Tag: Story collections

Out and About

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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 Janet Williams for the images of me at The Hilt Book Fair.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Managed to prepare lots of draft flash pieces for competitions and other market submissions which I hope to review by the end of this week and either send out or have read to send out by early next week. I can’t rule out my picking up on something when I review but than that is the purpose of the review! Lady has had a lovely time with her two best girlfriends so all is right in their world.

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Brrrr…. It has been a chilly one today. No snow but it has tried to sleet off and on all day. Lady didn’t get to see any pals today but she had a good run around. She is rarely fazed by the weather. Me? I am so thankful writing can be done in the warm!

Writing wise, I will be sharing Top Flash Fiction Writing Tips and The Benefits for Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Link up on Friday. More author interviews to come on CFT too.

Next newsletter will be out on 1st December – just where has the year gone?

Many thanks to all of my subscribers for your ongoing support. If you would like to sign up to find news, story links, flash fiction and writing tips, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Pleased to be back on Authors Electric with my latest post Out and About. I summarise what I’ve been up to lately writing event wise and celebrate the wonderfully supportive writing community. Hope you enjoy the post.

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Hope you have had a lovely weekend. Getting colder. Not that Lady notices. She’s loved her runs and walks today, as always.

Will be back on Authors Electric tomorrow with a post called Out and About. Am also due to appear on a guest writer spot later this week too. More news on that nearer the time.

Will be getting on with writing various flash fiction pieces shortly. Have got three resting for competition entries, which I hope to review and send towards the end of next week, all being well.

It’s almost festive flash fiction time too. I haven’t written any so far this year. I often have done by now. It’s strange how the ideas can strike during a hot day in July. I just get on and write the story down at that point and review later when this happens. Didn’t happen this year but then it was a funny summer weather wise.

I do love writing festive flash – it’s fun, it’s cheery, and what I think we need as we approach the end of the year so I will enjoy doing this. Maybe the colder weather will also help inspire ideas. Now there’s a thought – put the weather to good use!

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Hope you have had a good day. Got a good workout earlier raking up some of the autumn leaves (only some because I ran out of space in my garden waste bin!). Lady was happily watching me with football between her paws.

Will be sharing tips on writing flash fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today next week.

Am busy preparing some flash fiction pieces for competitions at the moment too. So looking forward to the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event next month too. Also busy preparing various blog pieces which I hope will make appearances in due course.

Writing Tip: Don’t worry if you find you’ve little time to write. Just use those periods to jot down potential ideas for writing/marketing you can follow up on later when you do have more time. I do this a lot and I find it helps because when I do get to my desk with a reasonable amount of time ahead of me, I know what I’m going to be working on immediately. I find I end up getting more done precisely because I’m not dithering.

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Bitterly cold in the UK today. What could you do with weather conditions like that for a flash fiction story? How does your character handle the cold? What do they have to do which they would rather not in those conditions? Could be potential for funny stories there (maybe Grandma’s hated virulent green scarf finally comes into its own!).

467586748_1027513639388497_670546509994034310_nIt’s Monday. It went dark even earlier than normal thanks to bad weather. It’s still Monday. It’s time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Wishing Wisely. Jenny spends a lot of time wishing but is she wishing for the right things? Find out here.

 

I wonder if anyone has written a flash piece about a writer being buried by the books and stories on their desk! If not, maybe I should put my hat in the ring for that one. I never share pictures of my desk on social media. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to see it. I do know where everything is on it though. And I’ve seen pictures of Albert Einstein’s desk when he died. He makes my desk look pristine. It isn’t.

I do know there are story ideas to be followed through on looking at neatness and untidiness. These are traits you could give to two characters – they’re bound to strike sparks of each other here! Could be fun to do. Good luck if you have a go at this.

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Every author appreciates reviews and I’m no exception. Appropriately for a flash fiction author, the reviews I’ve received do tend to be short and to the point. This is a quote from one of them for Tripping the Flash Fantastic.

… Allison’s stories always make you stop and think a little – there is something slightly off-centre in the way her characters see the world, and she switches effortlessly from humorous tales to stories with a harder bite. A real treat for readers who enjoy being taken on a mystery tour.

