Tag: writing

Books Which Live On

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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 of me holding Creativity Matters and my flash collections was taken by Adrian Symes, as was the photo of me signing copies of Tripping The Flash Fantastic. I was being watched over by a distinctly unimpressed Lady! Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you had a good weekend. Fabulous one here – lovely family party. Good time had by all, including the dogs. Lady was so tired on Saturday night! Pleased to say the second part of the serialisation of Seeing The Other Side is now on CafeLit – link below. Looking forward also to helping a friend with her online book launch on 1st August – details below.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady had a lovely time in the park. Have been very busy, so much so my feet feel like they need a retread! Good to be at the desk writing.

Don’t forget it won’t be long before my next author newsletter will be out. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I share news, tips, discuss a topic, and share story links, including to the partial serialisation of my Seeing The Other Side plus more on my newsletter. Would be good to have you aboard. A huge thanks to all who support me here. It is much appreciated.

Am looking forward to watching The Chameleon Theatre Company perform the stage version of Bill Bryson’s Notes From A Small Island later this week. Should be great fun. I plan to review it for Chandler’s Ford Today at a later date.

Plus I am off to visit a Jane Austen exhibition at the weekend. Plenty going on. Loving it all.

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Hope your week has got off to a good start. Lady got to play with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, today and saw Tao, who looks as if he could be Lady’s big brother (but isn’t!).

Event News:  Am delighted to say I’ll be quizzing dear friend and former ACW colleague, Rosemary Johnson, about her new book, Past and Present, which has recently been published by Bridge House Publishing. She will be holding an online book launch via Eventbrite, hosted by Bridge House Publishing, on Friday 1st August from 7.15 pm (UK time). The event will last for an hour.

Do check out the link to find out more – the event is free. Rosemary will also be sharing extracts from her book so if you love stories, especially those of a historical ilk, do come and join us on 1st August. And you can put questions to the author herself too. Hope to see you there.

Lovely family party yesterday. Weather okay in the end (and thankfully cooler thanks to the rain in the morning). Lady enjoyed playing the role of doggy host to Lily and Teddy. Lady was absolutely shattered at the end – caught her out for the count in our passageway. She also slept really well last night but I suspect those of us with two legs, as well as those with the four, all did!

In writing news, I will have news of an event I am helping with for a friend’s book launch in the next day or so. Launch itself will be on 1st August. See above.

Serialisation News:  And I am pleased to share the second part of the serialisation of my Seeing The Other Side (due out on May 2026). Hope you enjoy the selection in the link.

Hope you’ve had a good day. Other half had his birthday yesterday. Family do today. Great fun. Wonderful seeing everyone. Knackering? You bet but isn’t that the sign of a good party?

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to welcoming fellow Swanwicker and flash fiction writer, Esther Chilton, to Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday to discuss her new book, The Secret Dragon. Looking forward to sharing that. The book is aimed at 5-7 year olds and I can tell you now the blurb and extract she shares with me for the post makes me almost wish I was that age range again! More nearer the time.

Sometimes things occur which you hadn’t thought about but it has a special resonance. Yesterday, 18th July, I shared my Authors Electric post about Jane Austen. Her birthday is commemorated later this year (December) but 18th July is the anniversary of her death in Winchester. I hadn’t picked up on that. Always good to re-read her works though. You don’t need a special event for that.

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Hope the day has been a good one. Have a couple of competitions (flash ones) in mind to start drafting for at the weekend (or at least I hope to get to do that. Do have plenty of time for the deadlines which helps).

Also looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom next week. Will be looking at the topic of summer for that. The seasons can throw up plenty of ideas for stories.

Also do consider using the game of Word Association to help trigger prompts, which in turn can trigger story ideas.

It’s Monday. It has been an especially hectic one, at least for me. All I know is it is time for a story. Hope you like my latest on You Tube – Prompts.

Which three prompts could Shirley pick out to cause any concern to Barry, someone who has never understood her wish to write? Find out here.

 

Hope all well with you. Will be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly after a lively and fabulous weekend.

The second part of the serialisation of my Seeing The Other Side is now out on CafeLit. See the link (though it is over on my author page here too).

One of the nice things about having a book accepted is getting to read your stories again after a gap apart from them. I hope to take part in the Open Prose Mic night at Swanwick again this year so hope to share some of my new material from this book there too. 
Did manage to get my competition story off during the week, the one I mentioned last weekend. Have another competition to have a crack at – a lovely 750 words one. Plus there is another one which links with a book festival where I can go up to 1000 words.

I sometimes have a look at my past Flash NANO stories and polish those up for competitions. They’ve had long enough to rest up before I use them. I can usually spot things I can strengthen them so I do. When I draft those tales for the event in November each year, I do have this idea in mind. I’ve found it useful.

Goodreads Author Blog – Books Which Live On

Books which live on is an apt topic for me at the moment as I’ve just written about Jane Austen for another blog I contribute to monthly and it was a lovely, enjoyable thing to do. Her books will live on and have lived on long after her because she creates such memorable characters and situations. That, I think, is the secret to any good story.

Yes, sure, styles of storytelling do change over the years. We don’t need descriptions in the way Dickens wrote them because we have our own references to helps us picture things. His readers would not have had those things – being in the film, radio and TV age does make a difference, as does universal education. But we can still understand his characters and what motivates them. I do feel it is the characters which are the important connection in any story.

Any book which does that should live on. I think the classic books can give us insights as to how life was lived back then so they can be educational in that respect. I don’t want stories dismissed just because they’re old or not read for that reason. (Same applies to the authors!).


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Serialisation News: Seeing The Other Side by Allison Symes – CafeLit

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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 had a good weekend. Busy here – from wood treating fence panels to writing to editing. Glad it has become cooler now. Lady is not sorry about that either. Thrilled to say the partial serialisation of Seeing The Other Side has started on CafeLit – details below.

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Nice day today. Lovely swim. Hope today has been a good one for you. Loved an online Zoom meeting I attended last night. Perfect end to a hectic Monday and interesting topic too.

Writing wise, have just completed the first stage of an edit. Looking forward to assisting with a friend’s online book launch before too long as well. Delighted the first part of the serialisation of Seeing The Other Side is now up on CafeLit. Will share another link to the next part this coming Sunday.

And it won’t be too long before the next author newsletter is due. To sign up for news, tips, story links and more do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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Hope today has been okay, given it is Monday after all. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal this morning so all is well there. Also cooler today which is most welcome.

Writing wise, I’ll be catching up with bits and pieces this evening as Monday is one of those days when I don’t have so much writing time. But the nice thing about this is I still get useful stuff done which frees up my time for longer writing stints later in the week.

The nice thing about flash is of course I can get a short tale written in the time I do have even when said time is limited. My bits and pieces also include things like writing admin, such as adding things to my ALCS listing (Authors Licensing and Collecting Society) as well as tidying up/updating my website here and there. ALCS link here – do check them out.

