Tag: Poetic justice tales

Book Buying, Past Stories, and Imaginative Advertising

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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 had a good weekend. Happily drafting plenty of flash stories and some of those written for Flash NANO this time, I’ve already got some ideas as to where I can try placing them. There is also a competition I would like to try before the end of the year too. Am so glad writing is an indoors activity. Weather has been a right mix again. It’s a win at the moment if Lady and I come home without being soaked.

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Facebook – General

Brrr… it’s cold today. Often when I swim, if it’s cold outside, the pool feels lovely by comparison. Not today. Cold outside and in the water. Fine when I got swimming though. I swear it’s done on purpose to make you get a move on in the pool. It worked today on me, that’s all I can say.

I’ll be talking about Editing Tips on Friday for Chandler’s Ford Today. I’ll be looking at my approach to editing (which I go into more detail about when I run my workshops on the topic). I see it as part of the creative process. Good editing is what will make the difference to your story being accepted or placed somewhere or not. I also discuss editing on screen and on paper. Looking forward to sharing that later in the week.

One of the joys of writing for CFT is coming up with interesting questions for interviewees. I had a lovely time doing this recently and am looking forward to receiving the replies back from the people concerned! I’ve also learned a lot from author interviews I’ve read or listened to, which is another reason to love them.

Author Interviews coming up on CFT

Hope you had a good weekend. Leaves coming off the trees at an incredibly fast rate right now. Lady is a bit wary of this time of year only because of the chestnut husks down. She picks her way through delicately but every so often she has to stop and I have to take a husk out of her pads, poor thing. It is like walking on needles. These are better after some rain funnily enough as they then soften.

Can’t believe we’re almost at the two-thirds mark of Flash NANO for another year. Am happily drafting other flash pieces too as I have a competition in mind I want to have a go at and other places I’d like send something into so busy, busy. Am also hoping to be interviewing other authors for Chandler’s Ford Today again before too long.

Must admit some imaginative writing caught my eye today on the packet of the coffee I get for my other half. It’s a new brand to him, as his usual wasn’t in stock. Usually coffee is graded for how strong it is, right? Well this one says “it will kick you THIS hard” and then shows you a star rating. I must admit I liked that. There was also a reference to “if you’re a nerd, you could do…” which made me grin. Great advertising too. Someone somewhere gave great thought to this and it is a great lesson in how to make the usually boring bits much more interesting!

Jotting down ideas for future use

Hope the weekend is being kind to you. Blustery weather here. Lady made a new friend today, a long-haired dachshund called Olive. Lovely to see them running around together. Olive is amazingly fast. Too tired dogs went home. Job done.

I was talking about Book Buying in my Authors Electric post yesterday. Today I’ve ordered my first Christmas presents – books, of course. Feel reasonably virtuous!

Writing Tip: Don’t give up on past stories. I’ve often had a look at past work which hadn’t got anywhere at the time I wrote them. With a good distance of time away from these, I’ve been able to fix flaws and get them out again. Some have gone on to be published.

So it is worth every so often going through your unplaced work and seeing if there is something you can do with them now. Also even if you can’t use the whole story, there may be a character you like you could put into another story or a piece of dialogue worth noting for future use.

Top Tips

Am pleased to be back on Authors Electric talking about a subject close to us all – Book Buying! Is book buying for others fraught with difficulties or do you just get them to give you a list? The only problem with the latter is any element of surprise has gone, of course.

I also ask whether books chosen for you, where you have not known in advance what is coming, have proved to be a fabulous surprise or not. I take the chance to put in a good word for the annual.

Confession time: I have got my list of book requirements for Christmas ready – you’re not really surprised by that, are you?

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you have had a good day and kept warm. It’s bitterly cold in my part of the world at the moment, not that Lady noticed when she ran around the park this morning!

Many thanks for the lovely comments coming in on Maisie, my most recent tale (or should that be tail?) on Friday Flash Fiction. See what my dog character makes of the ending of the world in this story.

Screenshot 2023-11-17 at 10-04-57 Maisie by Allison Symes

It’s Monday. It’s dark way too early in my part of the world. It’s cold. It’s Monday. It’s time for a story. Hope you enjoy Drumming Up Business, my latest on YouTube. What would you do if you found jam doughnuts deliberately smashed around your property? Find out what my character makes of it here.

I sometimes write poetic justice tales. I love these. It’s always a joy bringing down a character who deserves that or who finds a way to right a wrong. One of these is The Circle of Life in From Light to Dark and Back Again, where my character makes it clear what they think about animal cruelty and what they intend doing to stop their fellow villagers carrying on with their wrong behaviour. My character’s plan would work too.