Many thanks to FishLady for that. I particularly liked the slightly off-centre bit – sums me and my writing up well!

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Collections

Naturally as a flash fiction and short story writer, I have a very soft spot indeed for story collections and I would urge you to consider adding these to your Christmas list. (There, I’ve said it! Christmas is indeed coming!).

I find them useful in trying out authors whose work is new to me – if I like their short form work, I am highly likely to love their novels. I also like to read shorter stories in between novels as I like to ensure I read plenty of both types of fiction.

But with my writing hat on, I know some stories simply work best when kept short. The classic fairytales are just one example of this. Simply wouldn’t work as novels in my view. Jesus’s parables and Aesop’s Fables again work best and are remembered better precisely because they are short.

What has been a joy in putting my own flash collections together is in being able to share a wide range of stories in terms of mood, word count length, and so on, It is a great opportunity to show what flash fiction is and can be.

It’s also been a joy to contribute to the longer short story anthologies too and I always consider it a real compliment when my work is included in any of these. I also love reading the other stories in there. The variety of styles is always amazing.

I am also fond of short stories by authors far better known for their novels. P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie both had excellent short story collections and I have these on my shelves along with their more famous longer length works. Love them all.

Screenshot 2024-11-16 at 19-50-15 Allison Symes's Blog - Story Collections - November 16 2024 11 48 Goodreads

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

This time I share the January/February 2024 bumper edition of the magazine. I look at New Beginnings for Characters and also ask Flash Fiction Romance – Is It Possible?

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Characters, Conversation, and Chandler’s Ford Today

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Image Credits:  All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Photo below taken by Adrian Symes (though Lady still has work to do on her literary appreciation techniques!). Hope you had a good weekend and an equally good start to the working week. Lady is in good spirits as she has met up with her favourite dog pals this week already.

LADY DISCUSSES TTFF WITH ME

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For Chandler’s Ford Today this week, I’ll be looking at Writing Techniques in Fiction. Now that could cover several books but I’ll be taking a brief overview at things like show, don’t tell and speech tags amongst other things. It took me a while to get my head around the show, don’t tell one. Writing flash fiction helped me enormously there (and of course still does). Link up on Friday. (I think I’ve found a topic for the letter X but I’ll post on that next week!).

Am looking forward to resuming author interviews on CFT again later in the summer. More details nearer the time.

Will be off on another CFT works outing with my lovely editor, Janet Williams, when we go to see The Chameleon Theatre Group’s latest production Hoovering the Edge, which we’ll be seeing later this month.

Chandler's Ford Today post reminder picture(1)Hope you have had a good start to the working week. I wrote two flash pieces over the weekend which have specific times in them. Yes, there is such as thing as a random clock time generator! I’ll be sharing one of these on my Facebook book page (From Light to Dark and Back Again) shortly with the YouTube link. See further down. I hope to share the other one later on in the week. Good fun to do this. And as with all of the generators I use, you can set the parameters that suit you. Will be using this one again at some point.

Screenshot 2022-07-04 at 19-58-41 RANDOM.ORG - Clock Time Generator

What is it about a book or short story or piece of flash fiction that grabs you? As you know, for me it is always the character. I have to find out what they’re doing/going to do. What is it about non-fiction that grabs you given you don’t have a character as such? For me it is the narrative voice and a good opening hook. Questions are useful here as you know by the end of the piece some sort of answer has to be given and that is what keeps you reading. You don’t necessarily need to agree with the answer!

I’m a big fan of reading blogs as well as writing them and what I love most is the way you have a “compact” article in 500 words or so. Great way to take in useful information and tips quickly. For my CFT posts, I see these more as articles given I aim for 1000 to 1500 words a time (as any longer than that, it becomes a two or three part series. Beyond this word count it works better as a series and you can hopefully hook readers into wanting to read Part 2 etc).

Asking and answering questions sets up a structure for your piece of work

If you want a great read, why not download the latest issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads? You will find a great range of articles, including my monthly flash fiction column. This time I talk about Flexibility in Flash Fiction.

I discuss why flash is flexible with regard to word count (bar the the upper limit of 1000 of course), genre, and the use of first and third person. I’ve taken advantage of all of those things and created a wide range of stories as a result. You can too.

