Tag: New YouTube video by Allison Symes

Seeing The Other Side – Book Cover News

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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.
Many thanks to the lovely lady at my local blood donor clinic who used my phone to take a photo of me celebrating their first anniversary at their new place. A very worthy celebration!
Hope the weekend went well. Not bad here. Wet week ahead but Lady and I just get on with things here. She dries off faster than I do! In other news, I’m thrilled to say I have now seen the book cover for Seeing The Other Side and well… see below!

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady and I caught up with her Hungarian Vizler friend after breaks away. Both dogs pleased to see each other again, Lady was especially affectionate.

Now in other news, I mentioned yesterday I had news on the book cover for Seeing The Other Side. See the partial reveal photo below and I hope to reveal the whole cover later this week). I created this image in Book Brush and it was fun and easy to do.

Image reveals part of a book with a yellow cover and two books in green, one called From Light to Dark and Back Again and the other Tripping The Flash Fantastic.

More news to come in due course.

Delighted to share my latest story which went out on Substack yesterday. Now time to share it here! Both this story and the one I’m sharing on YouTube this week took the phrase Goody Two Shoes as a theme. Hope you like both tales but first up here is the Substack one – Atonement Time.

And in other news, I plan to share more news on the book cover for Seeing The Other Side tomorrow. Exciting times. See above!

Am delighted to share my latest piece on Writers’ Narrative – Food Writing in Fiction. Food can /be used successfully in stories of any length to help with characterisation, setting, time period and more. Also, whatever kind of character you create, they are bound to need to eat at some point!

Do see the post for more and I hope you find the tips and thoughts useful. I almost always end my posts here with a question. Why not check out the latest one? Comments are welcome and don’t forget Writers’ Narrative is free to subscribe to. As it is now on Substack, what happens is you receive an article on the topic of the month every few day or so. Easy way to take in plenty of useful writing advice.

Soggy old day today. Lady and I went around the park in record time!

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Discovering Classical Authors for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. This post is inspired by my recent visit to The Dorset Museum to see the Thomas Hardy exhibition. I also discuss in this post other ways bar books to discover classical authors and I share some of the ways I’ve used here. Post up on Friday.

Looking forward to sharing that and unusually for a CFT post I put in a PS but you’ll have to wait until next week to find out what that is and why it has gone up. Mind you, it was a joy to do!

Reading Tip: I’ve often mentioned the need for writers to read in and out of their genre. Aside from anything else it is fun to do and inspiration can spark from other stories so the wider you read, the greater the chance there is of this happening for you.

But mix up, not just the genres, but the lengths of stories and whether they’re classical or contemporary. While it is true writing styles have changed over the years, you can still learn loads from studying how the classical authors created their characters and situations.

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Thrilled to bits I have now shared a partial book cover reveal for Seeing The Other Side over on my Facebook author page. See above here. I hope to share the full cover later this week.

But it is always exciting when you know you are so close to having a book with your name on the cover in your hands again.

The thrill of being published doesn’t diminish and I am looking forward to sharing more about my new flash fiction collection soon.

It’s a soggy Monday and time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Reason For The Name.

There are always those who don’t get the point of a training scheme for self improvement and that goes for the magical world too. See what my fairy character who is about to be “properly qualified” is planning to get up to when allowed out in the world.

Both this story and my Substack one, Atonement Time, are based on the theme of Goody Two Shoes. Hope you like them both.

And look out for book cover news for Seeing The Other Side from me tomorrow. See above. This will be my first book out since 2020 so am naturally rather excited about it!

 

Now when I flag something up it is usually something to do with writing, as you’d expect, but this one is a bit different but could lead to a writing idea or two, maybe suitable for flash stories too.

Earlier this week, I went to give blood and it was the first anniversary of the Blood Service being at their base near where I live so there were plenty of balloons out (red ones naturally). Having donated blood, I then happily posed for a picture. See below. If you can give blood, please do as it is such a worthwhile thing to do.

Now how can that, worthy as it is, lead to a writing idea?

Easy! You meet all kinds of people at blood donation sessions so you could invent characters who meet there. What happens next? You could also use the donor centre as a setting.

Off you go and happy writing!

(And if you do give blood, I know the blood people would want to thank you. I know what I like most is finding out what happens to mine about a fortnight or so after the donation. It’s fascinating to know).

Flash fiction has been around for a long time, centuries in fact, but has been known by many different names. Jesus’s parables and many of Aesop’s fables would come in at under 1000 words.

I must admit my favourite name for the format is postcard fiction because it sums up things well. You’d be hard pushed to get more than a 100 words or so on the back of a postcard (unless you have tiny writing like I have which might push it up to 200!).

Indeed a good writing exercise is to take a blank postcard and get a complete story to fit on it. (I’d aim for 50 to 100 words here).

GOODREADS AUTHOR BLOG – Reading Acrostic

Hope you like the following acrostic. Has been a while since I last wrote one here.

R = Reading does so much for you, not least of which is increasing your vocabulary.

E = Entertainment awaits within books if that is what you choose; education is also an option.

A = Adventures in this world and others just within the power of the imagination await the reader.

D = Dastardly villains, heroes, heroines and more – all fabulous characters with stories to share.

I = Imagination fired up, maybe enough to write your own stories.

N = Nothing beats reading for all you can have from it and there are plenty of formats to choose from.

G = Get reading – old favourites, new books, ideally both!

 

 

 

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Discovering Classic Authors New to You

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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 great weekend. Had a lovely time out at The Dorset Museum with editing colleagues and the weather is pleasantly cooler. Lady and I are not sorry about that. My latest newsletter is now out and am so looking forward to Seeing The Other Side come out later this month.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady did. She managed to have a puppy party in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals plus Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Tired and happy dogs went home. Job done there then. And we’re all thankful the temperature has come down somewhat.

Writing wise, am cracking on with blogs and material I will need later and enjoying this. There is a writing competition I’ve got in mind to enter but will have another look at my “story store” over the weekend, I hope, to see if I have something which would suit. The theme is an open one which helps!

Also found out today another competition entry didn’t make the cut but I will have another look at this story later and see if I can find another home for it. Sometimes, I can.

Hope today has gone well. Lady was reunited with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal for the first time in a couple of weeks today. Both were thrilled to see each other and had a lovely time in the park. None of us are sorry the temperature has come down.

Has been a busy day or so on the writing front. My author newsletter went out again today.

Plus I share here my latest story on Substack which went out on that platform yesterday. I hope you enjoy Banners Banned. It was great fun to write. Back to the good old drabble (aka the 100 word story) for this one. Incidentally I used a random word generator and the word “banner” for my stories here and on YouTube this week.