Serialisation News – Seeing The Other Side – CafeLit

Am thrilled to say the first part of the serialisation of my third flash fiction book, Seeing The Other Side, starts today on CafeLit. See link. Hope you enjoy this opening taster! More to come too. Will share as and when I have the links. This is the first time I’ve had any work of mine serialised. So pleased about that.

You get good value here too – you will find four of my new flash pieces here.

And while you are on CafeLit do check out the wide range of stories and styles they have here. It is a great site for short story and flash fiction writers.

Hope today has been good for you. Lady out nice and early as another hot one today. Managed to get two fence panels wood treated – it’s all glamour here I’ll have you know!

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Breaking Down Why A Story Works for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Plus after that I’ll be interviewing fellow Swanwicker and flash fiction writer, the lovely Esther Chilton, who will be sharing news of her children’s book, The Secret Dragon. More details on that nearer the time. (Plus it won’t be long after that before I meet Esther again in person at Swanwick; am so looking forward to being there again).

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I sometimes come up with alliterative titles to make me think of ideas for flash stories. Good fun to do. Can be useful for acrostic stories too.

I deliberately mix up how I come up with titles. I use phrases and proverbs. Sometimes I use a piece of some of the dialogue I’ve used in the story itself. I prefer two to five words for my titles (easier to remember) though I have used longer ones, including for my book titles.

What matters though is any title, however you come up with it, has a hook to intrigue a reader.

It’s Monday. Okay it’s not as hot as last week but it is still time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – You Know It Is Time.

You know you must change your career. You know your boss won’t be happy. You dare not run from her. It would be better to face the dragons than that…

It’s flash fiction Sunday again for me. Lovely way to spend the afternoon. (Will also be interviewing fellow flash fiction writer and Swanwicker, Esther Chilton, for Chandler’s Ford Today soon though ironically it won’t be flash which will be the focus here!).

I do love the weekly challenge of coming up with my 100 worder for Friday Flash Fiction and another flash piece for my YouTube channel. I also use this afternoon to sort out competition entries and thinks like that. It’s a nice way to end the week – by submitting pieces here and there. I think it gets the following week off to a cracking start.

It’s another way I put specific time aside for specific writing work I want to do – I find it pays.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow for me. Plus I hope to finally get another competition entry out. Story is all good to go but I want to do my final checks on it. This week has been hectic in a good way so am especially looking forward to a quieter one tomorrow when I can get more done.

Things like those final checks for example shouldn’t be rushed. (You will miss something and then be cross with yourself for it – guess how I know!). I will be in good time for the competition deadline – it’s the end of August – but once this story is off, I then focus on another story to work on for somewhere else. I like to have something “on the go”.

Goodreads Author Blog – Favourite Parts of a Story

Regardless of story genre, length, whether it is in a magazine or in a book, what would you say were your favourite parts to a story?

I love dialogue because when this is done well, it is like eavesdropping an interesting conversation. I know – that probably does say a great deal about me, doesn’t it? But good dialogue will move the story on, have a good pace to it, and leave you wanting to “hear”/read more.

Description works for me when it conveys information I need to know in a story which can’t be shared any other way. So yes I will need to know something about setting, for example, but I won’t necessarily need to know every last detail. I just need to know what is important.

So I would need to know there was a moor, say, but I don’t need to know exactly what the moor is made up of because I will have my own ideas about that. Earlier generations would have needed everything spelled out when people didn’t travel so much so wouldn’t necessarily know this. Naturally writing flash fiction and short stories does tend to encourage what I call tight writing.

Narrative where the story is being moved on thanks to the narrator is another favourite of mine because you usually get a good pace here. You are shown what you need to see. Everything counts so you know you need to read this. I’ve forgotten who it was who said “try not to write the bits people skip” but they had a point!

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Quizzing Your Characters

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. One photo of me holding Creativity Matters and my flash fiction collections (to date anyway!) was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week so far. Lady has seen some of her friends and I’m making good progress with writing and editing. Will have news of something else soon I’m helping with. Looking forward to sharing about that. Plus there will be another great author interview on Chandler’s Ford Today soon.

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Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with my latest post, Quizzing Your Characters. I’ve long believed if you know your characters well enough, ideas for stories to put them in will occur.

For this post, I look at outlining your characters and using templates and/or traits into coming up with new creations time and time again (which is something I need as I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories).

Hope you find the post useful and do see the templates I share here as guides because there is nothing to stop you coming up with your own.

Indeed, I often mix up the types I use because I won’t necessarily need to know the same thing each and every time about characters I am creating. In certain settings, for example, I will need to ask specific questions relating to that setting and how it effects my character, for example.

Quizzing Your Characters

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Lady and her Hungarian Vizler pal had a nice time in the park this morning before it became too hot. I loved my swim today, as you can imagine. Did not want to get out of the pool.

Don’t forget Quizzing Your Characters will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above.

Less than a month to go now until The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. (Okay only just but I am so looking forward to this).

How do I get ideas for my CFT and Writers’ Narrative articles? Well, our lovely editor at Writers’ Narrative does set a theme, which is always useful, but for CFT, I know I’m writing to fellow writers in my area so I try to focus on aspects of our craft which I hope they will find interesting.

Whatever I write, and this goes for fiction too, I am always asking myself what is in this for the reader. It is a good approach to take because it makes you focus on their needs and what you come up with, as a result, should be more useful to them.

Lady had a lovely time in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Will need to watch the weather in the next couple of days as it is due to get very hot again but I’ve found the mornings have been okay.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Quizzing Your Characters on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. It may seem like an odd thing to do but I’ve found it has paid dividends in being able to continually create characters. Best thing of all – you work out which questions suit your style of writing best. More in the post later this week.

Flash Tip: My favourite form of flash fiction has to be the drabble, the 100 worder. A short sharp story and punchlines/twist endings work well for this word count.

I find it helps to have an idea of the ending first for these. Then I work out what leads to it. It also means I know my punchline or twist ending will have a solid foundation behind it because I know what will lead up to it. It will seem natural, as if there could be no other ending, which is what you want here.

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It’s Friday again and another hot one where I am. Definitely time for an end of the working week story then. My latest on Friday Flash Fiction is called Dates. Hope you enjoy it. Just what will Dawn do about her date dilemma? Find out here. 
With the exception of Friday Flash Fiction where I know I will be writing to 100 words, I focus on getting the story down.

I then edit it after a break away from it, and then and only then do I worry about the word count. Sometimes the solution will be an obvious one. If my finished story comes in at 105 words I will edit it again to get to 100. If say, it comes in at 145 words, I will find a 150 words competition for it instead.

What matters is I am happy with the story in terms of its character portrayal and I’ve ensured I’ve delivered on the premise of the story. So if I am I will leave a story at a higher word count and find alternative homes for it rather than try to force it to fit the original home I had in mind for it.

A lovely review for my Tripping The Flash Fantastic included the line “A lovely little collection of quirky and often surprising stories and poems. Fairy godmothers who aren’t what they first appear.”.

