Tag: Perspective

Why Write Fiction

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week so far. Not bad here. Keeping busy writing wise and Lady is having a lovely time at the park. It is the simple things in life….


Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with a question which might seem odd for me to ask. My topic is Why Write Fiction and I discuss this in terms of the value of stories.

I also look at how they provide escapism, entertainment, and education and how fiction encourages empathy because you identify with the characters you’re reading about.

Hope you enjoy the post and comments are welcome in the CFT box.

Why Write Fiction

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Despite some damp weather this morning Lady had a lovely time at the park and managed to meet up with her Hungarian Vizler pal. Both were pleased to see each other which is always lovely to see.

Don’t forget my Why Write Fiction post will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow (see above) and I plan to share something of the lovely time I had at The Chameleons Open Evening the following week. Their history is a remarkable one.

Pleased to say there will be a smashing author interview coming up towards the end of July too. Always good to have things to look forward to, I find!

 

Hope today has been a good one for you. Has become very warm again today.

Enjoyed a great discussion on an online editing meeting today. We were thinking about what editors (and I would say this applies to writers just as much) can do to help themselves when the weather does get hot. My thoughts here were on ensuring you keep up a good fluid intake (the non-alcoholic kind!) and having more screen breaks. Mind you if you do drink more to keep fluid intakes up, as you should, the screen breaks will follow out of necessity a little while later.

But it is important to think of these things. Not enough fluid intake will lead to concentration levels dropping. As a result, you will feel more tired more quickly so it is worth doing. This is where Lady helps me. I have to take her out every so often so I get a “furry induced” screen break and that usually leads to a good drink for both of us when we get back again.

Writing wise, I do a lot of my writing in the evening, which is usually a lot cooler and that helps a lot too.

But do look after yourself.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Delighted to be on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Fifty. Find out how Melanie comes to the aid of her neighbour Jane, who is not looking forward to hitting a landmark birthday. Mind you, Jane does have a good reason. Find out what here.

Another reason to read widely and well is it will influence what you write. I love fairytales, history, crime, and many other types of fiction so all of those things come into my flash fiction and short stories (not necessarily all at the same time). Reading inspires your own creativity as well as being the single best way to support the industry you want to be part of.

So investing in books (and I do see them as that) is a good idea. I often test out authors new to me by trying their ebooks first and then there are the libraries. Borrowing from there supports them. There are all sorts of ways to develop your own reading and it will encourage your own writing. I’ve found this to be the case.

We all build on what has gone before. Even Isaac Newton acknowledged this when he talked about if he had seen further, it was because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. It’s just as true for writers.


Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later this month. Will be looking at the theme of perspective.

Talking of which, do you find you have a favourite perspective? Flash fiction has encouraged me to write more in the first person but I do try to balance that by ensuring I write plenty of third person stories too. I sometimes write in the second person but limit this as I think it can come across as gimmicky but for short works it can be effective. You do need a strong “you” character for readers to get behind though.


Fairytales with Bite – Everyday Upsets in a Magical World

How are everyday upsets coped with in your magical world? You know the kind of thing – everything from someone not putting the loo seat down (or up) to putting a spoon in the wrong place in the cutlery drawer.

We might moan at our loved ones on this but what would your magical character(s) do?
Would they just moan or would they do something else given they would have the powers to do so? Or are there rules preventing that kind of thing?

Is magic only allowed to be used for specific purposes? Is it banned from being used for settling petty squabbles and how is that policed? What led to the rules being brought in? Story ideas there, I’m sure.

What would count as an upset in your world with regards to the legitimate use of magic? What would count as a break of the rules? Are minor indiscretions overlooked (student pranks etc) or is every break, no matter how minor or otherwise, clamped down on? Who would do that? What happens to those who cheat and how are they found out? What damage could they do if not stopped?

Again story ideas there. I think there would be potential for humour too.

This World and Others – What Magical Worlds Might Envy from the Non-Magical Ones

This might seem like a strange topic. Surely it would be the other way around? But I think there are possibilities when magical worlds might envy those without such powers.

For one thing, would the magical worlds believe the non-magical ones have fewer complications simply because of the lack of that source of power? Would your magical government have to use extra resources policing the system so it isn’t abused (see Fairytales with Bite above)? Who would it have to rein in and how successful are they in doing this?

