Tag: reading influencing writing

Cover Girl Time – Allison Symes – Writers’ Narrative – October 2025 – Short Form 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. Many thanks to Wendy H Jones and Writers’ Narrative for the magazine images. Also thanks to Wendy for images re Creativity Matters.
Hope the weekend went well. All fine here. Some debris from Storm Amy but grateful not more than that. The big news is I am finally a cover girl! Am on the front cover of Writers’ Narrative for their October 2025 edition on Short Form Fiction. Plus there is an in-depth interview between Wendy H Jones, Editor in Chief, and me for this issue. Do check it out and I am always pleased to hear the short form writers being given a shout out, naturally enough. 

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today – a great time was had by all.

Managed to make the most of my limited writing time yesterday and ended up doing more than I thought. This is often the way when you haven’t much time. You make the most of what you do have and lo and behold, several jobs are ticked off your list. All good stuff.

Character Tip: Jot down a short list of characters created by other authors, say five or six names, and then write one line about why you picked these characters. Was it something about their personalities that appealed to you especially? Could you use those thoughts in your own characters?

Hope your Monday hasn’t been too chaotic. Bit of a mixed bag day for me but Lady did get to have a fabulous time in the park with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal so she’s had a good day.

Writing wise, I’ll be working on “bits and pieces” given Monday is one of those days when I don’t have so much time for writing. I often use this time to get writing admin done and draft notes for future blog posts etc. These things mount up and save me a great deal of time later.

Later in the week when I do have more writing time available, I get to work on longer pieces. I learned long ago that all writing is valuable (even if you discard a lot of it later when editing) and using whatever time you have does pay off in the long run.

Writing Tip: You have a character in mind. What would their catchphrase be? You may not use it in your story but if you can figure out what they might have as a catchphrase, that can show you more about them which could be relevant to your tale. If they come up with a humorous phrase for example, does this mean they are a funny character or do they use humour to cover up how they really feel? Could be some interesting story thoughts there.

Hope the weekend has gone well for you. A huge thank you for all the support on yesterday’s news about my interview in Writers’ Narrative and being on the front cover of the e-magazine. Much appreciated.

Looking forward to sharing Starting A Piece of Fiction on Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I sometimes find the starting point tricky so will be sharing in this post some tips I’ve found useful for overcoming this issue. I hope you’ll find them useful too. Link up on Friday.

Pleased to say I’ll be interviewing John Puzey, author of Captive Audience, later in the month for CFT. Will share more news on that nearer the time. Plus there should be another author interview coming up in early November.

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The big news is I am a cover girl! The October issue of Writers’ Narrative has Short Form Fiction as its theme, a topic very close to my writing heart of course, with yours truly as the Featured Author.

I am interviewed in depth by Editor in Chief, Wendy H Jones, and this was great fun to do. As part of the interview, I share a story showing something of the flexibility of flash fiction. I’ve written across genres, and have also written poetic flash, acrostic flash, as well as the differing word count ranges up to the 1000 words limit, and much more so I share an example here.

Hope you enjoy the story and the interview.

Let’s hear it for the short form writers!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Good to be celebrating flash fiction in the October Writers’ Narrative, which is obviously my big news of the week! But if you have never tired flash fiction before, why not give it a go?

If you have ever written any kind of writing exercise at an event, you have almost certainly written some flash as you are never given too long to respond to these exercises. The most you’re going to be able to write in the time is a 100 words or so.

So why not make it an official part of what you write? I’ve found it be fun and addictive.

It’s Monday. It’s been busy. It’s time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Some Forward Thinking. (Always a good idea this, I find!)

You’re a fairy godmother with a problem which needs to be resolved fast. You can’t use magic directly but some forward thinking, involving an unsuspecting human, should do the trick, literally. Find out how here.

 

Will be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday in a moment or two. (I did too!). Lovely way to end the week, I must say, and I get plenty of flash written. Nothing to dislike there.

If you’d like to know more about flash, including some examples of it, do head over to my landing page and sign up for my newsletter at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I regularly share tips and flash fiction stories of mine here – it makes for a good “one stop shop” to find out what I’ve written and where.

