Every story focuses on a decision. At some point a character has to choose whether or not to act on a situation they’re facing. What they decide to do has immense consequences for that story.
By the time this goes live on Chandler’s Ford Today, I shall be packing up after a lovely holiday in Scotland with my husband and Lady and preparing to have a long journey home again. So with that in mind, I thought I would look at journeys in writing.
Questions are something I often use in my writing. For my non-fiction work, they often act as an underlying theme. I have been known to use them as titles too. For fiction, again I use them for titles and themes. In this case though I am getting my character(s) to answer the question. In my non-fiction work I’m answering it through the conclusion I come to at the end but I show my “workings” along the way.
I love writing exercises as I’ve shared before in previous posts (see Related Posts below). Writing exercises encourage lateral thinking. I’ve had far more story ideas thanks to using these.
You can get used to thinking in certain ways for your next idea (especially for short form writing where you need to constantly invent things) so it can be easy to become “bored” or to run out of inspiration. You don’t want it to be a case of same old, same old here.
So mixing up how you approach writing stories is a good idea. It keeps you on your creative toes as well which is never a bad thing.
As I write a lot of stories, I have to find ways to continually invent characters. One useful way of doing this is to outline my characters (rather than the plot) as by knowing more about them, I can figure out what trouble I can land them in – such fun! Plots come from that. Outlines don’t have to be long. It is a question of working out what you need to know. That will vary from writer to writer.
Linking back to last week’s post on Online Workshops I thought I’d take a look at PowerPoint in more detail. I used PowerPoint a lot in the late 1980s/early 1990s and then forgot all about it until Zoom came into my working life.
I don’t know about you but these days I split time into two categories – pre-pandemic and post-same. I recently ran a workshop for the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group on leap years. One thing coming from that was in recalling the last Leap Year Day was 29th February 2020! Much has changed since then, hasn’t it?!
One positive thing to come from the pandemic was the increasing use of video conferencing via Zoom and the like. It made certain events possible. Ironically it has led to paying gigs for me as workshops. I hope that continues!
Every part of a story or article, of whatever length, has its role to play but the most important is the opening line. Unless readers get past that, the rest won’t be read. So what does any opening line need to do to encourage people to keep reading?
The best light works do not lay their themes on with the proverbial trowel. As you read the marvellous prose and get behind those characters, you will pick up the themes almost by osmosis. There is no lecturing. You are left to follow the characters on their journey.
Writers of short form fiction, including flash, need to find reliable, sustainable ways of inventing characters. Stories are character led. We’re writing a lot of stories. So we need to create a lot of characters, especially over the course of say a year.
Does the title of this post sound like a strange combination? It’s not as odd as you might think. I thought this would be a good topic given we have just had St. Valentine’s Day. That saint’s day alone triggers obvious writing themes – love and sacrifice, the latter especially so if you write a non-fiction account of St. Valentine’s life.
I’m a great believer in planning out my writing for various reasons.
I love creating new characters and stories. The challenge is ongoing to come up with situations and people/other beings of choice which will hopefully grip me first and, later on, readers (hopefully).
But my favourite thing to write is dialogue. I literally put words into my characters’ mouths. That in itself is fun but it is when you get the words exactly right for the kind of character you’ve created, that is a wonderful feeling. It confirms I’ve got my character portrayal right.
There are a few things which have become almost like traditions for me in the run up to Christmas. Certainly they are lovely ways of finishing my writing year.
[Read more…] about Allison Symes – Festive Writing and Round Up 2023
It is always lovely to hear of friends’ publication news. I am so pleased to welcome Rosemary Johnson to Chandler’s Ford Today to share something of her writing journey with us, why persistence is such a useful quality in writing, and to tell us more about her book Wodka,or Tea With Milk.
Did you know that anything above fifty years old counts as historical now? That puts me in the historical “bin” for a start but for fiction, this applies to settings. The idea behind this is to take readers out of the events of their lifetime.
Rosemary’s book is set against the backdrop of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s and is just “outside” the historical fiction category if you follow the 50 years “rule”. Given I remember watching the news about Solidarity, I would have sworn it was long enough ago to count as historical but apparently not quite, again if you follow the 50 years “rule”.
[Read more…] about Introducing Rosemary Johnson – Wodka, or Tea with Milk: The Road to Publication
Themes are the bedrock of any story told in any form (play, flash, novel, novella, short story et al).
Back in February, I had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Hardie about his forthcoming book, Remember, Remember, the third in his Temporal Detective Series.
The series is aimed at Young Adults. I am glad to say that many of us who no longer quality in that category, and have been excluded for some time, also find these books a fantastic and enjoyable read. One of the joys of Young Adult fiction is that it makes an excellent gateway into adult fiction – and that gateway can work both ways!
[Read more…] about Remember, Remember: Author Interview – Richard Hardie
I love editing, almost as much as I love creative writing. There is nothing to beat the initial creative spark and the satisfaction of getting your draft down on screen or paper (though I admit I’ve written directly to screen for some time now). But editing that work, improving it, giving it a much better chance “out there” is also a joy.
As I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories, as well as posts like this, I always need to find ways of coming up with ideas. It is also sensible to have a variety of methods to find ideas because (a) it keeps things interesting for you as the writer and (b) you don’t run the risk of becoming stale.
Why the latter? If you only use one or two methods to trigger ideas, at some point you will find the well you draw from dries up! Your wells of inspiration need to be topped up continually and using different ways to come up with ideas helps with that. Also this approach gives you spare wells! That to my mind is always a good idea in itself. It also keeps you on your creative toes, which is another good thing.
I was sorry to hear The Chameleon Theatre Group had to cancel their production of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters (based on the play written by Stephen Briggs who wrote the Discworld plays with Terry Pratchett’s blessing).
As well as looking forward to seeing my first Discworld play, I was especially looking forward to this story as it is a strong one and a classic example of a wonderful tale based on another one. Wyrd Sisters is based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth but with the Discworld version, it is the witches (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick) who are the heroines.
