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Been a rough month but . . .

Hi, Everybody!

Here’s the cover for the fourth novel, fifth book in my calendar mystery series featuring the former business girl, Minty Wilcox, now Price, and her dashing detective husband Daniel, in Kansas City, MO, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

I had lots of trouble making this cover fit into the birthstone theme of the series. I mean what can you do with white for goodness’ sake? But finally this version is coming along though it needs tweaking here and there. FYI: I stole the lilacs from a lady’s hat that appeared in The Delineator of August 1901. And a while ago, my cousin Sarah Faye Morse Meurer very kindly sent me the photos of our grandfather Miles Smith and our grandmother Juliet Perkins Smith.

Here’s the blurb for the book: After a personal tragedy on Easter Sunday, April 7, 1901, Minty Wilcox Price runs away from home, strewing letters behind her like Hansel’s bread crumbs for her husband Daniel to find. Can he overcome his own grief and anger to figure out where she’s gone and with her solve the case of “The Ravished, Murdered Chambermaid”?

I’d appreciate any feedback on the cover and blurb you’d care to give.

As for the book itself, I hoped to be farther along with the final draft by now.  But life has thrown some interference our way this past month that has taken up my time. For example, though we didn’t lose our power or heat during the recent Arctic blast, our water pipes froze when the temperature reached 15 below here near Kansas City. But my daughter Jess and our next-door neighbor’s son made a sort of bucket brigade to bring water to our house. And our pipes thawed on their own when the temperature moderated a bit.

The cold also complicated our grocery shopping. Lately we’ve shopped on line, and then Jess drove to the store to pick it up. But there was no way either of us wanted to go out on snowy streets when it was 7 below zero outside. So we tried to reschedule at first and then to cancel. But apparently their shopping app doesn’t handle changes well, so the shopper shopped our order not once but twice. And even after several phone calls and twelve days, the charge remains on my credit card. Sigh . . .

But I’m making progress on my project overall, and probably I’ll meet my deadline, the end of April. Also I’m struck by the way I still learn lessons about the process, or in this case, relearn them. For example, yesterday I struggled all morning to get information about a new setting, a ranch in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Originally, I’d planned on asking a friend of mine if I could tour her family’s ranch. In a pandemic? Well, no, I literally can’t go there. So then I spun my wheels all morning looking for virtual tours and taking two dozen screen shots of prairie hills. But then finally, I remembered the sage advice I received back in the 80’s from a writer friend. “Think film,” she said. So then I CUT TO the front door of the farmhouse I needed Daniel to visit and blew that writer’s block up.

Stay safe and well, my friends. Get the shot soon if you haven’t already. (I have an appointment for next Wednesday.) Best, Juliet

 

P. S. Mischief in March, the third in my calendar mystery series, is only 99 cents from March 3 through March 9 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR1STRN
It’s also a penny less than a pound at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XR1STRN

 

 

For an even better bargain, you can buy the boxed set that includes the January Jinx, Fatal February, and Mischief in March, the first three novels of the series, and the bonus short story “Detectives’ Honeymoon” from March 24 through March 30 for only $2.99 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QDKF413  (British friends, for a similar bargain price, check http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07QDKF413)

Charming Cozy Historical Mystery

In February 1900, a young woman has gone missing from a Kansas City garment factory. Minty Wilcox, now a typist/stenographer at Price Investigations, longs to help find the girl, but her boss, George Mathison doesn’t approve of women sleuthing. He also forbids any office romance at all, especially with his nephew,  detective Daniel Price. When Minty defies her boss and goes undercover to find the girl, Daniel helps. But he also hinders Minty with outrageous flirtation and other ploys. And as she digs into the case, Minty comes into danger herself.

Excerpt from Fatal February

Just then the door to Mathison’s office from the outside hall opened and a fellow shuffled in. He wore a loose, black jacket that came down to his mid thighs and brown corduroy trousers that bagged around his ankles. As the man sauntered toward them, he pulled a black, visored cap off his head.

“It’s getting cold out there,” said Daniel Price.

“Why, Mr. Price,” Minty said. “I didn’t recognize you in those clothes.”

He stopped, held his arms wide and looked down. “Like them? These are my workingman’s duds.”

“Fetching, Mr. Price, though they do look like you stole them from a larger man.”

“Not exactly. I bought them second hand or even fourth hand. Who’s to know? At any rate, these duds suit the work. And by the way, Miss Wilcox, I like your pretty hair ribbon.”

