Tag: The Chameleon Theatre Group

Review – The Chameleons – Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor

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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. A huge thank you to those lovely people at The Chameleons (especially Daisy Wilkins) for their kind permission to use their wonderful photos in my CFT post this week. Also thanks to various Swanwick friends for taking various photos of me book signing etc at that wonderful place!
Hope you have had a good week. Has been a good one here weather and writing wise. New issue of Writers’ Narrative is out, I have writing news, and am relieved my first author newsletter went out okay on the new service provider. Always a bit of a nerve wracking moment this! Think it looks good too as I took the opportunity to freshen up the newsletter look. See screenshot below.

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Am delighted to share my review of Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor, which was recently performed by my local excellent amateur theatre company, The Chameleons. Hope you enjoy the post. It was a joy to see the show and to write about it.

The Chameleons are also celebrating their 60th anniversary this year so will be having an open evening later in the year for locals to find out more. I hope to get along to that in due course.

Review – The Chameleons – Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor

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Delighted to share the May 2025 issue of Writers’ Narrative which has the theme of Worldbuilding. My article in here is on Worldbuilding and the Shorter Fiction Forms. Do check out the excellent range of articles and interviews here. Have a great read (and remember it is free to subscribe as well. What’s not to like there?).

 

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Another glorious day and Lady got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals so it was just perfect for her. I also enjoyed a fantastic swim today – perfect conditions for it. I can’t always say that!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this evening. It was a good session!

Author newsletter out again tomorrow (how can it be almost May already?).

Have a story I want to get out for a competition at the weekend and am working on edits for another one. Managed to get the edits done and sent the story back to the publisher.

Last but definitely not least, look out for the next issue of Writers’ Narrative, It is due out very soon. I wasn’t wrong, was I?  See above! I will share the link when I have it. 

Meantime do check out the back issues which you can find via the publisher’s link. Plenty of great and useful reading here.
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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my The Camera Never Lies. This is a good example of my writing to a well known phrase and seeing what I can do with it. Hope you like this one.

Lady had a lovely time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler pal. I had another fantastic swim today too.

Had a good session at the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group last night on Zoom.

Writing News: In other news, I’m pleased to announce I am now the ACW Flash Fiction Adviser. Paid up ACW members (and those who buy the quarterly magazine, Christian Writer) will see details of all of the advisers, including me in there. Looking forward to sitting down with Christian Writer which came through my letter box today. (1st May 2025).

Lovely day today. I don’t always use the weather and the mood it can generate to help me with my stories though occasionally I have. More often, I’ve written darker pieces on beautiful spring days and lighter hearted tales on dark wintry ones. That of course may just be me being quirky and writing “against” the prevailing mood from the weather!

I focus much more on the mood of my characters and why they are in that state in the first place. There is always something! Great stories can result from exploring that, especially if the cause turns out to be other characters, as it so often is!

Fairytales with Bite – Wishes

I suspect Cinderella might have one specific wish when her fairy godmother deigned to turn up. She would have wished said godmother had turned up a lot earlier than she did. A lot of upset would have been avoided to put it mildly! I’ve wondered if good old Cinders, prior to her wedding, could look at her rats, lizards etc in quite the same way again when they were returned to their normal forms. (You could also wonder if the animals saw her in the same light too!).

If you have characters doling out the wishes are they able/allowed to grant their own? If not (and I would hope not as you can see the corruption possibilities immediately!), when they do need a wish granted, who would they turn to and why? Is this official or does your character have to go the “back streets” route here and are they found out?

Are there rules about what characters can wish for? Is anything banned outright?

If your world setting is able to survey what other worlds do, can they copy the other worlds’ “sciences” and adapt them to their own magical world? It could look like magic there and be ordinary “run of the mill” stuff on the world they’ve copied it from. Could anything go wrong with this? Or does the magical world get new material they can genuinely use? Is there anyone who wishes they’d found this sooner?!

Also ask what would be the downside to wishes being granted or withheld? There could be some interesting story thoughts here. Would be bound to generate reactions and therefore actions in your characters.

This World and Others – Work and Recreation for the Magically Inclined

What would work look like for your magical characters? For example, do they create the spells they use or are they reliant on the work of others long before them to give them the material they need here? If they develop spells themselves, how do they do this? Are they reliant on natural materials in their world to create these things (think witches and eye of newt! Have always felt sorry for the newts here)?

Or do they use things like metalwork, woodwork etc to create their implements and other things they need to work with and use them to make anything else needed?

When it comes to time off, what do your magical characters do? After a long day working, granting wishes, what would your average fairy godmother like to do when she can hang up the old wand for the evening?

Are there “clubs” for the magically inclined to relax and recuperate or would your characters just prefer to be at home? Would they use magic to help them with domestic chores ore are they only too glad to leave the magic behind after a hard working day?

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Honest and Dishonest Characters

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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 week. Lady has had a fabulous time with her closest friends. I’ve had a lovely trip to the local theatre and good writing news which I hope to share before too long.

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Delighted to share Honest and Dishonest Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Fun piece to write especially given literature is full of excellent examples of both types of creation. I look at some of the aspects you need to consider when creating these and share thoughts and tips. Hope you find it useful.

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24th April
Am off to see The Chameleon Theatre Group perform Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor later this evening. Will review it for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. The audience get to interrogate the cast as part of the performance which should be good fun. Have not been to an “interactive” murder mystery play before. Looking forward to reporting back later.

I see going to plays like this as another way of taking in stories. It’s not a bad idea to try to visualise your own stories as if someone was acting them out.

It can be a good aid to ensuring your dialogue sounds right, helps you cut down description (for a play you would see this as a visual set – can your readers picture your scenes easily enough?), and will show you whether all of your characters are playing a vital role in the story or not. If one or more doesn’t seem to have “much to do”, do you really need them in the tale?

Hope you have had a good Wednesday. Lady had a fabulous time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Came home tired but happy.

Don’t forget my next Chandler’s Ford Today post is upon Friday when I’ll be looking at Honest and Dishonest Characters. Fun piece to write which I hope you will find useful and thoughtful. See above.

Marketing Tip: Consistency matters. I find it useful to focus on those social media outlets and marketing tasks I know I can keep going. So select what you would enjoy most and stick with that.

I like preparing an author newsletter and my YouTube videos, for example, so I have no problems being consistent with producing these. As much as possible, your marketing as well as your writing should be fun for you too. (Or as much fun as possible most of the time anyway!).

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Same Old Thing.

Hope you enjoy it. Good to finish the working week with an enjoyable tale I think. Do check out the rest of what is on FFF – you will have plenty of good reading here.

24th April
Hope today has gone well. Am off to see my excellent local theatre company perform an interactive murder mystery. Should be fun. Led me to think though all of our stories should be interactive in that they should engage your readers so they are gripped by the situation and world you are showing them. No pressure then!

I do believe we are our own first readers though and if I’m not gripped by my characters, I can’t honestly expect anyone else to be.

Have come across another flash competition I may have a go at which specifies a character count rather than a word one (and yes it is linked to X or Twitter as I still prefer to think of it as).

Today, 23rd April, is both the birthday and anniversary of death day for William Shakespeare. Not sure what he would have thought of flash fiction given the length of his plays! But in the wonderful writing world, there is room for all word counts and styles (which is yet another reason to love being part of the overall writing community).