Also consider the climate of your setting. Has damage been done to it by too much magic going through it (which would be a good reason for your magical government to envy those without it)? What is done or will be done to deal with that damage?

Also would our world have things your magical world might prefer (such as our beautiful environments, especially if theirs has been damaged due to magic)?

Food for thought there, especially if their world had once been as lovely or better than ours.


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Broadcast News and Stories in Song

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Many thanks to Hannah Kate for kind permission to use the Three Minute Santas photo. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Weather turning cold again here. Christmas preparations going okay but still much to do! Still time for stories and writing though….!

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Facebook – General

Posting early today as am off out to my church’s Carols by Candlelight village sing-along later. It’s a lovely informal event with plenty of Christmas cracker jokes in between the singing. Last time we held this event was in the week of Christmas 2019. It is so good to have this back!

Those who follow the Friday Flash Fiction website – look out for the results of the Christmas competition soon. Normal submissions will resume in the New Year I would’ve thought. (Please note the normal submissions button isn’t there at the moment on the understandable grounds the editor needs time to count up the votes for the competition and get the results out!). I’m preparing pieces to submit in January to give myself a bit of a head start here – always useful to get some drabbles written!

I did get my submission in for the Writing Magazine Grand Flash Prize a while back, following my own advice to take some time off the official closing date. Good luck to all who have or are about to have a go at this one – deadline is the end of the year.

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Hope you have had a good start to Christmas week. Looking forward to sharing my Festive Flash and Other News post for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. There will be a couple of new flash pieces in there from me plus I take a look back at some highlights from my writing year.

Will start winding down on the writing for a few days from Saturday. Looking forward to doing plenty of reading over the Christmas break too.

I often use this time of year to ensure I’m up together with my blogs and have started drafting others for the start of the New Year. I don’t just keep a stock of stories to hand!

And I’m looking forward to a social evening on Zoom for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group later this month. It will be a nice way to wrap up our writing year there.

Am also getting my January newsletter ready. If you’d like to sign up for hints, advice, stories etc do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

 

It’s my turn on the Authors Electric blog today. This time I look at Stories in Song. The carols inspired me here as so many of them have a clear narrative but there are other songs which have long been favourites of mine due to their lyrical quality. See what you think via the link and do send in your favourite stories in songs in the comments.
Screenshot 2022-12-18 at 08-05-15 Stories in Songs by Allison Symes
Hope you have had a good day. Many thanks to Hannah Kate for including my story, First Night on The Round, on her Three Minutes Santas show on North Manchester FM today. Hope to be able to share a link soon but meantime you can use their Listen Again service to find the show.

Please note Hannah’s show is in two halves for the benefit of the Listen Again service. I’m first on for Part 1. Great fun listening to all of the other stories here too. Well done to everyone included in the show. And do check out festive flash fiction – it is great fun to write, read, and/or listen to bit don’t just take my word for it. Give it a listen here!

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Twist endings work especially well for flash fiction. The impact is greater given the restricted word count. I love writing humorous ones, the “character gets comeuppance” type, as well as the character coming up with something unexpected kind, which is not quite the same thing as getting their comeuppance.

In my George Changes His Mind from From Light to Dark and Back Again I end the tale with the dragon given their viewpoint on the proceedings. Great fun to do and a lovely “left field” ending to that tale!). So think about what you want your twist ending to do and how you want it to impact on your readers.

I do this and find writing this first, then working out what could lead to it works very well. It means I stick to the point and everything that proceeds before my big reveal has to make sense and be logical, even in the most fantastical of settings.

Framed Flash Collections

19th December – Second Post
Oops! Almost forgot to share my latest YouTube video. Hope you enjoy New Experiences.


It was lovely at the Carols by Candlelight service yesterday. First one since Christmas 2019. The singing was fantastic.
Do your characters like to sing and, if so, what would they sing? What songs have special resonance for them?

Resonance comes into my flash fiction too. I have to know where my characters come from to be able to write them up at all. Some of their attitudes and actions have got to resonate with me, even if I still don’t approve. You don’t necessarily need to like your characters. You do have to understand them to be able to get into their heads and so write up their tales though.