Best of all, the magazine is free! Time to put your feet up then, have a good read and have a decent beverage to hand I think. (For me that will always be tea!).

And check out the stories which came in as a result of my flash challenge – great tales all of them but don’t just take my word for it. Go on, it really is time for a read!

 

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I sometimes write all dialogue flash stories which are fun to do. I love getting my characters to talk so this is a good format for me. I limit these stories to two characters only and I find most of my stories of this kind come in at the 200 words or under mark. The challenge here is to ensure the dialogue does tell a story and keeps the reader hooked. It can’t just be conversation for the sake of it.

The secret here is to have two strong characters with distinctive voices. Getting them to use certain types of words here can be a great way to tell them apart – one can use slang terms, the other doesn’t. One has a posher sounding name than the other (and I repeat names every so often as well).

Give it a go and have fun with it. You will find out quickly if your characters are strong enough to carry a tale of this type. If not then the conversation will fizzle out and there will be no story. If they are strong enough, you’ll have no trouble sharing their story in conversation.

A classic way in is to have one character want something and the other is stopping them but the conflict here still needs to be resolved via the dialogue only. So it would probably pay you to work out how that could be done first, then work out what leads up to it. The classic writing from B to A again which I use for twist and humorous endings too.

Dialogue resembles real speech but art has to be better than life for this

 

It’s Monday once again and time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube. This one, called Deterrent, is based on clock times generated by a random clock time generator. Yes, really. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Flash fiction is a great format for those humorous pieces which stand alone well (but would not work if used to pad out a longer story. It would either seem like padding or would get “lost” in the overall story). My A Stitch in Time from Tripping the Flash Fantastic is an example of that.

This is another reason to love flash. It gives a vehicle for those tales which might not otherwise be told. For Open Prose Mic Nights, I like to have at least a couple of these funnier pieces in amongst the more serious stories. That in turn shows the range for flash – it can be funny, it can be tragic etc.

Whatever type of flash you write though, you do need to be able to get into your characters’ heads. Otherwise the reader won’t either. And it is the characters that readers want to find out about, whose story they want to read. You are your own first reader.

I like to keep an Ideal Reader in mind when I am going through my stories and to think about how this story would appeal, what would my Ideal Reader be likely to say to me about beefing it up where it is needed and so on. Having your audience in mind from the start has helped me not to go off on unhelpful tangents, which would only get cut out later anyway.

For the funnier tales, I have a fairly broad sense of humour so I try to aim my humorous tales to appeal to that kind of audience, someone like me with that kind of taste.

Laughter in fiction has a great range

Many thank for all the comments coming on on The Big Day, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. Much appreciated. This tale came about as a result of my deciding to write a story centred around an anniversary or a birthday. I knew cake had to be involved!

I also mentioned about a week or so ago that birthdays, anniversaries and the like can make a great structure for stories. Something happens at these events. You can also look at how your characters react to them, whether the events go well or not, and so on. Anyway, I took my own advice here!

Screenshot 2022-07-01 at 09-21-26 The Big Day by Allison Symes

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Collections

One of the earliest books I had (and still have) are the Reader’s Digest Fairytale collections. These are two huge books full of the classic tales by Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christen Andersen, and so on. You don’t want to drop these books on your foot is what I am saying here!

I spent hours as a kid looking at the wonderful colour illustrations and later reading and re-reading the tales. I loved The Snow Queen. For the first time I came across a girl as the heroine, the one doing the “derring-do”, and I loved that (and still do).

What I deeply appreciate here is the way people collected these old tales so we still have them now. Invaluable. I also appreciate it from the viewpoint that short stories are worth collecting – they so are!

My late mother collected the works of Dickens, I collected the works of Agatha Christie. Both Mum and I used a book club for these. (Mine was via Odhams Publishers but they set up an Agatha Christie collection kind of club and naturally I wanted the lot. Never regretted getting those).

What story collections do you treasure and why?

Screenshot 2022-07-05 at 20-40-45 Story Collections

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Prompts, Story Collections, and Editing Flash Fiction

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

I hope my new story video, Acrostic, shared below, puts a smile on your face after what has, in the UK, been a wet and windy week. (It honestly feels more like November than May right now! Brrr…).