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Hope the weekend is going well. Cooler and pleasanter day today. It was a joy for Lady and I to be out (so unlike most of last week!).

Writing wise, I’ll be getting on with flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. The coming week will probably be based around various blogs and background work for when Seeing The Other Side comes out. All will be a joy to do.

I love all forms of creative writing and editing so it is always a joy to be back at my desk. Yes, there are some writing admin and editing tasks which are less interesting, but when you think these things will help improve your work and can make the difference between being published or not, then that thought makes them easier to deal with.

Editing Tip: Do think of reading work out loud (or recording on Zoom/Audacity etc and playing back) as one of your rounds of edits and yes, there will be more than one round! This kind of editing alone can show up clunky dialogue, missing words and much more and is so worth doing.

For longer work, break this down into chunks such as chapters or two or three scenes in a chapter. I’d also recommend, as you play something back, making notes as to what isn’t working and then go through and amend once you have a complete list to work through.

For short stories and flash, this won’t take long. For novels, as I say, you may want to do one chapter or significant sequence at a time but work through your list and make amendments once you have gone through the lot. When you look at the list as a whole, you may spot where the weaker bits are but I think you do have to see the whole to be able to do that.

I can’t recommend this technique highly enough.

I drafted this on my way down to Dorchester to revisit The Dorset Museum for a Thomas Hardy exhibition. I caught up with editing colleagues here and it was great to see them. On the train home, there was a splendid writing and editing conversation going on.

I used my Senior Railcard for the first time. Today’s trip, including posting the tickets to me, came in at a very good rate indeed.

One thing we know about as editors is deadlines. I’ll be talking about that for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

Deadlines are a fact of life for writers and editors alike, of course. I’ll be sharing tips on handling deadlines which I’ve found useful over many years and still do.

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Flash tightens up your writing thanks to its restricted word count but another advantage to it is if you have a character and storyline you’d like to do more with, you can.

I’ve sometimes expanded a story which started life as a flash piece and turned it into a longer standard length short story but only because the character and plotline were both strong enough for that.

With my competition judge’s hat on, you can spot where you think someone has padded out a story and this is why that kind of thing never works. Every part of a story, regardless of its word count, has to feel to someone reading it as if it must be there and couldn’t work without it.

Now there’s a challenge for us all!

It has been a cooler and frankly more pleasant Monday today compared with the sweltering heat of last week. Mind you, it is still a Monday and that means it’s story time again. I hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Proper Spelling and Everything.

Joey thought he was doing the right thing with his banner but his teacher shows him there could be a downside. Find out what here and what Joey did get right.

 

Almost time to get on with flash fiction Sunday, which is always a joy. As I’ve been out and about and am now catching up with work, I may need to put back looking for another competition to enter until next weekend.

One good thing about that is I do know there will be something out there which will be worth my while trying. There are far more flash fiction and short story competitions about so there is more choice but, as ever, always check the background of the competition out and ensure all is as it should be. Entry fees should be proportionate to the entry fee. You shouldn’t have to give up your copyright either. And you should be able to find a track record for the competition organisers.

Flash Fiction Tip: Lead with your character is usually my way into creating a new flash piece. I have to know who they are, what their major trait is and from there I can work out the kind of trouble they’d be likely to get into – all good fun!

But I often also start with a line of dialogue or internal thought. Just writing that down can give me a good indication of my character type. Someone who speaks “posh” will use certain words while those who aren’t “posh” would speak in a different way.

From that you can work out where someone is likely to live and something of their background. So if you’re thinking of creating a character and am not sure where to start, write down a random line of dialogue and see what it shows you about the speaker and where this is likely to take them.

Happy writing!

Have been out and about on the trains today having a lovely time.Naturally part of this is looking out for those sparks which can trigger story ideas.

Those sparks can include things like overhearing interesting snippets, spotting oddities (or things which strike me as that), spotting wildlife (there can be room for them in stories too) and much more.

Will be fun finding out tomorrow, hopefully, if any of my “finds” make it into my tales I draft for this week’s flash fiction Sunday.

Goodreads Author Blog – Discovering Classic Authors New to You

I spent the last Saturday in May 2026 visiting a Thomas Hardy exhibition at The Dorset Museum in Dorchester with editing colleagues. We like a jolly every now and then! The exhibition was fascinating and I’m glad I went but must confess to not having read Hardy.

And it made me think about how do you discover those classic authors whom everyone has heard of but you yourself just haven’t got into their works.

I suspect this trip out will lead me into reading Hardy and that may well be the point of exhibitions like this.

My late well read mother had Dickens and Austen at home. But it was at secondary school when Pride and Prejudice was a set book, I discovered dear Jane for myself.

As for Dickens, I watched the old black and white film of Oliver Twist on BBC2 one weekend afternoon which led me into reading Dickens. This film starred Sir Alec Guinness as Fagan and Oliver Reed as Bill Sykes. They were both seriously scary. I had to read the book to see if the original story really was like that. And yes it is.

Which classic authors have you yet to read for yourself? As a writer too, I’m aware of the need to read contemporary fiction, which I do, but it is good to read the classics too. You will often spot the influences on other writers from them.

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Favourite Aspects of Stories

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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 great weekend. Lovely one here. Very warm so keeping Lady in the cool as much as possible but we have especially enjoyed woodland walks. Writing and editing going well. It has been nice being able to have my office doors open long into the evening over the last few days. Coolness helps the brain I find!

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Even hotter day so Lady has stayed at home more. One brief session out this morning, she’ll have another later, but being in the (relatively) cool and shade is the order for the rest of this week.

The pavement test is useful and a potential life saver. I tested the ground outside the leisure centre where I swim just as I came home from there today. You’re supposed to be able to hold your hand on the pavement for a good fifteen seconds. I didn’t manage two. No going out for Lady this afternoon then. So be careful, folks. Thankfully our garden has plenty of shrubs and shade so Lady has enjoyed some time out there.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow.

And I’ve seen the draft of my book cover for Seeing The Other Side. Very exciting, more news to come on this later.

Writing Tip: Finding it hard to concentrate in this current heatwave? Keep drinks to hand (ideally non-alcoholic – you want refreshment here, honest!). Write in short stints. Break. Write again. And do give flash fiction a go – but then I’m bound to say that!

Another hot day so limited exercise for Lady. She is pretty sensible and stays in the shade. Unlike my previous two dogs, I don’t need to persuade her to drink water either – she goes for it, the other two I had to bribe them to get them to have any. Still, where we are, we have woods near by and my house is north facing, all of which is helping a lot right now. Hope you are keeping your cool where you are.

Shared my latest Substack story on that platform yesterday. Here’s your chance to see it here. Hope you enjoy Make Your Mind Up. A lot of dog owners will identify with this one and I hope it raises a smile or two.