Have been doing a little admin in adding books to my website book page and my Book Brush Reader Hub. That’s a nice task – Evergreen – an Anthology is now on there. Plus I’ve notified ALCS and my Author Central page has been updated by Amazon. They are usually pretty quick to do that when you notify them.

Screenshot 2022-12-19 at 20-31-08 Reader Hub Book BrushScreenshot 2022-12-18 at 21-38-10 Allison Symes

A week to go to Christmas and I’ve enjoyed one pre-Christmas treat – re-watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. Fabulous film and to me one of the best adaptations of Dickens’s classic tale. Lots of lovely little moments as the film goes on (Miss Piggy giving Scrooge a piece of her mind is just one of them!) and, of course, little moments is what flash fiction is about. We focus on the single most important thing, which is a little like looking at the cameo and focusing on that rather than on taking in everything about the main film. (That’s the job of the novel!).

Writing flash fiction is a great exercise for any writer for another reason – it does make you focus on the single important thing and it can show you perspectives you might not have considered before. Later on this evening, I’m reading a wonderful poem called Shepherd by Lisa Debney for the Carols by Candlelight service at Abbey URC, Romsey.

The poem is lovely and it focuses on one viewpoint – that of the shepherd – but it shows a perspective I had not considered before I read this poem. (There can be some links between poetry and flash in that both forms need to use words to specific and deliberate effect and we are using the word count restrictions to their best advantage).

Flash Fiction focuses on THE important aspect of a character's life

My story on Three Minute Santas, hosted by Hannah Kate on North Manchester FM, was broadcast today. 17th December – and see links above.  For this submission, I had to submit a story which came in at a maximum of three minutes. So how to do it? Simple! I used Zoom to record myself reading my story, I ended the meeting with myself, and Zoom then turns the file into an mp4 file. Not only can I play it back to hear how it sounds, I’ve got the timing of my story right there!

Mine, First Night on the Round, came in about 2 minutes 50 seconds. When I first started writing, I used Audacity to play back stories of mine so I could check if the words flowed as well as I thought. Doing this is a great way of picking up on clunky dialogue etc. I see it as part of my editing process.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Santa’s Reading List

Now we all know many of the presents on Santa’s sleigh are books. (The rest I suspect would be chocolate, toys, socks, and stuff for pets!). But what would Santa himself want to read after all of those deliveries have been done or would like to read if the books existed? We all deserve to put our feet up with a good book after all. (He would have already read A Christmas Carol and The Nativity stories of course and would re-read them each year).

Lounging in the Sun – would make a change from his usual environment, yes?

How to Bake the Perfect Mince Pie – suspect he might leave this book as a present when what he is offered as refreshments is below par. Bound to come across the odd shoddy few.

Reindeer Management – What You Need to Know – wonder if he’ll find a cure for Rudolph’s red nose here.

Postman Pat – Any of these classic children’s stories would go down well with the great man. Would make a change to read stories from someone else with deliveries to sort out.

Getting Away From It All – You’d want to after dealing with the workload for another year.

The Haynes Guide to Sleigh Maintenance – The Haynes manuals are very well known especially in the UK. They even have one for the Star Trek Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon so why not do one for Santa’s sleigh?

Hope you have plenty of book shaped presents under your Christmas tree this year!

BookBrushImage-2022-12-20-21-336Screenshot 2022-12-17 at 20-27-00 Santa's Reading List

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ALLISON SYMES – BOOK BRUSH READER HUB

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PERSPECTIVE AND PUBLICATION NEWS

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Facebook – General

Hope it has cooled down where you are. I prefer a temperate climate, as does the dog. I also find it easier to focus.

Does the time of year affect what you write? I can’t say it does for me as I write a mixture of light and darker pieces throughout the year.

If the seasons do affect what you write, how can you play to the strengths of this? I would’ve thought it is probably better to work with it rather than to try to fight it, if only because you’ll feel less frustrated that way.

Analysing how you work is a good idea, whether you’re affected by the seasons or not. For me, the amount of time I have per writing session is more important and I aim to make the most of each slot. My goal is to be able to look back and feel it was a good writing session, regardless of whether I had ten minutes or three hours.

Happy writing!😊

 

Image Credit:  Generally Pixabay as usual but the Scottish beach and loch pictures were taken by me earlier this year.