Writing Thought: Why not take one of Shakespeare’s famous quotes and use it as a theme for one of your own stories, flash or otherwise? What could you make of “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” as a theme, for example? Shakespeare was right on that one but could you come up with a tale which proved otherwise?


Fairytales with Bite – Crime in the Magical World

I love the Vimes novels within the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s magnificent Discworld series. The entire canon is superb but the Vimes books stand out for me and books like Men at Arms are excellent detective stories in their own right (and the fantasy setting makes them stand out more).

So thinking about your own magical/fantasy setting, which crimes could happen with in it? Are the crimes solved by magic or with good old fashioned police work (the Pratchett approach, which for me makes the books more real).

If you use magic to solve the crimes, bear in mind the criminals would almost certainly have used crime to commit their nefarious deeds so how can more magic overcome that?

You will need to give thought as to what magic can do and not do in your setting. There should be advantages and disadvantages to using it/not using it (as this will give more issues for your characters to think about as they work out what to do and will help increase tensions in your story).

Also think about the crimes which could only be committed in a magical world, what would these be? What is done to try to prevent them? Is there any kind of magical crime prevention agency and/or a detective one? Who could police the use of magic and what powers would they have to enforce this? How did the rules for the use of magic come into being in the first place?

This World and Others – Social Issues in the Magical or Sci-Fi World

Where magic or where science beyond what we know here exists in your setting, which social issues arise from them? Do these things create a have and have not society? If so, how is that handled? Are there any attempts to make things better for the have nots? Are there classes of citizens who are gifted with this kind of magic and/or science and do they share it or hoard it?

Has your magical/scientific setting over time benefited from the developments discovered or created? If so, how? Do these benefits help all? Those with the skills – are they revered or hated? Would others in your setting have good cause to fear them?

If your setting can survey other worlds, such as Earth, are there ideas we have they do not? Would they be prepared to steal them? If so, how would they go about this without drawing attention to the fact there was was an alien invasion going on (might cause panic!) or do they not worry about that? Have they raided other worlds before?

Scientific developments especially can cause two reasons – welcome and rejection. People can fear what they don’t understand so how would your setting’s people overcome this so new developments weren’t misunderstood or misrepresented?

The trouble with misunderstanding or misrepresenting something is the panic and resulting actions from that panic which in turn could cause social issues( rioting, maybe?).

Food for story thought there I hope.

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The Chameleon Theatre Group – Cinderella – Review

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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 week. Nice to see some sunshine about though there were frosts with it. Writing wise, enjoyed going to a lovely ACW Zoom group meeting and am making good progress with other projects so not bad at all. Hopes yours is going well too.

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Hope you have had a good day. Bitterly cold here. Lady though got to have a good run at the park and then her pal, Coco, came out, so she had another good run with said Coco. Lovely to see them have a good time.

And I too had a good time at the pantomime The Chameleon Theatre Group staged recently. I went to see my favourite fairytale, Cinderella, performed by them.

My review is my post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. You can find out one reason why Cinderella is my favourite fairytale too plus get a good flavour of the show itself from the review below. As ever, a huge thank you to The Chameleons for kind permission to use the photos. As for the Ugly Sisters, once seen, never forgotten. See the post for proof! (You’ll find captions for the photos below on the actual CFT post).

The Chameleons – Cinderella Review

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Sunny but cold today. Lady had another fabulous run around with Coco the lovely Labradoodle.

Looking forward to sharing my review of Cinderella on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Always a joy to go and see any show staged by The Chameleon Theatre Group, though understandably their pantos are a huge highlight of their year. See above.

There will be a great author interview with Gill James on CFT the week after so do look out for that too.

Writing/Marketing Tip: When you read author interviews, listen to them or what have you, do make a note of the questions being asked. Then work out how you would answer them if you were the one on the receiving end. It helps you think about what you would say about your writing. I’ve found it so useful to do.

You could also think about questions about your writing you would like to be asked and figure out those answers too. Even if you are never asked them directly, this could make for some interesting material to go on your website (which you could then update now and again to keep your website looking fresh etc).

Hope you have had a good day, Lovely to see some sunshine and Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal. Has been a nice day.

Will be sharing my review of Cinderella, as recently performed by the excellent Chameleon Theatre Group for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. That post inspired my recent Goodreads post on Watching Stories too because that’s precisely what you do when you watch telly, see a film, or go to see a play, and it is another way of taking in tales.

Character Tip: What does your character want enough to do almost anything to get? Motivation matters but this can vary from character to character. What is desperately vital to one is something beneath the notice of another. What matters is readers see why something matters so much to your character. We need to understand why but don’t necessarily need to agree with the character’s view here.

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It’s Friday. It’s bitterly cold where I am. Definitely time for a story though this one may leave you feeling a little chilled. See what you think when you check out my Come Back on Friday Flash Fiction this week.

A writing exercise I often set with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group is to jot down some opening lines and then some closing lines. These are based on the theme for the meeting. One of the reasons I love this exercise is it is a simple one and can be done anywhere.

You could use a random theme generator to come up with a theme and then see what you can do with those lines. Often you will find an opening line would also make a superb closing line. You can then write up two stories based on that. What will be interesting here is how the emphasis will change depending on where that line is positioned. Your character will either do something as a result of that opening line or their actions will led to that line being the conclusion.

Also this exercise is great for when you don’t have much time. Pick a theme. Give yourself five minutes to jot down something. Come back and write the stories up later when you do have more time. It’s a good use for those pockets of time we all get where you can’t do a lot of writing but you could do something.

Motivation matters for your characters regardless of the length of your story. For flash fiction, this means with the shorter would count limit I have to indicate this early on.

I try to do this within the first line or two. Often I do this via dialogue or character thought because you can see into the character’s mind set that way. Something of their attitude will be shown here and that will flag up what they’re after.

In my The Circle of Life from From Light to Dark and Back Again I start with People throw kittens into the river here. I hate that. It’s so cruel.

I don’t need to tell you what my character wants here. You can also pick up on their attitude. It’s then a question of reading the story to find out what my character does to try to stop the cruelty and if they succeed or are likely to do so by whatever it is they decide to do/try to do.

Fairytales with Bite – Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time is the classic fairytale opening, of course. And it is a wonderful indicator a reader is about to enter another, magical world, where our rules don’t apply.

When it comes to writing our own fairytales though, we will need our own opening lines to hook readers in, given this fabulous line is so closely associated with the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christen Anderson and so on.

I will often open one of my fairytales with bite by showing you a magical character in action. By showing the magical character, that immediately flags up to a reader what kind of story this is. Sometimes I will do it with a character speaking and the kind of words they come up with will also indicate this is going to be a fantasy piece.

You could also use time itself as an indicator your story is a fairytale simply by ensuring the time system isn’t like ours. That in itself is enough to flag up this world is different.

Once upon a time is the classic fairytale opening line. Image from Pixabay.

This World and Others – Stage Presence

I watched my local amateur theatre company perform the pantomime Cinderella recently and very good they were too. No question of there being a lack of stage presence – they had loads!

But do our characters have this kind of presence which would make them stand out to readers? Can readers tell characters apart easily enough? What qualities are there about your characters which would draw readers in?