“Why, thank you, sir.”

“Enough of your banter, you two,” Mathison said. “It’s about time you decided to come in, my boy. I hope your efforts paid off better than Miss Wilcox’s.”

“But, Mr. Mathison, I discovered quite a bit . . .”

Will Daniel rescue her? Will Minty even let him try? To find out, you must read Fatal February, Book 2 of Juliet Kincaid’s Calendar Mystery series now only $0.99 at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017081JHM and £0.99 at https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B017081JHM. (And it’s always free on Kindle Unlimited.)

Juliet Kincaid’s Calendar Mysteries tell the story of business girl Minty Wilcox and dashing detective Daniel Price from newly met to newly wed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

Praise for FATAL FEBRUARY

In the year 1900, Minty Wilcox has been hired by a private detective agency, her on again/off again beau’s employer, as a stenographer. For this spunky gal, typing and taking shorthand aren’t enough. She wants to be an operative. So, of course, author Juliet Kincaid, accommodates her protagonist by letting her delve into a missing person/murder case, sometimes sanctioned, but often not, by her boss. The ins and outs of the investigation, Minty’s romantic ups and downs, and her inside out family situations are fun to follow. It’s also interesting to learn about the physical layout and the social customs of Kansas City at the turn of the last century. Good follow-up to January Jinx, the first mystery in the series. Amazon Reviewer

Free fun mystery story

“The 9th Street Gang”
“Stop! Thief!” a woman screamed. Across the lobby, outside the New England National Bank stood a stooped woman in black and a raggedy little boy. The woman pointed to a fellow running up the stairs and shouted, “Come back here with my purse.” Then, seeming to notice Minty and Daniel for the first time, she said, “That man took my purse!”
“Hold this, darling girl,” Daniel said.
Minty took the shopping bag fragrant with the lunch they’d just purchased from the deli down the street and clutched it to her chest as Daniel sprinted off past the elevators.
After that, in quick succession, the boy who’d opened the doors for them whistled sharply and shouted, “Let’s get out of here, Mick!”
The little kid turned away from the screaming old lady and limped up to Minty. “Please, ma’am, could you spare a nickel?” he said. “I ain’t eat nothing yet today.” He gazed up at Minty with heart-breaking blue eyes.
“No time for that now, Mick,” said the boy who’d held the door for Minty and Daniel. He snatched the shopping bag out of Minty’s hand and pushed past her to the door.
“Hey!” Minty said. “Give that—“
In their first case together as a detective couple, business girl Minty Wilcox and the dashing Daniel Price pursue a gang of thieves plaguing Kansas City in February 1900. Distractions include the objections of their boss to any show at all of their affection for each other inside the office and out and Minty’s wayward thoughts about the secret married couples keep to themselves. Join the fun, mystery and romance of this Calendar Mystery short story that takes place between the events of Fatal February and Mischief in March. And along the way you’ll meet the son of a famous outlaw.
Praise for “The 9th Street Gang”
If you wish for something pleasant to get your mind off the lately awful news, delve yourself into the story of three little hoodlums that steal this story from the endearing main characters and enjoy the tidbits of Kansas City history. Amazon Reviewer
Get “The 9th Street Gang” for free at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B079YYVTTX

WiP Report January 2021

Last Friday, I finished what I hope will be the next-to-the-last draft of Book 5 of my Calendar Mystery series, set in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago for a business girl named Minty Wilcox and a dashing detective named Daniel Price. (Just practicing my blurb here . . .) The next day we ordered BBQ carry-out for a celebratory dinner. Baby back ribs! Yum!

In its binder, the book weighs 6.4 pounds which makes for quite a weighty tome though I hope of course that it won’t feel like that for readers when it’s done. The text now is 306 pages and 86,489 words long. I started it on November 1 for NaNoWriMo, so it took me 83 days for an average of 1,042 words a day. That’s really not bad considering everything that’s been going on including a very weird holiday season, the pandemic, and the political turmoil.

An FYI for my fellow indie authors: whenever I start a novel, I format it for its eventual publication, that is, with 6” by 9” pages, 0.75” margins, 1.15 line spacing throughout including between paragraphs, 12-point font, usually Book Antiqua, all paragraphs except the first in a section or chapter indented 0.3”. I also mark all section breaks with <> <> <> because I never know where they’ll end up after revisions. Plus, I paginate the pages, create different first pages for the starts of chapters, and different odd and even pages for the rest. And yes, I type my first drafts and all the rest. All of this lets me get a feel for the overall proportions of the book and about where to place the plot points in later drafts.

