- Show your characters’ moods well and how they change. After all we’re not in one state of mind all the time so neither should they be. Moods affect actions affect consequences and plot! Show your characters learning from their experiences - what not to do again for example - and where appropriate where a character refuses to learn. Look at why they have that refusal - is it just stubbornness or are they afraid of change? Have they good reasons to be afraid?
- What calms your characters when agitated? What cheers them? What depresses them? What do they get angry about? How well do you know them!!! Whilst I don’t think you can separate character from plot, both are essential for a good story, a good plot with a weak character will fail as will a good character with not “enough to do” or in the wrong storyline for them. You can only know what story line is right by knowing them well enough.
- What effect do you want your short stories to have? Short stories are a snapshot in time so what do you want that shot to show? What lingering impression do you want to leave your readers with? Do your short stories grab you? If not, they won’t do so for anyone else! Keep writing. If you can only do ten minutes a day, do that. It mounts up over a year.
- Check out competitions before submitting to them. There are con artists out there. The Writers'' and Artists' Yearbook and even Companies House can be used to find out background information. Also check out social media. People who have been caught out often want to warn others. And Jonathan Clifford's anti-vanity advice is very good - see http://www.vanitypublishing.info/
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AuthorI'm Allison Symes and write fairytales with bite, especially novels and short stories. Archives
October 2019
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