Book Launches and Associated Activities

August 18, 2026August 18, 2026Leave a comment

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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. A huge thank you to Keith Hinchy for taking and giving permission to use shots he took from the Swanwick Prom. More below.Many thanks also to Babs Trevitt for the image of me taking part in the Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night.

Talking of Swanwick, I had a fabulous time at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. The launch for Seeing The Other Side went brilliantly. Sold two-thirds of my stock at the launch and the rest a day or so later. First time I’ve had a sell out. So thrilled. Pleased I also sold copies of From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic.

It was a joy catching up with friends and chatting to new people to Swanwick. Hope to see them again there next year. Resuming normal home life – and the dog did mug me on my return!

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Pleased to be back on Authors Electric with Book Launches and Associated Activities. This one was a particular joy to write up given my recent launch for Seeing The Other Side at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.

I also talk in this post about what I learn from other launches I go to, what authors hope will happen at them (and onwards – I often note a rise in my Kindle sales a few days after an event), and share some tips I think will help any writer prepare for their book launch.

Hope you find this useful. My last launch was in 2020 as, aside from anything else, I’m thrilled to bits to be able to get out and about for book events in person.

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Well, it is my first full day back at the helm after a fantastic few days away at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Am I shattered? You bet. It was nice Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal again today though.

Writing wise, it’s Monday so it’s time for my Substack story for the week after my break. Hope you enjoy Stuck on Q. This one isn’t just for Scrabble players, honest!

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Lovely to be back at church this morning and taking the dog out again afterwards. The latter is probably the most exercise I’ve had this week! Nice to be back at my desk “properly” and am looking forward to cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly. Also nice to bring back some lovely books of prompts from Swanwick. Know they will be a great help.

I use prompts from a wide range of sources, including books, and will take something I like and put my own spin on it. Sometimes I will splice prompts and get a new one from two put together like that.

Story cubes are brilliant too. So many combinations available, depending on how many cubes you have. You won’t run out of the random generators any time soon either and with almost all of them you can set your own parameters, which again increases their usefulness to you and the ideas available.

Prompt Tip: If you use the generators, don’t generate too many in one go. You’ll feel swamped and that stifles creativity. Limits are so useful. They make you think more deeply and yes I know I’m biased here being a flash fiction writer but it is true nonetheless.

For books of prompts, pick out a few you think you’d like, say three or four. By the time you’ve done that, you should find there is one which is “grabbing” you so that’s the one to go for.

It takes a few days to recover from a fabulous time at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick but am slowly getting there. It was nice for Lady and I to get back to walking together and we even caught up with her Hungarian Vizler pal. It’s the first time we’ve seen them in a good couple of weeks as everyone is getting out earlier than normal for dog walking and we all have different ideas of what early is!

Talking of Swanwick, my Chandler’s Ford Today post next week will be Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch For Seeing The Other Side. Am looking forward to sharing that one next Friday.
Will be resuming flash fiction Sunday tomorrow and it will be lovely to get back to that again.

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One of the joys of The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick is the end of school party. Many thanks to Keith Hinchy who took these (and many other) fab shots.

June Webber and I had a great time at the disco. We often get together online the rest of the year with other Swanwickers (it is one of those things where people drop in as and when) but it is special to be able to get together in person.

Fabulous way to wrap up another year’s school. Writers spend so much time at their desks.

Just sometimes we get up on the dance floor too!

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It’s Monday, it’s marginally cooler than last week, I stress the marginally, but it does mean it’s story time.

Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Scrabbling Around. The eagle eyed amongst you may spot a connection to my Substack story this week in terms of theme.

Is Linda really cheating at Scrabble, as Mark suspects, or is there something else going on? Find out here.

Looking forward to resuming sharing my Substack and YouTube stories. Now just to get on and write them which I’ll do shortly.

Sometimes when deciding where to start, I will think about the mood of the stories I want to tell. Funny, dark, or somewhere in between? Sometimes I’ll think about the character type I want – someone who is overdue their comeuppance or someone worthy of support getting that in an unexpected way?

It pays to ask yourself a few questions as to what you want your stories to be and what impact you’d like them to have on readers. From there, you can start to outline situations and/or characters and off you go with your first draft.

Happy writing!

The highlight for me at Swanwick this year was of course the book launch for Seeing The Other Side, but it was closely followed by the Open Prose Mic Night.

I love these. I get to hear a marvellous range of stories and, when I take part as I did again this year, I can highlight something about what flash fiction is and can be simply by performing some of my stories. I hope I get to introduce some folk to the form this way.

It is another reason why I include reading work out loud as part of my editing process. I know a story has got to read well on the page and out loud for Mic Nights and the like.

It is amazing what errors you can pick up simply by reading your story out loud and if you record it on Zoom and play it back, you can (a) get your timings right which always goes down well with a Mic host and (b) you will take in the story as the audience would.

That in turn helps you spot what might be missing, what doesn’t flow as well as you might like and so on. Gives you a chance to put all of that right before you do perform the pieces. Can’t recommend doing this highly enough.

GOODREADS AUTHOR BLOG – Reading Time

I suspect most of us would like far more reading time than we have got. I think it’s part of the territory of so many books, not enough time, and having other wonderful responsibilities. Time doesn’t stretch that much.

The irony for me as I write this is I’m off to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick where there will be so much love and appreciation shown for the written word in all its forms.

Yet most of us will be busy catching up with friends, learning from the writing courses and so on to get much actual reading done while here!

I expect most of us will bring home new delights from the Book Room though! The To Be Read pile never goes down much, does it?! But then maybe that is as it should be.

I find it encouraging there will never be a shortage of good reading material.

And now I’m back from Swanwick, I can confirm I have brought more good reading material home with me! Sorry, couldn’t get to post this last week while away but will now resume weekly posts.

Ironically it was due to being at a place where every writer loves books, their own and others, and we spent a lot of time celebrating the fact, as well as learning more about our craft.

Now back home again, we can resume our usual reading with more material to add to the mix but then that’s never a problem, is it?

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Story Essentials

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026Leave a comment

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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 one photo from the magnificent north-east Scottish coast.

Hope you have had a good week. Lady and I have been out and about and the writing/editing continues to go well so, for differing reasons, we both think we’ve had a good and enjoyable week. Plenty to share further down including thoughts on Story Essentials and useful marketing and character tips.

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Delighted to share Story Essentials on Chandler’s Ford Today this week.

I look at the classic structure of story beginnings, middles, and endings. I also look at the other crucial ingredient to any successful story – interesting characters. I share what I think can help make them be interesting to potential readers. The role of character motivations and attitudes plays a huge role here.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

Story Essentials

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Hope your Thursday has gone well. Sunshine and showers again. Lady tired out after her exercising today and is currently snoozing as I write this. It’s always good to see a contented dog!

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing Story Essentials on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow. See above. I will discuss story structure (the classic beginning, middle and ending), and look at the vital role characters play. Hope you will find the post useful as it is written with any kind of fiction in mind.

Having a story structure in place may sound boring, you just want to get on and write, right? But I’ve found having one saves me a great deal of time in writing the piece and in editing it later simply because I already know the structure will work.

Marketing Tip: The good news here is marketing doesn’t have to be done all at once. What you can do is focus on the marketing you are going to do and ensure all is well prepared for that.

For example, I know I’ll have plenty of marketing to do when Seeing The Other Side comes out. I’ll be looking at launches, perhaps being a guest on blogs and all of that kind of thing. But I can do this a piece at a time. It takes the pressure off. It means I’ll enjoy every part of the marketing I’m going to do (and I believe you as a writer get so much more from this when you enjoy what you’re doing here).