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Hope the weekend is going well with you. Very hot here. Lady staying out of it.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly. Am keeping the office nice and cool – it is bliss to be in here. I also have a board my laptop rests on which has an inbuilt fan. It’s useful when the weather is this hot.

The editing work is going well too.

There won’t be a post from me this month on More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers, as ACW is moving the platform for this. I hope to be back in June on this and hope and pray the transfer goes well.

It’s a gloriously sunny day here today (23rd May) but you’ll be glad to know Lady is keeping things nice and cool.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing a fabulous interview with fellow Swanwicker, Esther Chilton, for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. She’ll be discussing her second book in her six part Saffy’s Secret Quest series which is called Myths and Magic. Plenty of useful thoughts for all writers here. Do look out for that next week.

As well as the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting next week, I’m looking forward to revisiting The Dorset Museum in Dorchester with editing colleagues. We went to a Jane Austen exhibition here last year which was great. This time, we’re looking at the life and times of Thomas Hardy, someone I admit I’ve never read. I expect that will change! Naturally I’m looking forward to getting some writing done on the train trip here.

Oh and one joy of turning the big 60 in March is discovering I now qualify for the Senior Railcard which gives me discounts on train trips for the whole country and not just my network. Am planning to put this to good use! Plenty of opportunities for trips out, making notes on my trips and drafting some flash fiction – all good to me!

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As I mentioned over on my author page, I have seen the draft cover for Seeing The Other Side. Looking forward to being able to share that in due course. Seeing the cover, albeit as a draft at this stage, brings it home this really is happening and you don’t lose the thrill of being published. I just wish I could bottle the feeling to be able to imbibe it during those times when the writing life is on the tougher side.

But this is why it is important to celebrate your small wins as well as your larger ones. The smaller wins mount up over time, for one thing. For another, just getting anything out there which is your creation is so special and should always be celebrated.

It’s a hot Bank Holiday Monday in the UK today (25th May 2026) but for me the important point is it still a Monday and that means story time. I hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – A Canine Wish. There is a dog theme this week, what with my Substack story too, but I hope you enjoy both tales or should that be tails?

 

Am enjoying sharing stories on Substack as well as YouTube. Substack has proved surprisingly easy to you, which is always welcome, because there nearly always are teething issues as you get used to a new website, form of social media etc.

Have got my entry in for The Bridport Prize. The deadline is the end of May so there is still time if you fancy trying this. Hope to pick another competition to try next weekend.

I’ve been returning to the good old dribble, the 50 words story, for Substack and YouTube recently and hope to continue with this.

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start. It’s a long weekend here in the UK given Monday is a Bank Holiday. (To me, Monday is Monday but there you go).

Hope to resume looking for flash fiction competitions to have a crack at from next weekend as I’m busy editing as well as writing at the moment and, of course, it won’t be that long now before Seeing The Other Side comes out. There will be plenty to do when it is out! Having said that, this kind of work is such a joy to do.

I will be cracking on with my usual flash fiction Sunday tomorrow though, which is always a great way to end the week/start the next one (delete as you see fit! I see Sunday as the end of a week but know not everyone does).

GOODREADS AUTHOR BLOG – Favourite Aspects of Stories

I love all aspects to stories but some do stand out more for me as I suspect they do for most people. One favourite aspect is dialogue between the characters. Having been intrigued by the story’s opening, this is the point where the characters start to come to life for me and it is here I am keen to find out what happens to them.

Dialogue reveals so much about character attitude, as well as revealing aspects of back story, and I think that is why I am always gripped by well written examples of this. Well written for me is when it reveals what I need to know and I feel not a word could be added or taken away without losing something important.

I must admit when it comes to writing my own tales, I have to make sure I don’t get into “conversational ping pong”. It is huge fun to write but not necessarily for a reader to read and it is what they need which has to come first.

I so want to get behind a character to root for them whether it is to succeed or fail (the latter generally for villains). I want the ending of the story to deliver on its premise. I want to feel that yes, this was the right ending for these characters and their circumstances.

I guess what I am saying here is I really do want a good read! Well, I’m not alone on that wish, am I?

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Light Reading

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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 one scottish photo – spot the dog! 
Hope you have had a good weekend. Had a lovely week on the north-east coast of Scotland last week. Now back to normal routines though Lady is pleased to be seeing her pals again.

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Apologies this is a day later but I’m now delighted to share my latest Authors Electric post on A Change of Scene (and yes I’m talking about the same topic for Chandler’s Ford Today this week too. There is plenty of think about on this one!).

For Authors Electric, I look at how our characters would have the change of scene which would do them good and act as a pivotal story point. I also look at whether such changes of scene need to be “dramatic” or not.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

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Hope you’ve had a good start to your week. Lady was especially pleased to see her Hungarian Vizler chum and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, for the first time in ten days or so. Great time had by all.

Pleased to share my latest story on Substack. Hope you enjoy I Wish. It also ties in with my YouTube story for this week. See further down. Both come in at the 50 word mark. Pleased to get back to the good old dribble writing again.

Have spent the last week on the fantastic north-east coast of Scotland, enjoying the breathtaking scene and the bracing air! Now it’s time to get back to “normal” though Lady was pleased to see one of our other regulars, the wonderful Stately Stanley, over at the park today.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing A Change of Scene for Chandler’s Ford Today next week and will focus on how we handle changes of scene for our characters. More to come on Friday. After that, there will be a super interview with Esther Chilton about her latest children’s book, Myths and Magic, so plenty to look forward to on CFT.

Shortly, I’ll be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday. Later in the week I’ll have editing to return to and a PowerPoint to finish off. It’s just as well I like to be busy!

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Am on way home after a wonderful break in the north-east of Scotland. Seeing plenty of snow on the Cairngorms as we drive through the national park. Very impressive.

Writing wise, I’ll be back to my usual writing routine from tomorrow though it has been lovely doing some writing while away. Well, when you’re writing with views of mountains around you, it is a great encouragement to write. The creativity of the natural world can and does inspire writing.

I suspect some of the fantastic scenery I’ve seen this week will end up in my stories as settings.

Photos can make wonderful story prompts.

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Hope the day has gone well. Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler pal again today and a nice time was had by both. I enjoyed resuming my swimming today though must admit it was hard work!

Writing wise, I’ll be working on presentations, blogs and editing for the rest of this week, which I’m looking forward to doing. Always pays to enjoy your work, generally and most of the time at least.

Also hope to book my train tickets for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick soon. I’ve found it pays to book ahead and have saved money doing that but it also means one of my favourite events of the year is getting nearer. That is always a cheerful thought, especially this year when I have my Seeing The Other Side with me too.