For more guidance, check out my Novel Basics, a concise yet complete guide to brainstorming, drafting, and revising a novel available in print from Amazon. com and as an eBook at www.amazon.com/dp/B07K2LXFRP . . .

Now back to the report . . . If I can cut the 10% that Stephen King says in his author’s memoir On Writing he cuts from the first drafts of his books, Book 5 of my Calendar Mystery series will be around 78,000 words or 275 pages long. Hopefully, I will get it out by the end of April. (The tabs on the book shown in the photo on the left mark pages where I need to do some editing. Yikes!)

I’ll let you know how it’s going in next month’s WiP Report. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the fun short story “The 9th Street Gang” free from 02/03/21 through 02/07/21 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B079YYVTTX and Book 2 of the Calendar Mystery series Fatal February, on sale for only $0.99 at  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017081JHM and £0.99 at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017081JHM from 02/10/21 through 02/16/21.

Two Free Stories for the 4th of July

Banker Hector Jones hires detective Daniel Price to get the goods on his young wife’s free-loading relatives on the July 4th weekend in 1898 in “The Barn Door,” a prequel short story to Juliet Kincaid’s cozy historical calendar mystery novels and stories. After solving the case, Daniel Price, still in disguise as a traveling salesman, wanders over to the fairgrounds and . . .
 
A banner drooping between two posts at the corner of a baseball field across the street announced that Kansas City would play Omaha in Exposition Park at 3. Many tents and pavilions, most marked with red, white, and blue bunting, stood inside the oval fence of the racetrack between the ball field and the ruined Exposition Hall. Fiddle music came from somewhere.
 
Perfect, Daniel thought. Again clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he urged the mare across the street. Just as he stopped the wagon at the curb close by the picnic area, a little girl ran up.
 
She wore a white dress and a wide white bow in her blond hair, not the white blond of Mrs. Jones and her family, but a golden, honey blond. Once the child read the words printed on the side of the Wabash wagon, she turned around and ran away again. “Minty! Minty!” she shouted as she disappeared into the crowd among the tents.
 
Minty? Daniel thought. Why is that little girl saying that?
 
Soon the child returned, holding the hand of a woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat, white shirtwaist and skirt. “Pretty please, Minty,” the little girl said. “Will you buy me something from the Wabash Man?”
 
“I might,” the woman said.
 
I guess that female is called Minty, Daniel thought as the woman and the little girl came up to the wagon.
 
Daniel jumped down from the wagon, swept off his straw boater, and bowed. “How do you do, miss?”
 
When the woman got close, she lifted her head, and stared at him out from the brim of her hat. She had beautiful amber eyes, and she was young and so very pretty that Daniel momentarily forgot that he was supposed to be extolling Wabash soap for its cleansing quality. “I beg your pardon for asking, miss, but is your name Minty?”
 
“Why, yes it is,” she said.
 
“That’s a very unusual name. May I ask how you came to have it?”
 
Five Star review of “The Barn Door” from Amazon reviewer
“If you have never read any of Juliet Kincaid’s calendar mysteries you are missing out. This short prequel story to the first book, January Jinx, is fun and introduces us to the two main characters, Daniel and Minty, before they actually meet. I especially like the descriptions of Kansas City in the 1900’s as well as the vivid descriptions of the characters. Read ‘The Barn Door’ and you will not be disappointed.”
<> <> <>
On July 5, 1898, a future career as a business girl as a typist/stenographer weighs heavily on Minty Wilcox’s mind. But distractions ensue when her sourpuss spinster neighbor lays abuse on Minty’s kid brother, sister, and a lost dog. Her mother’s disapproval and several flirtatious gents don’t help Minty in reaching her goal in “Lost Dog,” a prequel story to Juliet Kincaid’s Calendar Mysteries. After Minty solves the case, she and her younger sister walk home from downtown Kansas City and . . .
 
As they walked along Ninth Street, Peach said, “When I grow up, I’m going to marry one of those streetcar men.”
 
“Well, Peach,” Minty said. “That’s a long time from now. You’ll change your mind many times before you get married.”
 
“Okay,” Peach said. They walked along in silence a little longer before Peach said. “You know, Minty. Those streetcar men weren’t nearly as handsome as the Wabash Man. Maybe I’ll marry him instead.”
 