Also marketing is genuinely always an ongoing thing. I’m always going to want to promote my books and anthologies in some way long after they first came out/are due out.

Hope the day has gone well. Mixed bag weather wise again though as I type this, the sunshine is out again. Lots of lovely walking with Lady today.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to interviewing Esther Chilton about her latest children’s book, Myths and Magic, on Chandler’s Ford Today later this month. There will be plenty of interest and tips here. Look out for this towards the end of the month.

Character Tip: Characters make or break a story for me so I have to believe in them to care enough about them to find out what happens. This, for me, means I need to understand their motivations for doing what they are, even if I don’t agree with the actions.

I especially love those characters where some of their back story is dropped in, as that can highlight what drives them. I don’t need to know everything though. I just need to know enough.

And how much is enough? That will depend on the length of the story to a certain extent. If it is a flash piece, I won’t need to know nearly as much as I would for a long short story, novella or novel.

For flash work, I like to use character thoughts to show something of their motivations because these also reveal their attitudes at the time too.

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Have just had news from an ACW friend about a potential competition so hope to look into that over the next few days or so and see if I can do something with it.

Networking helps writers in so many ways and this is just one of them. Nobody can know every single competition there is available but together we can share news of what we do know – it will indeed be news to someone else.

I’ve made good use of tips like this in the past and I do spread the word about the wonderful CafeLit whenever I can too. They were my introduction to flash fiction. It’s paid off!

I look for ideas for flash fiction stories all of the time. I opt for timeless topics as much as possible too. Right now I’m especially enjoying being out and about with the dog so I suspect at some point I’ll write a piece based around a walk which will be life changing in some way for my lead character.

The ordinary things of life can and do spark story ideas. Most of hate having to do housework yet see it as a necessary evil. So you could give some thought to what your characters would consider natural evils they have to cope with in some way. There could be potential for funny stories here too.

As well as using prompts, random generators, proverbs etc., I sometimes look at old scenic photos of mine and then weave a story around that. What characters could live here? What would they do? What issue do they have to resolve?

I think it’s a question of keeping your mind open to the thought there are plenty of ideas out there. The trick is working out which would best suit you and your style of writing.

I’m looking forward to the release of Seeing The Other Side next month, naturally enough. One reason why is having new material to share at Open Prose Mic Nights, such as the one The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick put on. I did read something from the new book last year and was pleased it went down well.

I like to mix up the moods of the stories I read at these things and the word counts too. So I will read a humorous piece, a grimmer one, a short 50 worder, a 100 worder or two and so on, depending on how much time I’ve been given.

Flash works so well for these things. It also makes it easier to stop on a “high” and top tip here, it is always better to come in at slightly under your allotted time rather than to go over it. Going over it at all is not really that fair on others still to read and it is always best to go out leaving your audience wishing they had heard more. For one thing, they can go and buy your book, can’t they?

Fairytales with Bite – Magical Wilderness

Recently, I’ve had the joy of escaping to a part of the country which can be considered to be Wild Britain – the north-east coast of Scotland. It is a magnificent mix of moorland, mountains, coast, and farmland. Lots of lovely walking done with other half and the dog. A real break from it all.

In your magical world, what areas would be considered to be wild? Is this because of the natural geography, flora and fauna or because the area has untamed magic none of your characters can harness, yet alone control? If the latter, how did the area become magically wild at all? Was there a curse and, if so, what was the story behind it?

Alternatively, are there areas in your magical setting where magic cannot be? If so, how did this happen and has anyone tried to change the status quo here? (Bound to be consequences and interesting stories here from where people tried and failed. Could form the legends in your magical setting’s fictional history).

This World and Others – Calming Areas

I think we all need our areas of calm. For me, this is often in the swimming pool. I can’t get emails or phone calls there! Plus the exercise is beneficial and can help create a sense of calm because it makes me feel better in myself for having done this.

Holidays where I can get away from it all help here too but even in my immediate area, there are physical places, including in my own garden, which are just good places to be.

So thinking about our characters, what calming areas/things to help them would they seek?

Where would they go to get away from things, locally to them or otherwise? What makes these areas special for them and can getting to them for a while be the catalyst they need to resolve the issues they’re facing?

Definite story ideas there.

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Returning To The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick For 2025

August 22, 2025Leave a comment

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Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Huge thanks to Penny Blackburn, Joy Wood, and Julia Pattison for supplying some images connected to my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Two images of Lady were taken by Adrian Symes. She missed me when I was away! Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hope you have had a good week. Have spent my time slowly resuming normal routines, including the writing one, after my return from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Think I am getting there now. Have loved getting back to the park with Lady. The weather’s cooler at the moment and much pleasanter for us both.

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

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

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

Returning to The Writers’ Summer School Swanwick for 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for the photo.

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

Fairytales with Bite – Story Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

This World and Others – Who Tells The Tales?

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

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

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

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Returning to The Writers' Summer School Swanwick for 2025 https://t.co/vutBukEjiU Have been looking forward to sharing my CFT post. I share highlights from what was an amazing few days in Derbyshire and discuss the courses I went to – it will give you a good idea of the range.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 22, 2025

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You can now see the shortlisted stories for the competition Friday Flash Fiction runs to tie in with the Edinburgh Festival. See link. The screenshot shares more about FFF. It’s great for flash fiction writers, especially if you like the 100 word form.https://t.co/Jvd2WGpy87 pic.twitter.com/4xVhLoMYI0
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 22, 2025

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Author Interview – Val Penny and Historical Short Stories – The Ring

May 23, 2025Leave a comment

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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. A huge thank you to both Lynsey Adams (Reading Between the Lines Vlog) and Val Penny for great author, scene, and book photos for the Chandler’s Ford Today interview this week.

Slowly getting back to normal after our Northumberland break. Has been lovely to see Lady catching up with her friends here. All overjoyed to see each other again. Resuming the writing routine too and am making progress. I don’t know why it is but the first week back after a break is always the tough one to get through.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady loved seeing her pal Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, today so this means she has got to see all of her closest chums this week.

Writing wise, I am so pleased to welcome back Val Penny to Chandler’s Ford Today to discuss her latest adventure in print. Val has written a short story, Hunter’s Luck, which is part of The Ring charity anthology which is raising funds for The Reading Agency.

Val is well known for her crime novels in the DS Hunter Wilson/Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series as well as her Jane Renwick Thrillers. So writing a short story based around a historical object is definitely something new for her!

In a fascinating interview, Val shares how this project began, her own love of historical fiction, and working on this anthology and more. Do check it out.

Author Interview: Val Penny and Historical Short Stories – The Ring

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Another lovely day over the park where Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler friend again. Lady gets so much out of being with her buddies. Mind you, don’t we all?!

Don’t forget a fabulous interview with Val Penny is on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Will share the link tomorrow. Do check this out, especially if you’re a fan of short fiction, anthologies, and historical fiction as this interview combines the lot! See above.

Marketing Tip: Think consistency. What can you do regularly to share news about what you write? How can you make it entertaining for your readers so it doesn’t just come across as “buy my book”?

Sharing something of your writing process is a good help here. Many of your likely readers will be other writers and we are always fascinated by the process which works for colleagues. I try to think about what will be of value to readers when I do any marketing.

Sometimes a story about how you wrote something is a good way in here. It is my experience folk never mind this.

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler friend today. Nice time had by both.

Today is the eighth anniversary of Dad’s passing – can’t believe it has been that long.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to welcoming Val Penny back to Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday to discuss her short story, Hunter’s Luck, which is in the new charity anthology, The Ring. The book is raising funds for The Reading Agency. More details on the post later this week. See above.

