Tag: Where Am I by Allison Symes

Workshop News and Questions

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you had a good weekend. Tonight’s post looks at questions and aspects of flash fiction writing. I also share some exciting workshop news.

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Facebook – General

Hope Tuesday has been a good day. Lady loved being with her buddy, a smashing Hungarian Vizler, today. Still a bit chilly for April, mind you.

There are offers on both From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic. See the links (and the screenshot) for more.

My train tickets for my trip to London to run a workshop for the London Jesuit Centre arrived today. News on the workshop further down.

I was impressed with that. I only booked the tickets over the weekend – and these were sent out by second class post too. I nearly always book tickets like this online. It means I’ve got them and, as ever, when I go on trips like this, I hope to get a certain amount of writing done thanks to Evernote enroute. I vary what I draft here – from potential blog posts to flash stories, to my To Do list – it all proves useful!

Screenshot 2022-04-26 at 20-06-33 Amazon.co.uk Allison Symes

Loved listening to the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams on Classic FM just now. It always gets my vote in their annual Hall of Fame. Music can conjure up images and with this one it is an image of time travel all the way back to Elizabethan England. Absolutely adore that (and I think it is far better than The Lark Ascending so there!). I listen to classical music as I write and find it helps me unwind. A relaxed me writes more!

My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be on Originality in Fiction. Link up on Friday.

Am off to a (postponed) panto on Thursday (it was due to be on in January). Am off to see The Dragon of Wantley as performed by the Chameleon Theatre Group, my local amateur dramatic company (and very good they are too).

Looking forward to meeting up and having a good chat with Janet Williams, my lovely editor at CFT, who is also going. Review to follow in due course. And I know what will be particularly nice about this show will be the laughs – panto is wonderful for that and I can’t help but feel that will be a much needed tonic for many right now.


Sunny and blustery today. Weather still a bit odd. The wind is almost gale strength at times.

Booked my train tickets for the workshop I’m running at the London Jesuit Centre in May. (Again see further down). Looking forward to that.

Am also getting my May newsletter ready. To sign up for that, just head over to my website (landing page) at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

A huge thanks for the wonderful comments in on my Where Am I?, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. The feedback on this site is fantastic and I’ve found it so useful. It is also nice to know you’re not on your own – there is a supportive writing community out there. Thank you, all!

 

Hope Saturday has been okay for you. Busy out in the garden mowing the lawn and kicking Lady’s ball for her at the same time. Yes, it is do-able! Makes for an interesting if somewhat unusual workout! Used to do this for Gracie and Mabel too.

Workshop News

I’m running a workshop called Finding Your Voice – Writing Fiction – How to Get Started for the London Jesuit Centre in May. Looking forward to this very much. See the link for more information.

Will be running my flash fiction workshop for the Association of Christian Writers as part of their Golden Jubilee weekend at The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire over the weekend of 3rd to 5th June (and yes, we will raise a glass or two to Her Majesty as well!).

Looking forward to seeing everyone at both workshops!

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

As I mentioned on my author page, there are offers on both of my flash collections. See the links for more. Grab yourself a bargain!

Another thing flash has shown me is how important character is when I enjoy a story, whether I write it or read it. I’ve got to care about what happens to the character for a story to work for me. Genre is far less important. And to care for a character at all, I’ve got to understand what motivates them and what they are aiming for. I do need to see where they are coming from and yes that goes for the villains too. I just don’t have to agree with the latter!

I wasn’t expecting to write more in the first person when flash fiction entered my life but it happened and I sometimes write monologues as a result. These work well for flash as monologues are at their best when they don’t go on for too long.

The important thing is to ensure your character has a strong enough voice to carry a monologue. Why would the reader want to know what this person has to say? What keeps the reader reading? Because they’re intrigued enough to find out what your character has to say and in flash you know you don’t have to wait too long to find out. So flash and monologues can be a very good match up.

Monologues can also work well for my YouTube tales.

Talking of which, I hope you enjoy my latest one – Mirror, Mirror.

 

I talked about asking questions yesterday and, continuing with that theme, another advantage to doing this is that it gives you a basic story structure immediately. Why? Simply because the question set has to be answered in some way by the end of your story.

All stories have to have a point of change and here the answer to that question is the point of change. Also there has to be conflict and resolution in any story – the question is the conflict which has to be resolved and the answer is the resolution.

