Tag: Writing tip

Once Upon A Time

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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. One image kindly provided by the Hampshire Writers Society where I have been a guest speaker. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a lovely weekend. Busy but fun one here and so delighted to hear I’ll be in print again later this year, details below. Lady having a lovely time catching up with her pals and enjoying the lovely weather.

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Am pleased to be back on More than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. This time my post is called Once Upon A Time.

I discuss how these famous opening words to classic fairytales can inspire us with our own opening lines. For one thing, they show you don’t need too many words to set a scene, genre, and time scale!

Hope you enjoy the post.

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Hope you have a good start to the week. Lovely weather here. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today so all is well in her world.

Looking forward to sharing my review of Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor which I went to see performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group last week. The review will be on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It’s the first time I’ve been to an interactive murder mystery play.

Writing Tip: How easy or otherwise do you find getting into your character’s head so you know where they are coming from here? I find I must be able to do so to understand their motivations properly and be able to write their story up. A few pertinent questions can help here. A good one to always ask is what do you want and why? That alone can give you a good “backbone” for a story.

Publication News
Am thrilled to say my story, The Family Legend, will be in the Magi themed Bridge House Publishing anthology due out later this year. Huge congratulations to all of the other writers who will also be in this book. I share the full list below and it is good to see some familiar names here!

Jane Spirit – A Royal Dilemma
Diana Powell – Adoration
Adam Mizler – Caspar’s Story
Joyce Frohn – Epiphany
Sally Angell – Follow Your Own Star
Michael Rogers – In the Departure Lounge
Margaret Bulleyment – Island Views
Sara Winslow – Lavender
Sara Page – Nativity
Paula Readman – Quizmas Rivalry
Richard Balou – Return of the Magi
Steve Wade – Seosamh, Meryem, the Busker and the Boy
Sharon Keely – Star Over Dartmoor
John Walker – The Census
Allison Symes – The Family Legend
Ian Inglis – The Four Wise Men
Anne Meale – The Gift of Common Ground
Rob Whaley – The Lost Magus of Michigan
Caliman Florentina – The Mysterious Journey of a Soul
Henry Lewi – The Road Trip
Yrev Very – The Second Coming
Liz Cox – They Came from the East Riding on Camels
Sarah Swatridge – Three Wise…Monkeys?
Penny Dale – Travelodge Epiphany

Will share further news such as publication date when I have it. It will be good to be in print again!

Am posting early as busy but enjoyable weekend this time. Hope the weekend is going well for you. Weather forecast for next week looks almost summery which will be nice. Touching to see such a wonderful turnout in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral. TV figures etc will be even higher of course. He will be much missed.

Looking forward to reviewing Sudden Death at Thornbury Manor, recently staged by the fabulous The Chameleon Theatre Group, for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. First time I’ve been to an interactive murder mystery play. It was fun but more on that in my post next week.

Character Tip: What kind of language (and not just swearing!) is your character going to come up with and why? Are there words they always use or words which would never pass their lips?

Give some thought as to why this is and you will find out more about your character, which I’m sure you will find a good use for in fleshing them out more. It is a case the writer always needs to know more about the character than the reader does.

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Am enjoying the sunshine, as is Lady, who got to play with Coco the lovely Labradoodle this morning before it warmed up this afternoon.

Many thanks for the congratulations over my publication news shared the other day. Much appreciated.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow evening. Always good fun.

Flash Fiction Tip: I’ve found it useful to focus on my character and their situation, get that draft down, tidy it up and then and only then worry about the word count. You do need to get your story “right” and I have ended up with a story over the word count of the competition I had in mind but where I really didn’t want to change anything on it. I feel it would spoil something so I simply save that story for another competition instead.

It’s Monday. Okay, it’s a lovely sunny Monday but it is still Monday and time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Pictures.

It is only after her mother’s death Sally discovers why there were never many family photos up at home. Maybe some things were best left hidden after all…

 


Delighted to say one of my longer short stories will be in the Magi themed Bridge House Publishing anthology due out later this year. Meantime will crack on with flash fiction Sunday afternoon!

After the 100 worders, I think my favourite flash category is the 300 words one because that seems to be the word count I write to most often after the good old drabble. It is also a common competition category for flash tales so well practising writing for.

In my collections I have a few stories which are between the 750 and 100 words limit but the majority are either 100 or between 100 and 500. I literally do average out at about 250 or so!

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting next week on Zoom. Will be looking at genres. This is just one aspect to flash I love and take advantage of a lot – the fact I can put my characters anywhere and everywhere in stories so I do.

When I have a competition with a set theme I take time to work out what kind of character would be best suited for it. When it’s an open theme, I work out what theme I ‘d like to write about and then figure out the best fit character from there. You do want a good match up here.

Goodreads Author Blog – Family Stories

What do you think about stories based around families? I loved the Little Women series based on the March family from Louisa May Alcott and still have a very soft spot indeed for Jo. I still have the books (bought from a local newsagent back in the days when they would often stock popular titles. Indeed the Little Women series was part of a “Deans Classic” collection).

I also adored Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series (and again still have a very soft spot for George).

But the novel which always “got” to me was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. I loved the whole idea of a story told by the horse and the Gordon family I thought were lovely. (That idea was explored further in the old Southern TV series which was based on the novel and ran with the basic idea while remaining faithful to the spirit of it, not an easy balance to get right, when it was a popular weekend teatime serial and more stories were wanted once they’d finished with the novel itself!).