Am always pleased to celebrate short stories and anthologies! Okay the fact I have work in several may mean I have a slight bias here! I maintain it is good bias to have though…

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Thrilled to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Unimpressed. Find out why the Lady Frances Haversham has excellent reason to be unimpressed by someone walking through the wall and what she does about it. Hope you enjoy the story.

As you know, I sometimes take part in Open Prose Mic Nights (always good fun) and flash fiction is a perfect form for this. Doesn’t go on too long. Listeners still get complete stories in the allotted time span. Plus you can mix up the mood of what you read to give a good feel for what flash fiction is and can be.

I rehearse my stories using Zoom to help me. I play back my recordings so I can hear how I come across. When I first did this, the playback made me realise I was speaking too fast so now know this is something I have to watch for and not do.

I may not be able to “see myself as others see me” (to paraphrase Robert Burns’ “O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!”) but I can hear myself as others would hear me. That is so useful.

Anniversaries, sad, happy, historic or what have you, can make great themes for stories. Also have you thought of giving your characters anniversaries which mean a great deal to them and cause them to act in certain ways on certain days.

Story ideas there, I’m sure, especially if other characters have to get to the bottom of why Character A is behaving the way they are on a certain Sunday, for example. Could work as funny tales too. Your main character could have an anniversary about something ridiculous – what are the reasons for it? Do they realise it is ridiculous? Does another character have to show them this?

Fairytales with Bite – Resuming Work

Resuming work after any kind of break, especially a well needed one, is hard. Doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in for this to be true. So how would your magical characters get back to their normal routine after a holiday or even if they’ve been deployed somewhere else for a while? Are they glad to get back or has their break away made them restless for something better? (It may be they think it is something better but this isn’t necessarily the case of course).

How do those they return to welcome their return? Are they glad or are they wary of how your character will be towards them now? Do they have cause to think this? I always thought Frodo moving on into the west with the elves made sense in The Lord of the Rings. He had been damaged so much he wasn’t going to be able to settle in The Shire, whereas Sam Gamgee could. He had someone to return to as well, which made a huge difference.

Assuming all goes well on the resumption of work, how does the break away, for whatever reason, impact on your character? Has it made them better at what they do? Could your magical employers send people off for breaks, knowing they need them every so often so this is something everyone does and is therefore used to doing?

Story ideas there, not least because there could be a character or more who refuses to have a break, feeling they don’t need it or fear it for reasons of their own.

This World and Others – Leaving Your Life Behind

Having a career or any other kind of break can make you feel as if you are leaving your life behind, even if it is for a short while, even it if is for something good like a holiday. How do your characters handle this or is it a case they definitely want to leave their lives behind? What has driven them to feel that way? Does the break help them?

When your characters has to leave their life behind, what is the driving force behind that? Are they successful? What kind of new life do they make for themselves? Is magic involved at all? To help them escape or is it that they’re escaping from?

What are the consequences of leaving a life behind? Who else is impacted by this? Do they try to get your characters back again? Are they successful?

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Thrilled to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Unimpressed. Find out why the Lady Frances Haversham has excellent reason to be unimpressed by someone walking through the wall and what she does about it. Hope you enjoy the story.https://t.co/802R8m6mNK pic.twitter.com/2uMxFRyeNs
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) May 23, 2025

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Author Interview: Val Penny and Historical Short Stories – The Ring https://t.co/sONlhtGlfM Am so pleased to welcome back Val Penny to CFT to discuss her new short story called Hunter’s Luck. This is part of The Ring anthology which is raising funds for The Reading Agency.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) May 23, 2025

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The Joy of Writing Events

August 20, 2024Leave a comment

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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. A huge thank you goes to Penny Blackburn for the image of me reading at the Swanwick 2024 Open Prose Mic Night, to Jen Wilson for taking the one of me at the Lift Up Your Pens session, and to June Webber for the Swanwick celebration photo. (I swear I was on the apple juice and NO not cider!).

Must admit the weekend was mainly spent recovering from Swanwick week but I suspect every other attendee did much the same! Have slowly resumed my usual writing routine this week. I find having a routine helps enormously. I know what I am writing when and by the end of the week I’ve got more done precisely because I haven’t dithered.

Of course most of this week I’ve also been thinking about what was I doing at Swanwick a week ago. It would never surprise me if other Swanwickers do the same.

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Glad to be swimming again. First time back in the pool after Swanwick. I came out feeling a little bit less like a beached whale! (You do get looked after very well at The Hayes!).

Writing Tip: Even if you’re not thinking of being published or are published yet, it would still pay you to work out what you would say if someone asked you about what you write. That question does make for a good ice breaker at events like Swanwick so it would pay to be ready for it.

Should the time come when you’re submitting work to a publisher/agent, they will want you to be able to describe your work succinctly. If you are writing a book or a short story collection, it also pays to think of your one line hook for it because these take more time than you might expect to get right.

Discussing how we can use numbers in stories as part of Lift Up Your Pens - Swanwick 2024

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Zoom on Wednesday. Plan to share some useful tips, after which I hope people will share a piece or two of flash fiction.

It’s not a bad idea to get used to sharing work in an environment where you are comfortable doing so. It gets you used to reading your work out. You receive immediate feedback from a friendly audience. It can be a major source of encouragement.

Talking of which I was encouraged Bridge House Publishing shared an excerpt from my Tripping the Flash Fantastic. See screenshot. Nice start to the week.

Pleased to be back on Authors Electric with a timely post. I talk about The Joy of Writing Events, two days after returning from the wonderful The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Post went out originally on 18th August 2024.

I look at the joys of being with like-minded people who understand the joys and frustrations of writing and discuss the benefits of joining in with writing events. Zoom, of course, has come into its own thanks to the pandemic making online events possible. I regularly run a workshop on flash fiction using this.

What is great is that there are benefits from both types of event. For me, being with others who understand that urge to write is one of the biggest ones. No need to explain anything!

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I was mugged by Lady on getting home from Swanwick yesterday as expected. Lady duly delivered and she was delighted to see her best pal, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, as we returned from our lunchtime walk today. Win-win for the dogs!

Eventful journey home yesterday as the train to London St. Pancras had to stop at Kettering because of a medical emergency and everyone had to change trains. Just hope that poor passenger is okay. Especially glad to get home after that and see everyone.

Will be writing about my week at Swanwick for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Looking forward to writing that one up! The rest of the weekend though is booked for recovery time. As expected, I came back from Swanwick, re-inspired, re-enthused, and shattered but these are all signs of a truly great week!
Many thanks to June Webber for the picture too!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I was resting a flash fiction competition entry prior to going to Swanwick. Glad to say I have now reviewed it and submitted it.

I knew there wasn’t a lot to do to it but those who came to my editing course will know I talked about having a “final, final edit” where I look for typos, ensure I’m following all the rules etc. I then get the story sent off which is now done for this one. I won’t know anything until much later in the year but I’m 11 days ahead of the deadline so that pleases me too.

Never leave submissions to the last minute – you will miss something. I’m not guilty of this one myself but have known it to be done. It never pays off.

So on to the next flash competition then and I do have something in mind to have a try for here. Now to get on with a first draft (though I will probably add this on to my flash fiction Sunday afternoon spot later this week).

Sometimes I know which competition I’m trying. Sometimes I have an idea for a character, write their story up, and then if a suitable competition comes up, I will review my story and after polishing it, send it in. But I do always like to have some flash “on the go”. That does pay off!

It’s Monday. It’s the first Monday back from Swanwick. I need a story! Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Dial a Character.