It’s Monday. Why is it the first Monday back after a holiday is even more hectic than normal? Oh well, it’s time to unwind with a story then.

Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Working Things Out. This ties in with my Substack story this week – I Wish. Both come in at 50 words. I like to mix up my word counts every now and then and writing to a specific word count is a great writing exercise.

 

Flash fiction is also good for those short moments which are a complete story in and of themselves but which could not be expanded into a standard length short story. Indeed, it is a great writing exercise to practice writing to 50, 100, 250 words etc because the art of flash fiction is to write what has to be written in as few words as possible.

This is why it helps you improve your editing skills because you learn to go for better turns of phrase, cut out repetitions (unless you’re using it for effect but then you’re doing this knowingly), and to kill most of those wretched adverbs.

Incidentally there are always exceptions to any writing rule but for adverbs, so often you could express something without using them so why not do so and save on the word count?

Flash fiction focuses on important moments in a character’s life but what is important varies from character to character. What matters is readers can see why the moment matters.

The lovely thing with flash is those moments can be funny, sad, or what have you. I love mixing up the moods of the tales I write but then I think fiction reflects all aspects of life.

Having said that, I especially love writing the lighter stories. Life is grim enough as it is and fiction can do much to give some much needed escapism.

Goodreads Author Blog – Light Reading

I love lighter reads. They bring much needed cheer and provide escapism. For me, lighter reads include Jane Austen. I love the thought of some of the classic novels being light reads too.

What a light read isn’t is a simple read. There are plenty of depths to Pride and Prejudice, for example. A light read, for me, is an easy read with plenty going on and which keeps you gripped to the end, but it should also make you smile.

The fiction world does need the darker books but I would like to see the “seesaw” going in favour of the lighter reads. I’ve never liked lighter/genre books being looked down for not being “worthy” enough.

Entertainment is just as valid a reason to read as anything else, after all.

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Learning From Stories

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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 weekend. Lady and I are out and about, making the most of a mixed bag of weather. I’m looking forward to sharing a fabulous interview with Esther Chilton on Chandler’s Ford Today later this month. More details soon.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. All well here. Enjoyed a lovely historical online meeting last night. It is amazing what you can find out from a topic which is not of direct relevance to your own writing at times.

I do know things I’ve picked up along the way from meetings like this one can sometimes find their way into my stories at a later date. It’ll be interesting to see if this topic does that. Am not saying what it was in case it does!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Story Essentials on Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Mind you, the basic essential of any story for me is it has to grip me and it is usually the characters who do that for me. More on my post on Friday.

Hope your week has got off to a good start. Not bad here. Weather better today too.

Writing wise, I’m glad to share my latest Substack story here – When The Message Finally Gets Through.

Hope you enjoy it. It links to my YouTube story this week too. See further down for that.

 

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Hope all is well. Mixed bag weather wise today. Didn’t stop Lady enjoying herself on her various walks today.

Plan to get on with flash fiction Sunday shortly.

Writing Tip: Don’t forget to review your notebooks every so often. You will come across ideas you’d forgotten about. Now perhaps is the time to have another look at these and see what you can do with them.

One of my tales in my forthcoming Seeing The Other Side started life as a writing exercise set at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Reviewing it later and polishing it up as needed, well I’m delighted it is now going to be published.

It is worth giving this a go. And you may find the initial idea jotted down in those notebooks may spark further ideas, even if you discard the original one.

Hope your weekend is going well.

Writing wise, I will be sharing Story Essentials for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I hope this will prove useful.

Am currently re-listening to the fabulous Going Postal by the much missed Terry Pratchett. I love audio books as well as the print variety. Both have their joys.

Audio books are especially great for literally hearing how dialogue and description work. That in turn can help with your own drafts. There is always good pacing to audio books. And I can always learn from that.

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Am catching up with some reading which is always a joy. So many of my flash and other stories have been inspired by tales I’ve loved for years.

The classic one here is Cinderella which was a direct inspiration for my first story in print back in 2009 – A Helping Hand in Bridge House Publishing’s Alternative Renditions anthology.

The fairytales have timeless themes and a great story structure so are always capable of inspiring further fictional thoughts, I find.

It’s Monday and storyline again. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The New Order of Things.

 

Flash fiction Sunday starts for me in a moment but I was glad to get something sent in for The Bridport Prize earlier this month. The deadline for that, by the way, is the end of May so you’ve still got time to send things in. Naturally I’ve sent something in for the flash fiction category.

Every so often I will review those stories I submitted for various competitions which didn’t go anywhere. I can often polish these up further and either send them elsewhere or save them for a future collection. Often when I review my stories, I can then see why perhaps they didn’t make the cut but this is good too as I can learn from that.

This is the thing with all forms of creative writing. We learn all the time. We seek to improve all the time. No wonder writing can be phenomenally good for you, brain wise.

Plan this weekend is to pick a couple of flash fiction competitions to try soon. Probable deadline date I’d be looking at here would be end of June or July.

I also want to get back to using books of prompts again as I haven’t used these for a while. I do like to mix up where I get prompts from. I usually take any prompt and add something to it but this starting point is incredibly helpful.

Bridge House Publishing have their Big Book of Prompts, which I had the privilege of contributing to, and I have other prompt books too.

The nice thing with prompts is you can reuse them. A prompt on the theme of, say, justice can be used over and over again. It is the characters who change, as they should do in the course of their individual stories.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Learning From Stories

I love learning from stories. As a writer, what I learn helps no end with my own writing. That includes learning about how dialogue is laid out, how to tell characters apart via dialogue alone, and much more.

The important thing is does the story work? If it does, I then look at what made it work and why specifically for me. I also learn to look out for the next story from that author. Well, if I loved one of their tales, I’m highly likely to love others by that same writer.

You can also learn from what doesn’t work in stories and apply that to your own writing.

Best of all, you get to do lots of reading!

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Moving Books

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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. Many thanks to Janet Williams for taking two images of me at one of the Hiltingbury Book Fairs.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Nice one here and it includes a Bank Holiday. Lady is hoping to see more of her friends this week and I remain thrilled to bits my third book, Seeing The Other Side, is due out on 18th June 2026. Onwards and upwards it is then!

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Hope today has gone well. Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler friend today – all well there.

Writing wise, I’m back on to editing for a client, as well as getting various bits and pieces together which will appear over the next month or so. All hugely enjoyable tasks plus, naturally, I hope to share more news of Seeing The Other Side in due course. So looking forward to that coming out.

Character Tip: There are various ways to start creating a character. Ironically, I don’t find pictures that helpful while I know many other authors do. I’m more drawn by how my character sounds in conversation, which will also show me a great deal about their attitudes to life and educational level/class. That conversation will come from what I believe their main trait will be.