I don’t specifically seek out family stories though it is funny how many of my childhood favourites are based on them (another one was Heidi).

Mind you, some of the classic fairytales show families which are far from ideal – check out Snow White and Cinderella to name but two!

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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.

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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.

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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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Zooming Around and Author Anniversaries

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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 few days. Had a fabulous birthday weekend. Lovely to see folks. A huge thanks too for all of the online birthday wishes. Lady had a great time too. Now back to the writing work…

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Looking forward to going to an online book launch later this evening. Lovely way to end a Tuesday!
Will be sharing Springtime in Words and Music on Chandlers Ford Today on Friday. Nice to finally have the weather to go with a post like that!

Hope to have more time this coming weekend to explore more competitions to try. Have a draft story ready for one of the regular ones I go in for so also hope to edit that and submit in a week or so.

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again in a few days time. To sign up head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and many thanks for all of you who subscribe. The support is much appreciated.

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Hope you have had a good day. Hectic here but then it is Monday. Looking forward to going to a friend’s online book launch tomorrow evening plus I then have the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Wednesday. I will be “zooming” around. Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.

Writing Tip: What do your characters do with their spare time? Do any of their hobbies and interests have a bearing on what they do in the story? Do any of your characters take up a hobby or interest which they know will help them later? Does it pay off?

Hope you’re having a lovely Sunday. Enjoying a quiet one after a fabulous do yesterday. So good to see everyone. Lady is still pretty tired from yesterday!

Writing wise, will be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly. I hope to have another go at the Andrew Siderius competition being run by Friday Flash Fiction at the moment (they do this annually). This time I will have to write in the 151 words + category. You can only enter one story per category and my story last week was a classic 100 worder.

Busy week coming up. Will be going to an online book launch and the following night I will be leading the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. All will be fun though!

22nd March 2025
A huge thank you for the wonderful birthday messages. Much appreciated. Had a fabulous day with family and friends today. Lady is shattered but then she was hosting a spaniel family member (and yes the spaniel went home very tired but happy too!).

Writing wise, I’ll be celebrating Springtime in Words and Music for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I’ll also be looking at ways of using spring itself in our stories. More on that next week.

Meantime I’m looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow. Have another competition entry I want to sort out too.


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Hope the day has gone well. Lady had her usual wonderful time over the park. Always good to see that.

Sometimes when I am out and about, I will spot things I think I can use in a story. It’s okay. I’m not a spy, honest. But I will see, for example, an interesting coloured hat, or catch a snatch of conversation I know I can turn into something a character of mine would say and so on. Incidentally, I should add the original people having the conversation would never know I’d used it even if they read my story out loud in front of me and I remembered it was them saying it originally.

Why? Simply because I have one golden rule here – never use anything directly, I am treating these things as prompts and then put my own spin on them. That’s where the creativity comes in.

So if my interesting coloured hat was a purple trilby, I would turn it into a lime green knitted hat – you get the kind of thing. But it will be little details like this which will help make my characters and their stories stand out. Colours and items, not necessarily clothing, can make it easier for readers to picture your setting and your characters.

It’s Monday. It’s been even more hectic than usual my end. Definitely time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Breaking the Contract.

It seems anyone can succumb to the lure of chocolate but for some at least there are consequences…

I know the theme for my Friday Flash Fiction story this week and will be working on that soon. I like to enter a range of competitions and tend to find I have a rough split between those where the theme is set and the other kind where it isn’t. I love both. It’s a good idea to regularly practice writing to both types then you will be ready for any competition coming your way.

One thing about using the random generators (or books or prompts) is it does give you practice at writing to themes not set by you. I plan to have another look for more competitions to have a go at next weekend, when I should have more time. 

Good luck if you are sending in any stories shortly.

22nd March 2025 –

Well, my birthday do went by in a flash, somewhat appropriately given what I write! Great fun.

On a somewhat more serious note, life is made up of good moments and I aim to treasure the ones which come my way.

Now there’s a thought you can use for your flash and other stories too. Which moments would your characters treasure and why? Also which moments are they glad they would never see again and why?

Bound to be some story ideas there.

Goodreads Author Blog – Author Anniversaries – P.G. Wodehouse

Often when we think about author anniversaries, we’re commemorating the birth, sometimes the death, of globally renowned authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens etc. Or it can be the anniversary of when one of their most famous books was first published, you know the kind of thing here.

But 2025 sees a strange author anniversary for one writer and where the events took place within weeks of each other. In early 1975 the wonderful humorous author, P.G Wodehouse was finally knighted. In February 2025, sadly he died. So this year sees the 50th anniversary of these things and the P.G. Wodehouse Society (UK) has been commemorating these. (I’m a member).

I love Wodehouse’s way with the English language. It is simply brilliant and his characters live on in your head long after you’ve finished reading the stories. I even like Wodehouse’s golf stories and I hate the game as I do see it as a good walk ruined! There aren’t many writers who could achieve making someone read about a subject they are really not keen on. Even fewer can make them enjoy it!

Wodehouse’s characters live on in the forms of Jeeves and Wooster, Lord Emsworth, Uncle Fred, and so many more. There are some books of letters out written by the great man too and they’re well worth a read as they’re a fascinating insight into the writing life he enjoyed.

You also get to see his wartime controversy from his viewpoint (and I would add had the Nazis got irony at the time Wodehouse would have been in real trouble. Check out the reproductions of his radio speeches which caused so much trouble and you will see what I mean).