When it comes to your magical setting, what kind of theatrical entertainments would they have? What would your characters go to see for fun? What would be considered cultural? And what would they consider to be fairytales? Would there be any similarities with what we have here? Who would act out their stories and is their profession honoured or considered dodgy? Acting has not always had a good press here!

Where your world has different species, can any or all of them take part in theatre or any banned for some reason? Bear in mind for a long time women weren’t allowed on the stage here and their roles were always played by men.

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Bleak Expectations – Review – The Chameleon Theatre Group

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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, as were pictures of Swanwick used in a collage below. Photos of me holding The Best of CafeLit 13 were taken by Adrian Symes.
A MASSIVE thank you goes to The Chameleon Theatre Group for kind permission to use their photos (taken by Stuart Wineberg) as part of my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week.
Hope you have had a good few days. Just over a week to go for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. So looking forward to catching up with many friends again and hoping to make still more. Have booked to go on the Association of Christian Writers Autumn Gathering so that will be something to look forward to in October. Lady, meantime, is not that sorry we’ve had some rain and the temperature, while still high, is a little cooler.

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Am delighted to share my review of Bleak Expectations, recently staged by the fabulous The Chameleon Theatre Group. As you might expect from a title like that, this was the most marvellous spoof of Dickens and it was wonderfully performed by my local amateur theatre company. There were so many laughs and a great storyline. See the review for more.

If you remember the Radio Four comedy of the same name, yes, this play is based on that and written by the same writer, Mark Evans. So much to enjoy here so if you get a chance to see the play locally to you, do go.

The Chameleon Theatre Group – Bleak Expectations – Review

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Sent author newsletter out this morning. Doing this monthly means you soon realise how quickly the year is going by. The theme for this one was Special Swanwick though I also share some thoughts on Making the Most of a Writing Event (and share the link to my recent Chandler’s Ford Today article on that).

As well as looking forward to Swanwick, I’ll be off again in the autumn to go to the Association of Christian Writers Autumn Gathering too. Looking forward to catching up with friends at both of these (and hopefully making new ones too).

I’ll be reviewing the recent performance of Bleak Expectations staged by the wonderful The Chameleon Theatre Group on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Do look out for it. See above.

I share some thoughts on what makes a good spoof as well as part of this. And if you get a chance to go and support your own local amateur theatre company, please do. I’ve seen some fabulous performances from The Chameleons I would’ve missed out on otherwise.

 

Another hot day though not so warm as yesterday. Lady continues to keep cool though she was pleased to see her Hungarian Vizler chum this morning. Our park has lots of trees around it so plenty of shady spots. It wasn’t just the dogs who appreciated that.

Am currently working in short bursts with my French windows open. Helps a lot, as does keeping supplies of water, squash etc up, to aid concentration. It’s an odd thing the heat can make you tired but also stop you from sleeping! What is that about? Thankfully no issues here but every sympathy to anyone who struggles with this.

Writing Tip: Especially at the moment, if you’re finding it easier to write in short bursts, this is the time to have a go at some flash fiction writing. Perfect for short slots of time too. I like to mix up writing to 100 words (my all time favourite) to 500 words and most word counts in between. There are competitions for these too.

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Two things here tonight.

Firstly, am delighted to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Summer Stings. Hope you enjoy it.

Secondly, the annual competition which is liked to the Edinburgh Festival begins on Friday Flash Fiction from tomorrow, Saturday 3rd August and runs all the way through to the 16th August. You can submit one story per week (I.e. one from 3rd to 9th August and another from 9th to 16th August). They are only taking the 100 word stories for this competition.

The longer flash submissions will resume after the competition finished but do watch out for this on the website nearer the time. They will say when they’re open for the longer flash pieces again. And if you have a go at the competition, good luck!

Screenshot 2024-08-02 at 09-33-28 Summer Stings by Allison Symes - Friday Flash FictionScreenshot 2024-08-02 at 18-50-59 Friday Flash Fiction - Friday Flash Fiction

Hope you’ve had a good day and managed to not get caught out by the thunderstorms. Lady and I just got back from a short afternoon walk and then the heavens opened again and again etc. I like writing flash. Not so keen on getting caught out in flash storms, mind you.

Time is an interesting theme to write about for flash fiction because you can do so much with it. I have used it in titles. I’ve written Time into a story as a character. When I’ve written pieces which nod back to the Cinderella story, time plays a major role there.

Plus you can use time as a proverb (time waits for no man is just one. I’ve used that one twice and got two different stories from it). I’ve also written two different stories with the same time travelling alien as the lead character, who gets into bother whether he goes forwards or backwards in time. All good fun to do.

But a broad theme like time is handy because you can jot down different thoughts to come from it and at least one is bound to appeal to the type of story you like to write. Below is just one of my stories based on time.

Had a lovely surprise today – an unexpected review for Tripping the Flash Fantastic by Kelvin M Knight (who discovered the book through the book shop the Association of Christian Writers have on their website. As a long term member, and former Membership Secretary for ACW, I can have my books advertised on their online book shop). Many thanks to Kelvin and to Susan Sanderson for forwarding the review to me.

This was a lovely boost. If you ever needed a reason to write a review for another author, do consider that aspect! Writers work alone, it is the nature of the job, but having good feedback every so often helps enormously.

What I love about ACW is it supports Christians who write obviously Christian material but also people like me who are Christians writing in the secular market. I appreciate both sides of this and I know it is invaluable to all members.

TRIPPING THE FLASH FANTASTIC by Allison Symes – A Review

Screenshot 2024-08-02 at 20-01-30 Short Stories - Christian Writers

Fairytales with Bite – Holiday Season

Does your fantasy setting have tourism? If so, what would it consist of? Where would your favourite fairy godmothers go on holiday? Is there anywhere they wouldn’t go?

After all, everyone needs a recharge now and again. Would they stay in what we would recognize as hotels or would they go in for the poshest self catering cottage imaginable? Do they get to switch the magic off for a while or are they expected to be be on call at any time or have to arrange for someone to take over their duties for a bit?

In your setting, when would most go on holiday? Does it tie in with seasons as we know them here? Which of your characters looks forward to holiday season and which dreads it and why?

Are holidays decided on because magical powers diminish when in constant use and that dictates when a break has to happen? How would your world defend itself against enemies who might look to take advantage of that low power period?

Our own lives tend to work in seasons. We have periods when busy, others when not, and still others when we take a break so how would this work out in your setting?

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This World and Others – Tourism

Is tourism a major factor in your world setting? Is it seen as a good or bad thing or a bit of both? Who benefits from the tourists? Who finds tourists to be nothing but a pain in the neck? What kind of revenue is brought in by what tourists spend?

Does your world confine itself to only accepting other magical beings or would it welcome humans and other species visiting? Is tourism promoted or does your world try to keep it quiet, reluctantly accepting it will happen, people do move around, but they’re not going to encourage it to develop further? What would be the reasons behind that attitude?

Has tourism ever caused problems, such as pollution, in your setting? What happened and what did occur to put it right? That, of course, could be your story.

