Tag: Short Form Fiction

Curling Up With A Good Book

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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 the weekend went well for you. Okay here. Writing wise, am making good progress on my next author newsletter, have sent some pitches off last week, and am continuing to blog, edit, and write flash fiction – all good stuff. I think it’s sometimes easier to write more as we go into autumn and winter – less temptation to be outside!

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Hope today has been a good one. Lady didn’t get to see any doggie pals today but she did see some human ones so was pleased about that and is looking forward to catching up with her four legged chums tomorrow.

There is one more big flash competition I want to have a go at (deadline is the end of the year) but am hoping something I will draft for Flash NANO (which starts on 1st November) this year may prove to be a good fit for it. Will have to wait and see. What I do draft this year will be an excellent start to my fourth flash fiction collection in due course.

Hope you have had a good day. Lady’s week has got off to a flying start as she met up with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals. Lady and her Ridgeback pal has a lovely play fight, which they both loved. Given Lady is coming up 9 and her pal is 7, they are both still pups at heart.

Writing wise, one of the joys of being interviewed is of course to talk about your work and what you love about it in depth. One fabulous question I was asked by Wendy H Jones in the October 2025 issue of Writers’ Narrative was about whether short form fiction allowed for more experimentation in voice and form.

Do check out the interview for my reply (screenshot below gives a taster) but it was great to share something of what I love about the short forms of fiction and, in a separate question, what drew me to it in the first place.

Hope Sunday has been a good and peaceful one for you. Not bad here. Looking forward to starting flash fiction Sunday soon. Nice way to end the week (or begin the next one, either works!).

Writing Tip: When you come across (as you will) a story which didn’t work for you, take some time out to figure out why this was. You will learn a great deal from this.

I know there are certain types of character I don’t like having read some of them in stories which didn’t grip me at all, so I take care not to produce that kind of character myself. I’ve found it helps just as much to know what you don’t like as it does knowing what you do when it comes to your own writing.

Hope you have had a good start to your weekend. Managed to get the lawn cut (and before it shoots up too high again ) so I count that as a win.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Ending a Piece of Fiction as a nice conclusion to my mini-series started yesterday with Starting a Piece of Fiction. The new post will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

It was lovely to finish the working week with a nice surprise. Naturally, I was thrilled to be one of the two Editor’s Choices for Friday Flash Fiction this week with my Finding Out the Hard Way.

Delighted Jim Bartlett was the other pick for his Safer. Many a word of truth in that one. Do check the stories out on FFF. You can be guaranteed a good read. Link below to my one which appeared yesterday.

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One tip I find useful for competitions with a specific word count (e.g. 53 words, 75 words etc – and I have come across these) is to instantly reserve up to five words for the title. I then know a rough count for the story itself.

If I end up having a shorter title, I can add a couple of words to the story. Often I don’t bother. I see having those “spare words” as a safety net to ensure I am well under the count asked for though there are places which want you to get to the exact limit. In these cases, I know immediately how many words I need to put into the story to bring it up to the right count.

It’s Monday. It’s as hectic as ever. It’s time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Giving It A Miss.

A justly beautiful tourist destination, popular with colleagues, who only visit at a certain time of year leads to my character finding out why. She isn’t planning a return visit. Find out why here.

 

It won’t be too long before I take part in the last Flash NANO. I will be sorry to see that go. I’ve found it so useful for producing 30 draft flash pieces in November for the last few years. Some of those went on to be published (and some will be in my Seeing The Other Side collection due out in May 2026).

I’m looking forward to meeting up with other members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group at the ACW in person meeting at the end of this month. It will be nice to step outside our Zoom boxes for a bit. Naturally, we will all be waving the flag for the joys of writing flash fiction!

When I write to a specific word count, as I do for Friday Flash Fiction, the additional challenge of sticking to 100 words each time is coming up with something fresh and different every time, which can still be contained in that tight word limit.

I have found it useful to focus on one character and one moment. It makes me think about what matters so much to my character it has to be written up as a story. Flash is excellent for helping you develop a real feel for what matters here and that’s a good discipline to take across to other forms of writing as well. I’ve found it useful with my blog posts and articles too.

Goodreads Author Blog – Curling Up With A Good Book

One of the joys of the autumn and winter seasons is you get to have more opportunities to curl up with a good book., Okay, I do have to go out with the dog (which is fine) but when you have the chance to just grab a book and not go out in the cold and wet, you’re going to take it, yes?

As the nights draw in, I will often turn to my favourite forms of comfort reading, which is on the lighter side of fiction. There is enough “grim” going on in the world for real for me to want to read more of it in a book, I’m afraid.

Dystopian fiction has never been my thing and it certainly isn’t now. I’m all for books which address issues because they can meet so many needs. For one thing, they can draw attention to those issues and make people think about them.

But I will admit with not having as much reading time as I would like, I am going to focus on an entertaining read. That takes in many genres, funnily enough.

For me, one definition of a good book is it is one that takes my mind off things for a short while and with characters I can root for and come to care about.

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WRITERS’ NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

Back issue time as I’ve shared the October 2025 edition above. Hope you also enjoy the issue below and remember it is free to subscribe.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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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!

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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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