But above all check out his stories, Especially when life is grim, and it is right now, they are a tonic and I happily recommend them just on those grounds.

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Author Interview – Introducing Joy Wood, Storyteller

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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 few days. Family do over the weekend which I’m looking forward to and Lady is as well as naturally she will be spoiled rotten! Writing wise, getting plenty of “bits and pieces” done so all well there.

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am so pleased to welcome fellow Swanwicker, Joy Wood, to talk about her great series of books on Chandler’s Ford Today.

As well as sharing her writing journey to date, Joy shares useful writing and marketing tips and what she thinks about editing amongst other topics. She also shares how competition slogan writing kickstarted her writing career, which is an interesting way into novel writing!

Naturally she discusses the joys of The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, something we both love, here too. Plenty to enjoy here – hope you enjoy the post.

Author Interview: Introducing Joy Wood, Storyteller

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Hope you have had a nice day – lovely sunshine here. Good temperatures too. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler pal again today.

Am notching up another year on the clock on Saturday. Many thanks to all who have donated to my birthday fundraiser for this year. I’m supporting the Salvation Army.

Do look out for a fabulous interview with Joy Wood on Chandler’s Ford Today – link up tomorrow. See above. Looking forward to catching up with Joy in person at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick later this year.

 

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to play with her Hungarian Vizler, Rhodesian Ridgeback, and Labradoodle pals today. Marvellous time had by all. Nice weather too.

Looking forward to sharing my interview with Joy Wood, a fellow Swanwicker, on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Will be a great read – do look out for it.

Writing Tip: Give some thought as to what the hook for your story is – that is, try to ask yourself what would make you want to read it had it been written by someone else. It’s a good question to ask as it means you’re thinking of what your readers want and that is a great thing to focus on. It helps against waffle tendencies!

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Pleased to share my story Best Served Cold on Friday Flash Fiction. You will see that it has the topic of Revenge in the corner. This is because this is my entry under the 100 word category for the annual Andrew Siderius competition Friday Flash Fiction runs. 

Next week I hope to submit a story on the other theme for this year but that will have to be at a longer word count. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this one. It’s another example of where I’ve used a well known phrase to generate an idea for a tale. 

Good luck too to all who are entering the competition this year.
Flash tales are great for humour (think short, snappy tales with a punchline). They’re also great for specific moments where a character has something important to share but doesn’t need a lot of word count space in which to do this. As a result those specific moments have a more powerful impact I think. I call these “punch to the gut” tales and they can reflect all moods.

I like to mix up my word counts within flash. My favourite will always be the 100 worders because those were my first introduction to this fabulous form of writing.

But another one to have a go at is the 250 worder and some competitions are using this word count limit, The Bridport Prize springs to mind here. You can obviously pack more into this word count limit so it gives you the chance to show more of your character and what they are made of, which has always been my favourite aspect to storytelling.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting next week. Focus will be on editing. Flash fiction writing teaches you a great deal about this but it is a major benefit of writing in the form regularly. It can transfer to other forms of writing you do and I’ve found this to be the case for my blogs etc.

Also because you do have to keep an eye on the word count, you are always looking for better ways of phrasing things so you make yourself dig deeper to find that better phrasing. That in turn encourages your creativity, another good thing!

Fairytales with Bite – Legacies

We often think of legacies as gifts etc left in wills and so on but legacies can mean so much more than that. We all have those legacies, often resulting from family traditions, upbringing and so on, which form a major part of who we are and why we are that way, so why not apply this to potential characters?

It means digging deeper into fleshing out your creations but that will help you create more rounded characters. You may well find you can do more with those characters as a result.

So why not give some thought as to what your characters have “inherited” from their past which will directly effect the way they are in the story you’re going to put them in? This kind of thing will be a major part of what motivates them.

That in turn is what readers will latch on to because we understand this. We know what drives us. We know why we are driven this way. Some of that can be from our past, (as well as being from things like greed, lust for power etc).

This World and Others – Tales of Old

What would your setting consider to be tales of old? Are these cherished or an embarassing part of their history which they can’t quite shake off?

Are the old tales useful for a tourism industry (so much the case in my part of the world – all of our historical castles etc have stories attached to them, some of which are gruesome to say the least. In any other circumstance, these are the stories you would keep quiet about because they’re not something you’re proud of but the tourist industry finds them useful!).

How old does your world consider to be old? Where I am, it would be anything over 50 years old, I think, but that may be me being biased given I am over 50!

Who decided which tales could be kept from olden times and which have been deliberately forgotten/suppressed? Are the tales of old ever re-enacted (stage, film, for historical purposes etc) and who would stage these things? Are these things obligatory for the populace to see every so often? Could these things be used as a way of educating the populace especially if literacy rates are low?

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

Many of the Cafelit, Bridge House, and Chapeltown authors contributed to this book by Gill James. There is a prompt for every day of the year.
My latest published story is in The Best of Cafelit 6.
Where my stories are in print. Image by Allison Symes
Six of the seven books my stories have appeared in (okay in the case of Limerick Nation, one limerick!). Baubles is the other book. Image taken by me.
My tale Evergreen – Never Old and Good to Go – is in this collection from Bridge House Publishing
Image from Bridge House Publishing
I contributed to this. Image from Bridge House Publishing
Nativity. Image supplied by Gill James, Bridge House Publishing
Transforming Being. Image by Bridge House Publishing.
Image from Bridge House Publishing

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Writing Progress, Word Counts and Anthologies

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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 was one image from the 2024 Autumn Gathering run by the Association of Christian Writers. The shot ties in nicely with my belief it is good to write first, edit later. See further down.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Lovely one here. Good weather, able to wear plimsolls and lighter coat rather than boots and heavy dog coat. Nice to see more flowers out. Plenty of stories submitted over the weekend too.