Oh and there is an offer currently on at Amazon for the paperback of Tripping The Flash Fantastic (as at 25th May 2021).

Tripping The Flash Fantastic - by night

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Okay, we did actually see some sunshine in my part of Hampshire today but the rain’s back. Not overly impressed as you may be able to tell!

I discuss Writing Prompts in my Chandler’s Ford Today post later this week. I share a few examples of prompts and look at why these are useful. I’ve also contributed to a couple of books of prompts produced by #GillJames – I find these so helpful in encouraging me to think outside of my usual imaginative box. And they’re great practice for when you go to writing conferences and the like where exercises are usually set. (These are often set on giving you a closing or opening line for example so practicing writing to these is a good idea). More on Friday.

Some of my published stories started life as a response to a writing prompt so, yes, I am biased in promoting using them. But you never know if you can write to a prompt if you don’t try, yes?

Occasionally I will jot down a line that I think could make a useful prompt but then end up using it as a theme (and even for my Chandler’s Ford Today posts on occasion, as my post on Friday will share). So there is a lot potentially to be gained from using these.

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What a day! Torrential rain, hailstones, glorious sunshine… I don’t think snow is on the agenda but there’s still a few hours left to the end of the day so who knows?

It was great to “go” to a Zoom event where two authors read from their latest works – #PaulaRCReadman (who has guested on Chandler’s Ford Today before) and #PinarTarhan. It is always lovely being read to but it was great being able to put questions directly to the writers afterwards.

Happily wrote another drabble and submitted it to #FridayFlashFiction. I love the way this site encourages you to produce more work for the following week. Great idea. (And yes there are other categories of flash here but they want you to have two 100-worders published with them first before you submit longer flash tales. Am having a ball writing the drabbles again though so I may be here for some time but that’s fine with me!).

My next author newsletter is due to go out on 1st June so if you would like to sign up please head over to my website (https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com). This time I will be sharing my responses to two writing prompts I set in May amongst other things. And I have set another writing prompt to have a go at too.


It was lovely being back in church today and seeing people I’ve not seen for months. Nice start to the day (though Lady found it odd. For the last few months services have been on Zoom and she has snuggled between us on the sofa while they were on. I suspect she missed that today!).

I’m sharing a post on Writing Prompts for Chandler’s Ford Today later in the week. Hopefully it will prove useful. I’m fond of a wide variety of such prompts. They are a great way to kick start your writing when needed and I am especially fond of opening and closing lines. Can do a lot with those. Link up on Friday.

Talking of blogging, it will be my turn on More Than Writers, the blog spot of the Association of Christian Writers next weekend and I will be sharing a lighthearted post about genres. Looking forward to sharing that.

What is the one writing habit you wish you could ditch forever? Mine is getting off to slow starts. I find when I do get started, I’m up and running and a great deal of useful writing gets done but it is the getting started that can sometimes be tricky for me.

(It’s worse if I’m tired or run down and that is when I will deliberately turn to only writing short pieces, fiction or otherwise. The great thing with doing that is there is still the sense of accomplishment at finishing a piece of work, even if it is only a 100-worder. I find feeling positive is the biggest boost to creativity for me and so completing small pieces of work makes me feel positive, that in turn encourages me to write more and so on).


Hope your Saturday has been okay. Glad the wild winds of yesterday have settled down. Looking forward to getting back to church tomorrow. (Okay still have to mask up etc but it will be so nice being there in person).

Many thanks for the great comments so far on my latest story on #FridayFlashFiction, Sibling Surprise. It’s lovely and useful having feedback. Also welcome to those signing up to my website and/or newsletter. Good to have you aboard.
Will be drafting more flash pieces over the rest of the weekend, one to go to be a story video on Youtube.

I tend to write another piece for #FridayFlashFiction over the weekend and submit that. It’s great writing drabbles again on a regular basis. More recently I have either written the mini (under 50 words) tales for the videos or longer flash pieces of 500 words plus. So it is lovely to return to my first flash love here as it was the 100-word challenge from CafeLit that started the flash fiction ball rolling for me.

Allison Symes and some early works.
My two flash collections!

