Tag: Opening and closing lines

Favourite Writing Exercises and Why They’re Beneficial

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share my latest CFT post – Favourite Writing Exercises and Why They’re Beneficial.

I remember being set writing exercises when I was first starting out as a writer and being terrified by the thought of them. There was also no way on this earth I would read any of my offerings out loud! How things have changed!

As I mentioned yesterday (see below!), the fact nobody expects perfect prose helps a lot. I also found listening in to contributions from others helped too. It kind of reassured me I was on the right lines with what I had drafted and that in time built up my confidence enough to start sharing my work out loud. Feedback from that helped still further.

I discuss in my post why it is a good idea to get used to writing exercises and practicing some of the most common ones set (opening and closing lines) also helps enormously.

I found it meant I was less unnerved when a speaker at a conference set such an exercise. I knew I’d already practiced them and while I wouldn’t know (rightly!) what the line would be I had to write to, I knew I could do the exercise. That in turn built up my confidence to draft something for that exercise and with time and practice, you get better at most things, including exercises like these.

Great comments coming in already for my latest CFT post. Do share what your favourite writing exercises are.

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Many thanks for the wonderful response to yesterday’s post about my tote bag with the cover for Tripping the Flash Fantastic on it and a big, big thanks to my publishers, Chapeltown Books.

Looking forward to sharing tomorrow’s CFT post as it is about writing exercises and I love these. I never used to do so. I used to feel terrified when I was set any at writing conferences etc but when I realised nobody was expecting perfect prose first go, I relaxed! That funnily enough was when I started to enjoy said writing exercises.

It helps to see them as a fun way to trigger ideas you can polish up later. And that is the whole point. You do polish them up later and from that who knows? I’ve submitted pieces of flash fiction and short stories which started life this way and then went on to be published on CafeLit etc. Talking of which I will have another piece on there later this week which will be a lovely way to start the writing year!

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Had a lovely surprise from my publisher today – a tote bag with my book cover for Tripping the Flash Fantastic on it! Guess what I’ll be using to take my books about with me when we can finally have live book events again! One chuffed author here…!

Lady was chuffed to see her best buddie, the lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback, in the park today. A good time was had by all. Lady doesn’t get to see her bestie every day so naturally wants to make the most of things when she does. (And her buddy takes the same view!).

My CFT post this week will be about a couple of my favourite writing exercises and why I think they’re beneficial. Link up on Friday. Hopefully you’ll also find it useful.

For the rest of January and into February, I will be sharing via CFT various authors’ thoughts on the impact of lockdown on their book launches. One of those authors will be me of course! But I will be kicking the series off with an interview with someone who is both a publisher and an author and has had to face lockdown and all that has meant from both sides of the writing business. All fabulous stuff and I can’t wait to share these posts. So plenty to look forward to here.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

What do you look for most in a story? I look to be entertained and it is a case of deciding whether to be entertained by a crime story, a historical fiction piece, fantasy, or what have you. For me, stories are all about taking a reader to a different place for a short while (and in the case of flash fiction, it is a very short while – and hooray I found a very I could justify using there! Very is one of my wasted words and nearly always gets the red pen treatment! It is unusual for me to leave any in!).

I guess lockdown has proved again how important stories are. The great thing with stories is you can go anywhere you like with them without moving one step from home.

So your travel guide for this weekend – what is it to be? Fantasy worlds, a dash of flash, a non-fiction book (and yes non-fiction is a form of storytelling too). And if you’re not sure where to start why not try a short story or flash fiction collection? See them as mixed assortments and doesn’t everyone like those from time to time? No calories either!

Whatever you read this weekend, enjoy – and escape for a while! It is a lovely feeling…!

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I’ll be talking about writing exercises in my post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week (link up tomorrow) but I like to mix up the kind of exercise I do, whether I’m specifically using them for flash work or not.

I love opening and closing lines (the theme of tomorrow’s post) as these are my two favourite forms of writing exercise but there are all kinds of things you can use as a prompt to start writing. I’ll talk a bit more about that in my post tomorrow but you can pick a random object from your desk, say, and work it into a story. You can use my other favourite things, the random generators, to trigger things to again work into a story and/or use as the theme and/or use as the title.