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Hope your Tuesday has gone well. Nice one here and Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler chum again.

Enjoyed a writing related Zoom last night. Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom later in the month. The use of Zoom was one good thing at least to come out of lockdown as it has given alternative ways of having workshops etc and I was especially glad to have these during that dreadful time.

I’m glad to continue to enjoy online and in person writing events. Certainly the Flash Fiction group couldn’t meet in person so Zoom has made more things possible writing wise which I welcome.

Hope you have had a good start to your week. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today and it has been another fine day too. So win-win all around there.

Writing wise, I’ve had a productive weekend. Got three stories off to various places. Hope to be drafting more later this week. Made progress on my long term project and I hope to get that submitted this week.

Also later this week, I need to put up a couple of blog posts for different places which are due to appear mid month roughly and latter end of the month respectively. Texts for both need editing and then I’ll create some pictures to go with them but, as with my stories, I draft the blogs and rest them. Then I can see where I need to improve things and there always is something to improve.

I never mind this. It’s the nature of writing.

Another nice day, more butterflies out, and I even spotted a very early bluebell (outside a neighbour’s place). Lady enjoyed her time in the park but this is where I am grateful she does not share one trait with my first dog, Gracie. The footballers were out today and Gracie would have wanted to go on to the pitch to join in. Lady gives them a casual glance and then resumes playing with her own ball, thank you!

Looking forward to starting flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly plus I hope to review and send in a longer short story. Did so too!

One Liner Tip: Ideally keep short and snappy. Think character and action in one short burst, which a reader will know has to led on to something. The reaction from a reader has to be somethlng like now what? Only way to find out – read on, so they do just that to find out what does happen.

For example, how about The dragon blew but no flame emerged. I know I would want to read on to find out what happens next and what does the dragon do?

A lovely sunny day. It was nice to wear lighter clothes, a body warmer and plimsolls (instead of heavy dog coat and boots, makes such a nice change!). I also spotted my first butterfly of the year (believe it was a Cabbage White). Lady loved the weather and her time in the park too.

Writing wise, I will be sharing Writing Competition Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today next week and then after that there will be a wonderful author interview with fellow Swanwicker, Joy Wood. More details on each of these nearer the time.

Have a couple of submissions I want to get out by the end of the weekend. Am also working on a presentation for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month.

Writing Tip: Think about how you can show us your characters in action, so to speak. Rather than get them to run quickly up a hill, get them to race up. You save on word count (important for flash writers especially) but raced is more definite than ran quickly. I can run quickly compared to a snail but that does not say much, I can tell you!

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Write first, edit later is one of those tips I wish I’d picked up sooner than I did especially since I now do this all of the time.

For flash especially I just get the story down, sort out any problems with it after having a break from it, and then worry about the word count. I know I have to get the story right first and then I can figure out what to do about the word count.

I often find, when I know I want to write 100 word stories, my first draft usually comes in at 150 or 160 or thereabouts. But usually better ways of phrasing things help me get that count down without losing anything important from the story.

It is the way of it though that I can’t find better ways of phrasing things until I do get that first draft down!

It’s Monday. It’s a lovely sunny one where I am but it is still Monday when all is said and done. Time for a story then, a darker one this time. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube called Book Ends.

Is Sheila the helpless old lady she seems to be and where do her book ends come into it when she is faced with an aggressive burglar?

 

Hope the weekend has been a good one. Nice one here.

Drafted a flash piece (a 500 words maximum piece) I hope to submit next weekend. Have stories to review and send in later on.

I am looking through the Flash NANO pieces I drafted last year. One or two I’ve already polished up and sent off but hope to come back to the others in cue course. Most I know I can use.

There was only one I know for sure won’t be seeing the light of day but that’s fine. A duff piece is a duff piece. It was a good exercise to try but nothing more.

How do your characters respond to the seasons? Today has been a lovely spring day where I am and it lifts the mood. How could you use this to help your characters achieve more than they might otherwise have done? Equally can you use geographic and climate conditions to get in the way of your characters and could magic and/or science be used to make this happen deliberately?

Flash Tip: Why not write four stories about one character but set the tales in the four seasons? Compare and contrast your character’s attitude and actions due to whichever season they’re in. Could be some interesting linked flash stories here.

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Competitions and Their Anthologies

I’ve been privileged to have stories of mine win competitions and appear in anthologies as the prize. Separately, I have had work in other anthologies brought out by independent presses (as these are a great way of highlighting what they publish).

Why mention that? Simply because I want to commend anthology reading. There is the obvious reason I’m in some of course, but I have found reading these books has introduced me to authors I would not have known about otherwise.

I’ve also found reading some of those authors’ short works has encouraged me to engage with their novellas and novels but all because I discovered their work in an anthology first.

Plus I want to encourage short story reading as part of an overall reading “diet”. We celebrate stories here in all their forms so why not check out the shorter forms in a convenient book form?