I suspect it will be a slow return to normal after the bliss of Swanwick week. Having said that, one thing which will help enormously is having my usual flash fiction writing on a Sunday afternoon! I also had the lovely task of judging some flash stories for a competition and I have now sent in my choice. It was hard to pick a choice (which is alway a good sign of great quality writing overall). I’ll be judging flash stories again for a writing group in September and am looking forward to doing that. Will also be resuming my editing work later this week.

Oh and have managed to submit a story for a flash competition, which I was “resting” during Swanwick week. I’d drafted it at the end of July, edited it a week or so into August, and then rested it, came back home, minor tweaks only required, and off it has gone.

One of the things I mentioned in my editing course was having a deadline by which you will send a piece off somewhere. It is possible to use editing as a form of procrastination and I am aware of this so always set myself deadlines to get work out by. It gets around that issue nicely.

Looking forward to seeing everyone next week at the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group on Zoom. I plan to share some top tips and I hope people will get the chance to share some of their flash pieces. Well, everyone likes to listen to stories, right?

Pleased to share the word about flash fiction at Swanwick. It is also a fabulous format to use at Open Prose Mic Nights because you can give your audience complete stories and still not over run. Win-win there.

Am looking forward to resuming my usual flash fiction writing on Sunday afternoon. Nice way to end the week. Good luck to anyone who has entered the Friday Flash Fiction competition (which is timed to run as the Edinburgh Festival runs).

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Goodreads Author Blog – Celebrating Books and Those Who Write Them

I’ve recently returned from my highlight of the writing year – a week spent at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, which is set in the lovely county of Derbyshire. I have a week of workshops and courses (I ran a two part one on editing there this year) and spend a week immersed in the wonderful world of writing with other authors who understand the drive to write at all.

It is also fantastic catching up with old friends in person. For the rest of the year we stay in contact online. It’s also lovely getting to meet new people and chat with them about what they do writing wise. (The topic is a guaranteed ice breaker).

I like to see Swanwick as a chance to celebrate books and those who write them. I come back refreshed, reinvigorated, and shattered! You can feel the creativity in the air, I think.

In general terms, I would like to see more celebrations of books and their authors. Books are one of the best things humanity has ever given to the world.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

This time I’m sharing the recent May 2024 edition which was based on memoir. My article was on using memoir techniques for character creation.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Celebrating Books and Those Who Write Them https://t.co/FrnLnwxnUE via @goodreads Celebrating books and authors is always good. I'm especially keen given my return from The Writers' Summer School, Swanwick. Books and authors – what's not to like? pic.twitter.com/M7gqCmut3n
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 17, 2024

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Authors Electric: The Joy of Writing Events by Allison Symes https://t.co/8GLfghmPMi Pleased to be back on Authors Electric with a timely post. I talk about The Joy of Writing Events, two days after returning from the wonderful The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. pic.twitter.com/UhrPVHVEwp
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 18, 2024

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It’s Monday. It’s the first Monday back from Swanwick. I need a story! Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Dial a Character.https://t.co/Hlt85NeZf4
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) August 19, 2024

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Ways Into Creating Characters

February 23, 2024February 23, 2024Leave a comment

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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 Geoff Parkes for taking the photo of me at one of my Swanwick Open Prose Mic Nights.

Hope you have had a good week. Lady and I have had a wet week -with many soakings! I am so glad writing is generally an indoor activity where I can stay dry! I share a flash fiction in Fairytales with Bite this time which I hope you enjoy. I also share how I wrote this. I look at character vocabulary too.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am pleased to share Ways Into Creating Characters as this week’s post on Chandler’s Ford Today. I hope you find it useful. I look at why stories are character led (I have good reason to think this given how many I invent over a year), and share various tips.

I look at picking a trait, interviewing characters, and thinking of situations you want to write up (as from that comes the kind of character who would work best in those situations) just to name a few thoughts and tips. I also discuss why a writer needs to know their characters well enough.

What is “well enough” will change from writer to writer as so much depends on what you need to know to be able to picture your people/other beings of choice in your head but you should figure out what it is you do need to know. I have found that last bit to be invaluable.

Ways Into Creating Characters

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Lady and I had a real soaking this morning. She dries off far quicker than I do! Then I went swimming…. That soaking I didn’t mind at all!

I’ll be looking at Ways Into Creating Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today this week, link up tomorrow. Hope you will find it useful. Looking forward to sharing it. See above.

Am also looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom next week. Theme will be on the fact it is a leap year and how we can use that in our flash stories.

Am also busy working on PowerPoint presentations and enjoying writing these. I hadn’t used PowerPoint for years until Zoom came into my writing life. It is useful for this. Flash writing helps for this kind of thing too. The slides work best if you don’t put too much on them! Far better to have more slides than crammed ones.

Hope you haven’t got too soggy today. Lady and I probably soaked up your share when we were out this morning. No ducking it today! Am glad rain doesn’t make you shrink otherwise we’d both be in trouble.

Newsletter out again shortly. Where does the time go? Having a monthly newsletter brings home how quickly it does pass. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Writing Tip: I work out my characters’ likely vocabulary as part of my outlining process. I have an idea of the kind of speech they would use (based on what I believe their educational levels would be) and, just as importantly, what they wouldn’t come up with unless under great stress.

So if I get a non-swearing character to suddenly change their mind on that, there has to be a great reason behind that change which plays out in the story. It does mean I would’ve dropped them right in it and the kind of situation they’re in is likely to produce this effect.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Time to end the working week with what I hope you will find is a fun story. Am delighted my latest piece is now up on Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you like Facing The Frog.

When I take part in Open Prose Mic Nights, I look for a mixture of flash pieces to read in terms of mood. I like to try and show what flash can be capable of and that it can produce moving, punch in the gut type tales as well as laugh out loud on a punchline ending ones.

I also mix up whether I read pieces in the first or third person. Flash works well for both. And yes when I am reading a first person piece, I do try to get “into” the character so it is almost a performance rather than a straight reading.

Why? Because I am showing the audience my character. Acting out their story helps me to get them across more vividly I think. And it is huge fun. I am being the “I” in the story after all even if I “just” read it so I may as well get right into the character’s head and “perform” their tale.

I’ve mentioned before flash is great for twist and/or humorous punchline endings. It is also great for giving a character who deserves it their comeuppance fast. Is fabulous fun to do.

One of my favourite stories of mine here is A Kind of Hell from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Comes in at 94 words, excluding the title, and I paint a scene where my horrible character does get justice and in an appropriate way too.

With these kind of stories, again I work out what the appropriate justice would be first, write that out, and then work out how I could logically get to this point. It works!

Fairytales with Bite – Crossing Spells

Crossing Spells by Allison Symes
The great inventors always discover things by accident. Oh they write down what they think will happen but something always goes awry and either there is an explosion or they find something which is even more useful to us all. There is never any middle ground here. Same goes for us fairy godmothers with spells.

Happened to me last week. I looked up my spells, made sure I had all the ingredients to hand, and then what should have been a pumpkin turned into a coach, let’s just say she turned up to the royal ball smelling of squash! I don’t know what I crossed to get that.

Still I must say the pumpkin style coach did have something about it. My critics say yes, it had a strong pong and the rats, which had been turned into footmen, remembered their original form and started eating away at the coach before it reached the Palace.

I had cast the right spell. Miranda, my best friend at fairy college, tells me I mispronounced one word and hence the desired effect was crossed with the basic ingredient and it all went horribly wrong.

Still the girl got there. Neither she nor His Nibs seemed to care and they’re getting wed next week. So no great harm done. But it has had the effect of whenever I go out and about, people point at me and chuckle. Some wag keeps leaving pumpkins on my doorstep too.