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Many thanks for the great response to my story video Acrostic yesterday. (Link below). It was huge fun to write. Writing stories in acrostic form works well for flash fiction given, as with character studies, these things are best kept short.

Now when it comes to editing a flash story, you might be tempted to think because there are not a lot of words, there is less to do. Wrong!

As well as cutting repetition, typos etc., you do need to ask yourself whether the words you’ve chosen do have the maximum impact on a reader. Any weak words will show up horribly clearly in such a short form. I usually find a phrase I’ve used which is good can often be strengthened by a tweak here and there.

It is the tweaking – the paying attention to the fine details – that can take a good flash story and make it a truly great one. Yet another challenge to flash fiction writing here but trying to make your story the best it can be is something that engages me (and hopefully the finished result will be more likely to engage a reader. I believe most people who read regularly will be able to tell when a writer has poured heart and soul into their work, whether it is a 100,000 word masterpiece, or a 100-word drabble).

 

Story video time again. Hope you enjoy this one – Acrostic lives up to its name and I will say it is not based on fact, honest!

I do sometimes use acrostics to come up with a different form of flash story. They’re great fun to do but a fairly short word works best and it needs to be “open” enough to be able to taken in more than one direction.

 


I nearly always know the impact I want to make on a reader when I draft my flash fiction stories. I say nearly always as sometimes I do manage to surprise myself.

For Calling the Doctor, where the mood of the tale turns on the very last word, that did not come to me immediately but I did have the character fully pictured. I wanted readers to sympathise with a character who did not know the truth about the other person referred to in the piece. But it was only as I was drafting their story, the way of ending this tale came to me and I went with it.

It was then on reviewing the story I realised how much I had “upped the ante” on this story by having a dramatic twist like that. A sympathetic character study here would have worked well but twisting the mood on the last word lifted this story to greater heights and it remains a favourite story of mine.

It is also a good example of a dark tale without over-egging the darkness. So much is implied and that of course is the strength of flash fiction. I love it when I read a story or novel and I pick up on the implications by myself. That gets my imagination going and isn’t that part of the joy of a really good read?

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I sometimes use alliterative titles for my flash pieces. The most recent for these is Sibling Surprise which went up on #FridayFlashFiction yesterday. (See link given above). I try not to overdo this though as I don’t want titles to seem gimmicky so I like a mixture of alliterative, proverbs/well known sayings etc. For all of them I want something to conjure up the story mood and “advertise” the tale to come.

I usually do know the title first but sometimes a better idea comes along as I draft my tale so I just jot down the idea and switch titles later if the latter idea proves to have more of an impact. I find I have to have a “peg” to work to so I have to have some kind of title. But very little is set in stone so as long as I’ve got something to give me a starting point, that’s fine with me.

What I do know is that shorter titles work best. They’re easier to remember too which is handy when you’re coming up with titles for the next stories. I’ve only repeated once to the best of my knowledge but for both tales, I got very different stories from them so that was okay but it is not something I want to do often for obvious reasons. I do see a title as a story’s first advert so I want each one to be distinctive.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Story Collections

As well as reading novels, I like to read short story and flash fiction collections. I often use these to help me decide which genre of novel I want to read next.

Now I’m not unbiased here, as I am the author of two published flash fiction collections and have been in a number of short story anthologies! But I am going to take the chance to wave the flag for both formats.

There are different challenges in writing short stories and flash fiction as opposed to novels, naturally, but the charm of the short form is in giving you a brief overview of a character’s life. In the case of flash fiction, it is a snapshot only but for things like character studies, which to my mind work best when kept short, this is an ideal format for that kind of story.

I like to mix up the type of story in terms of genre, length, and mood. It gives me a wide reading diet that in turn helps me with my writing. We are all inspired by things we have loved reading after all.

And sometimes less is more so do add short stories and flash fiction to your reading mix. I find them to be a wonderful “appetiser” ahead of the next “meal” of a novel!

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Editing, Dream Characters, and Story Collections

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I’ve never understood writers who edit as they write. I know full well I would stymie myself if I tried that. When would I ever accept I had written a good enough first line yet alone a first page etc?

It has helped me enormously to know you don’t have to get it right all in one go. Indeed, the one guarantee is you won’t! So I write and focus on getting the story written.