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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The Benefits of Writing Exercises

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Hope you have had a good week. Lady has – lots of puppy parties. Not been bad for me either – lots of writing done, which is how I like it. Will be having a smashing author interview coming up in the next couple of weeks on Chandler’s Ford Today. More details nearer the time.

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Drizzly today but Lady did get to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and a lovely spaniel called Daisy whom we see from time to time. Not a bad way to end Lady’s “working” week!

Delighted to share The Benefits of Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I look at some of the different types available, the advantages of using any at all, and set one for you to try.

I also share some ways you can set your own writing exercises as well as examine how these things give your imagination a good old work out.

Hope you find the post useful.

The Benefits of Writing Exercises

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Lady is on a roll this week – fourth day in a row with nice weather and puppy partying with her best pals. They’re all living their best lives!

Look out for my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow on The Benefits of Writing Exercises. See above. This is a classic case of talk about what you know as I use these things all the time. I set them a lot too for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group and when I run workshop elsewhere. Many of my stories on Friday Flash Fiction started life as writing exercises I set myself, often using different kinds of prompt.

Themes come in to my writing a lot, especially for non-fiction such as my blog posts and articles. I also use them for my author newsletter. I’ve found that useful as it gives me a “peg” to write the newsletter around and I can target the hints and tips I share here in a better way.

 

Another lovely sunny day and another puppy party though only with the Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback this time Again lovely time had by all.

Will be sharing The Benefits of Writing Exercises on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I regularly use many different kinds of writing exercises and always managed to get stories from them. More later in the week. See above.

Character Tip: Names can reflect a good deal about a character, including likely social background and age.

But bear in mind names can come in and out of fashion. You can, however, use that to your advantage. The only thing you would need to watch for is to ensure if you use the name Ethel, for example, make sure there is something else in your story to indicate the era in which she is set. Mind you, I’m not sure Gertrude is coming back any time soon! So you could use that to good effect. It would indicate her likely era.

My name gives a good indication of my likely range of birth dates. So you can play with things like this too to give an indication of your character’s age without necessarily spelling it out.

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Sock It To Them. Every so often I will use a phrase or proverb as a title and then see what I can do with it as a story. Also thought it might be good to have a lighthearted piece this week given what is going on elsewhere.

The alert will notice I’ve used socks as a theme this week given my YouTube story on Monday is called Socks. So I haven’t just used a well known phrase for story ideas this week, I’ve used clothes too, making this an object prompted piece writing too.
I write some seasonal flash fiction (especially at Christmas time) but could, I know, do more with this. The problem is remembering to do it! I have written some more lighthearted pieces recently for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel.

I thought this was apt given the grim state of the news but also because we are going into lighter times seasonally, at least in my part of the world. It has been lovely seeing the lighter evenings so I thought lighter tales would go with these nicely enough!

I do look out for certain competitions or invites to send stories in for potential broadcast which work around the seasons. But do bear in mind you can use this as a theme anyway. Perhaps once a quarter pick a a story to reflect on the season you are in. Equally you can write a story say in winter but use it to look ahead to the more hopeful times of spring to come.

I love finding those moments which show a great deal about a character without my having to spell everything out. I can use names here (as I discuss over on my Facebook author page – see above). But you can also use things like style of dress, whether women were expected to wear hats or not (and if so you could indicate class by what kind they wore), and much else besides.

I refer to these things as the telling details. Next time you read a novel or a short story look out for the telling details you think the author used to show something about their character. Agatha Christie does this brilliantly with Poirot. All the little details showing his fastidiousness confirm this trait and add “layers” to his character portrayal. Doesn’t necessarily take a lot of words either.

For flash fiction, if you write linked flash, you could do this over the course of two or three flash pieces.

Fairytales with Bite- Spells and Their Usage

In your setting, are there limits to what spells can be used when? Also are there limitations as to who can use them? Does training have to be carried out? Now there are renowned fictional magical schools of course, but thinking beyond that, where could your characters go to develop their skills and spells further? Are there codes of conduct? Who drew them up and why and what would happen to anyone breaking this? Plenty of scope for stories there.

Also give some thought as to what the spells can do? Is there anyone trying to extend or modify what they can do here and is this for good or sinister purposes?

Now I’ve always imagined that any magical being would drain their powers every time they use a spell, the amount depending on how powerful/important the spell was. I think this is reasonable given anyone using any kind of power is likely to find themselves drained after using said power a lot. Even if they’re not drained as such, the equipment used to carry out the spells will be – the equivalent I suppose of us needing to recharge our mobile phones, computers etc after heavy battery usage.

But having some kind of limitation will be a means of giving non-magical or less powerful magical characters a chance to survive in the world in which you’ve set them. It would also be good if spells didn’t do everything. What about characters who invent things to complement magic or do something magic alone cannot? Would they see this as the equivalent of our science?

This World and Others – Science and Magic

Following on from Fairytales with Bite, do science and magic co-exist in your setting or are they in conflict with each other? Can the conflict be resolved? Who would do so and why? What are the strengths and weaknesses of both in your setting? Sure to be story ideas there.

Give some thought too as to what developed first. Did science spring from magic to resolve those things magic cannot do? Or did science, as we understand it, come first and magic developed either as a sideline or in opposition to it?

Have you got characters who love both and happily use both? Do they use their skills in either or both to help their home world or are they just interested in any form of power and what do they intend to do with these things?

Also can good come from both to benefit the setting and characters? Can they feed into each other, for good or ill?