I like taking pictures when I’m out anywhere (not that this is happening for the foreseeable future!) but do look up your old pictures. Can any of those inspire a flash fiction story?

And however you start writing your tales, be sure to enjoy the process. That matters. I believe at least some of the writer’s enjoyment of the process does come through in the finished work and readers pick up on that subconsciously.

Anyway, why wouldn’t you enjoy what you write?!

Photo by Mark Neal on Pexels.com


I’m currently drafting a short story which I suspect will end up being at about the 1500-2000 words mark, so well above the flash limit, but I mention it here as I’ve fallen for the lead character and know I have got right under their skin.

Now I do this for all of my characters but this one does have that extra sparkle about them and I adore that. Hopefully future readers will pick up on this and love this character too in due course.

You need to fall for your characters and get under their skin for flash stories too, albeit this has to be done on a smaller scale. It helps to focus on the one thing that makes your character worth writing for and the one incident that is their story. What is it you have to write up?

Outlining helps here as you list what you love about your character and what could happen to them based on their situation. You then pick the strongest scenario based on that list. It will be the one that grabs you the most. Take time out to think about why that is. I suspect it will be because the scenario will bring out something special from your character, whether it highlights their sense of humour, sense of fair play, or simply just shows them in their best light.

And then enjoy every moment of writing the story up!

 

Fairytales With Bite – Favourite Kinds of Fairytale Character

Do you have favourite kinds of fairytale character? I always root for the underdog but I also love characters like Shrek that overturn perceptions as to how their characters are normally seen. Well, why can’t there be a good ogre? The word ogre itself conjures up the image of something nasty but who gave it that link? It also leads to the interesting question of what is the difference between a bad fairy godmother and a good witch? Who would you rather have in your corner?!

I also think fairytale characters are metaphors for us. There are the goody-goodies who never put a foot wrong, the ones who start out wrong but turn out okay in the end, the ones who are just plain evil (and usually they’re the ones after power which naturally they will only use for their own purposes). Maybe this is why fairytales resonate with us all still. We recognise the character types.

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This World and Others – What Makes Your World Work for a Reader?

What is it about your fictional world that you need to get across to your reader? What do they need to know about how things work?

The ideal of course is for your characters to show your reader the world they live in.

Readers pick up on context so think about that when writing dialogue. Dialogue in fiction needs to sound as natural as possible but you also don’t want characters to tell each other what they might be expected to know.

Example 1:-
Character A: I hear our newly elected Lord Mayor Renstung is a complete….

Hmm… a lot of telling here… also you want your readers to judge the Mayor for themselves and not be told what to think.

And it is highly likely Character B will know about the recent election and the new Mayor so what would be a better way of showing readers the situation here?

Example 2:-
Character A: Did you like the results on Thursday?
Character B: No. I was hoping old Whatitsface would be our new Mayor, not that complete…. Well you know what Renstung is like.
Character A: Hardly likely to forget am I?
Character B: I know you’ve mentioned the burning of your village on his orders but I don’t think you told me how old you were when that happened.

Much better. Yes, a higher word count but you find out something about Character A here, Character B comes across as sympathetic, and you can sense why these two are likely to be friends. For one thing, their views on politics look similar just from this short exchange.

When it comes to narrative, and you need to describe, say, the Mayoral building, do so succinctly. Think impact. What do you want your readers to see?

Example 1:-
The Mayoral Hall was built in the 50th century and looked like a wedding cake carved out of marble. It had won awards for its architecture but the prize giving committee were all members of Renstung’s cabinet.

This is okay. You get an image.

Example 2:-
There was something about the marble Mayoral Hall that made people shiver as they went past it. It might look like a wedding cake but countless people had died inside It. Nobody was sure of the numbers.

I would go with this wording. You still know it’s marble (the age isn’t the most relevant thing so I’ve cut that out), I’ve still given you the shape of it, but I’ve also associated it with horror. And that would be the most important thing for your readers to know.

Always ask yourself if you were reading your work as if it it had been written by someone else, how does the writing make you feel and react? There should be a reaction!