Miranda swears it wasn’t her but why did she stink of squash recently? She tells me she’s taken up gardening. Well if she has, she has the cleanest hands of any gardener I’ve known!

On the plus side, I have been invited to give the annual address to the Pumpkin Growers’ Society this year and I get paid for it too. I just hope the payment isn’t my weight in pumpkins though!

Ends
Allison Symes – 21st February 2024

Hope you enjoyed that. One of my favourite forms of writing is taking a well known fairytale and coming at the story from another angle. It works best when kept short and, I hope, funny and flash fiction is ideal for this.

Here I took the idea of a well meaning fairy godmother not getting things quite right and seeing what would come from that. So start with your character. Who are you using and why have you chosen them? What could you get them to do to bring something different to the tale?

And have fun writing the tale up!

This World and Others – What We Know as Science

What we know as science covers a wide field, of course, but what would it be thought of in your setting. Would science be seen as that or as a kind of magic?

I went to a medieval fair some time ago and spoke to the herbalist there. She was brilliant but told me that in medieval times, women who were renowned for their use of herbs were okay if things went well for their village because of that herb usage. If anything went wrong, they were likely to face accusations of witchcraft and a horrible death usually followed.

Yet in discovering you could cure headaches with the bark of a certain plant (which we now know led to the development of aspirin), that would have been seen as some kind of magic. What the herbalists had done was simply observe the effects of this bark. This had been observed repeatedly too as one or two spotting this would have just been dismissed. The fact that this was a known remedy meant this has had been tested and found to be true many, many times.

Observation and testing are core skills in any and every science.

So with this in mind, what would your characters make of what we call science? Are they accepting of it or suspicious? Has the practice of science (magic in your setting) gone wrong and led to suspicion of it? How could that be overcome?

Story ideas there I think.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

Screenshot 2024-01-31 at 14-34-15 Writers'Narrative eMagazine January_February 2024 Issue

Screenshot 2024-01-31 at 17-25-18 Writers'Narrative eMagazine January_February 2024 Issue

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Facing The Frog, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/sGunSCGKAe

Time to end the working week with what I hope you will find is a fun story. Am delighted my latest piece is now up on Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you like Facing The Frog. pic.twitter.com/GNmQW9W4Ta
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 23, 2024

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Ways Into Creating Characters https://t.co/sT0xXl5qbD Am pleased to share Way Into Creating Characters on CFT. I look at why stories are character led (I have good reason to think this given how many I invent over a year), and share tips, which I hope you'll find useful.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) February 23, 2024

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Random Generators and Story Moods

October 24, 2023Leave a comment

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.

It is shaping up to be a good week in that I will be running the Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom for the Association of Christian Writers on Wednesday, which is always fun. The exchange of news is useful to us all too. No one writer can know it all which is why it is important to network, whether it is in person or online or both. I’ve been very grateful for lots of useful information I’ve picked up this way over the years.

Facebook – General

Looking forward to the Flash Fiction Group meeting (Association of Christian Writers) tomorrow. Always great fun. Will be looking at marketing flash fiction, always a handy topic. Also looking forward to chatting to Swanwick friends on Zoom at the weekend. That’s always great fun too. Ah, the joys of Zoom!

For non-fiction, what draws you in? For me, the topic has to grip immediately and my go-to here is history based. I then pick a book based on the period it is covering. If it is one of my favourite periods (World War Two, the Wars of the Roses, the Elizabethan era (the first one!), then I’ll check out the blurb and if I still like it, it gets bought. Most of my non-fiction books are on Kindle and there can be some great offers here.

For fiction, I turn to crime (make of that what you will!), historical fiction, fantasy and I like a mix of novels and short story and flash collections. I make a point of ensuring I enjoy 99.9% of what I read. Life’s too short to do otherwise!

When writing my own fiction, I focus on getting my characters right (as that, I find, also helps get the plot right) and I want there to be something intriguing about them that will make readers want to find out more.

Ideas for fiction can spark from non-fiction

Lady had a great start to her week as she got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals. Temperature is up and down at the moment. Have just got used to “layering up” as it had turned cold only to find the temperature has shot up again.

Writing Tip: Editing always takes longer than you think so try to allow for that. This is why I take time off any official competition deadline and set my own date by which I have to send something in. It means I have a safety net here should I need it.

My personal deadline date is set at least a week before the official one. I plan when I will have my first draft done by. I also then plan when I will edit said first draft so by the time I reach my deadline all editing is done and it is then a case of having a final check for typos, have I followed the rules to the letter and so on.

I use the good old fashioned A4 diaries you can get from the Post Office for my planning and it works for me. I have found in writing my plans down I am much more likely to get them done. I also journal a little bit in my diary too – makes things more interesting for me too.

Weather calmer today, even seeing some autumn sun. Seasons can usefully be indicated in stories simply by what you get your characters to wear. You can also bring in colour to describe the clothing. It is unlikely a story set in my part of the world would have a character wearing a thick orange jumper in the height of summer. (If they are, there will be a reason for it and that will be explained by the story).

This can be an excellent short cut for descriptive passages and you can take it further. If that orange jumper is coupled with, say, a purple pair of trousers, I would want to know why a character would wear such a combination. Are they doing it for a laugh? Are they just outgoing and they show it through their clothing? Only one way I can find out and that’s to read the story. I would also want to know if these items had any bearing on the outcome of the story. (Would you turn up for a blind date wearing that combo? I know I wouldn’t!).

If I had a character wearing shorts, I would assume automatically the story has to be set in the summer. I would need the story to show why that wasn’t the case. But again I would then want to know why the character has chosen to wear shorts in a colder time of year – there will be a reason for it.

Hope everyone is okay – weather ghastly.

Will be talking about Scene Setting for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Many thanks for the comments on Facebook about my interview with Jennifer C Wilson re The Joy of Writing Groups and Workshops.

Author newsletter will be out again soon. To sign up for tips, news, story links etc., do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Working out what to read next on my Kindle given I’ve finished Churchill’s Wizards. Sometimes you can have too much choice! It’s a nice dilemma to have though.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Delighted to see some fabulous reviews coming in for The Best of CafeLit 12. My story, Jubilee, is in there. Do check out the reviews and the book at the link below.

It’s Monday. It’s getting darker earlier in the evenings and the UK hasn’t put the clocks back yet. Weather can’t make up its mind whether to be cold or mild. It’s still Monday. Time for a story then. My latest on YouTube is Away on Cloud Nine. Hope you enjoy it.

When I’m taking part in Open Prose Mic Nights and the like, I try to mix up the moods of the stories I’m reading. It’s a great way to showcase what flash can do and be. You usually have three to five minutes for your slot which is more than enough time to read a couple of stories.

I also practice what I’m going to read and good old Zoom helps me ensure I get my timings right. The record yourself and convert the file to an mp4 function is a great tool. Whenever I want to send something in which might be broadcast, I always use that facility. It’s the audio equivalent of not going over a set word count!

As you know, I sometimes use random generators to help trigger story ideas. A great use for the random question one is to get your character to answer the question. It will show you more about them.

What makes you cry? I generated this question for this post and thought there are a few ideas here.

1. Get the character to answer the question directly.

2. Think about whether the character resolutely will not cry, whatever the circumstances, and what led to that. There will be a significant story there.

3. If something makes you cry, but would not do so for your character, give some thought as to why this is the case.Not quite the same thing as 2 above given some folk just won’t cry for good reasons. It is not their way to “vent”.

Cruelty, for example, can easily make me cry but if my character isn’t moved by it, I want to know why and what would trigger them being upset instead. There has to be something that would trigger tears, surely? If so, what would that be and why aren’t they upset by an “obvious” thing?