This kind of story really does need the ending worked out first because having figured out what my character was going to do to fix things, I could then work back to the beginning to show readers what it was that needed fixing in the first place. It also meant I knew I had my structure in place for this tale immediately. Knowing that always gives my confidence a boost and that helps. It helps me get that first draft down quickly. I then come back to it later to tighten it up.

From Light to Dark and Back Again - by nightHope you are having a good weekend. Perfect day to be indoors writing and editing, to be honest. Talking of the latter, I will be discussing Editing Tips for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. More to come on that during the week though I will say now it helps to think of editing as part of the overall creative process. It really is given good editing will strengthen your work and give it more of a chance “out there”.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom later this month. Always good fun and we all get some useful drafts done during the session, yes me too. I make sure of that. I prepare my exercise types in advance but not my answers so to speak. I want to draft these on the night as the others are drafting theirs.

Have started drafting a festive flash fiction story. Always love writing these but it needs honing. Mind you, all stories do, but I’ve never minded this since realising this side of things is just as much a part of the creative process as is getting the first draft down.

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Goodreads Author Blog – What I Get From Reading?

What I get from reading is a leading question if ever there was one. Where to start is the question here for me.

Firstly, there is the entertainment factor. I love to escape into other worlds with books (literally if I’m reading fantasy or science fiction). Escaping your own cares for a while is something that should not be undervalued.

Secondly, books and stories introduce you to a wide range of characters. You follow their stories, their dilemmas, you work out whether you would have done or said what they did or said. Empathy is encouraged. You can also learn from what not to do here (and many comic works are fabulous at this. There is always a character who will give you a good laugh because they get it wrong).

Thirdly, there is education, especially from the non-fiction world, but you take this in via a user-friendly medium. I can put my feet up with a good book, a cup of something lovely and nibbles, and learn. Sometimes what I learn can inspire story ideas of my own. I often get a spark of inspiration for a fiction idea from reading something in non-fiction.

Fourthly, books are relatively inexpensive. You can keep them and read them many times over. I do. You can borrow from the library. You can read via ebooks, which are cheaper than paperbacks etc. There is at least one book format out there to suit you.

Fifthly, it is the perfect entertainment when the weather is lousy. Curling up with a good book is such a great idea!

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES


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Running Orders, Tech Issues, and One-Liners

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Image Credit:  As ever, unless otherwise stated, the images are from Pixabay or Pexels.

Facebook – General

Have not long completed the first edit on my second collection, Tripping the Flash Fantastic. It was good fun to do and eye opening too.

I had gone through my draft at least three times before submitting it and I still missed things! This is why it is important an outside eye does see your work. They will pick up on things you are too close to the work to be able to see.

Also if they come back with comments, it will help you to see if you really have got things across as clearly as you thought you had. (The answer to that one incidentally is sometimes no! And in those cases I rewrite. An editor’s eye can also help you realise what comes across as a bit clunky and therefore awkward for a reader to enjoy smoothly. So again rewrite time there),

There are no shortcuts but editing is what is going to make your work special so it is worth taking time over.

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It’s been a strange old week. I suspect next week will be stranger still. On the plus side, there is plenty of reading and writing to be cracking on with so I’ll focus on that. It is positive at least!

I’ve got a nice queue of items on my Kindle TBR list so will be trying to catch up on some of those.

Writing wise, I’m drafting a story for a competition which I need to finish. I also need to press on with my other major projects. And I do keep an eye out for interesting flash and short story competitions too. I like good writing competitions. They help me to “raise my game” which is never a bad thing.

Keep well, everyone.

 

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Apologies to anyone who is having trouble accessing the Chandler’s Ford Today sitetoday (16th March 2020). The technical side of things I leave to my lovely editor #JadeCloud and I have emailed her. Hopefully this will prove to be one of those irritating hiccups that can soon be sorted. I don’t know if it this is something at CFT’s end or whether it’s a browser issue. Will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I will look ahead to my post this week. I will be talking about Mixing Things Up as a writer and share a few thoughts as to how you can do that. I also look at the advantages (and otherwise!) of competitions with set and open themes. Post up Friday.

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What are your favourite one-liners? Mine have to be:-

‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.’
‘Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me.’
‘I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.’

(And if you want to play name the film, feel free!).

What do I like about one-liners in stories? Well, they pack a punch when well placed in a story. I sometimes use them to finish a flash fiction piece. They have emotional impact and a good story will have that, whether it makes you laugh or cry.

