We all know what NaNoWriMo is but what is Flash NaNoWriMo? Find out in today's chat with award winning flash fiction writer, Allison Symes.
We all know what NaNoWriMo is but what is Flash NaNoWriMo? Find out in today's chat with award winning flash fiction writer, Allison Symes.
Hi, and welcome to the writing and marketing show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. it's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to episode 148 of the writing and Marketing Show with author entrepreneur Wendy H. Jones. And what a pleasure it's been to be with you for the last 140 shows. And I'm looking forward to being with you for the next 148 as well. Today, we're going to be talking about flash NaNoWriMo. Never heard of it while neither to die. And this is why I'm interviewing Allison sames today about flash NaNoWriMo. So more of that when we get into the interview. So what have I been up to since I last saw you while not a whole heap of a lot. I was meant to be a book signings on Saturday and Sunday, but due to the fact that my car got a fault, and I wasn't allowed to drive it. I've been stuck at home since since Saturday morning when I took it to the garbage. And I've not booked into Thursday. But you know what, it's a blessing because it means that I had loads of time to do writing. I've got loads of writing done because I haven't been able to go out. And I think it was good for me not to be out for those two days. Anyway, much as I was looking forward to the book signings looking forward to what I was doing. I think I was meant to be at home. And I got so much writing done in those two days. And it's been amazing. So yeah, I've been busy writing, writing, writing, writing for NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo is what we're talking about at the moment because we're right in the middle of National Novel of writers month, because it's November. And as I say I'm going to be interviewing Alison Symes about flash NaNoWriMo. Before I do that, I would like to say it's a pleasure to bring you the show every week. I thoroughly enjoy doing it. It's I enjoy it. But it does take time out of my writing. If you would like to support that time, you can do so by going to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones and you support me for just the price of a tea or coffee per month. Or if you can't afford to do it monthly because I know times are difficult at the moment. Then if you want to do it as a one off, you can go to my website when to H jones.com. And you can support me just by clicking on buy me a coffee. And that would be great. It would let me know you enjoy the show and it would let me know that you want me to continue. So what have Allison Well, I was in sales rights, flash fiction and short stories and describes what she writes as fairy tales with byte or quirky fiction. She has been published online and in print by British House Publishing, Kathy Lutz, I am press and chapeltown books, who published her first flash fiction collection from light to dark and back again in 2017. She's delighted to say that our second flash fiction collection chipping the flash fantastic was also published by chapeltown books. She was one of the winners of the 2020 Waterloo arts festival right in competition with her story books in the barbarians. She has been one of the winners for this competition three years in a row. She also blogs for Chandler's for today and online community magazine and usually on topics of interest to other writers. And I can say that she's an absolutely fabulous flash fiction writer and the perfect person to have with us today to talk about flash Nano. So without further ado, let's get on with the show and hear from Alison and we have Allison with us. Welcome, Alison.
Allison Symes:It's a delight to be back on the show. Wendy, thank you for having me. Oh,
Wendy Jones:it's an absolute pleasure. Oh, it was a pleasure to have you on the show. And it's always a pleasure to talk flash fiction. Where are you in the world?
Allison Symes:I'm in Hampshire, UK, lovely part of the world but not right now. We've got storms. So plenty at the moment, unfortunately, like,
Wendy Jones:we seem to have the same weather and so does everybody else in the world. But you know what we're really lucky because we can write when the wind is howling outside and the weather's fine. Well, we can always write especially during NaNoWriMo. Which brings me right into what we're talking about today, which is about flash NaNoWriMo. Now most of us have heard of NaNoWriMo or not National Novel writers month. But what on earth is flash NaNoWriMo
Allison Symes:Basically it's an offshoot of the big main event, and it's actually known as flash nano for short. is a chance for flash fiction writers to join in with the fan of NaNoWriMo. But there are some significant differences. And the first one is the word can. You novelists are looking to write 50,000 words over the course of November November, which roughly comes in just under 1700 words a day. For flash fiction one. We're asked to write a 30 story Within 30 days, we're sent a prompt each day. And we're aiming to have a complete piece of work, albeit in very rough draft by the end of each day. So by the end of November, those of us taking part in there should have 30, brand new spanking flash fiction pieces we can work on and say for collection centre competitions or markets later on, is great fun to do. And I'm absolutely having a ball with it. But that's one difference. And we're getting set a prompt, I mean, with you guys, you can work on what all what you're already working on to get your word count out, or you can start with a brand new idea. So that's, that's great. I have used nanowrimo a little bit to work on something else I've been working on last year. But this is the first time I've joined in with anything officially on it. And as I say, I'm completing the story a day, I wouldn't normally do that as the normally good discipline.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, I have to say, it's really good. The fact that you're able to get a flash piece of do. That's fantastic. It's an interesting concept. But how does it work in practice?