“The Wabash Man?” Minty said. “Oh yes, the traveling salesman we met yesterday.” She smiled as she recalled the man’s bold dark eyes. She probably shouldn’t give him a second thought because chances were good she’d never see him again. Besides, as the business girl she intended on becoming, she didn’t plan on ever getting married. But still she said, “Not if I get him first, little sister.”
 
Five-Star Review from an Amazon reviewer
“What a delight to find myself in ‘old’ Kansas City again with such wonderfully drawn characters. I feel I know them and would love to follow them along the street while looking for the lost dog’s owner and I could just push that old neighbor back into the bushes after rescuing the poor dog from her vicious beating. Oh, this author brings them so alive and that is what keeps me reading her stories.”
 
Juliet Kincaid’s cozy historical mystery novels and stories tell the story of business girl Minty Wilcox and dashing detective Daniel Price from newly met to newly wed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago. “The Barn Door” is FREE for the 2020 Fourth of July weekend at www.amazon.com/dp/B073G7ZXMP and “Lost Dog” is also FREE:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0752SWBG1

Shopping in Person During the Pandemic

Yesterday afternoon the day after Memorial Day, I ventured out to shop in person for only the second time in over two months. The crowd at the garden center plus the lack of social distancing and masks the first time made me cautious about doing it again.

So before I even got out of the car, I counted the number of other cars – fewer than ten – in the parking lot of the closest Ace Hardware. I pulled my mask up over my nose and spritzed my hands with the hand sanitizer Jess made from a few odds and ends she found in our hall cabinet early in the pandemic.

Once I was inside, an employee I recognized from previous visits greeted me and asked, “Need some help?” She wore a mask and a small sign on her shirt pocket that said in red Six Feet.

When I acknowledged that I did need help, she proceeded to guide me around the store where there were fewer than ten people including patrons and employees the whole time I was there.

She helped me find caulk for the front window of my house that I put plastic on last fall and a different kind of caulk to reseal the flashing on the roof. She handed the tubes to me instead of having me touch them.

She helped me find garden hose and a nozzle that’s easier for people with arthritis in their hands than the kind that you have to keep holding down to make them work. She put the hose and nozzle in my cart

She left on my own to go into the garden center to search for begonias, but checked me out again later after I’d passed through the line with six feet intervals marked off on the floor. The cashier stations had plastic panels to separate shoppers from cashiers. I paid by credit card. And soon I’d loaded my bags and plants in the back of the car, got in and spritzed my hands before I started the car.

I was on my way out before I spotted the display of discounted Memorial Day planters I hadn’t noticed when I came in because I was too busy counting cars. My hope that Ace would still have some was the reason I’d gone there in the first place, so I parked, chose three planters, paid for them, and again was on my way.

I did turn into the parking lot to a grocery store at the corner, but once I counted the thirtieth car, I said, “No way I’m going in there,” and left. My lessons for today, as the lock down restrictions lift and you venture out to shop, be smart and be careful.

Image may contain: plant, flower, tree and outdoor

Mother’s Day Update from Juliet

Hi, Everybody!

Just wanted to touch base with you all today.

In the last week or so, I’ve followed this advice somebody gave on the opinion page of the K. C. Star as a way to fight the anxiety and depression of living through a pandemic: “Find something that brings you joy, and give yourself over to it.”

So I’ve gotten back into my writing and I’m really enjoying it though my plans on researching the weather for April 1901 for my book went sideways for a while because a couple of my favorite resources – the Kansas City Star archives and the Kansas City Library – said, “Oh we’re shut down right now so we can redo everything. It will be great when we come back.” Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . I need to know that stuff now. But I found another resource, so now I know generally at least what the weather was like on Easter in Kansas City a hundred and twenty years ago.

As you might be able to tell from the photo, my hair has gotten pretty shaggy. But I do have an appointment with my stylist the first Friday in June. And maybe until then I can trim up my bangs with my manicure scissors like Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone does from time to time.

And really, we’re doing pretty well staying at home. Oh sure, I miss seeing my Game Night friends in person and going to the show at Cinemark. I really like to grocery shop in person instead of hiring someone to do it second hand. I’d rather exercise with my friends at the center instead of doing it at home through a Facebook Live link. Still, even though we wear masks, have to stay six feet from our neighbors, and can’t pet their doggies, we can walk about the neighborhood pretty much as usual.

