Tag: Scottish Association of Writers

Author News – Allison Symes – Spring 2023 Round Up

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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. Images of me at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, were taken by friends of mine, including the much missed Fiona Park, on my phone.
Hope you’ve had a great week. Lovely to have more publication news and it was great to discuss the importance of telling details for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group on Wednesday. Lady has had a great week and there was an unexpected visitor to the garden this week too. See below for more.

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Pleased to share Local Author News – Allison Symes – Spring 2023 Round Up for Chandler’s Ford Today. I am even more pleased to say there is a fair bit to round up here! Many thanks for the kind comments in on this one already.

It does pay every so often to look back at where you have come from as a writer and then look at where you are now. There will be progress. Sometimes this will come in recognizing one form of writing suits you better than another. Sometimes it will be having publication news.

Sometimes it will be developing your website and making it an interesting place for potential readers to visit. Sometimes it will be acknowledging mistakes and then not making those again. I say that because I was almost caught out by a vanity publisher many years ago. I now know the warning signs to watch out for.

One important lesson I’ve learned is to celebrate what may be considered the small steps you make as a writer. Without those, you can’t make the bigger ones.

Local Author News: Allison Symes – Spring 2023 Round Up

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Will be sharing Local Author News – Allison Symes – Spring 2023 Round Up for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. First time I’ve had to add a postscript to a post given my lovely publication news received earlier this week. See above.

Another glorious day here today and Lady got to play with her two best girlfriends today so she’s had a lovely time. No sign of the deer coming back though.

Don’t forget my author newsletter is next due out on 1st June so if you would like to sign up for tips, stories, news, and so forth, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Many thanks for the congratulations coming in on my post yesterday regarding the news my Desperately Seeking Talent is going to be published in the forthcoming Gifted anthology (Bridge House Publishing). Much appreciated, everyone.

Am currently working on a draft of a story for another competition and I hope to have that draft done in the next week. I will then rest it for a while before coming back to assess it with fresh eyes. It takes time but I have found that pays off. For me, it’s the only way I can re-read something of mine as if someone else had written it. It is that kind of distance you want too. You’ve got to be able to judge your work objectively.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s Friday. It’s another Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. It’s time for a story. My latest on Friday Flash Fiction is called Purple Haze. Find out what a love for a colour did for my character, Sally. Hope you enjoy it.

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It was great to see everyone at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting last night and I am glad the session was useful. We were discussing telling details and how these can create stronger images in your readers’ minds. It’s an invaluable thing to do regardless of what form you write but in flash with its restricted word count, it pays off considerably and helps you to make the most of that word count.

Delighted to sign and return my contract for my story, Desperately Seeking Talent, to go in Gifted, the Bridge House Publishing anthology which will be out later this year. Always a pleasure to do that kind of task!

And if you’re wondering with a title like that, was the story great fun to write, I can tell you – yes if was!

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Hope you have had a good day. Gloriously sunny and warm here. Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting tonight. I love talking about flash fiction as you may have noticed!

Having said that, the skills you learn in writing flash transfer well to other forms of writing which is why I believe all writers should try flash fiction writing. It takes away all fear of editing.

It is perhaps ironic that a restriction (in this case on upper word count) can fuel creativity as you learn to pick better words to use to create images for your reader. There is no room for the old purple prose. That’s a good thing. It helps you to cut it out immediately on your first edit. We all have wasted words. We might not be able to stop writing them but we can cut them out!

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Fairytales with Bite – Characters (Acrostic)

C = Characters can make or break a plot so make them hook your readers in so they want to find out what happens to your characters.

H= Have your characters got a trait or a habit which shows a reader what kind of character they are?

A= Any magical talents/skills need to have in-built disadvantages as if anything and everything can be solved with using these, where’s the story?

R= Resist the temptation to tell readers what your characters are like, show them instead via your character’s attitudes and actions.

A = Actions, attitudes, attributes – all great ways to show readers what your characters are like.

C= Can readers understand where you characters are coming from ?

T= Test what your characters are made of by dropping them right in it – do they sink or swim?

E= Endeavour – your readers will want to see what your characters do to help themselves.

R= Remember your characters will have memories, a life before your story, which will colour their attitudes and actions when you write about them.

S= Story, story, story – what is their story and why do they deserve to have their story told? What is in it for the reader?

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This World and Others – Different Species

Most fictional worlds have more than one species living in them so how do they get on? Or do they do everything possible to avoid each other? What would happen when a common need means they do have to work together?

Does your setting have a dominant species and how did they get to that position? Is it ever threatened by another? What would they do to maintain their dominant position?

Do your species share a biology (I.e. they are all bipeds) or are the differences significant? Would the species prey on each other?

If you have a favourite species to write about, why is that? Think about the good and bad qualities of all your species. How can you make best use of these in your stories? Our planet would be a very different place without all the other species on it with us.

Would you have those who study the others species and report back? (Am thinking in terms of wildlife documentaries but studies could be used for spying and other activities).

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Journeys in Fiction – and For Real!

