Tag: Timing by Allison Symes

Changes In Your Reading

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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. Images of me with books I’ve written or have been in were taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, though one especially useful screenshot was kindly supplied by fellow Swanwicker, Christine Miller.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Nice one here. Writing wise, am making good progress on my competition story and am pleased to say there will be a fabulous author interview coming up in May on Chandler’s Ford Today about historical short stories. Meantime, Lady continues to have a fabulous time in the park with her pals so all is well in her world.

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Lady and I had a lovely time in the park, hope to catch up with friends (doggy and human) tomorrow.

Pain In The Neck Time: Just want to say a huge thank you to Christine Miller and Joy Wood for warning me some one seems to be trying to impersonate me on Facebook because “Allison Symes” has apparently sent out friendship requests.

Problem with that is these requests have gone out to people I am already friends with in person and online!

The good news is I have taken the necessary actions with Facebook and have now added a two step verification process, which I would recommend to all.

Word to the wise: My account has my picture on it. The fake one does not. See screenshot (and thanks to Christine for sending this to me). I never accept friendship requests from anyone who does not show their picture. I want to see who people are. It’s a good thing to watch out for. I also check my friends list every so often. It’s how I know when I get a duplicate request from someone else.

Also annoyingly I get friendship requests from the usual suspects of tragically widowed US Generals and the same name for the profile comes up time and again. I’ve just blocked a certain Mr SJT again.

So be careful, folks! And I’m so grateful for the support from other writers here. We do have to “put ourselves” out there to a certain extent and of course that can make us more susceptible to this kind of scam.

It is a right pain in the neck though! Am looking forward to getting on with some proper writing later – will cheer me up no end. And I am starting to cheer up putting this very post together!

This one above definitely NOT the original and the best!

(No room for false modesty here. No time for scammers or would be scammers at all though).

Hope you have had a good start to the week. Not bad here. Lady got to play with Coco the lovely Labradoodle and her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal this morning so she thinks Monday has been fabulous. Her owner does not necessarily share that view about Mondays though I am looking forward to what will be a great Zoom group later this evening.

Writing Tip: You really cannot edit a blank page so try not to worry if you don’t have a lot of time to write. I never do on a Monday. It is a question of doing what you can and I’ve always found five minutes of writing makes me feel as if I have done something creative, which in itself gives me a boost. When I can do more than that, even better naturally but those five minutes here and there build up. I have completed articles and stories this way.

Lovely church service, had some rain though Lady and I managed to miss most of it.

Writing wise, I’m busy preparing my PowerPoint for the next Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom later this month. Am also busy preparing my first newsletter to come out on the new newsletter email service provider. Am taking the opportunity to spruce up the look of the newsletter too.

Will be starting flash fiction Sunday shortly. Have a competition in mind for one piece I want to work on today. It’s one I drafted a while ago but I know where it could do with strengthening so will get on with that. I do take comfort from the fact I can’t think of any writer who ever wrote the perfect first draft. I know I won’t be the one to ever change that!

Hope your weekend is going well. Have been out in the garden. Nice to have lunch out there with the other half and the dog. Don’t do this nearly often enough. Delighted the camellia at the front which I pruned back is out in full bloom and looking marvellous (and better than before for having had that prune, much like my stories are so much better when I’ve given them a decent editing!).

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Working Out What You Need to Know For Character Creation for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday, which I hope you will find useful.

As ever, looking forward to flash fiction Sunday for me tomorrow, especially this week after “writing admin” though I am glad to say the newsletter service provider changeover seems to be sorted. I will know for sure on 1st May when I send the first newsletter out on the new system but all is set up as it should be. Am glad to have that done.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later this month on Zoom. We will be looking at playing with genres in flash. Should be fun. I’ve set some interesting exercises I’m looking forward to sharing with folks later.

Am currently resting a piece for a flash competition I always have a go at but want to get this submitted by the end of the month, which I should get done.

Flash Tip: It’s a good idea to practice writing to 100, 250, 300 and 500 words for flash competitions. These are some of the most popular categories I regularly come across. At least one is bound to suit you!