Many thanks to my reviewer for that, but seeing it again reminded me characters who aren’t what they seem are (a) a common trait of fairytales and (b) need to be worked out carefully because the reader should have the hint there is more to this character than meets the the eye.

The surprise mustn’t come out of nowhere. Readers should be able to look back at the story and see “aah, I should’ve spotted that.” I love this when authors do it to me (especially in crime novels). It’s great fun to do as a writer too.

Book Trailer for Tripping The Flash Fantastic – thought it would be nice to share it again.

Fairytales with Bite – Problem Solving

How do your characters solve their problems? Do they instantly turn to magic (or other form of powers we don’t have here) to help them out or do they save that? Does using this kind of power drain them so much it isn’t worth doing unless you absolutely must use it?

If they’re not using magical or other artificial aids, what can they use without causing them further problems? Would they use logic, ask others for help etc as we would do? Are your creations able to ask others from outside their own species for assistance or is this frowned on? What would be the consequences if they did ask for that help when they shouldn’t? Could it lead to positive changes in your setting?

Are some of the problems your characters and/or setting face due to not being willing to interact with others when they could do so usefully? What gets in the way here?past history? Prejudice? Both? How can that be broken?

Problems can be useful for writers – you can get some cracking stories out of them!

This World and Others – Developments

Which developments have been welcomed in your magical/sci-fi setting and which weren’t? What problems did the latter cause and how were they stopped? Has your world copied inventions/developments from other worlds, including ours? How did these go down at home? Not everyone welcomes imports!

In terms of magical energy or other forms of energy your world has, how were these discovered? How have they developed? What new things have been added to them and why was this done?

Thinking about the different species in your setting, how did they develop their societies? Do all of them have the same opportunities for employment, education etc? If species were made to develop in different ways, who imposed that and why? Doesn’t necessarily have to be for evil reasons.

One good reason to keep them apart would be if they could never get along and separating them so they developed in their own way was the only way to stop the fighting. (That does sound a depressingly familiar tale, does it not?).

Story ideas for sure here! Happy writing.


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Mixing Writing Exercises Up and Series or Stand Alone Books

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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 photo taken by my lovely editor from Chandler’s Ford Today, Janet Williams, from the most recent Hiltingbury Book Fair. One image of me holding a copy of Creativity Matters was taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Much cooler than the last one. Much nicer for Lady and me. Writing and editing going well. Hope to share links to the first part of the serialisation of Seeing The Other Side soon. Exciting times!

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Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal today. Lovely time had by both dogs. Will need to watch the weather later in the week given the temperatures are going up again. Lady didn’t miss out when I had to skip walks. She was perfectly content staying in the shade at home and I can see us having to do that again later this week.

Looking forward to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in just over a month’s time. It is the highlight of my writing year. Am so looking forward to catching up with fellow writers again. Will be leading a couple of volunteer sessions (Lift Up Your Pens and Lift Up Your Hearts, always lovely to do).

Writing Tip: To get the most out of writing exercises, mix up the type you do. For example, I love the opening line kind so, yes, I often do them but I also have a crack at the closing line ones. I like to try the one line stories, as well as flash fiction ones which specify a different word count (100, 250, 500, and 750 worders are popular).

As well as giving you different experiences in producing stories to different kinds of exercise, you may well find a type which you really take to – I’ve taken to the 100 worder for example. I find it’s also fun to mix things up and see it as a great way of getting more stories down than if I just stuck to one or two kinds of exercise.

Also you don’t know if you can do these exercises unless you do give them a go.

Hope you’ve had a good start to the week. Tiring one here. Lady had a lovely time in the park though she didn’t see any pals today. Hope to make up for that later in the week.

Lovely weekend writing wise. Got plenty done, which always pleases me, especially since Monday is the one day of the week when I know I won’t get too much done.

Character Tip: Think about the characters you love and loathe in books you read. What is it about them which makes you feel this way? Is is their attitudes, their behaviour, a combination, or something else? Then look at how the author has shown you these things (and it will be in more than one way too).

Can you apply any of what you have picked up here to how you present your own creations? Writers always learn from other writers and the most fun way of doing this is by reading a lot in and out of your genre. So if you did need an excuse to read more, by all means use this one!

Had some thunder and rain today. Has cooled the air down more which is great. Lady isn’t fazed by thunder. But she isn’t keen on it either so takes the approach it is best to stay out of the way and curl up somewhere cosy. You can’t argue with that, can you?

Writing wise, will be starting flash fiction Sunday shortly before resuming works on blogs etc (I always have at least one on the go. I have a low boredom threshold!).

Top Tip: Want to make the most of your reading? As well as enjoying the stories you read, have a look at them again when you’ve finished. Work out what it was which appealed to you the most and why. You can learn from that for your own writing.

Every writer is inspired by their own love of reading. You pick up so much unconsciously almost as to what makes a character grip you etc. As you read, you are just aware this character is gripping you.

So when you go looking for specifically what made you feel this way about a character, you will find it. Often I find it is a turn of phrase which brings a character to life for me. It “rings true”. It is the “rings true” moment we all strive to write into our own works.


Hope you have had a good day. Got some rain today – made the air lovely and cool.

Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Quizzing Your Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today next week and sharing different ways in which this can be done as well as sharing three standard questions which would be a fabulous outline for any story.

Looking forward to a lovely Swanwick Zoom later tonight and flash fiction Sunday for me tomorrow. Have a story I want to get off to a competition too.

Marketing Tip: I deliberately don’t try to do every single marketing thing a writer could do. I think you do have to pick what you can do consistently and, importantly, enjoy doing because that will help you to be consistent at all.

Consistency resonates with readers, I think, if only because it shows you take what you do seriously. You are here for the longer term. Plus it makes sense to enjoy this side of life (or as much as possible anyway) because it is part of the writing life. Every writer, published, self published or what have you, has to do their own marketing so it makes sense to like what you do here.

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I’ve had one of those days where I’ve run late on most things all day and that includes getting my Facebook posts up. (Gone past 8 pm today). You do just get days like that but how about this for an idea?

Story Idea:  Create one of these days for a character and see how they handle it. You could get several tales out of that thought because you could have different characters facing different difficulties in the space of a day. You could mix the mood of the stories up here too.

Have fun (and yes I will almost certainly explore this thought myself at a later date).

It’s Monday. Has been more hectic than usual for me. Hope yours has been better! Time to wind down with a story then. My latest on YouTube is Ring Any Bells.

The new vicar is holding auditions for bell ringers but will the next door neighbour get away with their way of auditioning or not? Find out here.


Do dates have meaning for your characters in your stories? There are the obvious dates to use such as birthdays and personal anniversaries but bear in mind you could use historical dates (whether or not your stories are set on Earth).

Dates are a great way to use numbers in your flash fiction because your story can hinge about the meaning of this date. Your character will have a heightened emotional response to it, else why is it special or important in some way to them? Naturally you can get another character to spoil or enhance things here. Good story outline there, I think.

