One thing that came out of the Winchester Discovery Centre celebratory event last weekend was a lovely comment from a lady who really enjoyed my reading some of my flash fiction from From Light to Dark and Back Again to her.  She said how lovely it was to be read to.

It occurred to me after this to wonder how often are we read to?  Regular listeners of audiobooks do have this joy but isn't there something nice about being read to specifically (and live by an author too)?  So this is another very good reason to support a writing event.  You can hear what the author has written, pick up the tone directly and that will be a good indication for whether you are going to like the style or not.

I find reading work out loud a really useful part of the editing process.  I tend to save doing this until I'm almost ready to submit the work.  If all has gone well with the editing to date, I will be able to read the work smoothly (and almost as if someone else had written it).  If not, I will stumble over the words and it's back for another rewrite!  But it is best I pick that up rather than a potential publisher!

I'll be reading some of my fairytales with bite at Winchester Discovery Centre tomorrow (Saturday 25th November 2017) as part of their 10th anniversary celebrations.  A group of local writers, including me, will be giving short presentations and readings throughout the day as well as manning our own book stands there.  It should be good fun.  If you are in the area and would like to know more about flash fiction and/or writing for the small press and online magazines, do come over and chat.

Reading fairytales also means of course reading between the lines.  One of the things I love about fairytales is they usually have a fairly strong message behind them.  With Hansel and Gretel, I pick up the obvious anti-child cruelty theme but also the importance of sticking together and supporting one another.  Had Hansel and Gretel not done this for each other, they wouldn't have survived in the tale, which is the whole point.

The nice thing about fairytales also is the story shows you the message without preaching it.  It is by far a more effective way of getting the message across and something we should all aspire to with our own writing. I know I find it far too easy to slip back into "telling" though flash fiction writing, with its tight word count,does help me against that (there's no room for it!).

Do you have fun with your characters?  There should be the initial fun of creating them, of course, but for me I think the most fun comes when they develop and mature and truly take on a life of their own.  You can look back at the earlier stages of their development and literally see how far they have come.

I also enjoy dropping my characters right in it when appropriate to do so but that probably says more about me than them.  I will claim dramatic licence though!  So yes you should have fun with your characters, especially for novel writing, you will be living with them for a long time.  Even in flash fiction writing, while you will generally go from one character to another for each story, you should still know what makes that character tick and enjoy working out how best to get that across to your readers.  If you become tired of your characters, it does show through in your writing so love them, love to hate them, enjoy writing for them, enjoy putting them through the emotional wringer etc!  It will help your writing flow and sparkle.  Characters written like this always draw me to a story.  I think it is the characters, more than anything, that makes a story unforgettable.

Talking of characters and having fun, I've become a character in a book, Winter Writerland, written by Beatrice Fishback.  I met her at Swanwick Writers' Summer School this year and, along with Jennifer C Wilson, Fiona Park, Val Penny and, of course, me, the five of us came up with story ideas for a cosy mystery.  All highly enjoyable and many laughs were had at what we came up with!  Beatrice has written the story up as a novella and I'm very glad to share the link.  (Naturally all four of us have given our blessing to being characters in a book but I must admit it was a development in my writing journey I hadn't anticipated!).  Oh and don't ask me if I'm the murderer (a sentence I never thought I would write!).  At the moment I don't know.  I wouldn't say anyway.  No plot spoilers here!

Love your writing.  Your readers will love you for it.

What are your characters' priorities and why have they chosen them?  (Did they get to choose them or did family/tribal expectation force them to "choose" the priorities they have?).  What are the priorities for your world's government(s)?  What stops them or individual characters from fulfilling their priorities?

I must admit I sometimes find it difficult to work out my priorities (given all my jobs do actually need to be done!).  This is where deadlines (actual and ones you set for yourself) can be useful.  They give you something concrete to work towards, can help against procrastination and, I think, help you achieve more in terms of your writing than you would without them.

The biggest but nicest problem I have had this year is giving the right priority to publicizing From Light to Dark and Back Again (including taking part in things like the recent Chandler's Ford Book Fair) and getting on with my other writing.  I know I will get this balance right eventually (experience does show!) but I also know I haven't got there yet (as I said, experience does show!  So does lack of said experience!).

There have been developments in my writing career which I thought I'd take the chance to share now.  I also hope to look at how I've changed the ways in which I develop my characters.

Firstly, I'm now part of the Goodreads Author Programme.  I am blogging on here once a week but am also open to questions on its Q&A section.  So if there is anything book/story/writing related you would like to ask, please head on over and send me some questions!

Secondly, Goodreads have author/book widgets for those writers on their programme, meaning you can link to reviews of my book, From Light to Dark and Back Again.  Also listed on Goodreads is Alternative Renditions, an anthology by Bridge House Publishing, where the first thing I ever had appear in print, A Helping Hand, was published.  I think it is quite a nice symmetry to have my first book and my first published story listed in this way.  (What is also nice for me is my late mum, who so encouraged my love of books, got to see my first published story.  My dad, who I lost earlier this  year, got to see my first published book).

Thirdly, I am now taking part in more book related events and loving each and every one of them.  The latest was a local Book Fair and my Chandler's Ford Today post this week is a report on this.  There are plenty of pictures so it does give a good "flavour" of the event.  All good fun and I very much hope there will be more Fairs like this.  I hope to have more news of further events later on in the year.

As for character development, increasingly I am looking at what impact I want my characters to have on my readers.  This is, I think, essential for flash fiction with its tight word count.  The stories have to be character led so I am looking more closely at my characters' motivations and what they are prepared to do to achieve their wishes!  I am also looking at how I want my characters to make the reader feel.  Those two things together, I've found, are giving me a clearer picture of my characters in my head before I actually write them and are helping with the writing of the stories immensely.

Image Credit:  The photos below are a mixture of those taken by me and my lovely Chandler's Ford Today editor, Janet Williams.