But best of all, Jess is on paid leave from her job so she’s sheltering in place with me here in our little blue house. I can’t tell you how grateful I am not to be doing this thing alone. Plus, Jess has gone really far in making this a wonderful Mother’s Day for me. She cleaned the house! She baked peanut butter cookies! She gave me a pretty new top and fun jammies. She’s fixing breakfast for dinner tonight. We hug each other whenever we like.

How are you all doing?

Best, Juliet

Tantrum on Time in the Age of COVID-19

I gather from assorted newscasts that lots of people have lots of time on their hands as they shelter in place. So they’re bored and they take to drink or binge watch The Good Place on Netflix or obsessively play Sudoku and Solitaire on their smart phones. Well, personally, we don’t have all that much spare time at our house.

Take online grocery shopping, for instance. Our service proudly keeps a tab on how many hours our shoppers have saved us, according to them. These savings average about an hour per shopper per trip. But the time-saving bit is pretty much a crock. Here’s why I say that.

Now, I’m systematic about grocery shopping and always make a list on a notepad I keep in the kitchen. I’ll add a dozen eggs after my daughter has made an omelet for breakfast for dinner and a bunch of bananas when I’m down to one. And just before I head off to the store, something I haven’t done myself in more than a month, I quickly check the vegetable, fruit, and cheese drawers in the fridge to see what I’m short on, ditto the pantry and freezer. I confer with my daughter about anything she might need. So overall, I hardly notice the time it takes to create a grocery list.

But the thing about online shopping is that you have to transfer your list to the shopping app and that takes time because you have to say what replacements you’ll accept for an item they don’t have or if they should skip it altogether something like a specific brand of Neufchatel cheese for which you will accept no substitute because you’ve tried them and they’re just a little slimy. Yucko on the toast. And thanks so much, but nonfat cheese is even slimier. Double yucko on the toast. (If you’ve read any of my previous pieces on shopping, you know how picky I get when I shop.) My daughter usually handles putting the groceries on the app and texting back and forth with our shopper in the store, but I stay close by so she can ask me about the Neufchatel or whatever.

And another thing about time and online shopping . . . When your shopper is actually in the store and shopping, you have to go through the list again, explaining by text why you won’t accept a substitute for the hand soap you use because you have sensitive skin. (FYI: All those 20-second hand washes, even with my preferred soap, have wrinkled the backs of my hands and made them shiny too, so my skin looks like some kind of weird baklava.)

Also, I know the stores we order from better than most of the shoppers, so they get lost sometimes and need to text for directions for items like tortillas that I would go right to if I were shopping in person. So overall we spend as much time online at the store, or maybe more as we would if we were actually in the store and shopping. Plus, I miss the retail therapy and the pleasure of smelling the peaches to see if they’re really ripe.

And once the shoppers deliver my stuff, I have to process the perishables by spraying the packages of frozen foods with disinfectant, for instance, before I hustle them into the house and into the freezer or in the case of produce like apples and clementines giving them a bath in soapy water. This takes time, too.

But really the time required is beside the point and neither the shoppers’ fault nor the service’s either. It’s the pandemic and that insidious virus. And thanks to those shoppers going out into danger in my stead, I feel fairly safe from it. And I am better off than if I were out shopping on my own. So again, thanks is due to those who help me.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to go play Solitaire Go on my iPhone for thirty, forty minutes, maybe an hour . . .

Novel Basics Card # 20

Novel Basics Card # 20
The Cover Card

The Cover Card asks the question,
“What’s my novel’s name?”

The wise organizers of NaNoWriMo say that those who have covers for their projects before they start drafting them are 60% more likely to write it that those who don’t. I think possibly that simply giving your novel a name helps make it real to you and so you’re more likely to write it.

The card I’m using as a sample this time isn’t a generic one like many of the others. Instead it’s a very rough draft of the cover I plan on using for my current WiP that also was the novel I drafted during National Novel Writing Month in November of 2018. Apart in April will be the fourth novel and fifth book in my cozy historical Calendar Mystery series. (Yeah I know the sketch on this card is crude and I’m so not apologizing for that. You shouldn’t be thinking perfection either as you make this last card.)

In the past I used photos I found in the great Dover book Victorian Fashion in America for the covers of the novels in this series. But for this book, I’ll use photos of my grandfather and grandmother on my mother’s side. And the title, like those of the first three novels in the series, states the month in which the book takes place, uses alliteration and/or assonance, is brief, and states the theme (or at least hints at it) or overall mood of the novel. Titles of the novels so far are January Jinx, Fatal February and Mischief in March.