Great one-liners are memorable of course and it is always a pleasure to re-read them again when going back through favourite books. And you know those one-liners will have been through several edits as the author seeks to make every word carry its weight so what is left, well you know nothing could be added or taken out.

ALSO:-
Many thanks to #DawnKentishKnox for flagging up an access issue to Chandler’s Ford Today yesterday. Am glad to report the issue should now be resolved.

The auto renewal of the site’s SSL certificate did not happen. Goodness knows why. A big thanks to our technical guy for sorting that out and putting measures in place to hopefully prevent it happening again.

Meanwhile, I’m sharing the post Dawn Kentish Knox had wanted to comment on – the Local Author News spot I put up on behalf of #RichardHardie and #FrancescaTyer. Hopefully all well now!

Richard’s second novel.
Richard’s first book in his Temporal Detective Agency series.
My favourite pic of the year! Image by Paula Readman
Francesca’s debut novel
Richard Hardie
Francesca Tyer

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Don’t make the mistake of thinking because flash fiction is short, the editing of it won’t take long! Ahem…

Well, obviously it will take less time than editing a novel but you still need to apply care and precision, especially since the placing of a word in a flash fiction piece can turn the story round just on that alone.

My Calling the Doctor has the mood of the story changed by the last word (see trailer).

It’s also not just about editing for word count. You want to make sure your story works without all the bits you’ve put the red pen through. The story mustn’t feel as if there is anything missing.

The aim is for a reader to feel as if another word couldn’t be added to the story while, at the same time, being unable to think of anything that could’ve come out from the tale they’ve just read. Not an easy balance to get right but so worthwhile when you do!

 

One of my favourite stories in FLTDBA is Circle of Life because it is a poetic justice tale. I’ve always been fond of those.

It’s a theme I can turn to time and again as you never run out of dodgy characters who you can dole out suitable retribution to! You are just limited by your own imagination and if ever there was a challenge to keep stretching said imagination, that’s it, I think.

I’m also fond of funny poetic justice stories. You don’t necessarily have to kill off the miscreant though I suspect my crime writing colleagues would beg to differ!😆😆😆

One of the joys of fiction, of course, is you as the writer can always ensure justice is done to those deserving it. So go on, have some fun!

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If it hasn’t happened already, there will be loads of virus tales across all story formats soon! I won’t be writing any though. The market gets saturated very quickly.

It is far better to write what you would like to write to the best standards possible and find a suitable competition/market for it than to try to write to a trend. Trends are often gone by the time you get your story out anyway.

The only thing I hope might come out of our current crisis is that people, if stuck at home, rediscover the joy of reading but I would really rather they did that without this horrid or any other virus contributing in any way. Books are fabulous and should be treasured and loved and read and re-read anyway!

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Getting the running order in a flash or short story collection isn’t always as straightforward as it might appear. I look for impact on a reader here as well as from the individual stories themselves.

I like to group themes together (I think there is a stronger overall impact) but, as with chilli powder, you CAN have too much of a good thing here. (I once made a chilli with too much powder in it. I could’ve sworn there wasn’t much in it. I was wrong! Oh I was SO wrong…😆😆). So I tend to group 2 or 3 stories with a similar theme together but no more than that.

I write a reasonable number of poetic justice tales, to name one example. I’d group a couple of those together, then have a couple of say funny fairytales together, then some historical ones, then back to the poetic justice ones again. (I do like to think of my collections as “mixed assortments”. I’ve always loved those!).

It does pay to give plenty of time and thought to think about how you want your running orders to be. It will make the impact of your book that bit stronger and that is always a good thing.

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Goodreads Author Blog –

Are Books The Best Invention Ever?

Daft question time, I can hear you say in response to this blog title! And you’d be right. Of course books are the best invention ever but… well, without literacy and encouraging people to read, those wonderful books we all love are left literally on the shelf, aren’t they?

How do we get people to read who don’t currently do so? I wish I knew the answer to that. All you can do as a writer is put your works out there, spread the word about them (and this is where supportive writing friends are brilliant), and hope people will take a look between your covers (ooh…err…. Missus), whether they’re electronic covers or the lovely paperback variety.

I have wondered whether people have lost confidence in reading. You know they finish reading at school and then that’s it. They’re not reading another thing. They’ll get their stories via film, TV, audio even, but not from the printed page. This is why I think supporting children’s authors is so important. They play a vital role in developing a future reading audience and keeping that love of books going. (And I still like reading YA, even though it has been a long time indeed since I qualified!).

I loved the James Garner Support Your Local Sheriff type films. We need at least three more. Support Your Local Children’s Author. Support Your Local Writers. Support Your Local Libraries.

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