Image by Allison Symes
Dunnet Beach by Allison Symes
It pays to set your own deadlines. I set some at least a week ahead of any competition deadline to ensure I don’t miss the real date. Pixabay
Stories link us. Pixabay.
Image by Allison Symes
Warning: Writer at Work. Pixabay
A writer’s life. Pixabay,

Glad to be home from a very busy day in London yesterday. Loved visiting the Sky Gardens. They were great and the views incredible. I’d never seen the Tower of London look like it was a Lego sized kit before! I guess it just goes to show perspective is everything.

Perspective is everything for your characters too and indeed for you as you write the story. Just who is your lead and why have you chosen them? Why does it matter to show their perspective and not another character‘s view of the world instead?

What is fun is to write from the perspective of a character you know you wouldn’t sympathise with in any kind of life yet alone the real one. The challenge here is to write about them convincingly despite your own antipathy to them.

Working out how to get into their head to show their reasons for being the way they are will push you into exploring how they got to be at this point in the first place. That will make for interesting characterisation for one thing. It will almost certainly increase the drama in your story too.

Images below taken by me as at 27th July 2019. It isn’t often I get to take a shot with the caption already on it! Also have fun spotting the landmarks.

Publication News

A busy day on the writing front. Glad to share the links for my ACW More Than Writers’ blog which discusses whether or not it is easier to write during the summer.

Also glad to share the link to Stolen, my latest story on Cafelit. This is the nearest I’ve got to an autobiographical story (and probably the nearest I will get I think. I identify with Sarah in this one).

The nature of this story meant I knew it wasn’t going to be a flash piece but that’s fine. The story has to be what it is. If it’s over 1000 words then so be it.

http://cafelitcreativecafe.blogspot.com/2019/07/stolen.html

http://morethanwriters.blogspot.com/…/summertime-and-writin…

 

Am sharing an extract from both More than Writers and Stolen here as a taster. Hope you enjoy.

Summertime and the Writing Is Easy…

Or not maybe… Apologies to George Gershwin for misquoting his classic (though I still prefer Rhapsody in Blue).

Do you find writing in summer easier than during the winter? The jury’s out for me here. I try to keep a consistent writing level up for most of the year because, regardless of season, there are always distractions. But there are times when I write less and I’ve learned to come to terms with that…..

Stolen

by Allison Symes

cranberry juice


I’m not going to the bloody doctors.  I couldn’t tell you how often Sarah goes on about it.  When will she take the hint?  I do know my own mind.  I swear she thinks I’m going loopy.  She says not but why else would she want me to go to the doctors when there’s nothing wrong with me?

It’s perfectly normal for older people to forget things sometimes.  Hell, she’s done so herself.  She forgot my birthday last week.  I was really hurt by that.  I was bloody annoyed when she told me my birthday is next month.  I should know my own birthday.

Oh my cup of tea has gone cold.  Did I forget to drink it?  Did I forget to put the kettle on at all and just poured cold water into my mug?  I did do that last Wednesday but I’d had a stressful time of it arguing with Sarah again and well that kind of thing is bound to make you forget odd things, isn’t it?  I didn’t tell Sarah I did this.  She’d have seen it as proof I do need to go and see Dr. Page.

Sarah keeps telling me I shouldn’t be afraid to go to the doctors.  Dr. Page is sympathetic, is bound to have treated patients with memory loss before and there is more awareness now of “mind” issues.  Sarah says this covers everything from depression to dementia.  Sarah is right on all of this but how it applies to me I couldn’t tell you.  I am perfectly healthy.  Sarah says I’m in denial.  There is something wrong when your own daughter tries to tell you what to do.

And I’m simply not having that.  Sarah ought to be pleased.  If ever there was proof I do know my own mind, this is it, surely……

Facebook – General

The challenge of writing stories like Stolen, when they pack an emotional punch, is keeping your own emotions out of it while you’re writing it. You have to put some distance between yourself and the voice of your lead character(s) so it is THEIR story coming through and not yours as the author. You also want the emotion to be authentic and not spill over into melodrama.

This is why it is crucial to put a story aside for a while before revisiting it to edit it. I’ve found it is the only way to get the necessary distance so I can judge what I’ve still got to do on the story objectively (and there is always something!).