And if you can’t think of a number to use as a date, do use the random number generator. You won’t be stuck for thoughts here using that!

Flash comes in many forms. As well as the different word counts you can use (up to 1000), you can mix up the styles a bit too. For example, I’ve written acrostic flash fiction, poetic flash fiction, all dialogue flash fiction and more. I’ve written historical flash, crime flash, ghost flash, fairytale flash and more. I’ve turned writing exercises in to published flash fiction too.

I think many write flash without always realising it. If you ever take part in a writing exercise set by someone else, you will only get to write a hundred words or so in the time you’ve been given.

If you go in for Open Prose Mic Nights, you usually only have five minutes in which to share something. That’s perfect flash territory because your material cannot go on for too long.

It’s not a bad thing to prepare material to last for a short time whether or not you take part in these things. Why? Because it would be something useful to share on your social media, website etc. That gives you something of value to share with potential readers and that is always a good thing.

Goodreads Author Blog – Series Books -v- Stand Alones

Do your prefer series books or stand alones? I love both, naturally and can see the merits in both.

Sometimes a story can only be told in one book – The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is a great example of that. Nothing can be added.

But I do love series books, such as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where the major characters develop over time. Indeed, you can follow a whole life story for them within the overall plots of the individual books.

Sam Vimes is the best example here as you see him go from being a drunk copper to becoming a heroic copper who marries the fabulous Lady Sybil Ramkin (what she doesn’t know about dragons isn’t worth knowing) and then on to being a Duke, still being heroic and never losing sight of himself. He’s not one for whom fame would get to his head. Love all of that. And you get to see that slowly revealed over many novels.

This kind of thing I think is the best feature of series books and is why crime series tend to do so well. You follow the results of the individual case plus you catch up on what the lead characters have done/are doing. Plenty to like there.

In my field, short fiction, you obviously get to have lots of stand alone stories but you can have series ones too. I write linked flash fiction sometimes where a character will turn up in more than one tale yet each story is its own complete tale. Fun to do and a good challenge.

Am glad to say I will have a new book out next year (more details nearer the time) and I have had fun with linked flash in that. Looking forward to saying more about this later. But you can have series and stand alones in short stories and flash fiction too.

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Stories in Troubled Times

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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 the week has been a good one so far. From insane temperatures over last weekend and continuing on Monday and Tuesday, we now have milder, cooler, far pleasanter temperatures and Lady and I are both relieved about that. It’s also meant she has seen some more of her chums, of course, especially from Wednesday. Writing continuing to go well. Easier to work in cooler conditions too!

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Pleased to be back on Chandler’s Ford Today with my latest post, Stories in Troubled Times. I love stories of all kinds and lengths regardless of whatever is going on in the bad old world but when times are troubled, as I think they are now, I find fiction to be a wonderful comfort. Generally you know things will work out okay in some way in fiction! That was one thing which always appealed to me about the classic fairytales, and still does.

I look at what I think the role of stories is and how stories inspire other stories, including in different formats. A well known film only came about because a certain director was inspired by what he’d seen from another director and asked the classic “what if” question.

Do check the post out and I hope you enjoy it. 

Stories in Troubled Times

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Today has been another lovely cooler day. Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal and both had a great time. Mind you, our park grass does resemble straw right now. Had a great time at another ACW Zoom group I “go to” monthly. Nice way to catch up with folk.

Will be sharing Stories in Times of Trouble on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. Fiction is always a wonderful thing but I find especial comfort from it when times are on the grim side. Fiction can provide an outlet, for one thing. I don’t have to encounter dystopian unless I want to for another! More on this in the post tomorrow.

Comments are always welcome on the CFT posts by the way. They just need to be family friendly.

 

Much happier dog and dog Mum today. Lady had a lovely time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler pal and a good run around with Coco the lovely Labradoodle. The air was much fresher, the temperature delightfully cool and it was fabulous to see the dogs having a healthy, happy time of it.

On the other side of life, I am off to the dentists this afternoon…. Wish me luck. Thankfully, it went okay!

Writing wise, I’m looking forward to sharing Stories in Times of Trouble for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Later this month, I’ll be sharing a fabulous author interview here too. More on that nearer the time.

Writing Tip: Never worry about a first draft having to be perfect. It isn’t the purpose of the first draft to be perfect. Its purpose is just to get your ideas down. Sorting out which work best and which need strengthening can happen later.

I know I’ve got to be able to see the whole thing before I can decide what works and what doesn’t. So I find it useful to take the pressure off myself here and just write, get those ideas down and, separately later on, get on with the editing.


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It’s Friday and time for a story again. Am pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my latest drabble, Super Power. See what my two fairies, on secondment to Earth, choose as their additional gifts to help them cope with humans. Has Bella chosen wisely?

Should be able to share the first link to the partial serialisation of Seeing The Other Side on CafeLit soon. Will keep you posted. Am excited about this as it is the first time I’ve had anything serialised. Naturally am also looking forward to the whole book coming out too.

The challenge of flash remains as having a complete story with a proper beginning, middle, and end, in a few words, often fewer than most would expect for any story. But it does encourage and develop tight writing and I love that. It’s a good challenge to rise to and I can and do have great fun placing my characters in all sorts of situations and genres. I just need to stick to the word count limit.

Hope your day has gone well. Nice to have cooler weather. Much nicer for the dog and I.

Flash Tip: This is one I use all of the time. I draft my flash story first, tidy it up, and then and only then worry about the word count. The story has to be right and it has meant sometimes a story I thought would be 100 words works better at 150.

So I just write another 100 word tale for any competition I’ve got in mind. I don’t try to make the 150 words one “fit”. It never does. Cutting too harshly as well as padding doesn’t work well for your stories.

Fairytales with Bite – Hotting Up and Characters

This one I thought was an apt topic as the weather in the UK over the last few days as I write this (July 2025) has”hotted up” considerably. I’ve had to cancel a few walks out with the dog given the pavements were too hot. But how can we use the topic of hotting up for our characters and our stories?

For the avoidance of doubt, I definitely don’t mean erotica here. I do mean getting your characters to feel the pressures of expectation and then having to face even more pressures and then more pressures after that etc. And then throwing magic into the mix as well to make things even more complicated.

Giving characters dilemmas and then further dilemmas they must solve and ideally a limited time span in which to do it is a timeless way of heating things up and crosses all genres.

As for magical characters, what pressures could be put on them to make them use powers they don’t really want to use? What would be the outcome? Which powers would they reveal to have had which they’ve not used before, which they have not had the need to use before? How does this change things for them because it will do so? They will have to come to terms with what they’ve done afterwards, for one thing.

Pressure is the key to hotting things up for your characters but magical powers, being allowed to use certain skills and not allowed to use others, can heat things up still further. You could also explore further why certain skills are banned and why. Your character already knowing this is going to feel the “heat” of the pressure to try to stick to the rules here when they know deep down they cannot do so.