It could well be the character is so used to cruelty they have become blinded to it (which is tragic in itself). It would change how they react and interact with other characters too.

4. What makes someone cry (or refuse to do so) will shed some light on what motivates them and this will be useful for you as the writer to know.

Goodreads Author Blog – Favourite Character Types

Stories are all about the characters for me. I like a good plot but if the characters don’t do anything for me, I won’t read on. I need to understand where the characters are coming from, even if I disagree with them. But if they don’t make me feel something, for me there is no point to the story.

Going on from that led me to think about favourite character types. I have some and these are:-

1. The underdog fighting back against the odds. Ranges from Cinderella to action heroes, this type!

2. Righters of wrongs. It’s why I am fond of crime novels. Favourite Poirot for me is Murder on the Orient Express. Favourite Marple for me is Nemesis. There is no question with either of these two that the murderer will get away with it. I like this a lot. I would also argue Elizabeth Bennet counts in this category when she puts down Lady Catherine de Bourgh!

3. The surprise character. This is where someone shows unexpected qualities or without whom the lead character could not succeed in their task. Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings is a great example of this given he shows unexpected courage.

4. The rough diamond character. Sam Vimes from the Discworld series is a prime example of this kind. Despite being a Duke, he’s never going to speak politely, he will fight crime and win. He is the type you want on your side in a fight! Sam Vimes is a cross between a righter of wrong and a rough diamond. Many characters can be more than one type.

Whatever the character type though, I do know I have to be gripped by them and I have to understand them for that to be able to happen.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Do you use locations in your stories? What details do you share so readers picture your setting? I sometimes hint at a location – for example, I refer to a village green and then reveal a spacecraft landed on it. Easy to conjure up an image of that. pic.twitter.com/lpeh2nzJvK
— ACW (@ACW1971) October 21, 2023

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liked Allison Symes's blog post: Favourite Character Types https://t.co/16I4b38BHx via @goodreads I look at favourite characters types including the underdog, the surprise character, the righter of wrongs, and the rough diamond for Goodreads. Do you have a favourite type? pic.twitter.com/WyHfjwUawl
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) October 21, 2023

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One reason I outline is so I can work out what I need to know myself and from that what I need to share with readers. The two never marry up. I always need to know what drives my characters. What they look like is well down on my need to know list. pic.twitter.com/avGdzi3bk9
— ACW (@ACW1971) October 22, 2023

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Sometimes I use standard settings – for example, one of my characters is setting out tea things (so must be at home). I then show what items they’re sharing. This gives a good indication of character age/social status. I love telling details. They show so much about character. pic.twitter.com/nPq5hJO5dn
— ACW (@ACW1971) October 23, 2023

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It’s Monday. It’s getting darker earlier in the evenings and the UK hasn’t put the clocks back yet. Weather can’t decide whether to be cold or mild. It’s still Monday. Time for a story then. My latest on YouTube is Away on Cloud Nine. Hope you enjoy it.https://t.co/VgmqKTfftc
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) October 23, 2023

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Windsor Castle and Cake Glorious Cake

June 27, 2023Leave a comment

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. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for taking the image of me reading at the Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night back in 2019. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos from Windsor Castle.

Had a lovely day out with my younger sister over the weekend. It was a trip down Memory Lane in some ways. While we’d not been to the Castle itself before, we have been to Legoland and, prior to that on that site, the old Windsor Safari Park. (That was very much of its time). In both cases we remembered the magnificent views of the Castle from those places. This time, it was nice to see the views FROM the Castle!

Facebook – General

Posting early as have a busy evening ahead. Have another one again tomorrow with the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom. Talking about flash fiction is always fun and it has been great to see people with this group have works published on Friday Flash Fiction etc. The proof of the pudding etc etc. Writing exercises (and I set these regularly) do spur creativity and are worth having a go at for that reason alone. If you can then go on to get the works published, even better.

Today would’ve been my father’s 86th birthday. He would have heartily approved of my kid sister and I having a trip to Windsor Castle over the weekend. The last time we were in the area at all, we were kids and he was driving. Yes, I am going a long way back. I have a long way TO go back!

Lady had a good time with her two closest pals, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and the Hungarian Vizler. It has been cooler today – nobody in my acquaintance, human or otherwise, has been sorry about that!

Looking forward to welcoming Gail Aldwin back to Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. (Many thanks again to Francesca Tyer for her two part interview – it was great).

Have submitted a short historical piece as an entry for an article competition. So enjoyed writing the piece too. Am pondering whether to have a crack at a flash fiction competition – deadline end August.

Another hot day (though cooler than yesterday). Lady and I are not sorry about that.
Many thanks for the great comments coming in on Deserved Desserts, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction. The opening line here is an odd one even by my standards but huge fun! Hope you enjoy it if you missed the link on my book Facebook page on Friday (From Light to Dark and Back Again).

Sometimes I will start an idea from a quirky opening line I’ve jotted down (usually during one of my brainstorming sessions). I then work out what I could do with that line and I usually find something. Don’t forget you can use random generators to come up with opening lines (quirky or otherwise). This makes for a good writing challenge. There are competitions which are based on opening lines set by the competition organisers so this is well worth having a go at on a regular basis.

Had a fabulous day out at Windsor Castle with my kid sister. Lovely time had by us both. So hot though. What is nice is we’ve been able to convert our tickets so we can visit again during the next year during the times the Castle is open to the public. We hope to get to do that. No extra money for this either. Also very impressed with how well organised they are for those with mobility issues.

Looking forward to sharing a fabulous interview with Gail Aldwin whose The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is out soon. Link up on Friday. And then I’ll be sharing more news about the Book Fair I’m going to be part of in July.

I’ve occasionally written a flash piece based on a work of art. Gill James set this as a challenge ages ago and it was fun to do. Will I do it again? At some point, yes. I was impressed with the Van Dycks and other masterpieces I’ve seen today at the Castle so plenty of inspiration to be found there! Am not short of potential material at least…

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I mix up the pieces I use for reading at Open Prose Mic Nights etc – in terms of mood, word count as well as by using different tales. I rehearse reading these (and yes I do often record them on Zoom to play back) but the important thing is to have a good read through (ideally several) as it is too easy to assume you know the material, you can wing it. Err… no.

What I do find the rehearsals do is help calm my nerves because I know I have rehearsed. It helps. The tricky bit is working out how much to drink (non-alcoholic as alcohol can dry the throat aside from any other side effects!) ahead of an event because you don’t want to have a dry throat when reading (it can lead to coughing) nor do you want to be caught short! I find about an hour before hand works well.

It’s Monday. It has cooled down a bit! Still time for a new story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Cake Glorious Cake. Is on the dark side, probably like the chocolate involved in the cake. Hope you enjoy it.

Internal thoughts are a great way to show character attitude (and usual practice is to have these in italics. It distinguishes them from “speech” and flags up the the reader this is a character thinking). I use this a lot as I often want to get across attitude and don’t we all think things we don’t then go on to say? Characters can do the same thing! What the thoughts will do is influence their behaviour and show the reader directly why your character is acting the way they are, both useful things.

Looking forward to running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom next week. Always good fun and it is an enjoyable challenge for me to find a useful topic to set exercises on. I like setting (and then doing) writing exercises. I’ve had several stories go on to be published which started life this way.

Now I must admit I find the hot humid weather not the easiest of conditions to cope with but it led me to wonder if you could get a character to find the same thing. How would that change their attitudes and behaviour? How would that change the course of your story? And are other characters tolerant of their struggles to cope with the conditions?