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Image Credit: All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Some photos taken by me, Allison Symes, from the Scottish Association of Writers Conference.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Pleased to share Journeys in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Am sharing from Scotland!☺

I hope to report back on the Scottish Association of Writers Conference next week.

But journeys can take many forms including internal journeys. I discuss this and more in my CFT post this week.

https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/journeys-in-fiction/

It’s double blog today for me as my latest Authors Electric post is out today. This time I talk about Coming Up with Ideas. Hope you find it useful.

https://authorselectric.blogspot.com/2022/03/coming-up-with-ideas-by-allison-symes.html?m=1

Am on my way up to Scotland for the weekend conference of the Scottish Association of Writers. Looking forward to being on LNER again for the leg up to Edinburgh Waverley.

Meanwhile, am enjoying seeing the Hampshire countryside. And of course train journeys are the perfect opportunity for a spot of discreet people watching! I have used odd snippets of conversation overheard on train journeys to trigger ideas for characters and their tales. Waste nothing!

I was talking on Zoom last night about random generators and while preparing for that discovered new ones I know I can use. Win-win there! 

One was a historic events generator – could be useful if you use settings as your way into a story. The other was a world building generator with many separate elements also available as generators. Think character names, geographic elements to pick and choose etc.

The nice thing with all generators is you pick your parameters and adapt these based on what you know you need to know to start drafting a story. I find choosing two or three random things to generate at a time works best for me. Something amongst those items will trigger an idea and away I go. Limits encourage creativity.

I don’t know how I manage it but I always seem to time having a haircut with soggy weather! It’s the kind of talent nobody wants but someone gets… in this case, me!

Am looking forward to travelling north tomorrow for the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference. Hope to get plenty of writing done on the train via Evernote. I usually manage to draft some stories, blog posts etc – all useful stuff I know I can use later.

My posts here will be at different times over the next few days but my Chandler’s Ford Today post will be up as normal on Friday. Aptly I’m talking about Journeys in Fiction.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Delighted to share my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction. Hope you enjoy Waiting – the story at least!☺

https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/waiting-by-allison-symes

Looking forward to giving my flash fiction workshop at the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference this weekend.

Am currently heading north at a rapid speed enjoying the countryside en route.Finding your way in to writing a story or blog or article is vital. With my workshop I look at a couple of different ways to find that way in.

Shortly going to be chatting about random generators to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group via Zoom. Have a web search and see how many there are out there. There are more than you think and I found one new to me for the talk I’m about to give too. Hope to share more here later. 

Fairytales With Bite – Is the Best Help Always Magical?

Given magical power, as with any other kind of power, is open to abuse, I would say the answer to this one is a definite “no”! It’s also not the only answer to a problem.

Despite Gandalf’s magical powers in The Lord of the Rings, the others still have to fight Sauron etc. And it wasn’t entirely magical help that got Frodo to where he needed to be either. He and Sam still had to walk, still had to work out whether to trust Gollum or not etc.

And even in the classic fairytales when the fairy godmother turns up (albeit often somewhat belatedly in my view) to help the lead character, that same lead character has had to show themselves to be worthy of that help coming their way. Those fairy godmothers don’t get their wands out for just anyone, you know.

So self-help, the help of loyal friends etc is every bit as important as magical help – and I think that is how it should be too. You don’t want a story to hinge on a magic wand funnily enough. You want it to contribute but not be the be all and end all.

If a story can be solved by magical help alone, where is the story? Where is the depth of characterisation? You can show the latter through the friends coming to our hero’s aid. 

This World and Others – Resolving Conflicts

This kind of topic will always be topical, unfortunately, but for fiction purposes how are conflicts resolved in your created worlds? Is there such a thing as our conciliation services, the United Nations etc? Or are conflicts always fought out, literally?

Someone in your stories has to have the courage to be the peacemaker (or at least be the one who tries to bring about peace. It isn’t up to them whether that attempt is successful). What makes that someone set themselves up for, at best, being moaned at by both sides in an attempt to make them see reason?

Peacemakers and those who call out wars are not always the most popular people on the planet. What drives them to try to resolve conflicts? What conflicts form part of your back story and drives your characters here?And when conflicts are resolved,  how long does it take your people to settle back to normal lives again?

Now not everything will be back to normal again. There will be losses. So what are these and how do people cope with them? How do your characters resolve their own inner conflicts?

When conflicts are resolved, amongst the huge sense of loss there often is, what happens to your characters’ sense of hope etc? How and where does the future look brighter? There should be hope somewhere otherwise there is no “proper” resolution to your story – and without hope,  your characters and your readers will only feel despair that things haven’t been resolved properly. 

Starting and Finishing and Creativity

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you had a good weekend. Nice quiet one here but lots of exciting news to report this time plus I hope a useful blog I prepared for the Association of Christian Writers on Starting and Finishing.

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Facebook – General

You know how sometimes there is no news and then all of a sudden there is loads to share – well today is one of those days for me.

Delighted to say my new author newsletter is now out there (for more do see https://mailchi.mp/22ec1b09a6da/allison-symes-february-2022-newsletter).