This World and Others – Magical Climates

As well as thinking about your magical world’s “physical” climate (is it like we have here for example?), give some thought to other types of climate. What would your setting’s political, religious, societal climates be like? How would the use of magic impact on all of these?

Are magical skills encouraged in all sections of society or are they limited to a few? Who gets to decide who can use what magical powers? Do the non-magical sections of society look down upon or up to those with these powers? Is the “magical climate” tightly controlled by some overseeing authority to ensure magic cannot get out of hand?

I am thinking of the Patrician in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld here. After the events in Sourcery, magic doesn’t get the upper hand in the series again, at least in the ones with the Patrician in it! He may not have magical powers but he does have enough other skills to ensure people don’t cross him. Those that do never get to do it twice. If you haven’t read Discworld do check it out. It’s a wonderful series.

Incidentally in the witches books in Discworld where magic does come into the stories more, it is the witches who control it. The reasons for their actions are clear too. So they control the magical climate.

So give some thought as to who would control your setting’s magical climate and how successful or otherwise are they are with this? Who might seek to change the climate and what reasons do they have? They don’t have to be good reasons but they should be those readers would understand. We all get the idea of being greedy for power but what is interesting is seeing how a character develops that. What starts them off on to wanting to change the magical climate in your setting for their own ends.

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Light and Dark and Reading Moods

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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. Two images of me, one with Lady and the other with me holding books, were taken by Adrian Symes.
Hope you’ve had a good weekend. Very hot (30 degrees +) so have focused on keeping Lady as cool and comfortable as possible. (At one point my other half was able to measure the temperature on our manhole cover just for interest – it was 51 degrees C, yes 51!). Good weekend for writing though and I’ve found another competition for me to submit a piece to, which I hope to get done later this week.

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1st July 2025 – Newsletter
Hope you’ve had a good day. Got Lady out earlier today. Not sorry about that as it has heated up considerably since lunchtime. I did enjoy my swim this afternoon though!

Author newsletter went out again today. Many thanks for all who support. It is much appreciated.

Had some lovely news from another newsletter I subscribe to – The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick one. They set a competition for a six word story on the theme of Hesitation. I was one of the joint winners with another colleague here. My entry is below. Hope you enjoy it.

Decisions by Allison Symes

Have the dagger. Should I? Macbeth.

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A scorching day but Lady had a lovely, short time in the park this morning before it heated up too much. She and I have drunk plenty of water today too. Will be glad when it cools a bit. Lady will feel the same way.

Author newsletter out again tomorrow. Can hardly believe it’s almost July but the newsletters do show the passage of time only too well! Next issue of Writers Narrative should be out any moment too. Will share the link once I have that. See further down – I was right here!

Writing Tip: Ensure your working conditions are as comfortable as possible. It does have a direct impact on how well or otherwise you work. Right now, I’m ensuring I drink plenty of squash, water etc. Once good thing about this is it ensures I have to have a screen break later on. Too easy to forget to do that.

Pleased to be back on More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers, with my blog about Light and Dark.

I look at how contrasts work so well in fiction and light and dark are perhaps the obvious ones to use. Plenty of interesting stories can come from these though especially if you show a character following a redemption arc, going from dark to light.

Hope you enjoy the post and you do write some wonderful tales based on the theme.

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Getting warm again though Monday is going to be the “big one” to watch out for. I suspect Lady and I won’t be going out much.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Stories in Times of Trouble for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Link up on Friday.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon tomorrow. The story I rewrote as an exercise during the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Zoom earlier this week is one I’ll be looking at and then I’ll see if I can find a home for it.

It is always lovely to finish a piece off, find a suitable competition, and get the work submitted. It is satisfying even if the story doesn’t do anything in the competition. But you have to be in it to have even a chance of winning it.

Entering writing competitions is excellent practice in writing to deadlines too. I check out the background of the competition to ensure I’m happy with it (the fees aren’t exorbitant, it has a good track record and so on). It just pays to be aware there are scams out there but there are plenty of genuine writing competitions to have a try at so why not give them a go?

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Glad to report the July issue of Writers Narrative is now out. Amongst the many excellent articles in here, I share a piece called Developing Productive Writing Routines That Work For You. Have a fabulous read (especially since it far too hot to do much else right now!).

 

A scorching Monday where I am. Lady and I have kept as cool as possible. But it is still Monday and that means it is time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Worst Habit.

Confession can be good for the soul but possibly hazardous to life and limb as the latest fairytale client finds out here.

 

My next author newsletter will be out on Tuesday. How can it be almost July already? (Mind you, we do have the heat to go with it in the UK at the moment).

I share news, tips, links to my online flash tales and much else besides here. I especially hope you will find the tips useful with your own flash (and other) writing. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

And now to crack on with flash fiction Sunday, well at least it is for me!

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Hope the weekend is going well so far.

One of the reasons I love flash fiction (and there are so many reasons to do so) is you get a complete story world in a short word count. It makes the form, I think, addictive to read as well as write. Given I love inventing characters, I get to do this all of the time, naturally, so that’s another reason to adore flash writing.

I’ve always had a very soft spot indeed for any story, of whatever word count, where the character voice grips me from the start so I then have to finish reading the story and can’t bear to put the tale down until I have finished it.

With flash that’s more convenient, given I can only go up to 1000 words maximum. I can’t see anyone finishing The Lord of The Rings in one sitting now, can you? And sometimes at least you do just want a satisfying read which doesn’t take too long.

Goodreads Author Blog – Reading Moods

I have various reading moods. Sometimes I want a huge novel to read. I want the complete epic story and that’s that. Sometimes I want quick satisfying reads, which is where short stories and flash fiction come in. Mind you, it helps I write the latter two fiction forms. It does mean I’m biased but in the best possible way of course!

I deliberately mix up the word count lengths I read to as I want a variety of tales to enjoy. I also mix up the genres I read. So for a while, I will read crime, then move on to something else and so on. I often use the short fiction forms as my reading material between reading the novels. I like to see them as appetizers!

I rarely read dystopian works on the grounds the news is gloomy enough but I love lighthearted reads, especially during the summer months. Wodehouse is ideal here I think.

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See July edition above but to keep things interesting please see below a back issue.

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Allison Symes – Local Author News – Seeing The Other Side

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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. Photo of me with Creativity Matters taken by Adrian Symes. Anolther Creativity Matters image was kindly supplied by Wendy H. Jones. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes, as was of part of my contribution to Creativity Matters. Great book. Do check it out. A huge thank you to my lovely editor at Chandler’s Ford Today for a couple of the photos I use in my post this week.
Hope the week has gone well. Cooler here but much pleasanter for the dog and me. Had a lovely Association of Christian Writers Flash Group meeting on Zoom. Other writing and editing going well.

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Hope you’ve had a good Friday. Lady had a lovely time with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal this morning, long before the weather turned hot again. I was glad of a good swim later on as well. So refreshing.

Delighted to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post which is Allison Symes – Local Author News – Seeing The Other Side.

