As of now, I have in circulation five Rebecca Series action/mystery novels for adults (print and electronic), and, in addition, two for young adults. Since shortly after release of the fifth Rebecca story, titled A Fearful Thing, I have been working on the sixth, which is still unnamed. And I’m in no hurry to select its title. (I’ll need to know more about it first.) Sometimes I’m asked how far along I am with these stories as they are in process, and the answer sometimes is

“Th’ bg! Th’ bg! Dt’r Stf’d’s bg! H’r sh’s w’r unt’d! Th’ w’r unt’d!” What? What dialect is that? What language is that? Well… it’s English, but before I translate, let me explain that this quotation is not dialect. This is a person trying to talk despite having been beaten so severely that his face, lips, and tongue are painfully swollen. In contrast… this is dialect… a passage from the fifth novel in my Rebecca Series, A Fearful Thing: “It seems pretty clear t’ me that th’

The latest novel in the Rebecca Series, A Fearful Thing, is the first in the Rebecca Series and in the Visioners Series – a total of five books for adults and two for young adults – in which no dogs play important roles. In fact, no dogs even make an appearance in the latest book. There is, instead, a cat named Penelope (as there was, incidentally, in the first Rebecca novel, The Face of the Enemy; that, of course, was a different Penelope). This Penelope belongs to a new cha

In Part Three, I described the importance of contributions of in-process readers of manuscripts. And I closed by noting that, aside from the contributions of individuals who read and comment, there are those who ask me whether or not my approach to construction of these novels has changed over the years. And I said at the close of Part Three that it indeed has, and I wrote that I would explain that in Part Four. In The Face of the Enemy – my first novel – each of the first th

When my wife Linda finished reading her third three-chapter block of manuscript pages for A Fearful Thing – on its way to becoming the fifth novel in my Rebecca Series – she made two disquieting observations: first, the plot, she said, had become too scattered, and she felt that she was losing the thread of the story; and second, the story, she added, had gotten too far away from what she called “the mind of Rebecca.” From the start of this series of novels, I have always ask

C. S. Lewis told his readers and his correspondents repeatedly that, when you read fiction, you will not have a good experience unless you mentally grant the author the right to create a world for you, a world in which you may experience something altogether wonderful. Not everyone learns how to do this. If you can learn it, you will open yourself to what may become informative, thrilling, and even inspirational experiences in the world of fiction. But if you begin a novel wi

I have mentioned in earlier posts that the characters in my novels are not based on actual people. Rather, I normally create my characters from the ground up, so to speak, in order to move these stories in the direction they need to go. Prior to writing the fifth novel in my Rebecca Series – A Fearful Thing – there had been just one exception. In my fourth novel, Choose You This Day, there appears a Dutch woman whom I named Greta van Dijk. Although Ms. van Dijk’s experiences

Before the proliferation of e-readers – and using them as convenient and inexpensive substitutes for actual books – the cover art business was an important way for some artists to supplement their income from their “real” work of painting. Hardcover books, then and now, had dust jackets: covers for those books comprised a vital component in the sales success of each book. An attractively done dust jacket was essential to attract readers, since most sales were the result of pe

Occasionally I – like other authors – get notes from people who have read one of my novels. They sometimes write, “I really enjoyed your book.” Occasionally I – also like other authors – happen to meet someone face to face who has read one of my novels. They sometimes say, “I really enjoyed your book.” These words are nice, and certainly the people writing or speaking them intend to say something that the author wants to read or hear. But many of us who write novels don’t wri

Near the end of my second adult-level novel – the second in the Rebecca Series – we read this passage: The gunman, kicking wildly at her face and chest, tried to wrest the barrel from her hands so that he could open fire again toward the dais. Just as he seemed about to succeed… all eight combatants were swarmed under by an avalanche comprising military policemen, Secret Service agents, and, by the dozens, members of the graduating class of the United States Naval Academy. In

In previous posts, I’ve suggested that, in action/mystery novels, a background romance can add suspense to the mystery and depth to the action. That first phrase, adding suspense to the mystery, means to me that, if the author has led me to care about any of the major characters, and if one of those characters begins to have romantic feelings toward another character, then I start to be both intrigued and concerned. What is this new person really like? Is this person going to

At the end of the highly successful film The Bourne Identity, the actor Matt Damon somehow finds the actress Franka Potente on what appears to be a Mediterranean island, a final scene that is as joyous as it is unexpected. We did expect Damon to be victorious in his violent struggles against those trying to destroy him; we did not expect him to be able to find the woman who had become his comrade in arms, and perhaps more than that, in mid story. Until the final scene, we wer

My stories – adult and young adult – often feature boats or ships at some point. What’s the difference? Well, the easiest way to think about the difference is to realize that a boat can be hoisted onto a ship. The aircraft carrier on which I served as a young naval officer carried eight motor whaleboats. Each of those boats could carry about 60 sailors to and from shore, whenever the carrier was anchored in a city’s harbor: Hong Kong, Valparaiso, Acapulco, for example. In A F

A Fearful Thing, the fifth novel in my Rebecca Series, opens with a car chase through the streets of London. On page two of the book, we read the following. (Bear in mind that this is London, the cars are right-hand drive, and everyone drives on the left-hand side of the roadways there.) As she turned her right hand drive Volvo onto the main thoroughfare… her liquid gray eyes focused on the black Mercedes sedan trailing five car lengths behind, one lane nearer the curb… She s

My new novel, A Fearful Thing, is the fifth novel in the Rebecca Series. It is set in the year 1985, four (fictional) years after the fourth novel, Choose You This Day. That means that most of the main characters, including Rebecca, are now in their early or mid-30s. That also means that the United States and England – the two national settings in most of my stories – are just starting their sprint toward the age of the worldwide web, of handheld electronic devices, and of ne

Over the years, when I have found myself speaking to students in their classrooms, or to adults at book-signing events, I have often been asked why my Rebecca Series features a woman as the lead character, given the fact that I am a man. My answer has always been that I have found women easier to know than men. Women and girls that I’ve known are more willing than men and boys to want to talk about serious subjects. (As a former college athlete and, later, high-school coach,

I have noted before, in other posts, how fast and hard I tend to get rolling when an action scene approaches. Since I am fast on the keyboard, I tend to write fast and furiously in approaching and describing action. I love action scenes, and relish the chance to present them to my readers. But I know that, unless an author is willing to “write shallow” – that is, to move from one action scene to the next without allowing the characters to reflect on the meaning of the action

In the introduction to his novel tilted Winter Prey, John Sandford observes that this story was one of his first in which the novel’s length played out just the way he had imagined it would. He writes that, too often before that, he would find himself at the 50,000 word mark, only to realize that the end of the story appeared to be right around the corner. He humorously notes that, when he would reach that point, he would realize, too, that he could go ahead and finish the no

Authors, readers, and book reviewers often agree that in many novels, the “evil” character is the one who is the most carefully developed and most believable individual in the entire story. I’ve never been quite sure what that means, but I do have several observations on the topic. First, C. S. Lewis commented repeatedly that writing The Screwtape Letters was the most unpleasant experience of his story-writing career. Every day, he said, he had to get himself into the mind of

During book readings and other kinds of presentations related to my novels, I have often been asked that kind of question. The most common form of the question has been either, “What do you mean by ‘Christian novel’?” or “What makes a novel ‘Christian’?” Those are two different questions. It’s been easier to answer the first question than the second. When I’ve been asked, “What do you mean by ‘Christian novel’?” I have answered by saying that, first, my protagonists – that’s