Creating a character can be a bit like putting a jigsaw together. Get a corner piece and away you go! For me that corner piece is the trait and then I get the second corner piece of something my character is likely to say or think.

Hope you’ve had a good day. It has been a Bank Holiday Monday where I am. Still hectic mind you.

So time for my Substack story of the week and I hope you enjoy this one – Last Silly Thing. Idea for this one came from a random question generator which asked what was the last silly thing you did. There is no way I’m revealing that one but I can get a character to do so!

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Lovely church service this morning followed by a quick walk in the park with Lady and a quiet writing and editing afternoon. Much to enjoy about Sundays from my viewpoint! And I’ll be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday soon too….

Hope to submit a story I’ve worked on recently to a competition later today. Then it’ll be time to pick another competition to have a go at. I like to keep my hand in!

Writing Tip: I’ve mentioned before how useful it can be to have a stock of stories to hand for when competitions of interest come up, as they do, but where to start here? My thought would be to write stories around timeless themes (which is where the proverbs and sayings will prove useful), because these will always come up. There will always be competitions based around the themes of love, justice, revenge, and things like that. You can also think about genres here too. There will always be competitions around ghost stories, crime stories, history stories and more.

It’s important to write what you genuinely love though. I love most genres (and read in them) so writing to them when the occasion demands it seems a natural thing to do for me. I’m not so keen on horror, for example, so won’t write to that. (The nearest I’ve ever got to that was a dark, by my standards, ghost story and there I was looking at what could drive the character to be the way I portrayed them. I had no problem with approaching the story that way).

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start. Not bad here though rain has now come in. Not that this bothers Lady.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Book Event Tips for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I hope it will prove useful. Am looking forward to more events myself when Seeing The Other Side comes out.

Delighted to receive my copy of Christian Writer, the journal of the Association of Christian Writers, in the post today. Aside from anything else, we don’t always get post on a Saturday these days! Anyway, I have a column in Christian Writer called Allison’s Advice and I write a 100 word flash non-fiction piece for it on aspects of writing. My column this time shared a few thoughts on learning to love editing (or at least see it as the useful and crucial thing it is).

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Did get my flash competition entry off over the Bank Holiday weekend so was pleased about that. Have just received an email about another potential one. It is one I’ve tried before but have had no joy but you have to be in it to win it, yes?

I hope to get back to some longer short story competitions too but am putting this on the back burner for the next couple of months. Once my Seeing The Other Side is out, there will be plenty to do there but I am looking forward to that immensely.


It has been a busy Bank Holiday Monday here (though Lady was delighted to get to see her “boyfriend”, a lovely Aussie Shepherd). I do know it is time for a story on my YouTube channel though. Hope you like my latest one here – Past Mistakes.

Magical mistakes have led to my character learning and surviving but she now faces the test of her life. Find out more here.

 

Will be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly and I have a competition to submit for too. My entry for that was a flash piece I drafted a while ago, left “to brew”, came back and edited it and strengthened it. It’s now ready to send in but the break away did help me see flaws clearly when I came back to it.

I hope to write up some of the prompts I set at last week’s Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting. There was time for one of the exercises on the night and I’ve drafted something for that, which I think has promise. But I do want to try to have a go at some of the other prompts. There are some interesting characters to write stories around and that kind of prompt always draws me in.

As you know, I do believe a successful story hinges on how well readers root for the characters in it.

One of the joys of re-reading my Seeing The Other Side when I was proofreading it recently was to rediscover the stories in there. I write a great number of tales so it is impossible to remember them all. But I do tend to remember the characters. They’ve always been the kingpin of any form of fiction. If they grip me, the story will. It’s a good challenge to remember as I write my own tales.

Character Tip: Think about what makes your character stand out for you. What do you love about them? What do you loathe? The reasons why behind your answers here will tell you more about those characters and will reveal something of their motivations, which is always useful to know.

If you loathe a character because they’re dishonest, you can then look at why they’re that way. Were they driven to it? Did they do this as a survival technique? Were they determined not to be deceived by anyone else again?

Whichever way you look at it, there are story ideas here.

Goodreads Author Blog – Moving Books

I’ve long thought any story, any book (including non-fiction), should move you in some way for it to “work properly”.

For non-fiction, the “moving” bit comes from helping you to discover something you didn’t know or where a different interpretation, one you’d not come across before, is shown. Here the moving bit is enlightenment, if you like, or you agree/disagree with the different interpretation. It will still have made you think though!

For fiction, the success of any story is for the characters to move you enough to make you care about what happens to them. I’ve long found if I don’t care about the character, I won’t be finishing the story.

There are various ways to bring characters to life so they can move readers. Sometimes it is getting them to face a life or death quest (The Lord of the Rings is the godfather of this kind of fiction for me). Sometimes it is when two characters are clearly meant for each other but they have to overcome difficulties (Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion for me here).

But something about the characters has to appeal. I admired Frodo’s courage, Elizabeth Bennet’s determination not to settle for second best, and Anne Elliot accepting she made a mistake when rejecting Wentworth all those years ago.



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Dialogue in Fiction

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Hope the weekend went well. Lovely one here. Great progress on writing and editing and Lady did get to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback, the first time in a while, too. Both dogs were delighted to see each other. Dogs can be lovely like this.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lovely weather after a cloudy start. Lady and I enjoyed our time in the park again. Parks are wonderful things.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow. Hope to get a couple of drafts down.

Have a story ready for submission and hope to get that off either tomorrow or Thursday. Deadline isn’t until well into May but I will always send something in when I genuinely know it’s good to go. I deliberately won’t hold on to a story any longer otherwise the temptation will be to just have “one more look at it” and it makes me go on to draft another story for another competition instead. It’s too easy to put off submitting work. Well, there is no rejection risk in that, is there?

Hope the week has got off to a good start. Lovely time in the park with Lady. Had a great writing and editing weekend. Pleased to get lots done.

Glad to share my latest story on Substack – The Next Repair Job. All dog owners (and I suspect parents of toddlers as well) will identify with this one. Hope you enjoy it.

Hope your Sunday has been a peaceful one. Will be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly but have already edited a story I’ve got in mind for a competition. Good start to my writing day!

Looking forward also to catching up with folk at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday. Always good to see them and, as ever, I hope we’ll get a couple of draft pieces written.

Later in May I’ll be interviewing Esther Chilton for Chandler’s Ford Today about her new book, Myths and Magic. And I hope to share news on my third flash fiction collection, Seeing The Other Side, in May too. Plenty going on then and most of it involving flash fiction in some way (Esther is also a flash fiction writer).