On a related topic, flash, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is Flash NANO is on again this year – see link for how to join up. This is where those who join in are given 30 prompts over the 30 days of November. You can do as many or as few as you like. I see it as a great chance to draft 30 new stories!

The bad news? This will be the final one, alas, so do sign up and give it a go while you can. I find it great fun and a good flash challenge and writing work out.

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So glad the short forms of fiction are being celebrated in the October issue of Writers’ Narrative (do see my author page on Facebook where I share the link). Also see above.

As well as reading a lot of short work, because it is the field in which I work, I love reading these stories anyway. I see them as wonderful reads in between reading lots of longer books. Indeed I see this has having a good overall “reading diet”.

Indeed my way into the love of stories and books was via the short form, the classic fairytales of which I remain fond. Many of my 1000 word pieces for Friday Flash Fiction have more than a passing nod to the fairytales.

What you read does influence what you write so it pays to read widely and well. Non-fiction has been an eye opener for me as I have found that too can spark story ideas. Who knew? Well, I didn’t until fairly recently.

Glad to have found this out though. Am always glad to have reading sources of ideas for my writing as I get to enjoy a fabulous read and then enjoy the writing up of the ideas – win-win there for sure.

Goodreads Author Blog – Light and Dark in Fiction

I guess it’s appropriate we have light and dark in fiction given our stories reflect our human condition and there’s plenty of light and dark in that. Indeed the thought of that inspired the stories in my first flash fiction collection and also gave me the title for it – From Light To Dark And Back Again.

I suppose light and dark in fiction also reflects reading moods. Certainly for me, when the seasons change and the darkness draws in ever earlier in the day, I want to read and write lighter material. Not exactly raging against the dying of the light happening here but I am trying to make my journey towards that dying light more pleasant at least!

Can’t beat Wodehouse, Austen and Pratchett here (though the latter is remarkable in that there is darkness within Discworld but it is dealt with via humour, which to me makes the points being made much more effective).

I guess we do need a balance here though if I have to tip the scales somewhere, I would tip it in favour of light fiction. I learned long ago what looks easy to read isn’t necessarily easy to write, far from it.

Time to read some more amusing stories then!

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MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

Naturally I am thrilled to bits about the October issue but as I have shared that issue above, I will share a back issue here. Do enjoy a good read!

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Travels, Flash, and Feedback

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Image Credit:
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Am about to go off on my travels again. Am doing a LOT of talking about flash fiction this week but it’s great fun to do!

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Busy packing ready for the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference. Plan to do lots of writing on the train journey. I just love Evernote for this. I still just use the free version of it but find it is enough for what I want to do.

I’ll be off again on my travels in June for the Association of Christian Writers’ Worth Our Weight In Gold Golden Jubilee weekend in June and I am due to run a flash fiction workshop there too. Won’t have to go so far for that one – it’s at my old haunt The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire where I’ll be back again in August for the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School.

I’m getting plenty of use out of my railcard this year at least!

And a huge thank you to the History Writers last night for the wonderful feedback on my talk about historical flash fiction. Feedback is always useful and it is something I especially appreciate from Friday Flash Fiction too.

Now writing wise, when I’ve got editing to do, I block out periods of time to do it as I know I will need to focus. Those odd pockets of time that crop up now and again – ten minutes here, fifteen there etc – are best used for drafting something new or adding notes to something you’ve got in the pipeline.

I’ve discovered this over time of course but I am now better at suiting writing jobs to the time I’ve got available and that matters. It means I end up getting more done overall. Any spare capacity in terms of writing such as trips on train I just write as much as I can. I will find a use for this later. There’s always space for a spare blog column or more flash fiction stories. Little is wasted in writing. You can either find a home for it or learn from it (and ideally you do both).

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Many thanks for the kind comments and likes in on my post yesterday about owing my love of reading to my late mother. I treasure the books I’ve inherited from her too! See below for earlier post.

Looking forward to talking to the History Writers group tonight about historical flash fiction and to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday about random generators.

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be a timely one – Journeys In Fiction. So apt since I am travelling up for the Scottish Association of Writers Conference later this week! I plan to post on Friday as normal.