Allison Symes:Right, it helps a lot if you're used to doing writing exercises, because this is when the discipline of that actually pays off. You know, you when a prompt comes into your email, you've got you start thinking, Well, I've done this kind of thing before. What can I do with it this time, that helps a lot. And also the advice you have got as a flash fiction writer, the maximum we can write to is a 1000 word story, because that's the maximum flash fiction. But you don't have to write up to that word count. If your story for the day comes in at 200 words, say that's fine. If it comes in at 999, that's fine. So it's really a question of looking at the topic that you've been set and thinking, what can you do with this? Now I kind of do this a lot already. Because I use random generators to trigger ideas for stories. And I'd use a whole wealth of them. I've used random word ones, random question ones, random number ones, even. So I'm used to writing to a prompt set by somebody else. The main difference here is with the random generators I use, I can choose my parameters here for flash now, somebody else is setting the, the prompt and a parameter for me, but I'm used to working to somebody else's target. And I do it also for competitions as well. Again, that's that's done by somebody else. So all of that experience comes in.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, that's good, really. But I want to talk talk me through it properly. Do you decide how many words you write each day? Do you plan on a different word count each day? You know, will you do 1001? Day? 50? The next or what is it that you do?
Allison Symes:Well, people have that option for flash fiction? No, no. I thought because most of my flash pieces do come in at the 500 words or under Mark, I thought, okay, that's what's likely to be for me. And it hasn't been the case at all. Some days I've written 200. Other days, I've written eight to 900 words, which I'm really was not expecting. But it was appropriate for the prompt and appropriate for the characters that I've set up to tell the story. So I was right to do it, it's actually been quite interesting, because it's forcing me to go a little bit outside my comfort zone, the higher end of the flash market. And it's making me do things that I have not done for a while. And that's also a good discipline. So I do not go in with any preconceptions as to how many words I'm going to write today. That's another difference from the main NaNoWriMo where you know, your your target ease, and then it's up to you whether you hit it or not here, it's just complete the story. But it's up to you to decide how many words it is going to take. And I've gone in with each of these prompts I've been set so far. Just write the prompt, just write the story and then see what workout it is. Rather than thinking that I'm gonna write 300 words on this one. Or I'm gonna write 200 words on it, or 1000. Just write the story and then see what the word count is. And that's how I've approached it. Admittedly, probably all of the stories that I've written so far will need a lot of polishing and guess what I'll be doing in December. But I've got something down. And that is the whole point. And so the point with NaNoWriMo, as well get something down, get something written. Don't worry too much about the word count. You can be sold that out later. I mean, I practice that anyway. But this is forcing you into it. And it's a good discipline. The lady, the lady behind flash Nano, it's called Nancy stohlman. I'll talk more about this in a little bit later. But I want to just say a big thank you to two members of the association of Christian writers flash fiction group, which meets once a month on Zoom, I run out and they told me about this last year, basically Denise de Souza and Dominic Barton. I wasn't able to join in last year, but I am now gonna have enough absolute bull doing it. And this if you ever wanted one reason why you should network with other writers this is it is the sharing of information. Because we chat to one another, we talk about what we're writing, we're talking about what the other person is writing, we talk about what we're reading. In that conversation, you share information, some of which will be useful to you immediately. Some will not some will be useful for you later. And this is what's happened with flash. And I know for me, I couldn't use it last year. I can this year so I am but I didn't know about it until two other writers told me about it.
Wendy Jones:The good thing about polishing things in December is you can eat mince pies while you're doing it. We'll polish our nano novel and eat mince pies.
Allison Symes:I'm not gonna let my Slimming World consultant hear that for sure.
Wendy Jones:It's only five and a half syns in a Tescos mini gluten free pie. There you go. I know. Anyway, that's got nothing to do with anything. We're not promoting Slimming World here. Moving swiftly back to why should a writer think about doing a flash challenge such as this.
Allison Symes:It's a phenomenally good discipline I have found with flash fiction generally. It's I've lost all fear of editing. i It's helped me develop my show don't tell technique because you don't have the word count space, but lots of lovely description, lots of internal monologue blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you have got to show the reader what matters. So therefore you've got to be in your character's head is what the character sees what the character feels, you just give the reader what they need to know to make sense of the story. So you're writing tight. Now, whatever form of writing you do that will help you. So it also frustration generally also makes very, very good warm up writing exercise anyway. And this is just a condensed form with that spread out over the month of November. So you're getting more practising. But you're learning to write tight, you're learning to edit, you're learning to think about what really matters for this particular story, and then stop and don't go any further. What I have found so far is my funniest stories tend to be the shorter ones, they're short, punchy, the relationship ones need a little bit more room, and they're the eight to 900 words, but I'm not overly surprised at that. But it's just such a good discipline. Because I have found I also blog as you know. And I have found that that writing time with flash fiction has helped me develop spills over into my blogging, which is no bad thing. And it would spill into novel writing short story writing, novella writing, and so on. You're learning to write with precision. And poets do that all the time as well. It also helped them.