Then I worry about:-

1. Does the story work?

2. Does the structure make sense?

3. Have I overwritten anything? (The answer to that is always yes!).

4. What “flabby prose” can I tighten up by better choices of words, phrases etc? (There is always something to be improved here but that’s fine. You get better over time at knowing what to look for here and how you can put it right. It is slightly annoying you can’t stop yourself writing flabby prose but at least nobody else has to see it!).

5. Do my characters come across the way I want them to do? (There’s nearly always room for improvement here).

I love editing. It’s a great feeling when you know your story has improved dramatically because you’ve dealt with the 5 points above properly.

But it is a case of one thing at a time. Write first, edit later.

Ah! The joy of the edit! Pixabay.
Lost in a world of books. Pixabay image.
What writing can give you over time. Pixabay.
Writing regularly, even in short bursts, encourages your imaginative side to flourish. Pixabay.
A familiar sight! Pixabay
Warning: Writer at Work. Pixabay
So many lovely forms of writing… Pixabay
Make the most of your writing time. Pixabay

 

Pleased I’ve submitted a couple of flash fiction pieces. Won’t know results for a while but it’s such a joy being able to submit work online.

When I first started out (and the dinosaurs had just left the planet etc etc), all submissions had to be done by snail mail. When I think of the costs and time tied up in that, the mind boggles!

The great thing is I have acknowledgement of receipt of entries pretty much straight away too. I recall having to put in stamped addressed postcards to publishers when I was particularly keen to know if something had reached them.

So am I pleased at the development of email submissions etc? You bet! Technological change is often a good thing.

A good read means you ARE in a world of your own. Pixabay image
Fake news and roundabouts that are too small make it into my CFT post. Image via Pixabay.
Well…? Pixabay
Indeed! Pixabay image.
Pixabay image.
Imagination feeding the lightbulb moment. Pixabay
Writing is rewriting. Image via Pixabay.
CAN you manage time? Pixabay image.
Let the creativity spill out. PIxabay image.
Very true.. Pixabay image.
Beautiful pens. Pexels image.
What we all need… Pixabay

What would you class as a dream character? For me this would be someone who was:-

1. Feisty and honourable. (Funnily enough, that can apply to villains too. They will have a code they adhere to no matter what. It may not be one we as readers like or agree with but there will be something there where we can see why the villain would act the way they are. What I can’t stand are characters who do things for no apparent reason. They leave me thinking “What….?!”).

2. Comes up with all the best one-liners

3. Gets on with most other characters because they’re not full of themselves or, in the case of a villain, is able to charm other characters into obeying them. The fascination there is how they draw people in.

4. Is the type of person you would definitely want on your side in a fight/life or death scenario. In the case of a villain. who is the cause of said fight/life or death scenario, they are the kind of person you would run a million miles from. They have got to be PROPER villains.

5. Fascinate YOU as the writer. You are your own first audience.

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I’ll be looking at What Do You Think Makes a Good Book in my CFT post later this week. I’ll also be naming three of my all-time favourites, which are varied in genre and era, and look at what they have in common. Link up on Friday. I love writing for CFT but posts this like are especially fun to write!

How to spot a committed writer (and possibly one that should be!):-

1. Their book shelves are piled high with books from across the genres

2. They have notebooks everywhere (but can have trouble finding a pen when asked).

3. They can go on about stories for ever and ever amen (and do given half a chance).

Hmm…

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Editing is my theme for tonight. One of the issues with flash fiction is how far do you edit? It is too easy just to focus on getting the word count right and not look at the balance of the story overall. It’s something I have to watch out for.

If a phrase, say, tells me something more about a character than a shorter expression would, the longer phrase stays in. It’s all about the relevant details. Focus on what HAS to be in your story. What’s left is where you can cut back.

But look at how the story flows and do read it aloud to hear this for yourself. An edit doesn’t work if you’ve taken out ALL that makes the story flow. This is the point if I decide a story works better at 250 words than 100, it stays at 250.

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What are the advantages of using the first person in flash fiction?

1. I can take you straight into that character’s thoughts.

2. That in turn will show you their attitudes (which will also give clues as to what their significant traits are likely to be).