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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The Writer’s Wish List

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Hope you have had a good week. Lady has seen friends and I’m spotting more spring flowers out. Writing is going well too. Hope to edit a story for another competition over the weekend.

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Hope you have had a good Friday. Lovely to see some sunshine and more spring flowers out.
Pleased to share my latest post on Chandler’s Ford Today – The Writer’s Wish List.

I share five things I would wish for and this includes my thoughts on AI, tiredness. and finding out useful writing information plus much more.

Hope you enjoy the post. Comments always welcome on the CFT box.

The Writer’s Wish List

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Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler friend again today and I am spotting more crocuses out both cheery things to celebrate I think!

Will be sharing The Writers’ Wish List on Chandler’s Ford Today. Link up tomorrow. See above.

Had a lovely session of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Zoom last night. Good to see everyone.

I’ve been revisiting some of my Flash NANO stories from last year and sent a couple of those out to competitions, having polished and edited them. Now to wait and see.

Also happily working on future articles and a long term project. Hope to get that submitted soon.

Writing Tip: Even if you’re happily reading everything fictional you can get your hands on (and why not!) with the aim of writing plenty of fiction of your own, don’t forget to include non-fiction in your reading. Not only are the articles etc interesting, I’ve known non-fiction works spark off ideas for stories for me. Why not see if it can do the same for you?

Mixed bag weather wise today. Lady and I got wet this morning though we did see her Hungarian Vizler friend which cheered us up. For this afternoon’s walk, there was glorious sunshine. I guess that is proof – spring is on its way! In further good news, my first daffodils are out in the garden.

On Friday, I’ll be sharing The Writer’s Wish List on Chandler’s Ford Today.  See further up. And I hope to bring another smashing author interview before too long. More details nearer the time.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting his evening on Zoom. Will be looking at Using Popular Themes as a topic. Glad to say the session went well. Nice to welcome new members to it too.

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It’s Friday once again and I’m pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest tale, Memory Issues. You know how you can see a face and swear you know from it somewhere, well so does my character here. Is he right or wrong though? What could be the consequences of being right?
The Bridport Prize has described flash fiction as “the art of just enough” which I think is a brilliant description of flash fiction. (Their competitions are open again incidentally. Deadline is the end of May).

It’s a great challenge to respond to and I’ve found it has helped my other fiction and non-fiction work. How?

Simply because I’ve got into the habit of thinking does the reader need to know this? I’ve got used to justifying every part of my stories and/or articles and/or blogs etc being included and ruthlessly cutting out anything which isn’t. Writing flash so regularly has helped sharpen my editing skills (and indeed has helped me lose all fear of that).

Other than for Friday Flash Fiction, where I always write 100 word tales, I do like to mix up the word count I use across the flash fiction spectrum. I do this to keep me on my creative toes but also because certain markets and competitions have specific requirements here.

I can think of markets which ask for strictly 75 words only, including the title, and another one which asks for 53 words. There are all kinds in between too all the way up to the 1000 word limit. And it is a funny thing how often I gravitate to the 1000 words mark.

For my Writers’ Narrative articles, these always come in at around the 1000 words mark. My shorter Chandler’s Ford Today pieces come it at about the same limit though my longer ones (such as author interviews) can be double that.

Word count then plays a huge role in my writing life though I like to mix it up. It keeps life interesting!


Fairytales with Bite – Turning The Tables

One of the things I’ve always loved about fairytales is you know things will work out all right in the end, usually with some magical assistance from a benign magical being. Turning the tables on the unkind and cruel can be guaranteed. Just ask Cinderella!

But we need to know early on in the story that such magical assistance is going to be possible. So we needed to know Cinders had a fairy godmother though she had been unaware of it until the lady deigned to turn up! I’ve always thought I would’ve understood Cinders if she’d greeted the lady with something like, “Where the hell have you been? Do you know what’s been going on here?” Well, you just would, wouldn’t you?

For tables to be turned, we need to know then that such a thing will be possible. Hints and clues need to be planted to the alert reader to pick up (and for the less alert ones to go back through the story later and then spot them – we all do this at times! It’s no bad thing either. You always pick up more on a second read and writers can learn so much from that).

With fairytales, there is the general expectation tables will be turned but you do need to see how this happens. In the case of Cinders, we know things will become better once that fairy godmother does turn up (and that magic will be the way forward here).

In other stories, look for the pivotal moment of change. Study what leads up to it. There will be things here we can apply to our own fairytales and magical stories. Often there is an early hint when we discover the setting is not of this world so that too is a huge clue magic or some other force for good will turn up at some point.

The fun thing here, of course, is you get to decide what clues to plant where. Then you can get your characters to reveal more. It’s why I love writing, as well as reading, what I call fairytales with bite. They’re a great source of entertainment and a small comfort in a world where justice is so often not done.

This World and Others – Accountability

With great power comes great responsibility (or should do!) and there should be some accountability as to how a character uses their powers. This isn’t meant as a commentary on what is going on right now but it perhaps reflects on us that accountability is always needed, I think.

In an ideal world (which ours definitely isn’t!) the most powerful have to have some restraints on what they can do otherwise there is no story. They would just get their own way all the time. There is no story in that.

I’ve long believed there has to be some hope in any kind of story (e.g. justice will be done in crime stories in some way) and I feel this should be just as true for science fiction and fantasy tales. Perhaps especially so since there is access to powers we don’t know here.

We understand power struggles here so can relate to those going through the same thing in the fantastic worlds we create. It is the characters, I feel, which draw us into reading the stories.

