JPC Allen

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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How to Introduce Characters in Your Novel Without Ruining the Pace

How to write the beginning of the novel

Introducing characters at the beginning of your story can be tricky. If not done well, it will sink your narrative before it’s had a chance to take off. Here’s how to introduce characters in your novel without ruining the pace.

Introduce Characters in Small Batches

The novels in my mystery series, Rae Riley Mysteries, have a lot of characters. My amateur sleuth Rae lives in a county not only full of suspects but also relatives and friends. So I don’t overwhelm readers, I work hard to introduce characters in small groups. Two or three per a chapter is ideal. I also insert family trees in the front matter of my novels. Family relationships are critically important to my stories, so having the family trees which readers can flip to at any time is helpful. I also have a roster of characters, titled “Citizens and Visitors of Marlin County Ohio”, in the front for quick reference for characters who aren’t part of the family trees.

How Much Character Description?

New writers make the mistake of dumping all description of characters and a lot of their backstory into the beginning. Not only does this slow the story or grind it to a halt, it also removes most of the interest in the characters. Readers like to get to know characters over the course of the story.

I’ve also found the opposite problem in current novels. Authors provide little or no descriptions of major characters. Readers are supposed to build what they look like from their actions and dialogue.

I need descriptions to relate to the characters. I began a romantic suspense novel that opened with three male and three female characters. The author provided names and that was it. Their actions were standard cop scenarios. Because my imagination had so little to go on, the characters were either fuzzy or kept morphing. Because I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t care about them, and since I didn’t care, I quit reading.

So how do we hit the Goldilock’s spot when introducing characters–providing enough information for readers to get to know them without killing the pace?

Use Real Life as Guide for Introducing Characters

What do you notice about a person when you first meet him or her? I pick up on the obvious, such as gender, skin tone, hair color and style, and build. As I speak to him or her, I noticed smaller details like eye color, facial features and idiosyncrasies of speech and mannerisms.

Now I can’t include all of that for every characters. Talk about ruining the pace. So when I introduce a major character, I select the two to three most important features of the character, especially those features that will set him or her apart from other characters. Then, if I can come up with it, I try to include a vivid comparison that sums up the character’s appearance. 

In the first chapter of A Riddle in the Lonesome October, twenty-year-old Rae is riding home from work with her dad, Sheriff Walter “Mal” Malinowski when her aunt Carrie calls. She’s head of security at a Halloween event and she’s caught a trespasser who wants to speak to the sheriff. As Rae and Mal talk about the attraction and the history of the trespasser, whom Mal has met before, I reveal details about Mal’s appearance.

“Dad adjusted his seat so his impressive, 6’6″ frame might be a little more comfortable in the patrol vehicle.”

“Dad’s boyish face turned thoughtful.” 

I also include a feature of Carrie when she enters the scene.

“Taking off a black baseball hat that had “Security” printed on it, she ran her hand through her long, white-blonde hair.”

Then I sum up their appearances so readers can imagine them overall.

“With their athletic builds and serious expressions, they looked like Thor and Valkyrie preparing to battle a supervillain.”

Readers now have a few features to build a mental picture and can imagine how those features are linked to characters who could pass for the superheroes Thor and Valkyrie.

Here are more posts on writing descriptions.

How much description do you like when characters are introduce?

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Write the Opening Lines for This Scene

Writing prompt for beginning a novel

My photo prompt today actually worked in reverse. I had opening lines that I wrote five years ago and found a photo to accompany them. I would love to write a story to fit these opening lines because I think it sets up the protagonist, antagonist, setting, and main problem in a compelling way with just a few lines. If this photo inspires you, write the opening lines for this scene. Or tell me where to take this story from my opening lines.

The sun rose over the still-quiet city, a haze already gathering above the maples and oaks in Nelson Park. I crunched along the crushed gravel path. A few birds tossed out some notes, either early risers warming up their vocal chords or night ones wrapping up their nocturnal activities. Turning right, I followed the path that led to the building with the mayor’s office. A jogger trotted past. I smiled, but of course, he didn’t smile back. You don’t in this city. 