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Using Old Sayings in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I’ll be sharing a couple with some ideas on how they could be used to create stories. Looking forward to sharing that on Friday. Proverbs and sayings are excellent to use as themes and will always resonate because these things are timeless, readers will alway identify with them. Hope the post will prove to be useful.

Editing is continuing to go well.

And don’t forget it won’t be that long before my next author newsletter is out. To sign up for hints, tips, story links and news, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Will have news on Seeing The Other Side soon. Meantime, I’ve been busy producing more flash work and hope to send something in for a competition this week as it is good to go as I mentioned on my author page here.

I always take time out to double check the submissions process to ensure I haven’t missed anything. For most places I’m submitting work on Duotrope, Submittable or as emails (sometimes in the body of the email as flash is short enough for that). But each place has its different requirements.

Funnily enough, I’ll also be thinking later this year about getting another collection together but meantime it is all systems go with the third book. So looking forward to sharing more news on that.

It’s Monday and another hectic one so time to relax with a flash story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Toy Cupboard in the Sky. This one links to The Next Repair Job which I’ve shared via my Substack and via my other Facebook page.

Hope you enjoy both tales. I had great fun writing them.

Why can’t my mother like character in this story face up to telling someone their toy is beyond repair? Find out here.

 

Although my forthcoming book, Seeing The Other Side, is naturally very much on my mind at the moment, I am also looking further ahead towards further collections and am well on my way to another one, possibly two, books from what I’ve written in the last year or so.

I also have another project connected to flash fiction which is on the back burner for the moment but which I hope to get back to later this year.

What I would really like now would be for one of my benevolent magical characters to come to life and, as a favour to me for creating them, grant me more time in which to write! Alas…

Mind you, this is a nice problem to have because I know what I’ll be working on when I do get to my desk. I suppose that’s the goal to aim for here. Know what you’re doing and when. It’s a good thing for your characters to know too!

Am looking at a story for a flash competition for the end of May. Will be working on it, I hope, tomorrow. This is a story from my “store” and on re-reading it, I can see where I can tighten it up further. This is the purpose of having a break away from something you’ve written. When you do come back to it again, you really do see the piece with fresh eyes and you are much more likely to be able to judge it objectively.

For flash, there is the advantage of not needing anywhere near as long a break from it as, say, a novelist would for their work, but I’d say don’t be tempted to skip having the break. It does pay off. I’ve found this to be the case time and again.

Put work aside for a time and come back to it so you can look at it as a reader would. Pixabay image.

Goodreads Author Blog – Dialogue in Fiction

I love every element to a story or book – characters, plot, scene setting (though I prefer that to not go on for too long) and dialogue. Dialogue in fiction has to resemble real speech but not be an exact copy of it. It would be tedious to read all the hesitations, repetitions etc. But fictional dialogue, when it is done well, will propel the story forward, show you more about the characters speaking, and fill in the gaps in back story where a character needs to know something from the past but doesn’t need to know chapter and verse about it.

I like to think of it as overhearing an interesting conversation and I love that. This probably says a great deal about me but I also find dialogue can do wonders for pacing in a story too.

And, of course, dialogue can reveal a great deal of information, secrets etc, which are pivotal to the plot. Someone had to tell Frodo from The Lord of the Rings why he had to get out of The Shire and why a certain ring left behind by Bilbo wasn’t such a wonderful gift after all!

Dialogue is a trigger for all sorts of happenings in stories and I think that it is why it is one of my favourite elements to any story.

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Observations

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Hope you have had a good weekend. Not bad here. Enjoying more sunshine again. Making good progress on the editing front. Can’t say much at the moment but hope it won’t be too long before I share news. Lady seeing some of her friends but not all of the moment though we look forward to rectifying that when possible.

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Hope today has gone well. Quiet in the park though Lady and I had a lovely peaceful time. Bluebells out all over the place where we are too, including in our garden.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing Writing Wishes on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ll also be looking at the Human-Authored campaign being led, in the UK at least, by the Society of Authors as part of this. There are many writers who have wishes about AI! Some can see the usefulness of it, others worry about the effects on creativity. I worry about the effects on editing quality. More on that in the post.

Come the weekend, I hope to be working on a short story for a competition I have in mind but my editing work is taking priority at the moment so that may have to be pushed back for a week. It is fun having lots of interesting work to do, mind you! I just want more hours in the day but then I suspect that’s true for most of us.

Hope you’ve had a good start to the week. Lady has. She saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle.

Writing wise, I’m ploughing on with my editing and making good progress. Hope to make even more progress later tonight!

And as it’s Monday, not my favourite day of the week it must be said, it is time for a story I shared on my Substack account yesterday. Hope you enjoy Talking It Out. Do you feel any sympathy for Mary here?

Hope your weekend has been a good one. Loved my day out at Salisbury yesterday. Glad to be at home today.

Looking forward to getting on with flash fiction Sunday in a while and after that getting on with further editing on my Seeing The Other Side. There comes a point with flash where you know you can edit a piece and tighten it further in terms of word count but you then lose something of the “flow” of the story. That’s where I stop. I don’t want to lose that “flow” so, assuming all else is well, I would far rather leave a flash piece at 125 words, say, rather than cut back too far to get it to 100 words.

I’m always thinking about the impact of my stories on potential readers so don’t want anything to weaken that.


Had a lovely day out in Salisbury at the URC where there was a study on Women in the Bible. Very interesting and may spark story ideas. So many of these women showed great courage, which in itself is a great theme to write around. It was also great to catch up with folk I know here.

Bus replacement service was fine though I will always prefer the train. Bumpy roads meant I couldn’t write on my phone app on the bus. I drafted this while enjoying peppermint tea in a Salisbury coffee shop. Someone has to do it…

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Writing Wishes for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Looking forward to sharing that plus I hope to get plenty done on editing work later.

And, last but not least, I share Light and Dark in Fiction, my latest post on Authors Electric. I look, amongst other things, at how both kinds of fiction can reveal great truths though one is more likely to leave you with a smile on your face than the other! Hope you enjoy it.

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Getting out and about with the dog regularly gives opportunities for noticing things going on in the natural world and we are blessed to live close to parks and woods so I’m getting to see plenty of bluebells, the lilacs coming into bloom and so on.

So can you use these things in flash fiction (and indeed in other kinds of fiction)? Of course.

They can make an excellent backdrop for your character. Your character may equally be glad of a break in the fresh air given their circumstances. Some time in the natural world could give them what they need to go back and do what has to be done to hopefully improve said circumstances. Or you could take the colours and scents you come across and write a story around those – who notices them and why? What makes these things stand out? Is your character so glad to escape something, they are relieved to see these things?

Happy writing!

It’s Monday and it has been as hectic as ever. Time for another story then. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Hope, Hoax and Cake.