This post shares more about what you can expect from my third flash fiction collection which comes out in May 2026 (though I am looking forward to sharing the partial serialisation of it from this July onwards). I also discuss putting a collection together and thinking ahead to book launches.

Allison Symes – Local Author News – Seeing The Other Side

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Today (26th June) would have been Dad’s 88th birthday. He’s been gone for eight years now. Can’t imagine where the time has gone.

Lady had a lovely time in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler chum. Both dogs are much appreciating the cooler weather though we will have to watch things on Monday when it is due to heat up again.

Lady didn’t miss the afternoon walks I had to cancel last week because things were too hot. The pavement test is my guide here. Hold your hand on a spot of concrete, tarmac etc where it gets direct sunlight and hold your hand there for several seconds (I go for 20, you do need a reasonable amount of time to be sure if things are okay or not). If it is uncomfortable for you (and it was last for me week!), it’s uncomfortable for your dog. It’s just not worth risking burnt paws and Lady and I happily stayed at home in the shade.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Allison Symes – Local Author News – Seeing the Other Side for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow where I will share more about my forthcoming book. Looking forward to sharing that. See above. Plus am looking forward to a friend’s online book launch in just over a month’s time too. Plenty going on I’m glad to say.

Am thankful writing is something I can easily do in the shade!

In other news, writing and editing are coming along well. Am also looking forward to going to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick later this summer. It’s not so far away now.

Hope you have had a good day. Lady got to see Daisy, a gentle older spaniel today. We meet up with her and her owner sometimes and it was lovely seeing them both again today.

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom later on.
Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Allison Symes – Local Author News – Seeing The Other Side for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See further up.

Will be thinking of another story competition to try soon as I’ve spotted a 750 words one (which comes nicely into flash territory). Will probably have a look at this at the weekend but I am keeping to the promise I made to myself this year I will try and get more work out there.

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It’s Friday. It’s getting hot again in my part of the world. Time for a story to finish the working week with then. Hope you like my latest on Friday Flash Fiction – Name Calling. Mark should have realised discretion is the better part of valour – find out why here.
Had a lovely evening with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group last night. (Held on 25th June 2025). Good to see everyone. The topic was Perspectives and I was looking at the use of 1st/2nd/3rd person usage in flash fiction. Naturally I set exercises too though we ran out of time to do all of them.

What I found interesting was I wrote a piece for the 1st person exercise. I then rewrote it for the second person exercise. I think the second person usage one is better. More direct. More emotional impact too. Will have a look at this at a later date and maybe submit it somewhere. Good fun to do.

Second person can be a challenge though I think it works well in the short forms precisely because they are short.

I was impressed by the group’s output here though. All great work.

I mentioned this briefly over on my main author page on Facebook, but do bear in mind there are 750 word stories competitions out there (I’ve just spotted one) which don’t market themselves as flash fiction but it is what they are. It is worth keeping an eye out on all short story competitions because some of those will also allow stories from 1000 words onwards so flash fiction writers could have a go at these.

Plus there are plenty of flash fiction competitions which do market themselves as such so why not try some? I have found writing for competitions a great way to improve skills in writing to deadlines, meeting publisher requirements and much more.

Also, to quote a certain supermarket, you do have to be in it to win it.

Fairytales with Bite – Truth Tellers

Truth tellers ought to be welcome in society but they so often are not. There are numerous reasons for this, including truth tellers exposing corruption or refusing to join in with it. You could take that thought and apply it to your own setting.

What would count as corruption in your magical setting? Could it be as simple as refusing to use magic and using what we would know as scientific techniques instead? It can take a brave soul to be the one who puts their head above the parapet.

How does truth get disseminated in your setting? Can it be shared on public media (social or otherwise),or in print, or on the air? What would be truth to your setting but alien to ours?

Who gets to decide what the truth is at all? If this means suppressing the actual truth how does that get done and who carries out the orders? Could you have a character who defies carrying out said orders? Do they get away with it?

When truth is suppressed, how does it eventually get out and what are the consequences?

Story ideas there for sure.

This World and Others – Species

How many species are there in your setting? Do you focus on the main ones? What roles would the minor ones have in your setting? How do they “service” the major species – or is everyone kept apart with each kind doing their own thing for the good of the world as a whole?

Are species recognised as such or do your creations not categorize in this way? What would those in your setting make of other worlds, including ours? Are there some alien species they would never have anything to do with and why have they concluded this? (In a story I’ve written for a competition recently, I have my character reveal magical characters in their setting see Earth as backwards precisely because we don’t have magic).

Do the different species get on with each other or is it a case of each kind only having anything to do with others, with those of their own kind?

How has your world changed/evolved to accommodate the different species here? Did anything unexpected happen? Have the species been forced to co-operate?

Good story ideas there, I hope.

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Books and Stories In Culture

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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. Many thanks to Julia Pattison for taking the image of me at Swanwick about to run an editing workshop. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos from my local wildflower meadow.
Hope you had a lovely weekend. Pleased to say the temperature has come down a bit – much fresher and nicer for Lady and me. Good to take some pictures of the local wildflower meadow – see one of the posts below for these. It is good to focus on lovely things and I include creative writing in that. Especially when the world at large is not a great place, it is good to escape, for a while at least, into a world I can create through stories. When reading, I escape into a world created for me by other writers. What is there not to love about books?

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Hope you’ve had a good day. It has been a lovely pleasant day and Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal too.

Pleased to say I did manage to submit two stories yesterday. It was a good use of my limited writing time yesterday. As ever, I did pick up on a final error – it is the way of the writing life – but it did mean I could correct that before sending my material in. It does pay to give yourself your own time limit ahead of any official deadline. It gives you the chance to spot and correct things like that.

Good breezy day and much pleasanter as a result. Lady and I appreciated that.

Writing wise, well it is Monday, one of my busiest days of the week so I focus on getting bits and pieces done. Hope to submit a couple of pieces a little later on (all prepped earlier of course and edited).

I often use Mondays as my final day to check all is well and send pieces in. It is a good use of my limited time and frees up longer sessions later on in the week for more concentrated bursts of writing.

You do have to find what works best for you. It takes time to work out what does work best for you but it is worth it, I’ve found. I know what I’m going to be doing when I get to my desk so I can get straight on with it. That saves a lot of time in itself, funnily enough.

Cooler today, Lady and I are not at all sorry about that. It was much pleasanter over the park and the wildflower meadow is looking amazing. See pics.

Writing wise, I’ll be on to flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. Always a lovely way to end the weekend. Have a short story to send to a competition once I’ve sorted out my edits but hope do that either today or early part of this week. Am also busy editing at the moment and loving the work.

Character Tip: Physical appearance generally for me is not the most important thing for me to know when creating my characters. I need to know their main traits and what comes from that and then ideas about their appearance might come to me.

Just occasionally does knowing a character is a brunette as opposed to a blonde matter to the story but not often. In life, as in fiction, I try not to judge by appearances, not least because it usually is the least important thing about someone. Attitude matters far more but can be so useful for creating tremendous tales and characters readers remember).