I rooted for Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings and the details of The Shire, Mordor etc were fabulous but without those characters drawing me in would I have gone on to read the rest? Possibly not. Having said that, having sense of the setting in which they were travelling added to the story. Knowing Sauron could be brought down (and I refuse to believe that is a spoiler after all these years) gave hope. I was rooting for those hobbits to ensure Sauron did face his accountability even though it took an unusual way of doing it. It was vital Sauron had a weakness that could be used against him – therein the accountability and that evil would not triumph.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

Two issues here this time – the February one as we leave the month behind and the March one as we go into that month. Happy reading!

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Story Endings and Why I Love Creative Writing

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Hope you had a good weekend. Wet and stormy again here though crocuses are emerging in my garden. Plenty done writing wise which I’m very pleased about. Hope the rest of the week continues to be productive.

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You know I said yesterday Writers’ Narrative was due out soon (see below!), well I was right. It’s out now! Do check out the magazine below.

The theme this time is historical fiction. Plenty of wonderful articles in here sharing useful insights. Time for a good drink and a great read I say. You can find my piece on pages 16 and 17 where I look at how historical fiction can be written for the shorter forms of writing too.

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Hope you have had a good start to the week. Park so muddy this morning. Lady didn’t worry thought (she never does!) and focused on having a nice time with her Hungarian Vizler pal. Quite right too.

Writing wise, I had a lovely weekend, submitting stories and picking others to edit for competition entries later. Also drafted articles and got on with my longer term project (well, one of them anyway).

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again on Saturday. Yes, it is almost March already! To receive news, tips, story links, prompts etc do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Also Writers’ Narrative will be out again soon. I was right – see above!

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Hope your Sunday has gone well. Nice quiet one here though the wind is getting stronger. Storm due later.

Why do I love creative writing, fiction or otherwise? There is no one answer to that but my love of reading made me want to write stories of my own. Basically, I wanted to see if I could do it and I soon discovered writing is addictive (albeit in a good way).

My love of reading non-fiction has led to me wanting to and then going on to write non-fiction articles and posts. And, of course writing is a creative outlet. I suspect most people have at least one way of being creative and I soon found that writing was the one for me.

Best of all has been getting to make so many writing friends. All of us understand the need to create stories and articles without having to explain why. When we get together in person or online, that is lovely. We do pick up from where we left off!

It will be a little while before I go to my next writing event though, as well as running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group this coming week, I’m going to attend an event ACW are putting on in early April, which I’m sure will be encouraging and useful.

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Had some sun today which is lovely and have potted the first crocus emerging in my garden.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing The Writers’ Wish List for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. (Well, it will be this writer’s wish list but there will be plenty to agree with and maybe add to via the CFT comments box on Friday!).

Delighted to be Editor’s Choice on Friday Flash Fiction this week with my Best Advice tale. Link here in case you missed it yesterday and a huge thank you for all the lovely comments coming in on this so far.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon tomorrow too. I have been submitting a number of stories recently which is great. I need to take some time out to look for other possible competitions and I hope to do this tomorrow too. I make a point of checking out the competition background just to reassure myself all it as it should be before I send anything anywhere.

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Hope today has been good for you. Lovely to see some sunshine. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and an old friend, Daisy, whom we haven’t seen for a while.

Writing Tip: You can show something of your characters’ general attitude to life by showing how they react to minor annoyances, you know the kind we all have.

Do they swear like the proverbial trooper when they stub their toes or do they express their annoyance in a less fortnight manner?

How do they react in certain weather conditions? What brings out the worse of them here (and bear in mind in a fantasy story you could have another magical character deliberately make them face this situation knowing it will cause them to react badly).

It’s Monday. It’s been stormy (overnight) and so muddy in the park. Definitely time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – People Watching.

Just another woman working away in a cafe over a chocolate brownie and tea or is there something more sinister in her work? Find out here.

 

Finding topics for my flash fiction and short stories varies. I use the random generators. I use books of prompts (some have been published by Bridge House Publishing. I’ve contributed to those and there is now a Big Book of Prompts available – see link below).

I also use story cubes. Sometimes a topic is set by the competition I want to have a crack at and sometimes I use a competition theme even if I don’t enter it. (This is usually due to my having discovered the competition a bit too late to enter it but I can still use the topic and get a story out of it. I can find another home for it later).

I like having a variety of methods to “get into” a story (though my all time favourite is working out who my lead character will be and then finding a lovely situation to dump them in – great fun!).


Flash can be punchy, moving, funny, and anything in between those things. You can set your characters anywhere and everywhere including in time, in this world and others you make up. The word count can vary from a few words to a few hundred but as long as you don’t go over 1000 at a time, it’s fine.

You can bring out flash collections, share individual pieces on websites like Friday Flash Fiction, and there are competitions specifically for the form. And you wonder why I love flash fiction! (The fact it is responsible for me finally having books to my name has a great deal to do with it too!).

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Goodreads Author Blog – Story Endings

A story doesn’t keep its implied promise of a good read until a reader reaches the end of it and then even the magic words The End are no guarantee it was a satisfying read.

A great story ending ties up loose ends and has an appropriate conclusion for the characters involved. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a happy ending but it does have to be “right” for what we have come to know of the characters and the plot line. It has to “fit”. Otherwise a reader will feel “jarred” by that ending and will wonder whether the book or story was worth their time reading it after all, something no author wants to encourage.