How would your characters get to tourist destinations? If flying is involved, can your characters do this themselves so they can take themselves off to their own destinations or would they have to charter someone, with appropriate equipment, who can do this for them? (Would we be talking the magical equivalent of a plane here or a massive flying carpet or some sort of portal device which other characters would control?).

Definite story ideas there.

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This time I share the link to the September 2023 magazine which is on the theme of the timeless topic of marketing. I have two articles in this issue – Marketing Your Books and Writing for Online Magazines.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Review: The Chameleon Theatre Group – Waiting For Gateaux

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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.
A huge thank you to The Chameleon Theatre Group for permission to use their splendid photos on my post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Also thank you to Katrina Lush from my Slimming World group for permission to use her very funny photo as part of that post. See the post itself for more!
Hope you have had a good few days. Weather all over the place again with sunshine, rain, thunder, strong winds etc. Have enjoyed a lovely Zoom meeting this week. I am part of another Association of Christian Writers genre group which meets on Zoom and it is always great to get together and chat. Online meetings work so well.
Looking forward to a break away next week. I will post as and when possible and yes the dog is coming. Lady always has a fabulous time when we’re away – lots of lovely walking in glorious scenery. Looking forward to that.

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Hope you have had a good day and you are all set for a nice Bank Holiday weekend (as it is for the UK).

Pleased to finally share my review of Waiting For Gateaux recently performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group. As ever it was a joy to see the show and it is another joy to write about the show for Chandler’s Ford Today. Hope you enjoy the post. Lots of local links on this one, which is lovely. Two of my worlds kind of collided here – find out which in the post, link below.

Review: The Chameleon Theatre Group – Waiting For Gateaux

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Lady had a bonus today – she got to see and play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback chum today. Both dogs happy to see each other unexpectedly like that.

Will be sharing my review of Waiting For Gateaux performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. Already looking forward to their next show in July which will be another comic one. If ever there was a time you could do with a laugh on stage, I suspect this is it given the news continues to be so grim.

I am part of another ACW genre group based around science fiction and fantasy and we were discussing on Zoom last night utopian works as opposed to dystopian ones amongst other things. I can see the point of dystopian fiction. I don’t read much of it. If I do want grim, I will tune into the news!

Generally I like my fiction to entertain and help me escape the world for a bit, regardless of the genre I’m reading. I definitely don’t want unremitting grim. Can get that for real elsewhere, thank you. I also don’t write grim fiction for the same reason. I want to finish my book, whether it is non-fiction or fiction, having had a pleasant time reading it!

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Hope you have had a good day. Hard to believe it’s May already. May is one of my favourite months. Lots of colours and better weather (fingers crossed for the latter!).

Author newsletter went out earlier today. See screenshot for a taster. If you would like to sign up do head over to https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Many thanks to all who have subscribed since the last edition and a huge hello to all of my subscribers. Many thanks for the support.

The theme for the May newsletter was writing exercises, something I adore and use a lot. I like to mix up the kinds I use too. Keeps me on my toes and I end up producing more stories than I might otherwise have done. Nothing to dislike about that!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It’s the end of the working week for many and a Bank Holiday weekend for the UK. Time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on Friday Flash Fiction – Hiding Place. My character wonders what could possibly go wrong after they come up with a good idea but are they right to think this? See for yourself via the link.

Screenshot 2024-05-03 at 10-03-34 Hiding Place by Allison Symes

Have drafted a poetic flash which I hope to look at over the weekend. Whenever I write these, I sort out what the story is first. Then I work out if it Is suitable for telling in poetic form. Then and only then do I worry about rhyme (I like rhyme in poetry. I also like free verse but I know what I prefer here).

Once I’ve got these basics sorted, I will record myself reading this out loud on Zoom and play it back so I can hear how it sounds. I often do this with prose fiction but I find it even more important to do when writing in a poetic form. I can hear what works and what doesn’t. Then out comes the editing pen again. Then I re-record and play it back again until I am happy with it. I have found doing this pays.

I do find this kind of flash works best when kept short. My current draft comes in about 200 words but I suspect it will end up at about the 150/175 words mark when done.

440791713_10161861104852053_5425516408687705655_nAmazon still has From Light to Dark and Back Again on offer as a paperback. See the link for more details. I don’t know how long they will hold the book at this price. Also do bear in mind you can contact me via my website if you’re interested in having signed copies of either of my flash collections or the anthologies I’ve contributed to over the years. Both of my flash collections are also available as ebooks.

When not working on flash fiction, I am writing various pieces for Writers’ Narrative, Chandler’s Ford Today and so on. My monthly blog pieces do tend to come in at the 500 words mark so would count as flash non-fiction. Most of my CFT and WN articles are 1000 words so are right at the upper limit here too. All good fun to do (and I hope useful to readers).

 

Fairytales with Bite – Changing

Often in fairytales an arrogant character is transformed into something else for a while to teach them a lesson and to learn the value of love. The best known example of that is The Beauty and the Beast, of course.

But in your stories do your magical characters go straight for that or do they try something else on a proud person first before using the transformation option. Also give some thought to your transformed characters. Could any of them prefer to stay in their new “look” and why would that be? Are they granted their wish to stay in the form they’ve become?

When it comes to being changed back again, how do your characters readjust? Do any remnants of their transformed self stay with them for a while? I would hope other characters in your stories realise it is best to change what is wrong (and indeed to recognise what is wrong in the first place) without having to become another creature altogether – it would be quicker and less traumatic I would have thought.

Even without transformation spells, characters do need to change during the course of your story. Something has happened. It changes them. They face a problem. They deal with it. They are changed by what they have had to do here. Most of the time that leads to a positive outcome but not always.

I admire the way it is acknowledged in The Lord of the Rings Frodo Baggins was so changed by what he went through he was not going to be able to stay in The Shire and it was best he went with the elves. It was absolutely the right outcome for him and his character portrayal backs that up.

So give some thought about what changing does to your characters – physically in the case of magical tales but even more importantly to their overall state of being. Are they happier/better off for the change or has the change, unavoidable as it was, left them with scars they have to find ways of living with?

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This World and Others – Making Things Happen

Who and/or what makes things happen in your setting? What would be the driving forces in your world? Would it be politics, as we know it here, or something like creative agencies driving this?

If you have a world dominated by engineers, scientists, inventors etc., that world is bound to be driven by what they come up with. Also does your world welcome their inventions? Are the inventions generally for the greater good? Have any of them gone horribly wrong?

Making things happen is often a good thing. I welcome discoveries in science (medicine especially) because I can see the potential for making lives better for people. But not everyone welcomes new discoveries. For one thing, it means old ones are superseded. Could someone resent that and try to stop the new invention/inventor? What would they be prepared to do here? Could easily see crime stories emerging from that. Making things happen could mean stopping other new things happening at all!

Who would make things happen in the various settings in your world – the political scene, the arts sector, the sports world etc? If your world doesn’t get on with other worlds around it, is there anyone prepared to try to make things happen to improve that? Do their efforts pay off?

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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My Top Five Writing Exercises

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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 week. I’ve had a busy one with the ACW Flash Fiction Group and a lovely trip to see the latest production from my local excellent amateur theatre company. Review to follow on CFT in due course. All I will say is with the title being Waiting For Gateaux I was expecting some laughs. Lady got to see her friend Coco the other day for the first time in ages and both dogs were very happy to see each other. Dogs are lovely like that.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Had a lovely time at Ritchie Hall for Waiting For Gateaux last night. Review to follow for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course.