The character can answer the question directly. Equally you can show them “acting” the answer out. For example, if my question was something like does love change anything?

I can get the character to “show you” by getting them to reflect on whether they think this is true or not. They can narrate something of their life to show the answer. I do this in my They Don’t Understand from From Light to Dark and Back Again.

I can also get the character to “show” how their idea of love answers that question. If they are trying to obtain love and they succeed, then they are showing you that love does change something – it changes their life.

Questions are useful then. Even when I don’t use a question directly, I always ask questions of the characters I’m outlining and that triggers story ideas. The answers that come to me tell me what I am going to do with that character and away I go and write their story up.

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Asking questions is a great way of fleshing out ideas for a story. I’ve often used questions as the theme for a story too. Sometimes I’ve used them as a title. But I mainly use them to get to know my character better. What do I ask?

Things like what is your major trait? What kind of trouble could this lead you into? (A great story always has trouble in it!). Could your major trait, if generally seen as a virtuous one, ever be misconstrued? What is your attitude to others? What kind of things can’t you stand at any price?

Questions that reveal a character’s underlying attitude to life are excellent for getting to what they are really like. Once I know my character, I find I can write them up. I know what their journey is likely to be. They can still surprise me but those surprises will fit in with the traits I’ve uncovered. I usually get my surprises as I am asking those questions of my lead characters. That’s when I sit up and take notice and ask myself what can I do with this? I usually find something!

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Goodreads Author Blog – Books You Must Read

Every so often lists come out showing books you must read (and sometimes by a certain age at that). I admit I take absolutely no notice of these lists (other than to note they are out again)! Why?

Because the books I must read are the books I must read. I am always happy to take recommendations from friends (including via Goodreads) but most of the time I pick the books I want to read and leave it there. Some of my picks are based on my genre (I read flash fiction and short stories as well as write them (and I love reading outside my genre too).

I think it is more important to have a good mixture in your reading “diet”. I like to read magazines, books, novellas. I like to read non-fiction as well as fiction. I like to read online as well as print books.
I’m not a huge fan of literary fiction. I do like genre fiction (and utterly dislike the snobbery against it in some quarters. I’ve never understood this. Good writing is good writing, whether it is in a literary form or in a genre book).

Life is too short to read books you’re “supposed” to read. I focus on reading books I know I’m likely to enjoy. My non-fiction reading is where I go outside of my comfort zone a bit because here I specifically want to learn something (but it can still be done in an entertaining way).

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Names in Fiction

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots and photo taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Lady has been enjoying the sunshine and meeting up with her dog pals all week. I’m busy preparing workshops and looking forward to running them.

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m pleased to share Names in Fiction, my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post. I don’t always know the names of my characters immediately. Often I will know their major trait and their situation and ideas for names will emerge from knowing those things.

Setting helps too as if I’m writing a historical piece as I do sometimes, I will want to make sure the name is suitable for that time period. Sometimes I will jot down a name but a better one will come to me as I’m drafting so I change it, but once I do have the right name for the right character in the right story, nothing is making me change it!

I share thoughts on useful sources to find names in my post, as well as looking at how names have meaning and how that can be used by writers. Surnames didn’t happen until after the 1066 Norman Conquest in England so that is something which has to be borne in mind by historical writers.

I’ve used names to indicate the likely age of a character without spelling the age out. For example, I named a character Walter. Not likely to be a young person with a name like that, right? Correct, he wasn’t.

Hope you find the post useful.

Names In Fiction

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I’m talking about Names in Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up tomorrow. See above. I look at how writers can use names to add to their characterisation and how certain names have gone into the language. I’ll also be sharing tips on using names and good places to find them. (Don’t forget the old random name generators too).

Am looking forward to seeing The Dragon of Wantley, the panto being put on by the Chameleon Theatre Group, next Thursday. It’ll be lovely to catch up with Janet Williams, my lovely editor at CFT. I do see these evenings as “Chandler’s Ford Today works outings” when Janet and I both get to go! Review in due course. And it is so nice getting back to seeing live theatre again.

Do you find it hard to come up with names for your characters? Sometimes I know a name immediately. Sometimes I know who my character is going to be in terms of personality first and that in turn will give me ideas for names to suit that personality.

I don’t always worry about surnames and, where it is appropriate for the story, I stick to first person and just use I throughout. What matters I think is knowing how you are going to get “into” writing your story. I have to know the character’s major trait as so much comes from that. Some writers absolutely have to know the name first or to be able to visualise their people and that’s fine.