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Flash In The Pan, Meeting Targets, and Book Tokens

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Image Credit:  Unless otherwise stated, all images are from Pixabay.

Facebook – General

Lovely day (over the weekend) having a family get-together. Weather held for just long enough too. Lots of laughter, happy memories of those we’ve lost, and mutual support. Gatherings like this are so precious.

What do your characters cherish most? What would their get-togethers be like? Is there anyone they absolutely would NOT invite under any circumstances? How did that come about?

Is there a character who would love to have get-togethers but has nobody to invite? Do they make efforts to break through loneliness, shyness etc? Are they successful? (I must admit for a story like that I would always prefer an upbeat ending).

Happy writing!

 

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Facebook – General – 

and Association of Christian Writers –

More Than Writers – Flash In The Pan

It was a real labour of love to write about flash fiction for the Association of Christian Writers’ More than Writers blog today. I looked at the benefits of writing it and what it has taught me. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist the pun of Flash in the Pan though!

Having said that, puns can work well as titles in flash fiction. You are looking for the title to do a lot of the work for you in setting mood and what is likely to come, especially for those competitions and markets where the title is part of the word count.

I like to mix up how I come up with titles to keep me on my toes. You can’t use puns all the time, it would be tiresome, but every now and again, they can add spice to a mix of stories.

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I used to love writing letters to friends when I was much younger. I like email and couldn’t imagine life without it. (It makes submitting work SO much easier and cheaper for one thing!).

But there was something nice about receiving a hand-written letter with your name all over it and you knew it was from Friend X. Guaranteed to brighten my day as I not only had the joy of the letter to read, I always anticipated the joy of replying!

I occasionally still receive a hand-written letter as part of my volunteer role for the Association of Christian Writers and those are a joy too. I suppose it’s the personal touch that really rings home here. Someone has taken time and gone that extra mile for me. (Thank you!).

How can we as writers go the “extra mile” to benefit our readers? My approach here is to try to make my characters as engaging as possible (even if they are the type a reader loves to hate! I like (silently) booing a “good” villain myself so want to make sure there is something a reader can really get behind here!).

I like dialogue to ring true (I rarely use any kind of accent in a story. Nor do I use old English for historical flash fiction. I always aim for clarity – and frankly old English isn’t always that clear. You just want touches to conjure up the old worlds for readers. So I may use the odd old word, I try to get my characters to speak in such a way it makes sense for them to speak that way – they are always true to their class – and above all I will show something of the setting. Those are generally enough details for the reader to pick up the right images. Then I get on with the story!

Whatever you write, thinking about what the reader needs from your characters I believe is very important. I’m looking to entertain others with my stories (I hope) so I need to figure out how to reach out to those I’d like to read them. After all they don’t have to read my work so I see it that I must go the extra mile so they might want to!

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Pleased to say I reached my target at Slimming World tonight. I don’t know yet if I’ll be aiming to lose more but this particular journey has been a long one. That’s okay. The writing journey is also a long one and that’s not the only similarity between the two kinds of journey.

1. You know the journey will take a long time and that you have to be in it for the long haul to make progress. That’s okay. Go into it with your eyes wide open.

2. There WILL be blips along the way (rejections, that block of cheese which somehow managed to vanish by itself!). What matters is accepting that and learning how to handle them. (Can you learn from the rejections? Can you try your story out somewhere else? Can you learn NOT to have blocks of cheese in except for special occasions and relish them more because it’s for a special treat?).

3. When success does comes (whether it’s a publication credit or a bigger weight loss than expected comes, sometimes ANY weight loss!), you will cherish it the more because you know the hard work that has gone into either of these. You really will have earned it. That is a good feeling.

4. There will always be someone who will, deliberately or otherwise, try to undermine what you are doing. (You don’t need to lose weight. You don’t want to submit a story THERE. Said unhelpful folk either feel threatened by what you are trying to achieve or really don’t realise what they’re coming out with is undermining you. Best advice? Ignore. Focus on what you are trying to achieve and Go For It. You have nothing to lose here after all. If you achieve what you would like or close to it, that’s fab. If not do you need to revisit your goal? Perhaps go for it in baby steps rather than try to do it in giant strides.). What you really need are people are constructive and can share helpful thoughts and comments. When you find such people, cherish them and naturally always try to be that way yourself.