Meantime, I’m pleased to share My Top Five Writing Exercises as my CFT post this week. If you would like to try writing exercises to help with your story creations etc but don’t know where to start, why not try out the five I list here? I use them all regularly. There are many other exercises available but these are the ones I use most often.

My post also looks at how writing exercises encourage you to think in different ways (and therefore stretch your imagination). I also share further top tips for making the most of writing exercises. Hope you find the post useful.

My Top Five Writing Exercises

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Am off to see Waiting For Gateaux, the latest production to be staged by The Chameleon Theatre Group at Ritchie Hall tonight. Should be fun. Will be reviewing for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course. I also get to meet up with my lovely CFT editor at these productions so we do kind of consider these to be a CFT works outing!

Will be sharing My Top Five Writing Exercises for CFT tomorrow and evaluating what I find helpful about each of these. There are many more I could have mentioned as I use far more than five but I thought the ones I picked for this post would be useful for any writer to use. See above.

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Every so often I receive reviews directly rather than via Amazon etc. Delighted to say one came in for me today for Tripping the Flash Fantastic. A huge thank you to the reviewer concerned.

I like how Allison Symes managed to put together a book of short stories, flash fiction, and poetry that intrigued me here and there. Tripping the Flash Fantastic is also very easy to read through because the stories are short—before long, I found myself already having devoured more stories than I thought I could in a short amount of time. The stories are also creative and while not all stories resonate, it is inspiring and quite original. I like simple books like these. From KO.

I’ve mentioned before all authors appreciate reviews. They help make our books more visible and all writers welcome validation of their work (and we get that from reviews and other feedback from readers of course).

Reviews don’t have to be long either. Nor is there a use by date by which you need to get reviews in by. Yes, they are especially useful shortly after publication but I’ve reviewed books by other authors which I came to years after those books originally came out. You can’t know when someone is going to see your books.

But do review. It doesn’t take long. And it gives the author something to share as part of their marketing via posts like this one, mentions on their website etc.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to share my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction – Deception. The opening line for this one started life as an exercise I set for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group which I run once a month on Zoom.

I always have a go at the exercises (I don’t want to miss out on the fun of creating stories from them!) and knew this one had potential. This story, I think, will have resonance for many. Many thanks to those who have already commented on this.

Screenshot 2024-04-26 at 10-12-54 Deception by Allison Symes

One of the delights of going to see a live production, as I will be doing this evening, is watching for those lovely moments which add to the characterisation of the play in question. These will be those “flash moments” which help you understand a character better and can be funny, moving, tragic etc. Mind you I am off to see Waiting For Gateaux so I am expecting humour with a title like that!

Glad to say last night’s Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Zoom went well last night. I hope everyone gets something positive from the exercises I set. I have a go at these myself after the meeting and I think I can do something with at least two of what I drafted last night. Hope to start drafting something over the weekend when I have more time.

Sometimes for these meetings, I will prepare an answer to an exercise in advance to give an example but I do love joining in with live writing exercises myself. Does wonders for the old brain cells!

I often set and AM set writing exercisesLooking forward to tonight’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. Always good to see everyone and we usually draft flash pieces in response to prompts (or have the starts of stories to finish off later) by the end of the evening.

I join in with these exercises and indeed, from the meeting in March, I’ve used a couple of opening lines I drafted then for YouTube and Friday Flash Fiction stories this month. That’s a result as far as I’m concerned.

Pleased to have received a review of Tripping the Flash Fantastic directly (see my author timeline on Facebook for more on that). See above. But I will sneak in another plea for reviews for all authors. Thanks.

I like to mix up how I open my flash tales but the one thing I try to do for all of them is to hit the ground running. I want to engage readers immediately. Sometimes I do that by setting up an interesting premise. Other times I’m showing a character in the middle of something and you have to read on to find what happens.

Sometimes I’m using thoughts, dialogue, or questions. But whatever I use, I always ask myself what is in this for the reader? That matters. Keeping your audience in mind all the time helps with focus. It makes editing easier too. With that question in mind, it is easier to spot what would be useful to a reader and what could be cut.

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Fairytales with Bite – Magical Equipment

In your setting, what exists in the way of magical equipment? Who makes it? Where do they get their “components” and do they have to meet safety standards?

(I’m married to an electronics engineer. Safety standards come into his world a lot and rightly so but I see no reason why they can’t come into a fictional world too. Indeed, a good story idea would be about someone trying to enforce safety standards for the greater good and the struggle they have to get everyone else in their society to accept that point. How many accidents would have to happen before the need for change is recognised and your character is the one to lead the way here?).

Can all of your characters access the magical equipment they need or are these reserved for certain species and/or for those at a certain level of magical ability? Your governing authority could of course control who can gain that magical ability to limit what powers can be used by whom that way but there would be an interesting story in why they are doing this.

Also does magical equipment go wrong? Can it be fixed? Who would carry out repairs and “servicing”? Is there the equivalent of an MOT for a witch’s broom? (If not, why not! Would love to see a queue of witches lining up to get their vehicles through statutory checks. What would happen to any unfortunate service engineer telling an annoyed witch her bristles need replacing? Could see some funny stories coming out here!). How can wands be checked to ensure they are doing what they’re supposed to do? Who cares enough to ensure magical equipment does work properly?

What controls do your governing authority have to ensure shoddy equipment doesn’t make it out into the open? Where has your world come from in terms of equipment development to get to where they are now?

Who has invented the equipment? What was done to improve the original models (almost inevitably improvements would either be necessary or become desirable when technology changes)?

Give some thought too as to how well or otherwise your characters use magical equipment available to them. That could make a huge difference as to whether they complete their “mission” successfully or not. Tools/equipment matter!

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This World and Others – Manufacturers

Linking in with Fairytales with Bite above, who are the manufacturers who make the products your characters will use? (The best known one of course is Ollivander the wand maker from the Harry Potter series but I liked that character. I liked the way it was realised someone had to make the things the main characters need to use).

How do the manufacturers access the ingredients and materials they need? What difficulties do they face here? Do they ever find materials they could always access before become rarer due to reasons of natural disasters/magical wars/other events in your setting or other manufacturers effectively buying up the lot?
Do magical manufacturers trade knowledge and materials with each other? Are there trade bodies? Do governments agree standards manufacturers have to meet and enforce that?

How did manufacturers get into the business? Is it a question of following the family business? How did those businesses begin? What made characters realise their talents lay in making equipment rather than using it directly?

How do they balance selling their equipment to those they would far rather not have these things with being able to survive? (Well, would you want to sell equipment to Sauron or Voldemort but what choice would you give your manufacturers for your own cast of villains here?).

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

Screenshot 2024-03-22 at 15-23-10 Writers' Narrative April 2024Screenshot 2024-03-22 at 15-24-20 Writers' Narrative April 2024

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Lilies on the Land and Podcast News

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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. As ever, a huge thanks to The Chameleon Theatre Group for kind permission to use their photos (and some of their direct quotes about the recent play by them) in the Chandler’s Ford Today post. Both make for a more rounded article! Image of me signing books at Swanwick was taken by the late and much missed Fiona Park.
Off to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, at the weekend. Has been a busy summer what with the Book Fair too but that’s all to the good. Delighted to have received my copies of The Best of CafeLit 12 too – always a nice feeling when your books arrive!

