JPC Allen Writes

Welcome to my writing pages!  The main focus of this website is to offer writing tips, prompts, and inspiration to writers, no matter what their genre or skill level. You’ll also find information on my published works and the ones in progress. My schedule for posting is:

Monday Sparks: Writing prompts to fan your creative flame.

Thursdays – Writing tips based on a monthly theme

You can sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar. You will also find me on Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, Bookbub, and at my publisher’s site, Mt. Zion Ridge Press.

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Write a Poem for the Summer of 2026

Writing prompt for a poem

Although fall doesn’t officially start until the equinox in September, the last day of August seems like a suitable day for a prompt to write a poem for the summer of 2026. Here’s mine.

An unexpected extra summer with my son home from college.

An unexpected vacation to Maine.

An unexpected opportunity for my next novel.

Maybe I should expect the unexpected?

Here are more writing prompts for poems.

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5 Things Every Author Should Know Before Adding Graphics to a Novel

How to write a novel

All of my novels have graphics, whether it’s a flowchart, a family tree or a map. My publisher had been generous and patient enough to let me add these images. If you’re considering putting similar elements, here are 5 things every author should know before adding graphics to a novel.

Graphics should be an aid.

My mysteries are complicated for a couple of reasons. First, my amateur sleuth Rae Riley belongs to an extensive family on her dad’s side. Her great-grandfather’s five marriages to three women make up a family with as many branches as the Mississippi. And those relationships come into play in some of my novels. So at the front of every novel, I insert family trees so readers can flip to them if they are uncertain of a relationship.

Second, my mysteries throw a lot of clues and red herrings at readers. So it helps if Rae organizes the information she uncovers in tables or flowcharts or Venn diagrams. Those provide a quick reference if readers need a reminder as they follow the clues with Rae.

Graphics can add realism.

Rae Riley Mysteries are told from the first-person point of view of–you guessed it–Rae Riley. To make the reading experience as real for readers as possible, I want them to be so thoroughly in Rae’s head that they feel like they are experiencing the story with her. One way I do that is through graphics.

Rae is an amateur photographer. So it makes sense for her to draw tables or maps to help her understand the clues better. And by reproducing Rae’s work in graphics, it gives readers as sense that they are evaluating the evidence just as Rae would.

In The Riddle in the Lonesome October, the key to a lost inheritance is an Edgar Allan Poe poem. I used a different font when Rae reads the poem. I used another font for sections of a memoir written by a pastor’s wife and that hold clues to the inheritance. In both cases, the different fonts convey the sense that these passages are reproduced from actual books, lending to the fun of the treasure hunt.

Graphics should be crystal clear.

If you decide to insert graphics in your novel, make sure they appear sharp in both the ebook and paperback. A fuzzy graphic looks cheap.

Graphics should be uncluttered.

Don’t add more information or detail than you need. Readers will find graphics more useful if they can glance at them and don’t have to give themselves headaches picking out every detail.

Above all else …

Don’t use graphics as a substitute for storytelling. The information in the map Rae draws is always discussed by the characters. I don’t put anything in a graphic the characters haven’t talked about or Rae hasn’t thought about. The graphics are meant to enhance the story, not take its place.

What do you think of graphics in novels? What are your favorites? Maps, family trees, or something else?

Here are all my writing tips and prompts for the month.

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How to Build Scene Tension in Any Novel

How to write scenes in a novel

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only thing that keeps readers turning page after page of a novel is tension. Tension must be relieved eventually, and the only ways readers can relieve it is to keep reading or close the book. As important as tension is, it’s difficult to teach to new writers. So below are some tips on how to build scene tension in any novel.

Develop characters who add tension.

Creating characters who have conflicting qualities or personalities that don’t mesh is the easiest way to inject tension in a scene. Analyze your cast of characters. Is everyone of them kind, thoughtful, and unselfish? Are they all introverts or extroverts? Are they all neat or slobs? Are they same age or come from the same socio-economic, racial, or ethnic backgrounds? Differences automatically create tension.

If you find that too many of your characters act and talk the same, dig into how to make them different from each other. The mellow mom and her uptight daughter would conflict in certain situations. The outgoing brother and his reserve brother. The friend who’s a rule-follower and the friend who sees rules as suggestions. These characters with opposite qualities are the raw material from which to mine tension.

Develop internal conflict within your protagonists.

Let’s say I’m writing a teen novel. My main character is a seventeen-year-old girl in her senior year of high school. She dreams of going to college, but she takes care of her home and younger siblings since her mom was disabled in a car accident. She doesn’t want to ditch her family, but she doesn’t want to ditch college either.

When a protagonist has two desires that appear mutually exclusive, you have gold for adding tension to your novel.

Develop conflict with the setting.

Any setting or situation that is outside the comfort zone of the protagonist holds a lot of potential for creating tension in a scene. I write about using uncomfortable settings here.

Remember that not all tension is the same.

There’s a major difference in tension between a middle-aged woman losing patience with her elderly mother who keeps chatting with people on a shopping trip, and a cop who is furious at his rule-following superior because he believes the superior is allowing a criminal to escape justice.

Use a variety of tensions to keep readers hooked. I find this easy to do when I write mysteries. Some suspects my amateur sleuth talks to will be happy to share information. Other will be secretive–but is it because they are guilty or is something else going on in their lives? Some suspects will be plain hostile. Those differences in characters create different levels of tension, keeping the storytelling interesting.

Here are more tips on writing with tension.

What are some of the best tense scenes you’ve read?

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