It’s Monday again. Time for a story from me. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Timing.

Steve, the new postie, thinks Dave is an exceptionally helpful colleague but is he right to do so? Find out here.

 

Hope the weekend has been a good one for you. Nice one here. Family over on Friday night, gardening yesterday which I enjoyed because it was productive (I cannot always say this for my efforts in the garden!), and, naturally, flash fiction Sunday afternoon for me. Am also working on a piece for a competition.

One of my favourite moments when writing flash is when I know I’ve got the ending right. It will be something to make you laugh, make you think, or be a “punch in the gut” style ending, all of which I love reading in stories as well as writing these myself. But knowing I have produced the required ending is always a satisfactory moment.

What makes for a great flash fiction story? For me, the answer to that is when you have read a flash piece where you feel not one word could be added to it. You also feel not one word could be taken away. And that can happen at ten words, fifty, 100 etc.

I find nearly always it is the character which grips me which leads to stories like this. And not just for flash fiction.

This is why, for me, a way into creating stories of my own is always to start with the character and work out why I have to write about them. What is it about them which fascinates me because it will be that which is more likely to fascinate a reader?

I find it is a good place to start.

Goodreads Author Blog – Changes in Your Reading

What changes in your reading have you noticed over the years? For me, there have been two major changes.

One is happily reading ebooks on my Kindle. I held out against having one for a long time because I will always love paperbacks but do find the Kindle useful especially when I’m away. Gives me far more room in my suitcase and I don’t have to fret about only being able to take so many books with me. I can have as many as I want on the Kindle!

The other major change is happily reading non-fiction. Fiction will always be my first love for too many reasons to say here but I have discovered the joys of non-fiction reading and only wish I’d discovered those sooner than I have done. Still, better late than never!

During lockdown, that dreadful time, I was focusing on reading humorous or other lighter works and found those to be therapeutic. I still do this when the news is especially grim so am back to the lighter works again now.

Am currently reading a wonderful book of writers’ quotes and a collection of flash stories (though some of those aren’t light in tone but in fiction I have no issues with that. I suppose that is because I know it isn’t real life. What I can’t cope with when life is grim are dystopian works though I do understand the market for them).

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Dialogue in Fiction

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
Hope you have had a good week. I hope to be on a train on my way to Derbyshire by the time this goes out (and it will be lovely to meet up with members of the Association of Christian Writers Committee once again, I’m their Membership Secretary). I’ll be at The Hayes, Swanwick – and I got to book my place for that in August this week so it has not been a bad week at all!

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I look at Dialogue in Fiction for my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. I also include internal dialogue (aka thoughts in this and discuss the use of dialect. I also share my policy on whether a character should swear and list what I think the functions of dialogue should be in any kind of fiction. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Dialogue in Fiction

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Hope you have had a good day. Has been a bit mad here. Glad things are winding down a little. Posts from me over the next couple of days will be at differing times as I am away on Association of Christian Writers business for a couple of days.

Before you ask, Lady isn’t coming but she will be spoiled rotten while I’m away. She always is! She’ll sulk a little when she knows I’ve gone (she tends to look around my side of the bed just to double check I’ve not sneaked back during the middle of the night) but will mug me for all she is worth when I do get back.

Now what is it that you like best about books? Yes, I know. It’s a question of where to start on this one, isn’t it? For me, it’s where I’ve got to the point in the story where I’m rooting for the character to succeed or fail because I know the book has now gripped me and I will just have to read on to find out what happens. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m reading a flash piece or an epic fantasy trilogy, that point doesn’t change for me.

My next favourite bit is getting to the end of the tale and finding the author has made good on their promise – the character has succeeded or failed, as is appropriate for them and the story they’re in. I must admit I do feel so disappointed if I’ve read a story with promising and interesting characters and then find the ending falls flat. But the best ending in the world won’t work for me if I’m not gripped by the characters in the first place.

