Tag: using themes

Postcards Home and Authors/Story Links

Leave a comment

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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 friends from Swanwick for taking some images of me signing books etc at a previous Swanwick. Also thanks to Adrian Symes for taking a photo of me holding Creativity Matters.
Hope you had a good weekend. Had a lovely trip out to see a Jane Austen exhibition at The Dorset Museum in Dorchester with editing colleagues. Good fun and a fascinating place to visit. Want to go back as I didn’t get to see half of what was there. The Austen exhibition was good too. But oh how tiny the waists were back then!
Meantime back at home, Lady has got to see her two best buddies for the first time in a few days so all is well now. Part 3 of my serialisation of Seeing The Other Side came out over the weekend on CafeLit too. Link given below. All go here but in a great way!

Facebook – General

It’s my turn once again on More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. This time I look at Postcards Home and set a few exercises for people to try. Hope you have fun with them. I especially hope the ACW Flash Fiction Group gives them a go!

Hope you enjoy the post. This is an apt topic for me as flash fiction has been known by many names, including postcard fiction.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Lady has had a lovely day. She played with her two best friends, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler. All is well in their world!

As promised the other day, I thought I would give a quick reminder now to say I will be quizzing Rosemary Johnson about her new book, Past and Present (Bridge House Publishing) later this week. There is an online book launch via Eventbrite, hosted by Bridge House Publishing, on Friday 1st August from 7.15 pm (UK time). The event will last for an hour. Hope to see you there.

Marketing Tip: Whenever you are sharing information about your latest story or book, think about what is in this for your readers. This is where sharing an odd story or two is handy because it makes perfect sense to say hello, this is what I write, and then share a sample of it. Nobody minds a free sample. If you have an author newsletter, it is a useful thing to include as part of that.

So enjoyed my trip to the Dorset Museum yesterday. Didn’t even see half of what they have there so a return trip is called for. The ticket from the museum lasts for a year so I hope to take full advantage of that. Pleasant run on the train too – and useful writing time of course. Will shortly be getting on with flash fiction Sunday today, naturally.

Writing wise, will have a busy week ahead with plenty going on the blogs front. Plus I will be sending out my author newsletter again on Friday (and taking part in Rosemary Johnson’s book launch for Past and Present the same day so Friday will be fun but busy).

Also it is almost time for the next edition of Writers’ Narrative so do look out for that too. You won’t be short of reading material this week!

Glad to see it is almost time for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick once again. So looking forward to that.

Writing Tip: If you can get to writing events, be they online or in person, a one day thing or longer, try and go. One huge advantage to them is you get to meet other writers. Not only do you make friends, writers share information with each other all of the time.

You never know when (a) that could prove useful to you and (b) what you can share will prove useful to someone else. The writing community is generally a hugely supportive one and it is lovely to be part of it.

Was on my travels today down to Dorchester to visit the Jane Austen exhibition at the Dorset Museum. This was called Jane Austen – Down To The Sea and looked at the great author’s links with the coast. I met editing colleagues here from the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP). A great time was had by all and I plan to write more about the exhibition for Chandler’s Ford Today soon.

Talking of which, a huge thank you for the fabulous comments which have come in on Esther Chilton’s interview yesterday.

Next week’s post will be a review of the play of Notes From A Small Island, which was performed by The Chameleon Theatre Company this week.

Next week will be busy too as the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group will be meeting on Wednesday. Plus I’m also looking forward to Rosemary Johnson’s online book launch for her Past and Present collection on Friday. Host is Bridge House Publishing via Eventbrite. Will repost the link in next couple of days. Have done so above.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Lady has had an especially nice day as she got to play with Bear, a wonderful Aussie Shepherd, who is the nearest thing she has ever had to a boyfriend.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting tomorrow on Zoom. We’ll be looking at the theme of summer. Plenty of good ideas to come from using a season in your writing. For one thing, they make an excellent backdrop.

Flash Tip: When you have a theme to hand for a story, take some time to jot down as many possibilities from it as you can think of. There will be more than you think. Play Word Association here. What you come up with may well generate words to put in a story, even the basic outline of what a character might see or do in your story.

For example with the theme of summer, you could think of things like tennis (story set against that back drop perhaps). You could think of ice cream (lovely old soul looks for a favourite flavour for someone he cares about) and that is just two basic ideas from two words associated with the theme.

Am sure you could come up with many more. Have fun!

It’s Monday. It has been hectic. It’s story time once again but this time I’ve produced something a little different. The program I use to produce my videos was unfortunately down when I needed to use it for my usual weekly tale though I am glad to say it is back up and running again.

Having said that (and given I have other writing commitments today), I took a story, recorded it on Zoom and have uploaded that to YouTube. Hope you enjoy my Work To Rule read by yours truly.


Flash Fiction Sunday is with me again so am looking forward to cracking on with that shortly.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Zoom next week.

And now it’s time for part 3 of the serialisation of my Seeing The Other Side on CafeLit. Hope you like the latest selection of tales.

Getting out and about on the train, as I have done today, gives great opportunities for discreet people watching. I have occasionally heard intriguing snippets of conversation I have put my own spin on to create stories. The original speakers would genuinely never know.

This is true for any kind of prompt – it is what you do with it which transforms it into something with exciting story possibilities. The prompt is only ever to get you started, which can often be the difficult bit.

Goodreads Author Blog – Authors and Story Links

By the time I post this, I will have returned from a Jane Austen exhibition at The Dorset Museum in Dorchester. This was called Jane Austen – Down To The Sea and looked at her links with the coast.

Confession time – I was only aware of the one link, that being The Cobb at Lyme Regis. It is a major scene in Austen’s Persuasion. I’ve not read The French Lieutenant’s Woman which I believe also uses The Cobb as a setting.

I do always think of Persuasion whenever I visit Lyme Regis though.

The exhibition was an eye opener, fun, and I am so glad I went. So if a favourite author of yours has an exhibition on, why not check it out? They can be another way of helping you enjoy even more from the books you love. That has to be a good thing!

MailerLite – Allison Symes – Newsletter Sign Up

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK 

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The Chameleon Theatre Group – Cinderella – Review

Leave a comment

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

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

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

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.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

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.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.