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Had some drizzle today, cooled the temperature a bit, but has heated up again this afternoon. Lady keeping nice and cool though.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing some local author news in a detailed post for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. No prizes for guessing who the local author will be when I say the post will be called Allison Symes – Local Author News – Seeing The Other Side. I’ll be sharing some more information about the book as well as what it means to me to have a third book due. More on that on Friday. After that, I will share news when the serialisation of part of the book starts and, later, more on the book launches I hope to have.

Writing/Marketing Tip: Think about what it is which makes you love to write. It gives you a good topic for conversation with potential readers and other writers whether you meet them face to face or online. It is also a natural way into talking about your book whether it is out, about to come out, or whether you are finishing it off ready to send out there.

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Today has, aptly for me, gone by in a flash but how do your characters handle the passing of time? Are they finding it drags for them or does it race along? What are the reasons for them feeling this way? Bound to be reasons – and potential flash stories too. Hope you have fun with that thought!

It’s funny how quickly Mondays come around again. It’s time for a story though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Bringing Things to An End.

A group where confessions can be made anonymously with no fear of disclosure hears what could be its most unusual confession to date. And just where do custard pies come into it? Find out here.

 

Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom next week. Zoom has proved useful for writing groups and made more of them possible to do at tall.

Will be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. Incidentally, Friday Flash Fiction now want submissions sent in between Mondays and Thursdays so I prepare my tale for them on a Sunday and submit it on a Monday evening. Works well, especially since Monday is the day of the week when I know I can’t do much writing. So ”little things to do” such as getting my story in to them is useful and cheers me up. I know I’ve done something useful which is creative.

If you submit work somewhere regularly, it pays to keep on top of what their latest guidelines are because things do change, always with good reason, and it means you’re aware.


It won’t be too long before my next author newsletter will be out. There will be a summer related theme. To sign up for tips, flash tales, news and more do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Flash is easy to share on social media given it is short, hopefully entertaining or thought provoking, and gives you something of value to share with those who follow you and your work. Even if your work is longer, maybe a flash piece about one of your characters could make a useful “taster” to share. Just a thought.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Books and Stories in Culture

No matter what our own cultures are, there will be books and stories which stand out in them. These will be the books and stories “everyone knows” but may not necessarily have read for themselves. I am so conscious of all the wonderful English language classics I am unlikely to get around to reading though I am determined to get at least some read.

Where this comes in is when you play the great game of spot the influences when reading works by authors you love. A great example of this is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. There are all sorts of “nods” in those.

Another example can be found in the stories of Jeeves and Wooster by P.G. Wodehouse where Bertie Wooster inevitably gets the name of the author and/or the book concerned not quite right. Yet it is clear from context the book and author do exist.

So cultural books and stories can inspire other tales. I like this!

 

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Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at the Open Evening

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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. The Creativity Matters image was kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones. One image of me with books taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week so far. Has become hot here so Lady has had to miss some of her walks (getting too hot in the afternoons basically). Writing continues to go well. Glad I can do that in the cool at least!

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Hope you have had a good day. Another hot one here but thankfully the morning was much cooler and Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals before it became too hot. No outings this afternoon!

Delighted to share Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at The Open Evening for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. It was a joy to go to the Open Evening and I even found a Symes family link and odd visitors to the Ritchie Hall where The Chameleons are based. Full report in the post.

Hope you enjoy it and many congratulations to The Chameleons for reaching such a wonderful milestone.

Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at the Open Evening

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Hope you’ve had a good day and managed to stay cool. Lady had a lovely time in the park while it was cool enough this morning but a quiet afternoon as it heated up considerably after about 2 pm where I am. I took the chance to have a good swim and felt much refreshed for that!

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at the Open Evening for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on that tomorrow. See above.

Writing wise, I am busy editing, preparing blogs and flash fiction, and putting the finishing touches to my presentation for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. Best of all, I keep cool while doing all of that.

Writing Thought: One positive thing about the hot weather where I am at the moment is I need to get up and take drinks more often and later on answer the call of nature. So I guess the hot weather is giving me additional screen breaks! These are important.

I have found I work better (and for longer overall) if I build these mini breaks into my writing sessions. Else you can find yourself getting bogged down and too tired simply due to things like dehydration and eye strain from being at the screen for too long in one “hit”.

All I know from that is it doesn’t help your writing at all.

Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady got to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals this morning before it became too hot. I didn’t take her out this afternoon. She and I were not sorry about that.

Delighted to be back on Authors Electric talking about Themes. I look at how I use these for creating characters and stories and why I find them useful for workshops I run and my monthly newsletter.

I also share a theme I used recently and on which I based an exercise, which I share again here.

Hope you give it a go and find the post useful. 

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Pleased to be back on Friday Flash Fiction with my Trifling Around. This one is a fun, summer related piece. Doesn’t even matter if, like me, you loathe trifle (sorry, I never have liked the custard, all the other ingredients would be okay though!). Hope you enjoy it.
One question all writers need to be prepared to answer is the inevitable one – what do you write? I was asked this earlier this week at a group I go to when I mentioned my third book is due out next year. So I told them!

But that meant I know what to say, having given this prior thought. I also know to keep it short. I can always take further questions from people later but a brief summary of what you write is always handy for a writer to have to hand. It’s good practice in flash fiction writing too as you do basically want a one line summary.

An exercise I set for a recent Association of Christian Writers Flash Group Meeting was based on the theme of Tens. The exercise was to write a story in exactly ten words. Nothing more. Nothing less. Why not give it a go?

The point of this exercise, funnily enough, is to give practice in writing straplines for longer works later on. Ten words works well for this.

My From Light to Dark and Back Again has the strapline of A collection of very short stories to suit every mood. Ten words to the full stop! Did I get that done in one go? Oh no.

Also ten word stories are fun and easy to share on social media etc. This is one of those I came up with for that exercise. Hope you enjoy it.

The aliens diverted past Earth, as they’d heard about humans.

Allison Symes – June 2025

Well, you couldn’t blame them, could you?

 

Fairytales with Bite – Good News

I’ve recently had the excellent news my third flash fiction collection, Seeing The Other Side, will be out in May 2026 with a partial serialisation of the book coming this July. Naturally I reacted pretty well to this news! I also want to say a huge thanks to all who sent congratulations etc via my Facebook page, all much appreciated. 

But my good news led me to wonder what would your characters see as good news and why? What situations could you have where one character sees something as good news and another as anything but? Who would be right?

How would your characters receive any kind of news? Is their technology the same as ours or significantly better or worse? Could the problems with their technology lead to your characters doing something which would usually be frowned upon in their world but where they honestly feel they have no choice?

What news is so important to them they have to “cheat” to get it through? Do they get away with it? What happens when the news does get through? There is bound to be a reaction of some kind which in turn is likely to drive further drama/tension and actions with consequences. (All great for storytelling though!)