What I hope is my post on Friday will be a useful guide as to where you can find inspiration for names as there are various ways to find ideas here.

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It’s been another lovely day in Hampshire. Someone has enjoyed her time out and about – see pic.

Looking forward to taking part in the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group on Zoom later this evening.

One thing to come out of the pandemic was the increasing use of Zoom and that has made many things possible. I can talk to family members in New Zealand easily for example. Genre group meetings like this one, where the people taking part live several hundreds of miles away from each other, is something else made possible.

Am busy getting my author newsletter ready for the beginning of May. Do head over to my website at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com if you would like to sign up.

Am putting finishing touches to various blogs I write for on a monthly basis – I like to keep ahead of myself here so when one has gone out online, fairly soon afterwards the next month’s one is up and scheduled. Gives me plenty of thinking time too and that is always a good thing.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased to share my latest story on Friday Flash Fiction. This one is called Where Am I? It is based on a prompt thrown up by a random scenario generator (which was about waking up in a strange room). Hope you enjoy it and a big thank you to all who have commented on this one already. Screenshot 2022-04-22 at 09-23-11 Where Am I by Allison Symes

Another lovely spring day in Hampshire. Dog was equally impressed.

I’ve been asked an interesting question about whether flash is necessarily about moral twists. Not necessarily. You can argue that Jesus’s parables in the New Testament and Aesop’s Fables are flash fiction given they are mainly within the word count for flash and yes they have a moral message and there can be twists to them. Whoever would expect a tortoise to win a race against a hare, for example?

But a lot of my stories don’t exactly have a moral message though, as with most fiction, you can learn a lot about what not to do or be thanks to following the exploits of the characters. You can “watch” as you read as the characters make mistakes that make you wince etc and think I’d never do that. That is one of the great joys or reading fiction!

Where I think flash does come into its own is having a powerful impact for such a small word count. You can get the “punch in the gut” effect that much more quickly and a writer can exploit that.

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Do you have a favourite kind of character to write stories around? I think most of us do. I have a soft spot for the feisty older woman character where you know there is more to her than meets the eye. I’ve always loved this kind of character in the fairytales. You know the kind – the old woman who suddenly turns out to be a powerful magical being and cuts some arrogant twerp down to size. (See Beauty and the Beast for more on that!).

I suppose behind this is a wish that older characters aren’t written off as being unimportant (and I wish that too for older people in general). What matters here is caring about the characters you dream up because only then can you write their stories up with any conviction. The first person to enjoy your story has to be you, the writer.

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Fairytales with Bite – The Older Magical Practitioner

I have a very soft spot for the older magical practitioner in fairytales. I love those wizened older people who turn out to be a powerful fairy godmother/wizard in disguise who then usually go on to teach some arrogant so-and-so a much needed lesson.

I know my love of this character type is partly due to my own wish that older people are not underestimated or dismissed for being old. I don’t want age to be a factor for my characters. Indeed, if anything, I want their years of experience to have beneficial outcomes in the stories I’m writing about them now. I want experience to count for something.

The ideal sweet spot for me is having a character like that teamed up with someone younger, faster etc but who is willing to learn from them. They could make a formidable team!

What uses do you put your older characters to in your stories? Yes, they can be invaluable sources of advice but I would want them to do practical things that the younger ones could not. I would want the younger ones to do the things the older characters could not. Genuine team work.

Ageism, for me, has no place in fiction (or indeed anywhere!). Yes, sure your older characters aren’t going to be able to do what they could easily do years ago but there should be other things they can do instead, tips and tricks they’ve learned along the way precisely because they can’t do the other stuff any more. So what do you get your characters to do? Are you limiting what they can do?

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This World and Others – Age

Going on from my Fairytales with Bite post, how does your fictional world react to age? Is it respected or despised? A lot will depend on the cultural background of your characters so how can you play on that to come up with interesting tales? You could get some nice tensions/conflicts between between those who respect age and those who do not. Here I would want the old ones to prove those who despise them wrong!

You can also write about age as an era and show how your fictional world has moved on (or not) from times past. What consequences would that have for your characters in the here and now?

Does age work in the same way it does here or is reverse aging possible? What conflicts could that cause? Also are only certain species/classes allowed to get to certain ages and beyond?

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