Tag: prompt

Honest and Dishonest Characters

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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. Lady has had a fabulous time with her closest friends. I’ve had a lovely trip to the local theatre and good writing news which I hope to share before too long.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share Honest and Dishonest Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Fun piece to write especially given literature is full of excellent examples of both types of creation. I look at some of the aspects you need to consider when creating these and share thoughts and tips. Hope you find it useful.

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24th April
Am off to see The Chameleon Theatre Group perform Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor later this evening. Will review it for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. The audience get to interrogate the cast as part of the performance which should be good fun. Have not been to an “interactive” murder mystery play before. Looking forward to reporting back later.

I see going to plays like this as another way of taking in stories. It’s not a bad idea to try to visualise your own stories as if someone was acting them out.

It can be a good aid to ensuring your dialogue sounds right, helps you cut down description (for a play you would see this as a visual set – can your readers picture your scenes easily enough?), and will show you whether all of your characters are playing a vital role in the story or not. If one or more doesn’t seem to have “much to do”, do you really need them in the tale?

Hope you have had a good Wednesday. Lady had a fabulous time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Came home tired but happy.

Don’t forget my next Chandler’s Ford Today post is upon Friday when I’ll be looking at Honest and Dishonest Characters. Fun piece to write which I hope you will find useful and thoughtful. See above.

Marketing Tip: Consistency matters. I find it useful to focus on those social media outlets and marketing tasks I know I can keep going. So select what you would enjoy most and stick with that.

I like preparing an author newsletter and my YouTube videos, for example, so I have no problems being consistent with producing these. As much as possible, your marketing as well as your writing should be fun for you too. (Or as much fun as possible most of the time anyway!).

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Same Old Thing.

Hope you enjoy it. Good to finish the working week with an enjoyable tale I think. Do check out the rest of what is on FFF – you will have plenty of good reading here.

24th April
Hope today has gone well. Am off to see my excellent local theatre company perform an interactive murder mystery. Should be fun. Led me to think though all of our stories should be interactive in that they should engage your readers so they are gripped by the situation and world you are showing them. No pressure then!

I do believe we are our own first readers though and if I’m not gripped by my characters, I can’t honestly expect anyone else to be.

Have come across another flash competition I may have a go at which specifies a character count rather than a word one (and yes it is linked to X or Twitter as I still prefer to think of it as).

Today, 23rd April, is both the birthday and anniversary of death day for William Shakespeare. Not sure what he would have thought of flash fiction given the length of his plays! But in the wonderful writing world, there is room for all word counts and styles (which is yet another reason to love being part of the overall writing community).

Writing Thought: Why not take one of Shakespeare’s famous quotes and use it as a theme for one of your own stories, flash or otherwise? What could you make of “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” as a theme, for example? Shakespeare was right on that one but could you come up with a tale which proved otherwise?


Fairytales with Bite – Crime in the Magical World

I love the Vimes novels within the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s magnificent Discworld series. The entire canon is superb but the Vimes books stand out for me and books like Men at Arms are excellent detective stories in their own right (and the fantasy setting makes them stand out more).

So thinking about your own magical/fantasy setting, which crimes could happen with in it? Are the crimes solved by magic or with good old fashioned police work (the Pratchett approach, which for me makes the books more real).

If you use magic to solve the crimes, bear in mind the criminals would almost certainly have used crime to commit their nefarious deeds so how can more magic overcome that?

You will need to give thought as to what magic can do and not do in your setting. There should be advantages and disadvantages to using it/not using it (as this will give more issues for your characters to think about as they work out what to do and will help increase tensions in your story).

Also think about the crimes which could only be committed in a magical world, what would these be? What is done to try to prevent them? Is there any kind of magical crime prevention agency and/or a detective one? Who could police the use of magic and what powers would they have to enforce this? How did the rules for the use of magic come into being in the first place?

This World and Others – Social Issues in the Magical or Sci-Fi World

Where magic or where science beyond what we know here exists in your setting, which social issues arise from them? Do these things create a have and have not society? If so, how is that handled? Are there any attempts to make things better for the have nots? Are there classes of citizens who are gifted with this kind of magic and/or science and do they share it or hoard it?

Has your magical/scientific setting over time benefited from the developments discovered or created? If so, how? Do these benefits help all? Those with the skills – are they revered or hated? Would others in your setting have good cause to fear them?

If your setting can survey other worlds, such as Earth, are there ideas we have they do not? Would they be prepared to steal them? If so, how would they go about this without drawing attention to the fact there was was an alien invasion going on (might cause panic!) or do they not worry about that? Have they raided other worlds before?

Scientific developments especially can cause two reasons – welcome and rejection. People can fear what they don’t understand so how would your setting’s people overcome this so new developments weren’t misunderstood or misrepresented?

The trouble with misunderstanding or misrepresenting something is the panic and resulting actions from that panic which in turn could cause social issues( rioting, maybe?).

Food for story thought there I hope.