So on your last card at least give the tentative title for your novel (a real name not Work in Progress), your name or the pseudonym you’ve always dreamed of using, and possibly an image for your cover.

You might want to put “ a blurb” on the flip side of your cover card. That is, in a very few words describe the novel you want to write. Here’s an example: “an action-packed thriller with a wounded hero.” Possibly my blurb for Apart in April will be “Driven apart by a personal tragedy, a runaway wife goes undercover as a detective. Meanwhile her husband struggles to win her back. But first he has to figure out where she has gone from the letters she strews behind her like Jack’s crumbs in the forest that contain clues of her whereabouts.” It’s way too long, but it’s not bad for now. I’ve got time to work on it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through twenty cards that we’ve taken together. For tips and suggestions on what to do after you’ve brainstormed your novel,  get your own copy of Novel Basics, a brief yet complete guide to writing a novel, in print for $8.99 from Amazon or the eBook version, now only $2.99, at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K2LXFRP

Novel Basics Cards # 18 & 19

Novel Basics Card # 18
The Reader Card

The Reader Card asks the question,
“Who will read my novel?”

By now, you probably have a fairly good idea of who will want to read your novel. For one thing, chances are good that your target or ideal reader reads the same sorts of novels as you do, and lots of them, too.

Try to get specific in identifying your ideal reader. For instance, if she reads women’s fiction, does she prefer cozy mysteries with women sleuths? Are the sleuths amateurs or police officers? Or does your ideal reader love romance novels? Must those books be wholesome and clean, with maybe a shy kiss at the end? Or does your reader relish erotica with lots of heavy breathing?

Is your ideal reader a male who enjoys a blood and guts, action-packed thriller with some very specific sex scenes?

As like as not, your ideal reader is the same gender as your protagonist and a similar age as well because it’s customary in publishing that the reader is about the same age as the protagonist of a novel. (In Young Adult fiction, the protagonist might be a bit older than the reader in order to serve as a role model.)

Long ago I had the fantasy that someday I’d write the book that everybody reads the year it comes out. I haven’t written that novel yet. But Suzanne Collins might have come close with The Hunger Games. A friend’s twelve-year-old granddaughter read those books and so have I, many decades older. Some of my contemporaries have read every one of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books.

Speaking of that writer, Rowling has written and published four novels in the Cormoran Strike series so different from the Harry Potter series that she uses the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. The target readers for those two series are very different and their expectations quite different as well.

Next we’ll talk a bit more about the reader as we discuss Card # 19.

Novel Basics Card # 19
The Intention Card
(Card # 19 is probably my favorite card from my entire pack.)

The Intention Card asks the question,
“How will my novel affect the reader?”

The novel is a tool of infinite possibilities, a sort of Swiss Army knife with a million blades. That’s one of the reasons I read. When I pluck a novel off the new mysteries shelf at the library and bring it home, I’m filled with hope that this novel will surprise me. Maybe the author will say something new or at least in a different way: tease me, thrill me, move me to laughter and to tears in the same book, make me think about the human experience in some new way, expand my life, or simply help me escape my troubling or mundane world for a few hours.

Note: our local libraries are all shut down right now. Yours probably is, too. But many still offer new books through Overdrive that you can check out and read on your tablet.

At this point, I’ll circle back to my brief history of plot by mentioning that Aristotle said the purpose of a tragedy is catharsis, to purge the audience with pity and fear by seeing a man fall from grace through his own hubris.

As for me, I believe that laughter is the best medicine for whatever ails you in life, so I like to make people laugh or at least smile when they read my novels and stories. And I give my stories happy endings.

So what’s the primary intention of your novel? Do you want to entertain your reader by scaring the heck out of him with your horror fiction? Do you want to make her feel sexy with your erotic romance? Or do you want to create a puzzle in a cozy mystery for your reader to figure out? Maybe you want to move your reader to empathize with other people who have survived great adversity, to understand some truth or theme about the human condition from someone else’s suffering that your reader can experience vicariously.

In addition, one of the best things about the novel is its ability to say something worthwhile. So give at least a tentative answer to the question the Intention Card asks.

We have one last card. And then your personalized Novel Basics pack will be complete. Join me next time to discover the identity of Card # 20.