This World and Others – Handling The News

There can never be any one great way to handle news, bad or otherwise. It all depends on the individual, of course, but you might like to look at that aspect for finding out more about your characters, which could prove useful for whatever story you put them in.

Do your characters take things calmly or do they make the biggest fuss imaginable over even the slightest bit of bad news? What drives your characters to react this way? Is your character wary of “drama” and so they make themselves react calmly, no matter what? How do they do this? What led them to decide this was the best way to be? There will be stories behind all of that.

As for news via media, who does get to handle it before the public can know about it? Is there government interference here or are the broadcasters genuinely independent? Who does get to decide what news the public gets to find out about?

Even if there is no official “interference” who gets to make the editorial decisions and can they be “bought” at all? What would happen if they broke a story the government would not/did not want to go public?

Handling the news can be tricky indeed.

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Publication News: Third Flash Fiction Book and New and Old Books

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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. Photos of me with my two flash fiction collections and Creativity Matters were taken by Adrian Symes. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you had a great weekend. I had splendid news – details below and with more to come in due course. Mind you, the title of this post is a big clue! Lady had her usual big walks and had a lovely time too. Weather not bad either and my roses are looking fabulous and smelling as fragrant as ever. When all is definitely not right with the world, little things like this help. (Plus an especially nice church service with some lovely singing also helps me!).

Facebook – General

Phew, a hot one today but Lady kept nice and cool. Was able to see her Hungarian Vizler pal too. Plenty of shade where we are, thankfully. I have a nice spot in the back garden (on the patio where it gets direct sunlight) where I can test the pavement temperature before I take Lady anywhere and that is handy at the moment. Will be for the next week or so if the forecast is to be believed.

Don’t forget I’ll be sharing Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at The Open Evening for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.

It won’t be too long before my next author newsletter will be out again. To sign up do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Last but not least I’ll be back on Authors Electric tomorrow with my latest blog for them on the topic of Themes. More details tomorrow.

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Hope you have had a good day. On the plus side, Lady got to play with her Rhodesian Ridgeback friend and saw her Hungarian Vizler pal too. On the less positive side, it has been a particularly hectic Monday so am relieved to get to my desk to get on with writing and editing. Creativity really is good for you even if, just for a while, it takes you out of whatever chaos you have been dealing with for a while! (It wasn’t Lady behind the chaos, it just has been one of those full on, non-stop, things going wrong kind of days).

Writing Tip: When you get chaotic days like this take time to be kind to yourself. I know I won’t get so much done writing wise tonight. That’s fine. I’ll make up for it later in the week. My focus this evening will be to enjoy what I can get done in the time I’ve got. That matters even when things haven’t gone wrong!

Enjoying writing (and editing) will help keep you going when the going does get tough and it does sometimes. Happens to us all.

A huge thank you to everyone for the congratulations received on my sharing the news my Seeing The Other Side will be coming out in May 2026. The support is very much appreciated. As you can imagine, I feel the weekend has gone rather well!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Celebrating 60 Years of Drama with The Chameleons – A Look Back at The Open Evening for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. One of the things I love about going to see their shows is I get to take in stories I would never otherwise have come across. Full report, including revealing who the unexpected visitors were at the Ritchie Hall when I visited, will be shared on my post next week.

 

Big News – 14th June 2025

I am thrilled to be able to tell you I signed and sent back to my publisher today the contract for my third flash fiction book, Seeing The Other Side. It is due out in May 2026 (so will be in time for The Writers Summer School, Swanwick in August 2026, fellow Swanwickers).

BUT

Prior to that, this coming July in fact, part of the book will be serialised on CafeLit. I will send the links as soon as I can but the serialisation of part of the book will give you a good taster. It will also be the first time anything of mine has been serialised in this way so am excited about that too, as you can imagine. I can’t wait to share those tales with you.

And it is lovely to be able to start thinking about book launches again.

More to come as time goes on but so delighted to be able to confirm this news now.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Have picked a potential story to enter for a competition this weekend though it’s not a flash one. Indeed I could write up to 2000 words for this one, twice the flash limit. Having said that, there are plenty of flash competitions out there and I need to get around to picking one or two to have a try at (nothing ventured, nothing gained etc).

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

I now know the serialisation of stories from my Seeing The Other Side will start in the second week of July. I will share the links as and when I get them. So excited about this as I’ve never had anything serialised before.

It’s Monday. It has been more busy than usual for me. I definitely feel it is time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Working Outfit.

Is Mary right to be concerned her husband, who is due to judge a village fete, has decided to wear his best suit AND an apron? What makes her give him her old hat as well? Find out here.

 

Again, may I say a huge thanks to all for the wonderful support when I revealed my Seeing The Other Side will be out in May 2026. It was most kind of you and much appreciated by me. Writers spend so much time alone at their desks. We are all aware of the downs of the writing life and it is fabulous to be able to share a definite “up” moment!

Back on with flash fiction Sunday shortly. I like to mix up the moods of my stories for my regular submissions (Friday Flash Fiction and my own YouTube channel). Especially right now, I feel some light-hearted work is probably over due.

When I decide to start with the mood of the story above everything else, I then look at what kind of character would be most likely to deliver on this and then flesh them out from there.

When I start with the character, I work out what kind of mood they are likely to be in and that will influence the mood of the story. Themes can sometimes give strong indications of what the tale mood should be/is likely to be so it is a good idea to practice writing to a certain mood. It will come up in competitions at some point.


14th June – Publication News
I make no apologies for repeating my good news that I have signed and returned the contract for my third flash fiction collection, Seeing The Other Side, today. The book will be out in May 2026 but some of the stories will be serialised on CafeLit from this July. More to come as I have it.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday tomorrow as usual. Need to start thinking about another writing competition soon but have understandably been a bit distracted by my big news! Hope to look into this tomorrow too.

Have got an idea for the competition I want to have a go at but it is a question of selecting a suitable story. I often draft pieces and save them for competitions. If I’ve got the idea, I will just get on and write it and polish it up even if I don’t initially know where I’ll try and place it. By the time I know which competition I’d like to try, the story has rested long enough for me to be able to judge it objectively enough.

Goodreads Author Blog – New Books and Old Books

I expect, like me, you have a good mixture of books on your shelves. I have new books, old books, classics, contemporaries, and, what is especially nice, books written by friends of mine (and signed for me too). I treasure them all.

I have books inherited from my late mother, who was a tremendous reader and encouraged me so much here. I have my own collections of books. The first series I went for, as an adult, was the Odhams Agatha Christie collection. Lovely red and gold hardback books. Fabulous stories, as you know.

Prior to that I collected the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton as these used to be on sale at my local newsagent, back in the days when many of those had a reasonable book selection you could buy. I miss those days! A new edition of the series had been brought out to tie in with Southern TV’s adaptation of the series for their Sunday teatime slot. That only stopped when Southern lost their franchise. (A big mistake but there you go and at least it got me reading the books!).

I do believe it is a great idea to have a health “reading diet” and for me that has always included contemporary as well as classic books. A great story is a great story whenever it came out after all.

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