Goodreads Author Blog – Classic -v- Contemporary Reading

Now for me there is no debate when it comes to whether you should read classic or contemporary works of fiction and non-fiction. You do both of course. For non-fiction you need to be aware some information is likely to be out of date but there is still inspiration to be had from what people thought at the time of publication. That could even lead to fictional story ideas.

I often mix up my reading so I’ll read a novel, before going on to a story or flash collection and then I’ll move on to some non-fiction but it is a good idea to mix up between classic and contemporary as well. You don’t want to miss out on the classic works and you want to see what is out and about now. I see this as having a good reading diet (which I find helps inspire my writing too).

It’s also encouraging to know great writers have always been inspired by others’ stories. So I should be too! But it is interesting that ideas for stories often come when I’m reading non-fiction. And I can be as taken away by fabulous tale whether it is a classic or contemporary one.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

liked Allison Symes's blog post: Classic -v- Contemporary Reading https://t.co/48XCro6gN6 via @goodreads I look at why I mix up classic and contemporary reading as well as the kind of reading material (fiction and non-fiction, novel and short story etc) for Goodreads this week.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 24, 2023

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It’s Monday. It has cooled down a bit! Still time for a new story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Cake Glorious Cake. Is on the dark side, probably like the chocolate involved in the cake. Hope you enjoy it.https://t.co/ZTDAXub8co
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) June 26, 2023

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Kindness and Killing in Fiction – and Snow!

April 1, 2022Leave a comment

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. My CFT post this week has the most unusual title I’ve ever written to but I show there are plenty of examples of kindness and killing in fiction and not just in the usual genres. It’s good to be back on Friday Flash Fiction as well though I could have done without the snow coming back! But then that’s April in the UK for you!

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Two posts from me for 1st April 2022 – not an April Fools Day joke, honestly!

The first of the month is a busy time! Am delighted to share the link for the April edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads. As ever, the magazine is packed full of articles, photos, and, of course, stories!

My column this time talked about Dialogue and there was a fabulous response to my challenge to create an all-dialogue piece of flash fiction with a maximum word count of 300 words. Do check the column and stories out – as well as the rest of the magazine. You’ll be in for a great read but don’t just take my word for it – there is only one way to find out, isn’t there?!

Second post!
Okay – not so much sleet and snow today. Lady ran around like a mad thing this morning so almost certainly was unaware of just how cold it is right now. I got my gloves and scarf out! Hmm… I thought I had finished with them for a few months but never mind.

Author newsletter out this morning. Many thanks to those who have opened it so far. Hope you find it useful and informative.

My latest Chandler’s Ford Today post is called Kindness and Killing in Fiction, which is probably the oddest contrast I’ve ever written about. The funny thing is though there are plenty of examples of both across the fictional world and not just in the “obvious genres”.

I take a look at why characters must have a good reason (or reasons) for their actions and attitudes, though it doesn’t mean the author and/or their readers have to agree with them. We do need to see where the characters are coming from though – that is where realism comes in I think.

I also share my thoughts on why we read crime/horror when the world is the way it is and discuss signs of strength (kindness for me is one of them) and the role of justice in these stories. As ever, comments are welcome on the CFT page.

Kindness and Killing in Fiction

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Am still not impressed with the weather – have had sleet, hail, snow today. I thought March was supposed to come in like a lion and go out as a lamb. No sign of that happening today. Lady literally shakes it all off though she can have little “snow mountains” on her back until she decides to shake it off. She does this with rain too. I’ve learned to side step her when she does that! Having an extending lead is useful…

Writing wise, I’m getting on with various blogs and I’m planning to get back to actual flash writing at the weekend. By the end of a week, as long as I have managed to get a good mixture of fiction and non-fiction writing done, I’m happy.

And odd moments of time I use to draft a flash tale or brainstorm ideas which I can use as I see fit. Sometimes I will have a specific brainstorming session where I focus on ideas for future blogs. These sessions always pay off because I have things to come back to later when I’m not feeling so inspired.

And you learn to recognize every writer gets periods like that (and in my case I know it can be fuelled if I’m feeling especially tired). Having a notebook stuffed with ideas though is a great thing to fall back on!

Hope you have had a good day. Not impressed with the weather suddenly turning cold though it was lovely seeing Lady having a riotous time with her best buddies, a lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler. (Good rule here is to stand back and enjoy the show. You don’t want any of the three dogs cannoning into you!).

Looking forward to sharing my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. I’m talking about Kindness and Killing In Fiction this time. The whole crime genre has a major focus on the latter, of course, as a good whodunnit depend on there having been a crime to solve but kindness turns up more often than you might think.

A huge thank you to all who commented on my More Than Writers blog about Spring-like Writing yesterday.

My author newsletter goes out again on Friday. I enjoy putting these together and I hope you make good use of the tips and prompts shared.

One thing I’ve found useful to remember when rejections/no hears happen is to recall every writer goes through this and there’s nothing to stop you revisiting a story, polishing it some more, and sending it out elsewhere. I’ve had work published doing that. Good luck!

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Am delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my The Way Time Smells and a huge thanks to all the who have sent in fabulous comments on this already. This story is loosely based on fact and I evoke how a particular scent takes my character back in time. The scent I use here is one that does take me back in time in a similar way. Hope you enjoy it.

I had the idea for this one because the title came to me quickly and I know I would then need a scent to “latch on to” and why someone would link a scent with something in their past.. I’ve found before when the titles come first that tends to also give me a story structure from the start and I find that really useful. That was the case here.

I’ve mentioned reading your work out loud before to hear how it sounds and the nice thing with flash is of course that doesn’t take long. The other reason I do it (and record myself to play back later) is to work out a kind of “set” for Open Prose Mic Nights. I like to have a balance of different moods of story, vary the word counts I read to, vary whether I use a first or third person narrator etc. I hope that makes things more interesting for an audience. I know it does for me!

For humorous flash pieces, such as my Bypassing The System in Tripping the Flash Fantastic, I write my punchline down first and then work out different ways as to how I could logically get to that point. I do the same for twist in the tale stories. To me it makes sense to write down what I know I want to be in the story and then work out everything else around it.

Occasionally I have had a go at competitions where they give you a line they want you to put in the middle of the story. That’s a tough call but the way I’ve tackled this is to work out what must lead from the middle line to get to the end.

Having got two-thirds of the story down, I then figure out what the beginning has to be. Sounds a bit convoluted I know but it does mean that I have completed the “brief” and what leads to the middle makes sense as does what comes out from it to the end. I find with these stories knowing what the ending is, again, helps me to sort out the beginning.

Fairytales with Bite – Time for a Spell?

I’ve long believed that Cinderella’s fairy godmother was somewhat late for the party when she did finally turn up. Where was she when poor old Cinders was having such a hard time of it being ill-treated by her stepmother and her daughters? Cinders could have done with earlier intervention I think – it would’ve limited the misery for one thing.

That said, when is the right time for a magical being to intervene to help someone? Is there a case for leaving intervention as late as possible to (a) give the character to chance to help themselves and (b) to ensure all other options are exhausted first? (Not a lot of comfort for poor Cinders there!).

Whenever you get your characters to intervene magically, ensure there is a good reason for that intervention and that magic is the only option available at this point in the story. Set something up earlier in the story to show magical intervention is a distinct possibility to avoid any disbelief on the part of a reader.

And if you can get a character on the receiving end of such help to do something to help the process, even If it is only by just fetching possible “ingredients”, then so much the better. They are at least contributing to their own positive outcome here.

This World and Others – Recollections

Memories matter. They matter to individuals. They matter to countries. They matter to a world, fictional or otherwise. Culture is built up (or destroyed) by what people choose to remember. And what is chosen here will reflect a great deal on the nature of the character or culture doing the reflecting.