Wendy Jones:Yeah. So November NaNoWriMo, is about achieving a certain number of words 50,000 In the month of November. So I know we've alluded to this, but how does flash NaNoWriMo differ from this?
Allison Symes:Werll it's mainly because you know, each story can only be a maximum of 1000. So the maximum you could do is 30,000 words, having said that, if you wanted to be a girly girl, your body swore you could do some extra stories and get yourself up to 50,000. But good luck. I think one story a day is fine. Go with that. But that is the main difference. And that's because of the rules of flash fiction itself. You can't go above the 1000 word count. So I was your into short story territory. I don't know whether there's a separate nano for that. It wouldn't surprise me if there was. But that's basically it. So And I suspect by the time I've done my editing on these pieces, I'll probably come back, my overall word count will probably be closer to 20 to 25k. And that's fine. Is 20 to 25k, I wouldn't have written otherwise. And that is the whole point of the whole whole of the NaNoWriMo things and the flash. No, no, you're writing stuff that you would not otherwise have written and that you can do something with it.
Wendy Jones:So I'm curious, is there a community of people who are doing the challenge and if so, how does one find them?
Allison Symes:Yeah, there is. Now firstly, you need to sign up on the flash NANOG website which is run by Nancy Stallman. Her site is Nancy stallman.com/sorry/flash Nano, and that's spelt na n CYSTOHL m a n.com/flash Nano which is all one word. Once you signed up for that, you can sign up to the private Facebook page and share your thoughts about how things are going. I've shared the story that I've drafted so far, but I'm not planning to share them all reason being the one I've shared I was pretty much good to go. The others I know will need work and I'll be coming back to that later but I can chat on the Facebook page the private one about how am I going how's everything going with you and that's where your the community spirit come in. And I'm loving that aspect of it at all because I'm chatting to people on I don't know on Facebook or on any other form of social media, I've only met them through this particular group. And that's great. And that's really useful. And it's again, great to see the community spirit coming out where people are supporting one another, which I'm sure that must be one of the major benefits the main NaNoWriMo, you must find that Wendy Yes.
Wendy Jones:Yeah. Being able to support each other. That's important. Yeah. Yeah. Because we do.
Allison Symes:We spend so much time alone at a desk that is really, really nice. So it's really vital sign up via Nancy's website, join the private Facebook page. And then that's where the community of it kicks off. And other than that I've been really enjoying as well.
Wendy Jones:Can I just clarify, do you mean page or group?
Allison Symes:Facebook group
Wendy Jones:Pages are not usually very good for sharing stuff.
Allison Symes:I wish they had term that covered everything.
Wendy Jones:just in case anybody was looking for it for any reason, because they didwant to join in and catch up, you know? And so I'm curious about this as well. If I write a completed 30, flash fiction pieces, and edited dump, would this sound be enough for a book? So talk us about it, talk us through how flash fiction books work?