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Questions and Answers In Writing

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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. Lovely to have the temperatures matching the spring weather at last. Posts will be out at different times next week but am looking forward to my Scottish break. Will do hubby, dog, and I the world of good, as it always does.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share Questions and Answers in Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I look at the value of a simple but timeless structure for writing, which works just as well for non-fiction as it does for fiction. I also share specific examples of good questions to ask for use in fiction and non-fiction respectively. Hope you find the post useful.

Questions and Answers In Writing

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The spring sunshine has finally turned up with a lovely temperature to go with it. Lady and I are loving this.

Will be looking at Questions and Answers in Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. See above. Post will look at how these work for fiction and non-fiction. They do make a useful structure for your writing.

Writing Tip: Mix up how you find prompts for your writing. It keeps things interesting for you by keeping you on your creative toes. No bad thing that. I like to use a mixture of the random generators, story cubes, books of prompts, proverbs and phrases etc. I have written stories, many of which went on to be published, from all of these methods.

442385796_10161874238522053_2352573593092291139_nHope you have had a good day. Proper spring weather at last – Lady and I loved it.

I’ve mentioned before I use random generators of various types to help trigger ideas. They are the modern equivalent of story cubes (and I use those too!). I had a quick look at the random question generator tonight and came up with What is one of the great values that guides your life?

Now that could make an interesting blog post or non-fiction article but it would have uses in fiction too. You could use this as a theme, deciding on the value in advance and showing that being played out through your story. You could get your character to answer the question directly and then backing it up with their actions. You could also have fun here by showing them failing to live up to what they said. What would be the fallout there? There would be some.

Screenshot 2024-05-08 at 19-52-48 Random Qs

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest 100-worder, Artistic Inspiration. Talking of inspiration, this one is inspired by the old Tom and Jerry cartoons (which are always worth watching). Find out why via the link. Hope you enjoy the story.

Screenshot 2024-05-10 at 10-16-39 Artistic Inspiration by Allison Symes

Another great way to have fun with flash is to write what I call a “two-hander”. This is where one character is directly addressing another one who is reading what the first one has sent to them which is in the style of a letter, minus the usual greetings and yours sincerely bits etc.

My example of this is You Never Know from From Light to Dark and Back Again where my lead character is berating the unseen other character for envying them a luxurious life as a magical tour guide.

The story shows exactly why it is any thing but that. Would you fancy the Gollum special (the raw fish diet), for example, which my lead character has to have? Doesn’t matter if they get tired of it. Would you listen to Snow White’s advice to never eat anything red and glowing? (I can’t help but feel that is good advice outside of fiction as well!).

Fun to write but you need a strong lead character who has enough to say on the theme of the story and ideally does so with wit. (Nobody likes a whiner). You want your readers to end up sympathising with what the lead character is putting up with here. So think about who your two characters would be and how the second one would give the first one something to write to them about.

Allison Symes - Flash Fiction Collections

If you have a character with special powers or abilities, you do need to let readers know about this before any demonstration of those things.

In my Being Yourself (Tripping the Flash Fantastic), my character reveals what her special gift is, then demonstrates it, leading to a satisfying conclusion as she…. Well no spoilers here as ever but the point is I do set that special gift up ahead of showing it in action. To do anything else won’t ring true for a reader.

A reader will also need to understand why your character wants to use these gifts/powers. Doesn’t necessarily have to agree with the course of action being taken by the character but there has to be what I call good follow through in that a reader sees what is happening, understands why, and so the story will work for them.

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Fairytales With Bite – Travels

How do your characters get around in your setting? Do they rely on broomsticks or do they have more sophisticated forms of travel? Do your characters regularly travel or is it something they only do out of necessity (such as with the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings)?

Are certain species banned from travelling and how did that come about? Is travel easy for most or only the reserve of the privileged few? Is magic used to power transport or is that saved for other more important things? You could have a combination of machines as we would know them with magical power saved for what cannot be done mechanically.

Which characters can fly directly? Which need to use a broomstick or other device? Can animals fly in your setting and would that be restricted to those who would normally be renowned for running such as the horse? (You could argue their flying would equal their running on the ground, they would just be “running” in the sky effectively).

Are there places in your setting where everyone loves to go? Where would they avoid and why?

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This World and Others – Wonders

There are so many wonders on our planet, despite the ever grim news, it can be easy to miss them. From the glories of nature to the wonders of the universe above us (and getting to see even more of these thanks to the space telescopes) to the tiniest flower, there is much to wonder at and admire. But you do have to have an open mind and an appreciative heart to see this, I think.

So in your setting, do your characters see the wonders around them or do they take these for granted because they are always here? Would they suddenly realise how much these things mattered if they were taken away for some reason?

Wonders also span the scientific world in terms of discoveries in so many fields, including medicine. What would be the equivalent in your setting?

What is the view of your Joe Public here? Do they appreciate the wonders around them or do they need these pointing out? Who benefits the most from wonders where discoveries happen and new inventions occur? Do the benefits get down to the ordinary people?

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