Sometimes when I write my short stories and flash fiction, I have the closing line immediately. I have sometimes entered competitions where they give you the closing line and you then work out what must have come before that.

I enjoy this exercise. It makes me think from B to A rather than A to B. I deliberately make myself start stories this way first every so often to encourage my own creative thinking. The huge advantage of course is I know what the ending is going to be. I have an outline (a very rough one) from that alone.

I like to read books and stories where I feel the ending couldn’t have been different from the ones which have been given. To me that is a successful story.

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

As the March issue is hot off the press (see above), so to speak, I thought I would share the February issue again here. Double bubble here, folks. Hope you enjoy both magazines. Do subscribe. Link above and in the magazine itself.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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The Chameleon Theatre Group – Cinderella – Review

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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.

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

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The Joys of Fairytales

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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.
Brrrr…. Has been a cold one this week. Not that Lady has minded. Very little slows her down. Writing wise, am looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom later this month and had a most enjoyable one as part of another ACW group on Wednesday this week. All good fun and useful.

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Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Hope you have had a good first full week back into normal routines. Still pretty cold here but Lady had a lovely time in the park playing with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Coco, the Labradoodle, pals so they’ve all had a great time.

Pleased to share The Joys of Fairytales as my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. A gem of a topic as far as I’m concerned and I hope you enjoy the post. I look at fairytales and the reading diet, fairytales and the writing craft, as well as share my own life long love of the form and why I think we shouldn’t stop reading them because we’re no longer children. Hope I can persuade you to keep reading them!

The Joys of Fairytales

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Lovely time in the pool today. When the weather is cold outside, the water feels like a tepid bath by comparison. Trust me, it isn’t. It only feels that way by comparison but it does help me to get going with the swimming.

Will be discussing The Joys of Fairytales for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above.

Pleased to be getting back to preparing my monthly blogs in different places and scheduled the first one of those yesterday. Makes me feel like I’m getting back into the swing of things again. Like this. Can take me a while to get going again after the Christmas break. Just like with my swimming really! Having said that, I am also busy editing at the moment and am glad that is going well.

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Hope the day has been okay. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler today and both dogs were so affectionate with each other. So nice to see. Some sleet, a little snow, but not a chance of it laying as the ground is so wet. (Hope I don’t wake up tomorrow to regret saying that but it is the case as I write this!).

Will be looking at The Joys of Fairytales for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ve loved fairytales for as long as I can remember so this piece was a particular joy to write. Very much a labour of love. Fairytales were my introduction to the fantasy genre as a whole too and I’m so appreciate of that. Can’t imagine not having read The Lord of the Rings or the Discworld series now but fairytales gave me my way in to finding those books.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope to have stories of mine on Friday Flash Fiction to share here from next week but just to flag up the submissions window is now open again. Link  takes you to where you can find out all you need to know for submitting 100 word stories, which is where they prefer you to start.
Screenshot 2025-01-10 at 09-57-33 100-Word Submissions - Friday Flash FictionCold again but better than yesterday – no sleet!

How can you use the weather in a flash tale without resorting to cliche? I don’t do this often but when needed, I tend to use what a character is wearing as a way of doing this. If my character takes half an hour to dig out their scarf and gloves, I don’t need to say otherwise the weather is cold, do I?

It also shows you what kind of character they are – not an organised one! Writing the weather like this makes it more fun to write and, I hope, to read as well.

473008266_10162940845417053_8634434704547746209_nA grey day today, weather wise. One lovely benefit to creative writing is it can help you escape all of that. For a start, you’re usually indoors in the warm. Secondly, by getting caught up in what your characters are up to and what happens next, that means you can forget at least some of what is going on outside!

The latter thought is another reason why I am so fond of writing light hearted flash fiction pieces. They seem to me to be a brief moment of cheer and we could all do with those!

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Quick Fact:  The above picture was going to be part of the cover for Tripping the Light Fantastic but as a rectangular picture cannot fit into the square frame of Chapeltown Books’ covers, I had to choose another image. Pleased with how things worked out though, see below!

Escape with a Good Book - TTFF.jpg

Fairytales with Bite – Twist Endings

Now given almost anything can happen in a fairytale, as magic is prevalent, what could possibly count as a twist ending here?

One answer to that is to get your characters doing the unexpected. For example, they don’t use magic when it was expected they would do, but ensure their reasons are strong enough to justify this. You can then have fun working out what consequences would occur because they haven’t done something. Would they also get into trouble with the powers that be because they should have used magic and didn’t?

Also, what would happen if a character, who is not supposed to use magic, does so? There is, of course, the glorious example of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice here (and I can still see visions of Mickey Mouse and those brooms from Fantasia here) but what if the character develops a real gift for it and proves to be useful. Could they break down prejudices in their setting and set something positive in motion here, a positive twist if you like?

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This World and Others – Stories as Told In Other Worlds

Now I know so many of us appreciate the fairytales – those who wrote them, collected them, and in some cases those who did both. We think of Charles Perrault, Hans Christen Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm.

But in your setting, who would write the stories? Who would collect them? Are they aware of stories from other cultures in their world? Are they aware of stories from other worlds such as ours? Would they “import” stories from worlds like ours?

In what formats would their stories be shared – orally, in print, both? Do they have ebooks or something better? And who can access the stories? Are they for everyone?

How would their stories differ from ours and why would this be?

Story ideas there!

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WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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