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Delighted to share my review of Lilies on the Land which is the latest production staged by The Chameleon Theatre Group. It is always a pleasure to review their productions for Chandler’s Ford Today and this is no exception.

See what I think here and do check out the links. They will bring back memories for many and those interested in history will find some of the links especially useful. The play is about the Women’s Land Army and their stories about their efforts in World War Two. Sublimely written by The Lions and well performed (but then I’d not expect anything less from The Chameleons).

Review – The Chameleon Theatre Group – Lilies on the Land

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I mentioned the other day I was amused when Amazon thought I might be interested in The Best of CafeLit 12. Well, for that they did it for the Kindle version of the book. Today they did this again for the paperback! Not long afterwards, my copies of the book arrived! Hmm… talk about timing!

Talking of timing, I am kind of going back in time for tomorrow’s Chandler’s Ford Today post. I’m reviewing Lilies on the Land, the recent production from The Chameleon Theatre Group. See above.

The play looks at the stories of the Women’s Land Army. The play was moving but see what I thought of the play in tomorrow’s post. There are some useful history links for those who want to know more about the WLA too and a great link with a certain very famous episode of a well known TV sitcom. Link up tomorrow. Looking forward to sharing this.

Podcast and Publication News

Am delighted to say I have a story, A Summer Retirement, Maybe on The Casket of Fictional Delights. As well as the tale appearing on the website, I am thrilled to say it is on their podcast too.

I am blown away by the quality of this podcast of my story – do give it a listen – and a huge thank you to the wonderful people who have produced this.

Also a big thanks to Alyson Rhodes for telling me about the Casket in the first place. (You’ll find the link to the podcast on the right – handily under a great big Hear button!).

A Summer Retirement, Maybe

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Pleased to say I am back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest story, Shallow, Moi? Hope you enjoy it. Comments are currently switched off due to there being a competition in connection with the website.

Members of the Flash Fiction Group (ACW) may well recognise the title as one I came up with during our recent session on titles. This title is a good example of the title setting the mood for the story,.

Screenshot 2023-08-04 at 10-06-26 Shallow Moi by Allison Symes

Am all packed, including my flash collections, ready for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Will be posting as usual next week but timings will vary. I suspect that may be true of my train journey too!

The Best of CafeLit 12 reached me today – I have a flash piece called Jubilee in there. Am also looking forward to the Bridge House Publishing celebration event in December. This is always a great way to round up the year.

Sometimes I will think of a title for a flash piece. Sometimes I will think of a character. Either way works. I have to have a hook to write to and it will either be an intriguing title that makes me want to find out what happens. Or I am intrigued by the character and want to find out what they do and what happens to them. The important bit is being intrigued!

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Only a few days to go before I set off for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Did most of my packing today. I do like to wave the flag for flash fiction.

Thrilled to be on a podcast with one of my flash fiction stories for the first time. You can find my A Summer Retirement, Maybe over on The Casket of Fictional Delights. I make no apologies for repeating the link here (it is also on my author page on Facebook) because the quality is so good, I do want to shout about it ! Enthusiasm is a great asset for writing!

I’ve talked about the joy of being read to before but this is the first time I’ve had one of my own stories read to me. I would like more of this to happen!

A Summer Retirement, Maybe

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Fairytales with Bite – Travelling

This topic was a good one for me this week as I’m off to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick soon. This is the highlight of my writing year.

Going back to our magical settings for our stories, how would your characters get about? Not everyone would get on with broomsticks, for example. I wouldn’t for a start. Not the most comfortable of seating arrangements and the thought of cold cross-winds does nothing for me! I could see characters having problems with their navigation here!

You could think about whether anyone is entitled to fly or whether it is restricted, are there any environmental concerns and so on. But characters to have to travel (especially on quests!) so how would they do this? What are the pains of their mode of travel? What are the advantages, if any? Is it a question of having no choice?

If someone tries to invent a new way of travelling how successful or otherwise are they? What problems would they have to overcome to get their idea “out there”? And what could get in the way of your average traveller here? What are the joys of travelling in your setting? It would be good to think there were some!

I love train travel though this image seems to invite you to ride by rail into another world - Pixabay
This World and Others – Transport Networks

What does your setting have in the way of transport networks? Are things geared up to encourage or discourage travelling? Who would run these things? How well are they run? If individuals have to sort out travelling, how would they do this? What vehicles (and I would include animals in this category) could they access? Is it easy to travel around your setting?

If your world has never had a transport network, what might happen which would make them require one and how would they set one up? Would they see what other worlds, including our one, would do first?
How would characters get to/from where they work? Most would work away from home, even if the distance isn’t great. Even the seven dwarves had to commute to a certain extent even if they walked, singing as they went! That was their transport network…a commute and a sing song!

Off on my travels again

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Apologies for the size of the image. Having issues with resizing photos for tonight’s post. Mind you, for the record, I still prefer the original Twitter symbols. Let’s hear it for the blue bird!

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What Makes A Character Work

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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 Jennifer C Wilson for taking the image of me about to run a workshop at Swanwick in 2022. Looking forward to catching up with you, Jen, at Swanwick 2023! Many thanks to Richard Hardie for taking the image of me at the Book Fair.
Hope you have had a good weekend. I’m off to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick this coming weekend for a few days. I am planning to post but times will be different. Am looking forward to catching up with friends (the rest of the year I meet them online only) and attending the excellent workshops.

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Facebook – General

Someone hasn’t told the weather it’s August, have they? Oh well. On the plus side, the grass in my local park does now look and feel like grass as opposed to the straw it had resembled during that period of hot weather we did have.

My latest author newsletter went out earlier today – many thanks to all who have signed up. Hope you enjoy the latest one.

I came to author newsletters fairly late though I enjoy reading several and it is something I should’ve done sooner than I did. It is a useful way of keeping in touch. I aim to put in mine what I know I’d like to receive myself. I think that helps (and shows). It is a great joy putting these together – marketing can be fun, honest!

May be a doodle of text that says "E-MAIL out my NEWSLETTER I send author newsletter ơη the 1st of each month and share news, tips, story links newsletter EMAIL etc. talk about flash fiction and share thoughts ση writing it here tσơ."

Allison Symes - August 2023 - Out and (Flashing) About

Had to have a chuckle. Had an email in from Amazon today suggesting I might be interested in The Best of CafeLit 12. Credit where it’s due and all that – they’re not wrong.

Someone might have noticed though I asked Amazon to add it to my Author Central page, which they’ve done – speedily too – within minutes of my asking, and that’s because I’m one of the authors in here! Mind you, I have had this kind of email for From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic as well. Joined up thinking? Possibly not here.

In other news, have started packing for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Told you I was looking forward to it.

Bit of a strange day today. I’m standing down form a voluntary role I’ve carried out for some years. Absolutely right time to go. Things are developing for me in my church life and my writing one too, which means I no longer have the time for the voluntary role as well. Am still a member of the organisation concerned. I am looking forward to “just” being an ordinary member again though but when you have carried out a role for a long time, it does seem odd to be moving on.