Emily Winters finally won the village cake competition but did she do so fairly and squarely? Of course not. Find out what happened here.

 

One word themes make excellent topics for all kinds of fiction including flash. These themes come up time and again for competitions and what markets are looking for. To name a few:-

Love
Justice
Revenge
Misunderstanding
Hope

There are many, many more but these topics are timeless. The good news on that is for writers, it means we can always use them.

One thing about getting out and about is spotting those moments you know you can do something with story wise.

For example, on the replacement bus service to Salisbury I was on today, there were two people busy chatting when I got on the bus. They were still nattering an hour later when we all got off at Salisbury and no pauses to speak of in between! I do feel there could be a humorous flash pieces out of that. Watch this space!

I also find I start wondering about backgrounds and settings when I go out anywhere. Again, this is a potential source for story ideas. So make the most of your trips out!

Goodreads Author Blog – Observations

One of the lovely things about fiction is when you come across observations which show up something about us. Jane Austen was fantastic here, as was Terry Pratchett. The best of these observations are always done subtly. You almost take these in without realising it.

Over time, as a writer, you learn to look out for these so you can figure out how to do this for your creations. Best of all, this is fun because you get to do even more reading. Nothing to dislike there!

Of course, some of the observations at least can be sharp ones. Often humorous fiction does this best, I find.

So when you lose yourself in a good book (and as often as possible), it is amazing what you can be taking in. Writers are inspired by what has gone before. We build on what has gone before. There will always be a need for stories and those observations, which make us think when we spot them, will continue to make us think.

Time to get on with some more reading then!

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The Importance of Titles

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Hope you have had a good weekend. Not bad here. Lady enjoyed catching up with a pal over the weekend which she doesn’t usually get to do. I’m busy writing and editing, including on my third book, Seeing The Other Side. Hope to have more news on that before too long.

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Hope today has gone well. Weather changeable though it didn’t stop Lady from having a good time in the park. No pals today, hope to catch up with them later in the week and, before you ask, yes I am my dog’s social secretary! Most dog owners are!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Character Moments for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Meantime I plough on with editing (client) and proofreading (my third book). Not short of things to do!

Also looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group later this month and thoroughly enjoyed the online writing group meeting I went to last night. You can still get about even if it is just by Zoom!

Hope your working week has got off to a good start. Changeable weather here though Lady still saw her Hungarian Vizler pal so all well there.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to an online writing meeting this evening. Always good fun. Am making good progress with the editing of a client’s book and my own. I’ve been on both sides of the editing fence at the same time before. It’s always an interesting experience and you do learn a lot from it.

Was delighted to share another story of mine on my Substack account yesterday. To subscribe please head over to the following link – https://substack.com/@allisonsymeswriter1

Scroll down and you will find several flash pieces of mine on here now.

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Hope you’re enjoying a nice peaceful Sunday. Will be getting on with flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. Also have some interesting work to do regarding my forthcoming third flash fiction collection. Will share more later but am so pleased about this as you can imagine.

Did manage to submit my story for the competition I mentioned yesterday. Good to have that done. Did I find some final things to correct before submission? Oh yes – a minor adjustment needed – but this is why I put in a final, final check to look for things like this. It pays. After all, you want your story entry to have the best possible chance out there.

I get my first draft done, rest it, look at it again and it as this point I pick up the vast majority of errors and correct them. I rest the story again and when I come back to it this time, I am specifically looking for typos, grammatical errors, missing words etc. Just ahead of submission I double check I’ve laid the story out as the competition requires and things like word count are fine. I find all of this useful because you never do pick up everything on one sweep. Well, at least I don’t!

Looking for specific things on each sweep means you’re more likely to find them too.

Hope the weekend has got off to a good start for you. Windy but sunny here and Lady managed to meet up and play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle today. We don’t usually see anyone we know at weekends so Lady has rightly taken that as a win.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Character Moments for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Will be sharing useful tips and it is on a topic I love writing about – creating characters, the stars of our story shows.

Hope to submit a story for a competition over the weekend and then start working on another story which I’ve already got in draft form. Plus there will be flash fiction Sunday to look forward to as well. As for today, Saturday, it’s blogging and editing time! Now to crack on…

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Hope at the weekend to pick a draft story to work on for another flash competition. Know I won’t get much chance before then. Am enjoying the process of proofreading my third book. Hope to share more news on that fairly soon.

I always look for impact in fiction, regardless of its length or whether I’m reading it or writing it. I need to care about the characters enough to want to find out what happens to them. This is what drives my belief that if you get the characters right, the plot will develop naturally from them.

I don’t really want a clever plot. I do want characters I want to root for and and then I’ll enjoy finding out just what they get up to and how much of a mess they make of things on the way to whatever the ending is going to be.

It’s another hectic Monday and, therefore, story time. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Rebranding.

Times change even in Fairyland much to the disgust of the local wicked witch. Find out why she is disgruntled here – and what did happen to her wand?

 

I was talking over on my most recent Goodreads post about the importance of titles (see below) and, for flash fiction, they can help a writer convey mood without using up any of their precious word count allowance, given most places don’t include the title as part of that. (Do keep an eye out for this though – some places do include it. I always double check things like that to make sure I don’t get it wrong. I also allow about five words for a title when I have markets who include the title in the word count. I then know what I’ve got for the prose).

Inspiration for title ideas can come from proverbs and sayings and can also double up to be your theme. I find short is generally better. Short titles are easier to remember and if you share things on Twitter/X, you don’t use up so much of your character allowance either.

I also find having brainstorming sessions for possible titles not only useful but fun. I know I have things to come back to later to write up into potential tales. It is good to have that kind of back up and where notebooks/journals are brilliant. I’m old school enough to still like the thought of pen and paper coming into the process somewhere.

I read in my field of flash fiction as well as write in it, naturally. There are many wonderful flash fiction and short story anthologies out there but I am going to recommend Editor’s Choice – Friday Flash Fiction. I’ve just finished reading it and it has a superb collection of styles and moods, the one unifying factor being they are all at 100 words long. Pleased to see some great reviews coming in for the book too.

I have a few stories in there and it is great to recognize many familiar names in the book with me. Why not check it out? It is perfect for dipping in there and a great study of what flash fiction is and can be.

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Goodreads Author Blog – The Importance of Titles

Oscar Wilde may well have talked about it being Earnest who was important but, for any writer, titles are essential to get right. They are your first hook for potential readers.

Working in the short forms of fiction as I do, I will use titles to do some “heavy lifting” for me in that I can use them to set moods, give an indication of what is likely to follow and so on. I can do that without using up any of my word count allowance, especially for flash fiction, as most places exclude the title from their word count limits.