3. I show you the story through that character’s eyes and I think it creates immediacy.

4. I can vary how my “I” character talks to you as a reader – and that can in turn help you guess at likely age and so on. My Calling the Doctor has a confiding tone to it. My They Don’t Understand has my narrator looking back at life with regret. I don’t need to tell you the latter is going to be a senior citizen as a result. It is all implied in how they “talk”.

5. As first person is so direct, it can save a lot on the word count!

The joy of writing. Image via Pixabay.
The magical world of the imagination. Image via Pixabay
Says it all really and applies to non-fiction equally as fiction. Image via Pixabay.
Where good ideas start… but good ideas need refining and editing, Image via Pixabay
Grow as a writer? Grow your reading! Image via Pixabay
Writing to screen. Am using smartphone more for this.
From paper to PC, characters and stories must grip you as the writer first if they are to have any hope of gripping readers! Image via Pixabay.
Notes are essential for an talk.
Have notebook. Will jot down ideas for how to drop my characters right in it and work out how they get out of it again. Image via Pixabay.
I could spend many a happy hour here – the library at Prague. Image via Pixabay.
Escape with a good book, it’s good for you! Image via Pixabay
Enjoy what you write and read! Image by Allison Symes

What do I look for in a writing prompt? The obvious answer is something to stretch me (no, not a rack or a huge elastic band!). The format of that prompt matters less.

I’ve used picture prompts, opening line and closing line prompts, list so many words connected to a theme prompts and so on.

I do think it a good idea to mix up which prompts you use to keep things interesting for you and also to ensure you ARE challenging yourself frequently enough. It can be easy to get into a rut of using only certain kinds of prompts/ideas to get you started.

Mix things up, have fun, play with words. Once you’ve got your thoughts down, then stand back and put your editor’s hat on.

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I’ve long been an advocate of reading work out loud. I’ve picked up errors this way and find out if my dialogue really is as smooth as I thought it was when I wrote it. If I stumble over it, a reader will too, and out comes the editing pen again.

It is one of those oddballs that something which looks great written down does not necessarily transfer well to speech.

The other advantage of reading work out loud is you hear the rhythm within the prose and you can tweak that to the advantage of the story’s overall impact.

The great thing with flash fiction?

Reading work out loud doesn’t take long!

Can’t have too many notebooks and pens. Image via Pexels
A good photo shows light at its best. Pixabay image.
Pixabay.
What all writers need (harmony within yourself to overcome the fear and write anyway). Pixabay.
So true. Pixabay.
But planning can help bring it to realisation. Pixabay image.
Let your writing sparkle. Image via Pexels.
All great ideas for writing but you still need to “apply the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair” (P.G.Wodehouse). Pixabay image.

 

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Collections

I have got a very soft spot for story collections for several reasons:-

1. My first real reading loves was the Reader’s Digest Collection of Fairytales, which I still have.

2. You get a lovely mixture of tones and length of story in an anthlogy.

3. I’ve been published in such anthologies (and am due to be so again) so am not unbiased here!

4. If you’re not sure what to read next novel wise, why not switch to short story collections for a while? I’ve found reading a collection makes a nice “refresher” before I pick which novel I’ll read next. You also get to mix up your reading here (which I think is always a good thing as it can be a great way to discover authors new to you).

5. You can have collections on a single theme or genre so it is easy enough to go with what you fancy here.

6. You can support the indie presses who bring out such anthologies as these give more authors a voice (and readers more choice too).

7. It’s my belief short stories and flash fiction can encourage reluctant readers to venture further into the wonderful world of books. You’re not asking them to commit to too much at the start. Hopefully by the time they’ve finished a collection, they’ll be hooked and will want to read more.

 

Sometimes the books come to you! Pixabay
Books, books, glorious books…. Pixabay
Whatever you write, enjoy it! Pixabay image
Diary keeping as I recall it but I skipped the gingham! Image via Pixabay
Creating great characters does mean hard work. Image via Pexels.
Always good advice this. Image via Pexels
My flash fiction collection from Chapeltown Books!
Some very strange creatures are in books. Image via Pixabay
Simply stunning… image via Pixabay
Like being able to store so many books! Image via Pexels
The art of the flash (fiction). Image via Pixabay