Allison Symes:The good news is yes, it could be. The bad news is it depends on the publisher. different publishers have different requirements. And a lot will also depend on what your final word count ends up being. Because I know for example, with mine, I'm an end up as I've mentioned, just now that I'll probably end up at 20 to 25k. Now that's okay. chapeltown books, my own publisher, they want a minimum of 65 pages, which works out at about 10,000 words a year, I've got a definitely a thought there maybe too. But there are other publishers who want more. So you might only get one book on it. From them. All, they will want 30,000 Words 40,000 Words, and you will need to put in a bit more, but you'll still be a long way to a new book, even for people like that. My publisher chapeltown did tell me basically there's a minimum size of book where they can have physically have a spine to produce a paperback, which is why they've got that minimum requirement. 10,000 is quite slim. Yeah, also say both of my collections are at the 70 page mark, they're a little bit higher there 15 to 20,000 words. For me, that is an ideal word count for collectors, what I would want to read myself that sort of level. And the nice thing is the stories vary within those collections, too. But yes, you could be you could well have a book out of that. And as for how flash fiction books work, it again it depends because you've got there's more variety than you might think here. For me more I described my stories, mixed assortment, some are light hearted, some have darker, some are anywhere in between. Some are 100 Word as some are right up to 1000 words, and I call my books a mixed assortment. But you can have a flash collection based on a theme. I've had the privilege of editing a book, which was all flash fiction collection, which was all based on music, all of their stories were based on that. And it worked really well. It was very, very interesting. Great fun to edit. And I'm sure the author had great fun writing it so you can do that as well. So you can have themed collections, you can have mixed assignments, you can have genre based ones I know there are crime one crime flash fiction ones out there, I've seen them horror all sorts, so any have novellas in Flash even, which is where each chapter is a one 1000 word story, which is standalone, and it's on its own. But over the course of several of those stories, you've got another arc forming a plot forming. So you've got a say a novella of 20,000 words, you've got 20 chapters of 1000 words. As those 20 stories go on, you'll get an A deeper plot deeper characterization, but each story within it stands alone. Now that's on my to do list because that sounds an interesting challenge to me. But that takes a lot of planning. An awful lot of planning out there not going to be a pantser on something like that. You've got to think about where you're going with each story how you can divide your chapters up. So you do get the standalone effect that you can do that. Now I most writers will know you need to read in your genre as well as out of it. And I love reading flash fiction as well as writing it. And one of my favourite flash pitching collections was by a lovely author called Dawn Qantas not who wrote the Great War. Now that is 100 stories of 100 words, and it's focused on World War One characters who fought in the war dyed in the wool people affected by that and it's a beautifully moving book and some wonderful characterization. flash fiction is the very definition of less being more being true. And that's a classic example. Another writer, I know dual Jas, she used Twitter as an inspiration for two of her collections out. Well, when the character count was 140 words, 140 characters, what she did was she took the first picture she saw on Twitter each day, wrote a 140 word story on it. And she bought out a collection called 140 by one filter, which I've got to home is a great read. And then she did it again, when they upped the character count to 80, and it to a collection called 280 by 280. So there's all sorts of things you could do with flash fiction books, genre and novella on a theme. You could just have one word count to well, or you can have a mixed assortment like I do, the sky's the limit. It really is. And it's huge fan. And yes, taking part in Flash nano would give you either a book or very, very close to one.
Wendy Jones:Yeah, there's some interesting concepts that it's great. It just goes to show that there's so much more to flash fiction than anybody ever thinks about or knows, really. So we're getting towards the interview, but towards the end of the interview, but before we do, I want you to tell us about your own flash fiction books. Oh,
Allison Symes:Thank you, Wendy. Yes, I have two flash fiction collections out with chapeltown books. My debut is from light to dark and back again. And my second one is tripping the flash. Fantastic. And I'm currently putting the finishing touches to my third book, which I hope to submit very, very soon. My debut title came about because that reflects the mood of the stories in the book, some are lights on the dark, and I go back to light again, the chip in the flash, fantastic, a lot of flack for that my genre in the title, which is flash. But I also wanted to flag up the fact that some fantasy stories in there hence fantastic. There's a real mixed bundle in there. 100 word is 1000 words everything in between and even a few told in poetic form. And I've also started writing some flash stories in a crop sticks. The sky's the limit, what you can do with it and I've got a real mixture in both of my books. They're both available in the on the usual online outfits. You can also buy them directly from me at my website, which I'll mention in a moment. They're available in Kindle and paperback. And if people would like to find out more about my work as a whole, the best place I can direct you to is to my website, which is Allison Symes collected works.com. A double L is o n s y mes collective works.com. I post regularly on Facebook, put my name in and you'll come up. I'm also on Twitter at Allison Simon's one. And I write a weekly column for charmless for today. And I write a monthly column on flash which shouldn't be used based on my magazine, mom's favourite reads and set the flash monthly challenge. So Flash is a major part of my life. And I love it. And flash nano is giving me another string to my bow and I'm really, really enjoying it. So anybody interested in flashing and thinking shall join it go, you've got nothing to lose. You'll get some more stories out of it. And then you can do all
Wendy Jones:those. Absolutely, it's it flash can be great. You know, it's a real challenge in getting those words down and keeping them tight and getting the story taught and still getting it over. I enjoy doing it even though I love writing novels. I enjoy doing flash as well. So thank you very much, Alison. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on again, as always.
Allison Symes:Thank you, Wendy. It's been great, great fun. I'm always keen to spread the word about flash, because I honestly think every writer will find that if you give it a go, it's going to tighten up your writing and help you and it makes a great writing exercise to get into your main piece of work as well. So have fun with it.
Wendy Jones:Excellent. Thank you very much, Alison. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye, bye. That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones and you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones. I'm also Wendy H Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you've found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing keep reading and keep learning