Am so looking forward to sharing my review of Lilies on the Land, the latest production from The Chameleon Theatre Group, for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Such a moving play and it brought back memories of stories I was told by my parents/grandparents. More in the post. I suspect the play has and will continue to bring back memories for others too.

Don’t forget my next author newsletter goes out on Tuesday. Still time to sign up at my landling page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Newsletter with envelope image

It’s my turn once again on More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. This time I talk about What Makes a Character Work. Hope you find the post useful and you can find out why the Sheriff of Nottingham as played by the late great Alan Rickman puts in an appearance here too.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you have had a good day. Busy one as ever. Am currently working on a flash piece I hope to bet submitted probably just after I get back from Swanwick.

I want to get it to the “resting” stage before I go away. When I come back – well, that will be enough of a break to give me the chance to judge the tale objectively before sending it anywhere. It’s amazing how many things I can pick up when I’ve given a story proper rest period like that and it can make all the difference to whether a tale is accepted or not.

This is why I build in time for this to happen so I still submit well ahead of any deadline. It is a tip which works and has worked repeatedly for me which is why I am happy to recommend it. I like tried and tested tips a lot!

May be a graphic of lighting and text that says "Like these three points but I would also add in a reminder that editing takes longer than you think at times. 1) Dream 2) Set goal 3) Action"

It’s Monday. It’s the Monday before I go to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick! Still time for a story though. My latest on YouTube is called Welcome to Earth. Hope you enjoy it.

Damp and drizzly here today. And the month we’re in is what exactly?! Having said that, I do not envy the poor souls with the heatwaves. I know I couldn’t cope with it, I can cope with the rain.

Heads up for those who send in stories to Friday Flash Fiction. For the next couple of weeks, they are only accepting the classic 75 to 100 word flash tales. See link for more information. Their contest ties in with the Edinburgh International Book Festival though, of course, the FFF one is purely online. Usual rule of one story a week applies. Good luck if you’re having a go at this.

Screenshot 2023-07-30 at 17-04-37 Edinburgh Festival Competition 2023

Hope you have had a good day. Changeable weather again here. This time next week I’ll be at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick and am so looking forward to it. Naturally I shall be spreading the word about flash fiction. Will report back for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course.

Talking of which, there is an offer on for the paperback version of From Light to Dark and Back Again on Amazon at the moment. You can check it out at the direct link below.

Goodreads Author Blog – Biographies

I’m currently reading London by Peter Ackroyd, a biography of the city which is an interesting way to approach writing history. Enjoying it immensely so far. But it led me to wonder about biographies, I have read some (mainly autobiographies) of figures I’m interested in. Agatha Christie’s autobiography is a fascinating read but unless the subject interests me, I don’t read much in this genre. No celebrity biographies for me!

Are there biographies you would recommend and what appeals about them? I do think the subject has to have led some kind of interesting life. With Agatha Christie, I am a huge fan of her books so am naturally interested in what she had to say about herself. I love history so the idea of London appealed to me too. (It helps I’m a Londoner by birth I suspect – another reason to be interested in the subject).

I suppose one reason I do like some of these is I am at that stage of life myself where I am interested in what others at this stage of life or beyond it have got to with theirs! This is another reason why I’m not interested in the younger celebrity books here.

I do wonder well what experience of life have you got other than that which made you famous? For me that isn’t enough, I like to read of how people struggled, made the breakthrough, made mistakes, picked themselves up again etc. Those are stories worth telling.

Screenshot 2023-07-29 at 20-19-37 Biographies

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Review – Spring Trio – The Chameleon Theatre Group

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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. A huge thank you to The Chameleon Theatre Group for sharing their pictures for my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week.
Hope you have had a good week. Am looking forward to watching the Coronation on 6th May. I discuss below how pictures, including those of crowd scenes, can be used to inspire ideas for stories. I expect some tales may well emerge from this weekend’s events! Hope you find the tips useful.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

It is a real joy to share Review – Spring Trio – The Chameleon Theatre Group as my Chandler’s Ford Today post for this week. My lovely editor, Janet Williams, and I went to see the trio of plays just over a week ago and were thoroughly entertained by the mixture of comedy and drama on offer. This is one of the pleasures of live theatre – you get to see some real gems. I also look at twists in this post as these came up a lot in these plays. Hope you enjoy the flavour of the evening I’ve shared here. It was lovely to write it!

Review: Spring Trio – The Chameleon Theatre Group

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Had a nice surprise today in that I was given a nice plug on Write On, Rosemary Johnson’s blog. Rosemary and I know each other though the Association of Christian Writers but this plug came out of the blue. Thanks, Rosemary. Am so glad the writing prompts are proving useful.

I use prompts all the time (and have contributed to some books of prompts published by Bridge House Publishing) and find them to be a great way to trigger story ideas. Occasionally I’ve used things like the random question or theme generator to trigger an idea for a blog post.

What I do find pays is mixing up the type I use. It keeps me on my toes (never a bad thing that!) and it makes you think in different ways too. When I took part in Flash NANO last year, one prompt I’d not tried before was writing a story in the form of a police report. What happened? I had great fun writing the story and it ended up being broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minutes Santas show on North Manchester FM last December. I call that a win!

Screenshot 2023-05-05 at 20-09-42 Inspiration When Working on a Story

It has been a gloriously sunny day here today. Lady and I appreciated it. Lady appreciated playing with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal too. Good time had by all.

Looking forward to sharing my review of Spring Trio on Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Always enjoy seeing The Chameleon Theatre Group at work. Like the mixture of comedies and dramas. More on Friday. See above.

Talking of reviews, don’t forget these help authors so if there is a book you’ve loved, do drop a quick line to say so in the usual places.

Had a nice surprise yesterday. I receive the Bridge House Publishing newsletter and in that is a link to CafeLit. I discovered my story, Untaken, was the fourth most read on CafeLit in April. Well done to those above and below me here! Very nice viewing figures. That was lovely to know so many thanks, #GillJames, for sharing that.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Starting Conversation. The Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group may well recognise this as my response to a prompt I set them recently! A huge thank you also for the wonderful comments coming in on this tale already.
Screenshot 2023-05-05 at 10-07-28 Starting Conversation by Allison Symes

One kind of prompt I should try and use more often is the picture one. You can do this with objects and put them in a story. You can also use pictures of landscapes and wonder who would live there. Crowd scenes are good too as you can pick an individual out to base your character on and then write about them or write a story about why the crowd are gathered. (I suspect there may be Coronation stories coming up here!).

You can use your own photos too and set your character in the scene they show. What would your character be doing? What are they trying to achieve? Is the scene they’re in a help or a hindrance? Two characters could see a scene in opposite ways. What conflict could that lead to and how is is resolved?

May be an image of text that says "There's nothing to stop you taking a prompt and putting your own spin on it to generate still more story or article ideas."

Looking forward to giving a flash fiction workshop in a couple of weeks time to a writing group. Always fun to do! And it’s another example of Zoom making things possible. Where transport/distance means in person isn’t viable, Zoom is the answer! I’ve loved the fact that this has got me back into using PowerPoint again. I hadn’t used it in years until Zoom transformed things here. Given PowerPoint and bullet points go hand in hand, it’s ideal for flash. Well, I’ve got to write to a short word count, yes?

