Tag: story ideas – using trips out

Observations

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Not bad here. Enjoying more sunshine again. Making good progress on the editing front. Can’t say much at the moment but hope it won’t be too long before I share news. Lady seeing some of her friends but not all of the moment though we look forward to rectifying that when possible.

Facebook – General

Hope today has gone well. Quiet in the park though Lady and I had a lovely peaceful time. Bluebells out all over the place where we are too, including in our garden.

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing Writing Wishes on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ll also be looking at the Human-Authored campaign being led, in the UK at least, by the Society of Authors as part of this. There are many writers who have wishes about AI! Some can see the usefulness of it, others worry about the effects on creativity. I worry about the effects on editing quality. More on that in the post.

Come the weekend, I hope to be working on a short story for a competition I have in mind but my editing work is taking priority at the moment so that may have to be pushed back for a week. It is fun having lots of interesting work to do, mind you! I just want more hours in the day but then I suspect that’s true for most of us.

Hope you’ve had a good start to the week. Lady has. She saw her Hungarian Vizler pal and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle.

Writing wise, I’m ploughing on with my editing and making good progress. Hope to make even more progress later tonight!

And as it’s Monday, not my favourite day of the week it must be said, it is time for a story I shared on my Substack account yesterday. Hope you enjoy Talking It Out. Do you feel any sympathy for Mary here?

Hope your weekend has been a good one. Loved my day out at Salisbury yesterday. Glad to be at home today.

Looking forward to getting on with flash fiction Sunday in a while and after that getting on with further editing on my Seeing The Other Side. There comes a point with flash where you know you can edit a piece and tighten it further in terms of word count but you then lose something of the “flow” of the story. That’s where I stop. I don’t want to lose that “flow” so, assuming all else is well, I would far rather leave a flash piece at 125 words, say, rather than cut back too far to get it to 100 words.

I’m always thinking about the impact of my stories on potential readers so don’t want anything to weaken that.


Had a lovely day out in Salisbury at the URC where there was a study on Women in the Bible. Very interesting and may spark story ideas. So many of these women showed great courage, which in itself is a great theme to write around. It was also great to catch up with folk I know here.

Bus replacement service was fine though I will always prefer the train. Bumpy roads meant I couldn’t write on my phone app on the bus. I drafted this while enjoying peppermint tea in a Salisbury coffee shop. Someone has to do it…

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Writing Wishes for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Looking forward to sharing that plus I hope to get plenty done on editing work later.

And, last but not least, I share Light and Dark in Fiction, my latest post on Authors Electric. I look, amongst other things, at how both kinds of fiction can reveal great truths though one is more likely to leave you with a smile on your face than the other! Hope you enjoy it.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Getting out and about with the dog regularly gives opportunities for noticing things going on in the natural world and we are blessed to live close to parks and woods so I’m getting to see plenty of bluebells, the lilacs coming into bloom and so on.

So can you use these things in flash fiction (and indeed in other kinds of fiction)? Of course.

They can make an excellent backdrop for your character. Your character may equally be glad of a break in the fresh air given their circumstances. Some time in the natural world could give them what they need to go back and do what has to be done to hopefully improve said circumstances. Or you could take the colours and scents you come across and write a story around those – who notices them and why? What makes these things stand out? Is your character so glad to escape something, they are relieved to see these things?

Happy writing!

It’s Monday and it has been as hectic as ever. Time for another story then. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Hope, Hoax and Cake.

Emily Winters finally won the village cake competition but did she do so fairly and squarely? Of course not. Find out what happened here.

 

One word themes make excellent topics for all kinds of fiction including flash. These themes come up time and again for competitions and what markets are looking for. To name a few:-

Love
Justice
Revenge
Misunderstanding
Hope

There are many, many more but these topics are timeless. The good news on that is for writers, it means we can always use them.

One thing about getting out and about is spotting those moments you know you can do something with story wise.

For example, on the replacement bus service to Salisbury I was on today, there were two people busy chatting when I got on the bus. They were still nattering an hour later when we all got off at Salisbury and no pauses to speak of in between! I do feel there could be a humorous flash pieces out of that. Watch this space!

I also find I start wondering about backgrounds and settings when I go out anywhere. Again, this is a potential source for story ideas. So make the most of your trips out!

Goodreads Author Blog – Observations

One of the lovely things about fiction is when you come across observations which show up something about us. Jane Austen was fantastic here, as was Terry Pratchett. The best of these observations are always done subtly. You almost take these in without realising it.

Over time, as a writer, you learn to look out for these so you can figure out how to do this for your creations. Best of all, this is fun because you get to do even more reading. Nothing to dislike there!

Of course, some of the observations at least can be sharp ones. Often humorous fiction does this best, I find.

So when you lose yourself in a good book (and as often as possible), it is amazing what you can be taking in. Writers are inspired by what has gone before. We build on what has gone before. There will always be a need for stories and those observations, which make us think when we spot them, will continue to make us think.

Time to get on with some more reading then!

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