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Many thanks for the views on No B Gratitude, my latest YouTube story. This is a short and fun tale and I manage to get a pun in on the choice of music for this too. I’m off at an ACW Committee Retreat soon so I may well be putting up a video later than usual next week. Will just have to see how things go. Likewise for getting a piece in to Friday Flash Fiction but I am really enjoying producing something for both of these things once a week. Keeps me on my toes and I am finding more uses for the random generators I love so win win!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I hope by the time you read this I will be in lovely Derbyshire on Association of Christian Writers business for a couple of days. (I’m their Membership Secretary). But right now it is the end of the week and time for my weekly drabble. Glad to share my latest on Friday Flash Fiction and this one is called Timing. Again I used a random generator for this and the question behind it was what was the most recent silly thing you did? So I got my character here to answer that one! All great fun and I hope you enjoy it.

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

Screenshot 2022-02-04 at 08-57-53 Timing, by Allison Symes

Screenshot 2022-02-03 at 21-31-38 Friday Flash Fiction

 

Your first audience for any story you writer is, of course, you. If you’re not gripped by the characters and the situation they’re in, nobody else will be. This is why I outline my character so I can get a “feel” for who they are, what they’re capable of, and as a result I can determine whether they really do have a story in them that should be told.

With flash fiction I reach that “yes, got to write this character up” stage very quickly indeed and you get better over time (and with practice) at spotting promising characters earlier. I don’t always know the length of the story at this point unless I am writing to a specific word count market such as Friday Flash Fiction, but I don’t let that worry me. I get the story down. I edit it. I leave it for a bit and then look at it again and read it as a reader would. I ask myself tough questions particularly of the “do I really need this in here” variety! That question is useful because you have to be able to say an emphatic “yes” to that one.

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her best pal, the Rhodesian Ridgeback today. Two tired and happy dogs went home again. I do sometimes write flash pieces based around dogs. One of them is Jumping Through Hoops from From Light to Dark and Back Again. Let’s just say I am very much on the side of the poor dog in this one!

Fairytales with Bite – Dreams and Nightmares

Most of the classic fairytale characters go through a nightmare stage before their dreams come true (though it is always useful if you have a kindly fairy godmother turn up armed with a large wand and bigger pumpkin!).

In your fictional world, are your characters able to make their dreams come true and is this dependent on magic (whether it’s their own or someone else intervening to help them)? What would count as a nightmare situation for your characters and how do they overcome that?

Of course one person’s nightmare could be someone else’s dream – the villain wants their schemes to succeed, it would be their dream come true. How can you ratchet up the tension between Character A trying to make those schemes succeed and Character B who desperately needs them to fail? There should be plenty at stake here – just what do your characters have to lose or gain?

In a magical world, is the meaning of dreams taken seriously? Who interprets them? Do they do this honestly and do your characters act on what they have been told? What are the consequences of that?

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This World and Others – Interactions

Fiction is dependent on interactions between characters. Story is dependent on conflict and resolution (even if the latter is not a happy one) so there has to be a case of a character wanting something and something/someone else getting in the way of them obtaining that.

Sometimes the conflict can be an internal one – the character wants to change some aspect of themselves and struggles to do so. You see glimpses of this with Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. There are times Frodo’s more positive attitude towards Gollum seems to be paying off and other times when Sam’s cynical view of Gollum is justified.

So yes a character can interact with themselves and Gollum does that a lot. Not necessarily to his own benefit either. For the record, I see Gollum as a tragic, evil character whereas Sauron is just evil. There is a huge difference here. I don’t like Gollum but the possibility of redemption is there – whether he takes it or not is another matter.

How do interactions between your characters play out? Does on character always seem to get the upper hand or is there more of a balance? The problem with dominant characters, as with dominant people full stop, can be they cause resentment (and rebellion) in others. Interactions matter – they fuel the conflict which is the heart of any story.

So give thought to what you want your characters to do and why they are the way they are. With Gollum, you can see what led him to become the creature he became. Your readers need to do that with your characters – and indeed with mine!

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