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Fairytales with Bite – Job Hunting

How do your characters find jobs in your magical setting? Or it is literally a question of stepping into a dead fairy godmother’s shoes here? Not even fairy godmothers go on for ever (magical accidents and dragons can happen to the best of them) so I assume your setting would allow for training to happen to bring up the next generation. Would employment automatically follow that training?

For other roles, consider who else might work in a training establishment. Someone would need to cook, clean, prepare magical ingredients etc. How would these people get their work? Is it a question of who you know here?

For the non-magical beings in your story, what work would they do? How easy or otherwise would it be for them to find gainful employment?

Equally is your character being hunted for a job they really don’t want to do? Can they get out of it? If not, how do they manage?
Story idea potential there I think. (This is where we can use our knowledge of the working world to flesh out our story world and that can be useful. Dreadful bosses/colleagues can occur in fiction as well as in life – as can good ones).

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This World and Others – Employment Types

What kind of employment can your world offer your characters? Is it similar to what we have here or something specific that could only happen in your setting? What kind of tools/equipment /technology would your characters be expected to be able to use? What are these things for? And are jobs allocated on merit or on status?

So could there be a character who would love to do Job X but knows they can’t because they’re from a certain social class which never does a job like that. Could they be the one to break the mould here?

Is employment divided between, say, magical and non-magical or is it just down to the job itself? For the latter, you could have, say, clerks working for the government who do have magical skills and those who do not. How would they get on? Would the magical abilities come in useful at work at all and that is why they are employed here? Do the non-magical lot have special qualities/skills which compensate here and are useful in another way?

What would count as manual labour? What would be considered “high end” employment? Do employment types change over time? (Not much call for abacus makers in our day and age, for example. Technology changes employment so much).

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Feedback, Local Theatre, and Reviews

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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.
Busy week this time with a trip to the theatre and running a flash fiction group online coming up. Both will be fun though.

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Facebook – General

Posting early today as have a meeting tonight. Will also post again early for the next few days. It is just one of those weeks but at least the sun came out today and Lady got to play with her friend, a smashing Aussie Shepherd. Both dogs had a fab time.

Writing Tip: Never worry about how much time you’ve got to write. Just get something down. I’ve talked about using pockets of time before but I have to do this a lot and it does pay off. I have had several blogs drafted, stories written etc doing this. It would’ve been too easy to have missed the chance to write those things down, yet alone then go on to do something positive with them.

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Lovely start to the day (and Lady got to show off her running skills to her older pal, the lovely Hungarian Vizler we know) and then by lunchtime it was pelting it down. One thing you can say about the weather in Britain – it is variable!

Have a busy week ahead with my visit to the theatre on Thursday and running the Flash Fiction group on Zoom for the Association of Christian Writers on Wednesday. Both will be great fun. (And I know I’ll get a review out of one of them and I suspect some draft flash fiction out of the other!).

Talking of reviews, remember these don’t have to be long and they are a great way of helping an author, so do bear that in mind. One from a review of Tripping the Flash Fantastic reads “Allison Symes can pack more into 100 words than most people can into 1000. Politicians take note!”

I wonder if I can make use of that given local elections are coming up soon!

Tripping The Flash Fantastic - by night

It’s St. George’s Day today (in England) and the birthday (also probable day of death too) for William Shakespeare. Have enjoyed watching several of his works thanks to National Theatre Live. Must try and get to see more.

Watching stories (stage or film) is another great way of taking in tales. My late mother would have been pleased about this. She tried to get me into the works of the Bard for many years. Would probably wonder why it took me so long! And the basic plots are often the basis for other stories – The Lion King is loosely based on Hamlet. His stories have inspired classical music too (The Love Theme for Romeo and Juliet being just one example).

Am off to local theatre later this week to see Spring Trio by The Chameleon Theatre Group.

Have never been tempted to act though I always admire those who do this well. It always has been the story I’ve been interested in. Doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that, does it?!

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Hope you are having a nice weekend. Off out for a lovely meal out later. Looking forward to that. Nice not having to cook!

I’ll be looking at How-To Guides (writing ones) for next week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post. I have used a few in my time and have found the ones I used (and still use) incredibly helpful. No one writer can know it all and a well written guide or two, developing networks of writer friends, and going to writing events are all invaluable for helping you learn your craft.

I use Scrivener for my writing and find both the inbuilt tutorial and the Scrivener for Dummies book by Gwen Hernandez to be great aids.

Link up for CFT post on Friday as usual.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the great comments coming in on Going Home, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction.

Feedback is much appreciated, especially for the short forms of writing. In the past where I was submitting something for a competition, if there was the opportunity to get feedback, I would take it. Usually there was a small additional fee (it is something towards the judge’s time) but I took the view it was worth it to get “soundings” back on my story. I always found this useful.

Sometimes I would then resubmit the story elsewhere and had it published then, having taken on board comments made. Didn’t always take the advice given – sometimes I had good reasons for disagreeing with it. But that was still useful. It made me work out why. And then there were those times when the commentator flagged up something so useful I wondered why I hadn’t spotted it in the first place! This is the way of these things.

Screenshot 2023-04-21 at 09-47-09 Going Home by Allison Symes

It’s Monday. It has been pouring down in my part of the world. It’s getting dark early due to the weather. It’s still Monday. Definitely time for a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest YouTube video – The Best. Not me being boastful (honest!) but see if you would do what my character does here faced with what she is facing.

One of the joys of going to things like The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, is getting to explore their wonderful Book Room! I’ve come back with flash collections and other books to enjoy many a time.

Don’t forget if you would like signed copies of either From Light to Dark and Back Again or Tripping the Flash Fantastic, please contact me and I will happily oblige! Payment is via bank transfer. Please contact me via the form on my website –https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/contact/.

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I was chatting about flash fiction and its benefits as part of an ACW meeting this morning. Always good to spread the word about the benefits of flash, no matter what else you write. I know it has brought on my editing skills a lot!

Sunday afternoons is often when I write a lot of flash. Always look forward to that. (I end up doing other bits and pieces on flash during the week whether I’m writing about it for blog posts or preparing for future books etc).

Above all, flash led me to having my own books published so will always love it for that alone!

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Goodreads Author Blog – What I Like about Reviews

All authors would like reviews, ideally good ones of course. What I like about reviews I read is when they give me information and a sense of what a book is about without giving away too much of it. These are the kind of reviews I try to write as well.

Other than buying a writer’s book, giving them an honest review is the second best thing you can do to help the authors in your life. We can share the fact we have had reviews in (which encourages people to take a look at those and hopefully our books too). It gives us a much needed morale boost. Bear in mind we are at our desks alone for a lot of the time. It is also a form of validation and most writers appreciate getting that every now and again.

So if you’ve read books you love, do review them. Reviews don’t have to be long. They don’t take much time to do and they really do help writers. And where better than to spread the word about the usefulness of well thought out reviews than at Goodreads?

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ALLISON SYMES – BOOK BRUSH READER HUB

MOM’S FAVORITE READS LINK – CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE INCLUDING MY FLASH FICTION COLUMN HERE –

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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