A story of whatever length has to have an opening which hooks the reader in but the closing line must deliver on the promise of the set-up at the start of the tale. Weak endings leave a reader feeling cheated (aka the “why did I bother reading that” scenario and no writer wants that).
Dialogue is something I love writing though I use it more in short stories (1500 words plus) than in my flash fiction (1000 words maximum).
I’m sure this topic could go on for several weeks but I thought a whistlestop tour of some of the major character types you’re likely to come across would be fun.
Best friends, often otherwise known as sidekicks, have an invaluable role to play in fiction. They shore up, sometimes literally, the lead character who is struggling with their task. The most famous example of this is Sam Gamgee from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings who did carry both Frodo Baggins and the Ring of Power for a while as the story progressed.
Best friends are there for moral support too and to be a sounding ground for the lead character. Well, we all need someone to sound off with at times, right? And characters in stories reflect us and our behaviour and attitudes (for good and ill), so this aspect is important.
Some of my favourite childhood books involved animals. Think about Timmy from The Famous Five by Enid Blyton. I suspect he was the most intelligent of the lot of them.
I am an asthmatic, it was worse when I was a child and there was no question then of being able to have a dog of my own. But I could read about them and loved doing so. Ironically now I have no problems with having a dog as a companion and I still love reading. Neither do I mind animal characters as long as they are realistically portrayed.
Is January your favourite time of the year? It isn’t mine. If I had to choose, I would be torn between March and September as I love spring and autumn equally.
Have a lovely Christmas, everyone. I thought I’d share some festive flash fiction for this post.
There’s plenty of prep work going on I suspect by the time this post goes out. I hope your Christmas preparations are going well. (I’m in the middle of mine with my food shop due next week and baking still to be done but I’ll get there).
It was great to be able to celebrate with Bridge House Publishing twice in one week this year.
On Thursday, 2nd December, there was a Zoom meeting for those who couldn’t get to the in-person event in London on Saturday, 4th December. There was a quiz, a look at the books published by BHP and its imprints this year (including The City of Stories by Lynn Clement, which I edited), and there were readings.
I read Breaking Out, one of my two stories in The Best of CafeLit 10, which is just one of the many books produced this year.
It was lovely to see so many on screen and I loved hearing the stories.
It was a pleasure to be a part of the Brechin/Angus Book Festival from 19th to 21st November 2021. The event also formed part of Book Week Scotland.
Last year, I went to the Festival thanks to Zoom but it was lovely to be there in person this time, my first “big” writing event since before lockdown.
It is my pleasure to welcome back Lynn Clement. Her flash fiction collection, The City of Stories, is out with Chapeltown Books and I had the privilege and pleasure of editing this collection.
Prior to that, I had met Lynn when I was guest speaker at the Hampshire Writers’ Society where I talked about flash fiction, CafeLit, Chapeltown Books, and this, I’m glad to say, inspired Lynn to start submitting work to CafeLit and then a single author collection to Chapeltown Books.
This week, Lynn and I talk about the editing process and why it is never a good idea to use song lyrics in your work.
[Read more…] about Introducing Lynn Clement – Part 2 – The Editing
This is a lovely post to write as it is a Local Author News one for debut flash fiction author, Lynn Clement, and me. Why? Because I’ve recently had the joy of editing Lynn’s first flash fiction collection, The City of Stories, which is published through Chapeltown Books. And Lynn is from Hampshire. Definitely local enough!
How did Lynn find out about Chapeltown Books and CafeLit? Quite right – through yours truly.
[Read more…] about Introducing Lynn Clement – The City of Stories
It is always a pleasure to see the latest Chameleon Theatre Group production. This one was particularly nice as it was the first time our esteemed CFT editor, Janet Williams, and I have had what is effectively a Chandler’s Ford Today “works outing” since before the lockdowns. And I adore a spoof. So win-win here.
Murder with Ghosts is written by Simon Brett (a big tick in the box) and the plot has more than a nod to an Agatha Christie whodunnit (a HUGE tick in the box here. The first series of books I collected, which I still have, were the Odhams red leather hardbacks of almost all of the Agatha Christie series and novels).
So a spoof written by a renowned crime writer and based on the structure so often used by the Queen of Crime has got to be a winner, yes?
Yes indeed!
[Read more…] about Review: Chameleon Theatre Group – Murder with Ghosts
Now this is a timely topic for me as I will be taking part in the Brechin/Angus Book Festival from 19th to 21st November and something rather special is coming up next March which I hope to write about nearer the time.
For the Festival, I’m running a writing workshop on flash fiction. I’m also giving an author talk on the ups and downs of the writing life. I’m looking forward to doing this and hope to share a report on how things went later. There are also events over the weekend I will be taking part in alongside the other authors such as the afternoon tea on the Sunday when people can come and chat to us over tea and cake. (Now there’s a civilised event for you!).
I make two book lists a year – one for a certain festival coming up in December (yes, Christmas, there I’ve said it!) and another for my birthday. Always great fun to get these together. It also means I’m easy to buy for (so that helps my better half). And I mix up my choice of format for books – paperback, Kindle, and sometimes audio.
So what do I mean exactly by a “good” writing topic? Surely whether it is good or not depends on the nuances, personal bias etc of the writer in question (and whether you agree with them or not!), and whether they “deliver” on the theme in an entertaining and/or interesting way?
By the time this post goes out, I will have returned from the Association of Christian Writers’ AGM and Writers’ Day held on 9th October 2021 at Mary Sumner House in London, which is the home of the Mothers Union incidentally. It will be ACW’s first in-person event since before lockdown.
What ACW did for events and groups was switch everything to Zoom and this worked well. The plan is to combine a mixture of live and Zoom events and group meetings in future.
How did I feel about going back to live events like this? I was fine with it, especially having been to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August. But what are the advantages of one-day events such as the ACW one?
This topic was inspired by last week’s post when I talked about Pinch, Punch, The First of the Month. I’ve often used well known sayings in my flash fiction. Sometimes I’ve used them as titles. Sometimes I’ve used them as themes. And I have written stories where the well known saying was both the title and theme.
[Read more…] about Sayings – Their Uses in Fiction and Non-Fiction
And with that welcome to October!
Pinch, punch, the first of the month is one of those peculiar sayings most of us picked up on during childhood. And yes it was followed up with the pinch and the punch. (I suspect the rougher the school, the harder the pinch and the punch too).
The idea behind this phrase, and the one that often follows it (”white rabbits”), is that by saying it, we are meant to have good luck for the month in question. Naturally you wouldn’t want to miss out on said good luck so the moment the calendar shows it is the first again, out comes the saying again.