Many thanks also for the comments in on Tears Before Lunch, my most recent Friday Flash Fiction story. See https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/tears-before-lunch-by-allison-symes for more.

And I’m delighted to share the link to the brand new edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads which is free. See https://moms-favorite-reads.com/2022/02/01/moms-favorite-reads-emagazine-february-2022/ – the range of articles in here is amazing. Do check it out.

Has also been a good day for another reason – I’ve booked my place for the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August. Can’t wait to go and there is plenty to look forward to before then.

I’ll be at the Scottish Association of Writers conference in March and running a workshop on flash fiction there. So looking forward to that – https://www.scottishassociationofwriters.com/workshops-speakers/

 

Hope Monday hasn’t been too trying. Newsletter out tomorrow, new story video out (will share link on my book page shortly), and pleased to have submitted a new story to Friday Flash Fiction. I’ll be discussing Dialogue in Fiction for my Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday.

I use more dialogue in my short stories (1500 words plus) than in flash though I am counting thoughts as internal dialogue and I do use that a lot in flash. It’s a great way of taking you straight into a character’s head and showing you their thoughts and attitudes. You see things as they see them and I think it a good way of developing character empathy. Okay you may not always agree with them but that’s another matter! You at least see where they are coming from.

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Hope you have had a good weekend. Lovely to catch up with writing friends on Zoom last night. Always such a morale boost. Am getting my next author newsletter up together ready for sending out next week. If you would like to sign up for tips, prompts, news, stories etc., head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

What would you say was your favourite kind of story? I suppose mine comes from my life long love of fairytales in that I love to see wrong being righted and the underdog to do well. Mind you, that does open up a lot of possibilities for reading material as well as for writing stories. Wrong being righted is a common theme to crime stories after all. And the underdog aka the hero nobody expects to be a hero is a common theme in fantasy.

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I talk about Starting and Finishing for More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers, this month.

I discuss how I often get into starting a story by using a random generator and share why spider diagrams are so helpful too. As for the other end of the story, I look at how for twist in the tale stories, it is a good idea to write that twist down first and then look at what could lead to that point.

I also look at whether planning your work out kills off spontaneity.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

The new edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads is out and you can download it for free. See the link at https://moms-favorite-reads.com/2022/02/01/moms-favorite-reads-emagazine-february-2022/ for more.

In my column this month (see Page 42), I talk about Creativity. I look at some of the different ways I use to trigger story ideas and fuel my own creativity (and I discuss picture prompts and random generators amongst other things. I hope to talk more about random generators for a future column as these are so useful). My theme for people to write to this time was What Creativity Means to Me and the responses to that were wonderful but don’t just take my word for it – go and treat yourself to a good and free read!

 

Hope you enjoy my new YouTube story – No B Gratitude. This story was inspired by something that came up on a random question generator – the question was what was the most recent silly thing you’ve done?
So I got my character to show you! (There’s also a pun in the choice of music chosen for this one – I was so pleased to find it available to use from YouTube’s comprehensive audio library which is the audio equivalent of Pixabay for photos).

Just to flag up there is an offer on From Light to Dark and Back Again at the moment over on Amazon.

What do I love most about reading flash fiction by other writers? Firstly I learn a lot from seeing what other people do with the format. Secondly, I love to see what writers do when writing to the same theme and word count.

The Waterloo Art Festival Writing Competitions held in the last few years were a great example of this – the fifteen winners for each year, including yours truly, all wrote to the same theme and word count yet the stories were so vastly different.

Last but not least, it encourages me to “up my game” and see what I can do better. Why is that a good thing? Because it fuels the old creativity “grey cells” and helps me produce (a) more work and (b) better work because I have tried to stretch myself a bit.

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Twist endings work beautifully in flash fiction precisely because you don’t have to wait long for the pay-off! I’ve always loved that aspect of things. And the nice thing here is you don’t have to limit twist endings to crime stories, though that is the obvious home for them.

Twist endings can also be punchlines so will work well for humorous tales. And a monologue can be enlivened by a surprise ending too. For this kind of tale, I always write the twist first and then work backwards to get to the start. It seems an odd way of doing things to begin with but you do get used to it. It also means you have a logical plot leading to that final twist. You don’t want your twist let down by a weak start or flabby middle.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Books and Trains

Books and trains are a match made in heaven (especially publishing heaven!). As well as stories inspired by train (and my favourite here is Murder on the Orient Express – the ultimate train, yes?!), books are the best form of portable entertainment and a fabulous way of passing the time.

I must admit I wait to read until I know I am on the train I want otherwise there is the risk I will still be reading at the platform long after the train has gone! (It helps a lot if I know I’m going somewhere like London Waterloo which is the end of the line as I know I can’t miss my stop either!).

It is no coincidence that the major stations have bookshops on them. For me the perfect way to escape the cares of the world is to read, ideally while listening to classical music via my headphones. (If there’s a cup of tea or hot chocolate to hand, even better!) And if I’m not reading stories while travelling, I am writing my own so I love that too.

It probably helps that I write flash fiction which a dear friend described as a “bus stop read”. It works well on trains too!

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