But when it comes to reading, does a good title draw you in? I know they do for me. I was intrigued by The ABC Murders (Agatha Christie) and had to read the book to find out the relevance of the title to the plot. It is a cracking Poirot story by the way.

Other titles which are more “open” such as Christie’s Nemesis (Miss Marple) make you wonder who/what the nemesis will be and who/what justifies facing that nemesis. Again, you have to read to find out.

Certainly when I’m buying books, if I already know the author then I have some idea of what I’m looking for but, for a writer new to me, it will often be the title which will lure me into looking at the cover and the blurb.

So titles matter. They can be tricky things to get right too.

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Travel Writing – Making The Characters Move

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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 wonderful Easter. Moving Easter services meant a great deal to me. Lady has been out and about enjoying the sunshine and I’m writing away. A good weekend and yes chocolate was involved too!

Facebook – General

Hope you’ve had a good day. Lovely day weather wise today.

Writing wise, I’m delighted to share the link to my latest article on Writers’ Narrative. For this month, the theme is travel writing. My take on it? To think about it from a character’s viewpoint.

At some point we have to make our characters move and travel problems will be as real for them as, alas, they are for us. (I faced yet more temporary traffic lights today – no warning given etc!).

Even in a fantasy world where some characters may be able to fly without the aid of machinery, they will face issues such as wind currents and so on. I share thoughts and tips on this including the thought travel brings out the best and worst in us so it can do exactly the same for our creations too.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

It’s a Bank Holiday here in the UK. I’ve spent a lot of the weekend listening to and enjoying the countdown of the Classic FM Hall of Fame for 2026. I’ve heard two of my choices so far – one went up, the other went down – and have still to hear the third. The third one ended up being a non-mover!

It’s not that easy just picking three pieces of music but it’s fun having a go. And listening to so much lovely music over the Easter weekend has been a joy – everything from classical to film scores to operatic to themes from games (the latter is surprisingly good). I usually write with Classic FM on. It relaxes me and when I relax I write more.

Writing wise, I shared another flash piece over on my Substack page over the weekend. Link here. Have started work on various things I’ll be sharing in one form or another later this month/early next month. Plus I’ve been editing. So the weekend has been productive.

Character Tip: If you’re fleshing out a character outline, give some thought as to what kind of music they’d like and why. It may well show you their likely age, possibly some of their background too, and I’m sure you can make use of that in your stories.

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Happy Easter to all who celebrate. Lovely and cheery church service this morning. Our minister even brought a big chocolate egg for us to share. It went down very well with all!

Writing wise, will be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly.

Congratulations to all who have been accepted for the Bridge House Publishing anthology out later this year. News came out about that yesterday.

Ahead of that will be the release of The Best of CafeLit 15, where my story, Freedom, will be included. Already looking forward to catching up with folk in person at the end of the year.

Writing Tip: Will be reviewing my story for the BHP book because I know its theme may well make it open for other competitions. I’ve nothing to lose doing this and, indeed, have sometimes gone on to have work accepted which was initially turned down elsewhere. The good thing is I now know I’ve the necessary distance now to re-read this story and see what can be done to boost its chances out there.


Hope the Easter weekend has got off to a good start. Weather can’t make up its mind what it wants to do here, not that this stopped Lady and I having a nice time at the park.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Flash Fiction On Radio for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I’ll be sharing tips here too. Am looking forward to sharing that.

Will also be starting work on a super interview to come up on CFT later in May. Good to be kept busy!

Structure Tip: I find this tip as useful for my non-fiction writing as I do for my short form fiction. I have a rough plan of what will be at the start of the piece, what must be in the middle, and from there what must come at the end. The Three Act structure has much to recommend it even when you’re writing short pieces. I find it keeps me on track. I do find having a framework to work to so useful.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Absolutely gorgeous day today. Lady and I had a quiet time in the park today. Hope to catch up with pals again tomorrow.

My Writers’ Narrative article is out today (7th April 2026) and talks about Travel Writing – Making The Characters Move. So many of the issues, including travel, that we face, we can then apply to our characters.

Now in flash fiction, there isn’t a lot of room for description so if I need to show you my fairy godmother on the move, I’ll show her getting on her broom or tapping her red shoes to go somewhere. Flash uses inference a lot but there does need to be something in the story for readers to be able to make that inference. This is where using tropes can help you – red shoes will remind folk of The Wizard of Oz and brooms, well everyone knows about flying brooms in the magical world. So it is a question of then of picking out the right detail for readers to pick up on. For flash, they don’t need to know the ins and outs of broom transport unless that is the story itself.

It has been one of those rare beasts in the UK – a Bank Holiday Monday which was sunny! Have loved that. But it is still Monday when all is said and done and so it is time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Colour of Lying.

It seems lying politicians get everywhere when it comes to energy usage, as my fairy godmother character finds out

 

Hope your Easter Sunday is going well. Good to see some sunshine out. I know it cheers me up no end seeing some brightness especially since earlier today Lady and I were caught in a hail shower.

Weather can change moods then for better or worse but how does it do this for your characters? Could a change in the weather change the outcome in your story and, if so, how?

What other factors would change your character’s mood for better or worse? Who could exploit that, whether or not it is in the character’s best interest?

Definite story ideas there!

I plan as part of my flash fiction Sunday afternoon tomorrow to look through some drafts I’ve been storing as I’ve got ideas for competitions in mind for some of this work. This is why it pays to build up a stock of stories and something I need to get back to doing because I’ve got some to use now, which is fabulous, but I will need to replenish these in due course.

Naturally keeping some stories back like this gives me the necessary distance from them to see the faults and rectify those.

It also pays to draft some tales, every so often, to common themes because you know these will come up at some point and it can give you a head start when you spot competitions you fancy trying.

Goodreads Author Blog – Easter Stories and Inspiring Characters

The Easter story is full of drama – betrayal, injustice, a grim killing – but also hope in the form of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. The characters in the story do go through a rollercoaster of emotion from crushing grief to overwhelming joy.

I must admit I like the little moments in these stories. I can picture Mary, literally blinded by grief, mistaking the risen Jesus for the gardener. You just would, wouldn’t you? Grief does things to you like that.

I like the story of Doubting Thomas too. Someone would’ve asked…

All of these tales bring home the very human qualities of these people.

Naturally, you can be inspired by that to create your own characters where the grief hits home for them, the doubts and fears do haunt them, though I must admit I would always like those stories to end on a note of hope. The news is grim enough. Books and stories can take us away from that for a while but you still need to be able to root for the characters. Understanding where they come from is a huge step for this.

And this is what the very best stories do, of course. You get behind the characters because you want them to do well (usually). It’s the hope of that which keeps me reading, for sure.

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