We, for example, remember the fallen in world wars etc for Remembrance in November. Others may see remembering the fallen as something they simply do not do – they only recall the heroes, the ones who survived.

For your fiction, you can pick elements like that to show the nature of your fictional world overall. A world that celebrates war is going to be very different from one that remembers and honours more peaceful ways of living. A culture that remembers its failures as well as its triumphs is likely to be a better one in which to live simply because it has learned to be honest with itself about its failures.

So what will your characters recollect? What is officially chosen to be remembered? What is remembered but talked about very quietly for fear of the authorities?

What would your characters do if they come across something that has to be told or recollected in some way yet goes against their world’s policy on what is remembered? Will they dare to cross the line here and what would the outcomes be if so? I would suspect there would be more than one outcome. There would be the obvious one of the authorities punishing the character but what would happen if the words had “got out” and others had got to hear the forbidden truth? What could be the outcome from that?

Allison Symes – April 2022 – Flash, Friends, and Fun – https://t.co/msYpVibeoP
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 1, 2022

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Kindness and Killing in Fiction https://t.co/VRJ6cuHqFS My CFT post is the strangest contrast I've written about but you will find many examples of both in fiction. I look at how there should be good reasons behind character actions and attitudes, whether we like them or not. pic.twitter.com/WgyGyKsPDx
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 1, 2022

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The Way Time Smells, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/fOv5XQTm3Y Pleased to be back on FFF. This is loosely based on fact. I evoke how a scent takes my character back in time as this scent does for me. Hope you like it. Thanks for the great comments in so far. pic.twitter.com/1w8Q35QH90
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 1, 2022

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Am delighted to share a link for April's Mom’s Favorite Reads. My column is about Dialogue. There was a fab response to my call to create an all-dialogue flash fiction tale with a maximum word count of 300 words.Have a good read, you know you want to! https://t.co/QaWdoO3nSb
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) April 1, 2022

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Getting Into Character Heads and New Stories

January 11, 2022Leave a comment

Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Images of me reading at Swanwick Open Prose Mic Nights taken by Geoff Parkes and Penny Blackburn. Image of me book signing at Swanwick was taken by Fiona Park. Many thanks, folks. Looking forward to seeing you again at Swanwick later this year hopefully!

Hope you enjoyed the weekend. Glad to be back to producing stories for YouTube and Friday Flash Fiction.

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Hope you have had a good Tuesday. Many thanks for the views coming in on Lucky Number, my latest YouTube video. It is always great fun putting these together. I adore using the Book Brush tool for videos here and being able to add a music track from YT’s library of free-to-use clips.

I don’t have a lucky number. I don’t believe in such things but characters can and do. How would their belief in a lucky number affect their behaviour? How would other characters respond to their behaviour? Equally what would their belief in an unlucky number cause them to do?

If you set your story in another world, what numbers would that world consider lucky or otherwise? Thirteen, for example, is often considered unlucky because there thirteen people at the Last Supper of Christ, including the traitor, Judas Iscariot. There usually is some reason why numbers have luck associated to them. Could you find interesting stories to tell about that?

Glad to get to my desk to sit and write for a while. Mondays are always horrendously busy for me. Is there a particular day of the week you find challenging? For me it is a relief to get to my desk on any day of the week but especially on Mondays. I find writing so therapeutic and I can feel myself relax as I start).

I don’t know quite what it is but getting into the heads of characters and bringing them to life is just wonderfully relaxing and a challenge. Responding to that challenge gets the old imaginative sparks flying and before I know it I am taken out of myself which I guess is the point! Characters should seem real to you for them to stand any chance of seeming real to a reader.

Hope you have had a good weekend. Weather better but colder today.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is called Animals in Fiction and I am looking forward to sharing that on Friday. I share some of my childhood favourites here and what I think would be the downsides to writing animal characters. Mind you, this is from someone who wrote a story from the viewpoint of a mother dragon! See below.

Has been a blustery and wet day in soggy Hampshire. Hope things have been better with you (though given the power cut earlier this week I am just thankful to have got in from walking the dog to a nice cosy home!).

Do you find it harder to get your creative juices started at this time of year when it is dark and gloomy (in the UK at least) or does the time of year not matter? I find when I get started, I end up being on a roll. It can be the getting started which is tricky which is why I use a number of ways to help me begin a story. I’ll be talking more about that in my next column for Mom’s Favorite Reads but in the meantime there is always the January issue to enjoy.

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I’ll be looking at Animals in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I sometimes have animal characters in my flash fiction but I prefer writing human/humanoid characters. It is easier to give them thoughts and dialogue!

But animals can (and have been used to) represent human behaviour, especially in fables. Many of those would fall within the flash fiction category thanks to their word count. The best fables are kept short. They’re easier to remember this way and especially in the days before print that mattered.

Pleased to share Lucky Number, which is my latest YouTube story. See link further up. I used a random number generator to come up with 766, the “lucky” number in this tale. It isn’t usually a number associated with luck, good or otherwise, so why is it considered lucky by my character, Denise? Check out the video – hope you enjoy.

One of the joys of flash is being able to capture those moments which would not sustain a full standard length short story of 1500 words or more, yet is still a complete tale in and of itself. It means nothing is wasted here.

So if you have a writing exercise jotted down which won’t come to more than 1000 words, why not review it and see if you can turn it into a piece of flash fiction? It doesn’t just have to sit in your notebook!

And given there are more competitions and markets for flash now (especially the indie press), there’s every reason to try and get it published too. Good luck!

Many thanks for the comments coming in on New Start, my first story of the New Year for Friday Flash Fiction.

Am looking forward to the ACW Flash Group Meeting later on in the month too. That took a break for Christmas and it will be lovely to see everyone again, even if we are in a Zoom box!

When choosing pieces of flash to read out, I usually focus on the 100-worders. They’re to the point and are effective at showing what flash is quickly. If I’m reading at an Open Prose Mic Night, I usually start and finish with a 100-word tale and then have something a little longer in the middle.

Even then I tend to go for the 250-300 words and no more. These stories still have the “oomph” effect of flash but also show you can put in a little more, relevant, detail which adds detail and information that you can’t do in the drabbles.

And it is fun to mix up the word counts I write to – give it a go! There will be markets and competitions for the differing lengths of story.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Why Reviews Matter

Every writer with a book out longs for reviews but they can be difficult to come by. I’ve never really understood why. Reviews don’t have to be long. Indeed the short one or two liners often work better.

And, aside from buying the book itself, leaving a review is one of the best ways you can support authors.

What I like to see in a review (and try to do when I give them) is for the reviewer to give a flavour of what the book is about without giving too much away.

I like to see mention of characters that have grabbed the reviewer’s attention and, in flash and short story collections, which were the “stand out” tales.

Reviews obviously help raise an author’s profile. The author can quote from them on their website, Facebook and social media posts etc. And they really don’t take long to write.

My policy here is to review a book as soon as I have finished reading it. It ensures I don’t forget to do it. Maybe that is where the problem lies. Any thoughts?

liked Allison Symes's blog post: Why Reviews Matter https://t.co/swFwOL1bgU via @goodreads I look at reviews this week, share why they matter, and outline what my review policy is. Any thoughts on why reviews can be hard to obtain? Comments welcome over on my Goodreads page. pic.twitter.com/6f1sRzuqud
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 8, 2022

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Pleased to share Lucky Number, my YouTube story. I used a random number generator to come up with 766, the “lucky” number in this. It isn’t usually a number associated with luck, so why is it considered lucky by my character, Denise? See the video.https://t.co/j5uPnKFMMI
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 10, 2022

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