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

What is your favourite form of flash fiction? The 100-worder? The 500-worder? Funny? Darker? I love them all of course but if there is one kind that sneaks its way to the top of my list, it is the 100-worder with a humorous twist. So here goes…

Late Running

The ghost train ran straight through the station. It must make up time.

If you thought fines issued to late running train companies on earth were inadequate, you wouldn’t be disappointed here.

Miscreants were treated according to species. Ghosts were obliterated. Vampires were drained down. The rumours tonight were not good.The controllers were more foul than usual. The Boss was due to visit to check all was well…or as bad as this service was meant to be. He wouldn’t be let down by sloppy staff.

Bonemeal was mentioned.

After all, the train was run by a skeleton crew.

Ends.

Allison Symes – 27th July 2019

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If there’s anything odd going on tonight, the cat will not spill the beans.  Pixabay

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Speeding restrictions apply to all but there are always some who ignore the rules. Pixabay

Must ‘fess up and say I’ve got a few writing prompts to catch up with in my diary but all have the potential to make promising flash fiction stories. Will probably have a go at some of these later in the week. (I tend to get my CFT post sorted first, then resume work on fiction).

Was pleased with my Late Running story I wrote on the train yesterday. Hope you enjoyed it. I am partial to puns and they can be used in flash fiction effectively. You can’t go on at length in flash as you’d defeat the whole object of it so a short pun as a twist ending or as part of a character’s thoughts can work well.

I love writing as well as reading these but, as with most things I guess, puns etc work best when not overdone.

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My latest story on Cafelit, Stolen, isn’t a flash fiction piece, far from it. The nature of the story meant it had to go well over 1000 words but that’s fine. Not only do I keep my hand in writing a mixture of fiction, it kind of proves the point the story has to be what it has to be.

It never pays to try to cut a story so you can get it to count as flash somewhere.

The stories that work best as flash fiction are those where you want to focus on one intense moment in a character’s life and nothing else. Where there is more than one, you are better off writing a longer story to begin with, otherwise you will sell it short (and reduce your publication chances too).

http://cafelitcreativecafe.blogspot.com/2019/07/stolen.html

So true. Pixabay.
What kind of landscapes exist in your fictional world? Pixabay image
Even a world populated with dragons has to make sense. Pixabay
Use weather, climate etc to reflect moods in your story but don’t overdo it. Pixabay image.
How can you show your readers your world? Pixabay image.
The writing journey is more likely to be full of twists and turns. Pixabay
The writing journey has to be taken a step at a time. Pixabay

Time can be an awkward thing to write into flash fiction stories. Most will consist of one vital moment to a character and so the span of time where the action takes place is very short. I’ve found I’ve needed stories towards the upper limit of flash (1000 words) to be able to show action taking place across a longer time span.

For example my Rewards has a time span of one evening and the next morning while my Expecting refers to time as a character realises they haven’t heard from someone for a while.

Flash I think does work best when it is for the moment. Even when I write historical flash, I’m looking at one incident in one character’s life. Time comes into the setting I’ve chosen to use and acts as a backdrop.

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Goodreads Author Blog –

What a Good Book Can Lead To

Have you known a good book to change you?

For me, The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey has led to a huge interest in Richard III and conviction he is not guilty of the murder of The Princes in the Tower, assuming they were killed.

There is no evidence they were killed and my own view is at least one was smuggled out of the country. Richard himself was smuggled out as a boy so it would’ve been known it could be done and Henry Tudor was never able to prove where the boys were, else he would’ve done. That really would have damned Richard.

That aside, good books have expanded my view of how irony works thanks to Austen, Wodehouse, and Pratchett. Now there’s a trio for you!

Good books have expanded my ideas of what can be done in fiction, especially in fantasy. There’s a reason The Lord of the Rings is considered an epic. It is! The sheer scale and scope of the trilogy will always amaze me.

Good books open your mind and imagination.

Happy reading!

Read widely to inspire these. Pixabay
Pixabay image.
Well? Pixabay
Pixabay.
I prefer tea generally and NOT hanging over the edge of a cup. Pixabay.
Ah! The joy of the edit! Pixabay.
So many lovely forms of writing… Pixabay
Warning: Writer at Work. Pixabay
Make the most of your writing time. Pixabay