Good luck with the writing. If any of you are also on a losing weight journey, good luck with that too. Neither are easy but both can be rewarding! (Naturally any food or drink in the Pixabay pictures are completely calorie and syn free!).

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

What things stop you writing? For me the biggest one is fatigue. So if I know I’ve got a particularly busy week coming up, I will draft a few posts and then upload them later. It takes any pressure off me, I still feel like I’m writing (which means the world to me), and I get things done.

It’s never lack of ideas or time, funnily enough, which is a relief. Fighting fatigue is best done for me by ensuring I get enough sleep, eat and drink well etc. I pay for it if I don’t do those things. It pays for writers to look after themselves here. It does help the creative spirit, especially since we are all in this for the long haul.

Happy writing and look after yourself!

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One of the frustrations of flash fiction I used to find was having a fabulous character that I wanted to do much more with, but I’ve said all that is needed to be said in their story!

One way round that? Linked flash fiction stories! The only thing to ensure is, however many other stories you do with this Fabulous Character in it, that each and every story is strong, stands in its own right, and builds that character over the series. It’s great fun when you get it right. Yes, you do need to know how many stories would be appropriate. Better to have only two linked but strong stories than six, out of which four are weak. You never want to come across as stretching an idea or character too thinly.

The nice thing with linked stories is I still get to enjoy the challenge of coming up with new characters for each story as the Fabulous Character won’t meet the same characters in each and every story. They’ve literally moved on to the next adventure and so will come across new people and challenges to overcome (or not as the case may be!).

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I love writing flash fiction using a closing line and working backwards to the beginning. It means I can come up with a humdinger of a closing line and then work out logically how my character(s) would get to that point. Agatha Christie often worked backwards like this.

But I think I have the most fun when I have a humdinger of an opening line. I like to work out different possibilities and then I go with the one I like best. It is never the first idea I’ve come up with either. This is where I find spider diagrams useful as I work out varying possibilities.

The important point though is to have fun writing. I think that fun does somehow permeate through to a reader. Certainly when I read, I pick up on the liveliness of a character portrayal, for example, and my first thought is inevitably something on the lines of the writer had fun writing that! Naturally I would like readers to think the same about what I come up with!

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The things I look for in a good flash fiction story (whether written by me or not) include:-

1. Impact. (Did the story have any?! Also was the impact what I think the writer meant me to feel? Was it the impact I wanted it to have on my readers?).

2. Imagery. (What images does the story/characters conjure up in my mind? What images do I think my story will give readers?).

3. For twist in the tale endings, did I see the ending coming or was the author able to keep me guessing? (Both are fine, funnily enough. The former shows the author delivered on what their story promises. The latter keeps me on my toes).

4. Appropriate use of words.A really well written story will make me gasp in admiration at the way the writer has used the language. They won’t go for the “obvious” either. I can learn from that (and do!).

5. I finish the story, having relished reading it. I then re-read it and can find something new in it that I missed on first read through.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Book Tokens and Gift Vouchers

Do you remember the book token? I was given a few of these when I was growing up in the 1970s and loved them. The thought of going to a bookshop and choosing something was so exciting.

Of course back then there were more bookshops to choose from. I definitely don’t see the reduction in bookshops (and indeed libraries) as something to be proud of, just the opposite in fact.

A £5.00 book token back then would certainly mean I could get two paperbacks (£1.99 each – those WERE the days!).

One of the earliest series I collected was Enid Blyton’s Famous Five as my local TV company (now sadly defunct) was bringing these to life on the small screen. Naturally the books were rushed out again with new covers linking in to the TV series.

These days it tends to be gift vouchers but I love those you can spend almost anywhere, including W.H. Smiths and Waterstones. I needn’t tell you where I spend mine after that, need I?!

The nice thing is I still have that sense of excitement about the prospect of choosing a new book. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that. Neither do I want to!

Do you remember where you spent your book tokens and what were some of your cherished purchases?

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