My posts over the weekend will be at differing times but I am looking forward to the conference very much and to reporting back on it in due course. Am also looking forward to catching up with writing friends and making new ones – that is the great joy of a writing event for me.

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Today would have been my mother’s 88th birthday and it is thanks to her I have my love of reading. She taught me to read long before I started school and reading was just such a natural thing at home, it still seems odd to me that there are those who don’t “get” reading for pleasure.

Whether you read the classics, contemporary, the big blockbusters, the flash fiction collections (well, I was bound to mention them now, wasn’t I?!), or are a magazine “fiend,” what matters is reading. From that love of reading came a love of creative writing.

Many thanks, Mum.

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Many thanks for the wonderful comments coming in on Cherryade, my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction. I remember my kid sister and I going to the tobacconists at the end of our road, clutching our empty fizz bottles, ready to hand them in for money back. Ironically the fizz bottles came mainly from a wonderful firm called Corona – there are less positive associations with that word now! My favourite flavour was orangeade funnily enough.

The tobacconists also ran a sweet section – the old pick and mix types of sweet jar – so of course guess where my sister and I spent the refunds. Happy days – and I really enjoyed writing this story. Brought back great memories.

Screenshot 2022-03-11 at 09-56-02 Cherryade - What Not To Do by Allison SymesScreenshot 2022-03-10 at 20-01-14 Friday Flash Fiction

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased to say the March 2022 edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads is now free to download on Amazon. I write a monthly column here on all aspects of flash fiction writing and I set a challenge too. I talk about random generators this time, something I’ll be talking about again via Zoom to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group tomorrow. Plus there are a wide range of interesting articles, stunning photos, and much more more so do treat yourself to a FREE read.

Screenshot 2022-03-15 at 20-26-41 Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine March 2022 eBook Publishing Goylake Howe Hannah Smith Melanie Fae Sylva Jones Wendy H Macleod Sheena Symes Allison Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store

It’s Monday. Not a favourite day of the week for many including me so it is definitely time for a story! Hope you enjoy Alien Concept – am sure many of you will identify with this one.


I love writing across the genres with my flash fiction stories. It continues to be a great joy to write crime flash, historical flash, humorous fantasy flash and so on. I love reading various anthologies (short stories and flash fiction ones) and I love coming across a good mix.

And this is where what I have loved (and continue to love) reading influences what I write. I have to read some crime to be able to write a crime flash piece for example. The wider you read (and do include non-fiction), the bigger the pool you have to fish from for influences and inspiration. If that’s not a good excuse to put your feet up with a good book and a cup of tea/coffee, I really don’t know what is!

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Am so looking forward to being part of the Scottish Association of Writers conference next week where I’ll be running a flash fiction workshop. Always keen to spread the word about this wonderful writing format! Have a busy few days coming up in the run-up to that as I’m talking about historical flash on Monday on Zoom and will be talking again about random generators for another Zoom talk on Wednesday. But I do know one thing – it will all be great fun! Flash should be fun too. The challenge of coming up with different characters and seeing what I can do with them is fabulous and keeps me out of mischief well enough!

Goodreads Author Blog – Drawing in The Readers

If there was a simple way to guarantee drawing in the readers, then someone somewhere would be a very wealthy person for selling the secret to that! Speaking with my reader hat on, I am drawn to a book by (a) its cover, (b) its blurb, and (c) if I have already read the author’s work. If it is someone whose work I know and love, then it is pretty much guaranteed I will go for their next one.

Out of the cover and the blurb, I have to say I think the latter is the most important. That has got to get me wanting to read more. Yes, sometimes, a good book cover will catch my eye and I will want to check it out but if the blurb isn’t up to scratch, I’m not biting!

Once I’ve got the book though I want the characters to keep me reading. I have got to want to find out what happens to them and to care about the outcome. I think you can only do that with realistically portrayed characters whose goal you can understand.

I also want my characters to be “worthy” of winning through in the end. I don’t want it just to fall into their lap, so to speak. I want them to contribute significantly to their success, even with the help of others. I think you should also be able to see why the others would help the lead character with their goal rather than just leave them to it.

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