serve that best and why, and whether it is going to be a 100 word story, such as I write for Friday Flash Fiction) or a longer flash piece/short story.

I look at why I want to write the story too. For example, if I want to write a funny one, is it because an idea has come to me that would work well humorously or do I want to write something to cheer myself (and hopefully others) up. Both views are fine but I need to be clear in my own mind as to why I am writing the story this way.

Then, with my characters quizzed too, off I go with the first draft. One joy of flash writing though is this process doesn’t take long but I have found, once done, I get that first draft done more quickly too.

Where will your fiction take your readers
Some questions I ask about/of my characters as I outline them include:-

1. What is your major trait and, more importantly, why? What kind of trouble could this lead you into?
2. What would you never do and why?
3. What do you want from life and why?
4. What drives you?

For a flash piece, my answers to these are kept short. If I was writing a longer piece, I would extend those answers as I would need further information. The joy of questions like these are their adaptability to whatever you’re writing. I find it is a question of working out what you need to know.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Kindle

My favourite book format is the paperback but must admit you can’t beat the Kindle for when going on holiday. No more worries about how many books I can take with me. Also takes less room in the suitcase.

I recently finished Churchill’s Wizards on Kindle. Great read. Interesting look at trickery used against Nazi Germany.

Books like this (and non-fiction generally) often work brilliantly as ebooks, thanks to indexes acting as hyperlinks, making looking something up a doddle.

I also like being able to adjust fonts and font sizes and display on ebooks. What I need to remember to do when at home is mix up my reading to include the Kindle more so I don’t just use it when away.

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My flash collections are available in Kindle and paperback

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Writing Exercises

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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, as was the photo from a local wildflower meadow.
Hope you have had a good couple of days since we last met here. Newsletter will be out again next week. How can it almost be September already? Not that Lady worries. She’s been having a fabulous times with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals for a lot of this week so it has been a good few days for her.

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Am pleased to share Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I discuss my nervousness when I was first set them, thinking help, I can’t do this. But I did draft something and later realised that was the idea. Just get something down. You can work on it again later if you wish. I usually do with my writing exercises and some of them have gone on to be published.

I also set a couple of exercises in this post for you to have a go at as well. Hope you have fun with them and find the post useful as I also share why writing exercises are so useful for any writer.

Writing Exercises

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In my Writing Exercises post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week, I will be looking at some of the most popular types I’ve come across. I’ll also have a look at the benefits of practicing writing to these.

Glad to say the writing exercises I set at last night’s Association of Christian Writers Flash Group meeting went well too. And if I get set exercises, as I so often am at things like Swanwick, I am only too glad to give them a go. I get a draft out of it! Sometimes I go on to do more with that draft. Sometimes I don’t but I find it fun just having a go at these things. More in my post tomorrow.

Am so looking forward to the next production from The Chameleon Theatre Group in October. They’re staging Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (adapted by Stephen Briggs). Will be a real treat. Great story. Will be the first time I’ve seen a Discworld play.

What's your story - writing exercises can help you find out

Lady had a lovely time with her two best girlfriends in the park today. Good time had by all.
I’ll be looking at the usefulness of Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week – link up on Friday. See above.

I’ll be setting some writing exercises for the flash fiction group I’ll be leading later today.

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again on 1st September. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Looking forward to sharing further publication news soon too.

Ideas are triggered by writing exercises and the more you do, the more you trigger said ideas

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Am pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Puzzled Out. Hope you enjoy it – this is a story where I knew the ending first. And then worked backwards to get to a logical start. Definitely one for puzzle fans.

Screenshot 2023-08-25 at 10-16-23 Puzzled Out by Allison Symes

Have signed up to take part in Flash NANO again in November. This is where you are given a flash fiction prompt for the thirty days of November and you write them up as flash pieces. Last year, I managed to complete the challenge – that’s thirty new pieces to edit and submit somewhere and/or put towards a new collection. I hope to do the same again this year.

I found it great fun to do. I found it useful to write the prompt each day but found with some I had to “carry over” to another day but that was fine. I had something to work with, which is the whole point, The person behind Flash NANO is Nancy Stolhman. More details below.

 

Hope you have had a good day. As well as mixing up the kinds of flash fiction I write in terms of mood and setting, I also mix up the word count length. My overall favourite is the drabble, the 100-worder, but I am fond of the whole range of flash. My next most common category to write in is the 250 to 500 words bracket. I do write some at 750-1000 words but not nearly so often. I usually find if I’m going for a longer work, I will turn it into a standard short story instead (and it ends up at 1500 or so).

For my blogs, all of them are between 500-1000 words or so. For Chandler’s Ford Today I can and do sometimes go up to 1500/1750 depending on what kind of article I am writing. It isn’t always apt to split an author interview in two, for example.

You do end up getting a feel for what kind of word count works best for which item of writing. Practice helps which is why regular writing comes in handy as you get to develop your style of writing and which word count works best for you for certain pieces of work. At least that has been my experience.

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Fairytales with Bite – Once Upon A Time – Acrostic

O = Original characters in an original setting – your magical world won’t be exactly the same as anyone else’s while it will have elements in common.

N = Never mind how your characters feel – drop them right in it and see how they fare.

C = Create characters we will care about in some way – we all love to boo a “good” villain but need to understand why they are being the way they are.

E = Experience will tell – it is not unreasonable for your main character to have a magical mentor of some sort.

 

U = Undertaking – there will be something special for your character to do here and there will be high stakes.

P = Persistence and perseverance – two qualities every hero will need. (Funnily enough the villain needs them to a certain extent too but naturally they usually don’t have enough of these qualities. There has to be a difference between them and your lead).

O = Once upon a time is a classic way to start a tale but you could mix it up by bringing us straight into the action. We will have to read on to find out what happens.

N = Never leave loose ends – there has to be a resolution.

 

A = Always care about your own characters – you are the first to believe in them. You don’t want to be the last!

 

T = Truthfulness in character portrayal pays off – people will believe in your characters if they feel they are or could be true. Knowledge of human nature and what we’re capable of and why can be useful here.

I = Imagination, Imagination, Imagination – why do we read? To find out what the author has imagined for us to enjoy.

M = Memory can be unreliable. If you’re writing series stories, it would pay you to note somewhere what you need to recall about your characters. It’s too easy to change colour of eyes, say, from one story to the next.

E = Enjoy the writing – creativity is fun. Bear in mind editing can be creative too as you seek to strength your story. But do see the writing and editing as two separate tasks. I find that helps a lot.

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This World and Others – History and How It is Told

So much depends here on what value your world setting puts on history and who controls the narrative. That seems a familiar tale does it not?! But when history is told, how is it done?

Is it just via books or are there plays, reenactments, and so on? I once went to a historical reenactment in Tewkesbury – good fun but what was interesting was you got a real sense of the smells, the sounds etc which you would not have got had you just read a historical account.

So in your setting, who writes the history? Is it performed? Who would do that? Do they have to stick to the official version of the history or can they put their own interpretation on it?

In your setting, are new historical discoveries ever found? Are these welcome? Not all might be! If something were to put a different spin on a genuinely accepted event, people (as well as their government) are not likely to react well to it.

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