I wiped at the sweat on my lip and pulled my damp shirt from my back. The humidity climbed with the sun. It sidled up to you and sank in, just like Mayor Nelson’s words when he wanted to win you over to do something for him. 

He thought he finally had me, had finally hooked me, and could play me however he wanted. But he didn’t have me. He couldn’t get me.

Picking up my pace, I grinned at the next grim-faced jogger. 

But I was going to get him.

Here are more writing prompts to inspire beginnings.

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3 Steps to Mastering Your Novel’s Beginning

How to the write the beginning of your novel

Last week, I discussed 2 secrets for creating a hook for your novel–those attention-grabbing first few lines in chapter 1. Today, I’m offering 3 steps to mastering your novel’s beginning. But before I get to those steps, I need to explain what the beginning of your novel does.

What is the purpose of the beginning of your novel?

The beginning of a novel has 2 jobs: introducing and establishing the characters, plots, and settings. It doesn’t matter which genre you’re writing. All beginnings must do this. The beginning should orient readers in the world of the novel and answer questions of who, what, when, and where. Readers should find out quickly who the protagonist is, basic facts about this character’s personality and motives, where the novel is taking place, the timeframe for it, and what problem the protagonist faces. The how and the why of the novel should unfold over the course of the book.

Now that we know the purpose of the beginning of a novel, how do we write accomplish the jobs of introducing and establishing while still maintaining tension? As I’ve stated in previous posts, tension is the engine that keeps readers turning the pages of your novel. Although readers have just opened a novel, there should still be tension on the first page. But beginnings are the best place to kill tension because we have to work at introducing and establishing readers in the world of our novel. A compelling beginning balances tension with getting readers settled in the story world.

Space how many characters you introduce in a chapter.

The novels in my Rae Riley Mysteries have a lot of characters, so I’m very conscious of not introducing too many characters in a chapter or scene at the beginning. I only bring in the characters that are absolutely necessary to carry the action or dialogue. Introducing numerous characters in a few pages will kill tension. Too much space is taken up with adequately explaining all these characters are.

Use only the settings you need.

If your beginning comes to eight chapters, and each chapter has a new setting, describing each of those settings will weigh down the tension. See if some of the settings can be used again.

Especially in the first chapters and scenes, we should bring readers into major settings. In my Halloween mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, the first chapter is set at an outdoor Halloween experience–customers walk through the woods where scenes created from Edgar Allan Poe stories are enacted. This location is the major setting for the novel. Most of the action and plot points happen here. So I introduced and established it as soon as possible in the first chapter.

Introduce a problem in the first chapter.

It doesn’t have to be the main problem that the protagonist will tackle throughout the story, but the problem must be important and tied to the main one. In Riddle, my amateur sleuth Rae Riley is riding home from work with her dad, Sheriff Malinowski. Her Aunt Carrie, who is head of security at the Halloween event, calls them, saying a trespasser has been caught the day before it opens, and the man wants to talk to the sheriff. So Rae and her dad drive to the event. Trespassing becomes a major plot point in the mystery, and I establish it early. The trespasser also gives me the chance to introduce the main mystery in the first chapter: a weird will with a lost inheritance.

What’s the best beginning you’ve read?

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2 Secrets for Creating a Compelling Hook for Your Novel

How to write hooks for a novel

Before I dive into the 2 secrets for creating a compelling hook for your novel, I wanted to remind you that the theme for JPC Allen Writes during 2026 is how to write a novel. With four months behind us, we’ve covered:

This month will be about how to write the beginning of your novel. The hook is the opening line or lines that snag the attention of readers so thoroughly that they can’t put your book down. That sounds like a tall order and it is, but keep reading.

No hook? No problem.

If you can’t get past page 1 of your novel because you can’t come up with a creative hook, write a lousy one. It’s not permanent. Consider it an interim hook until the permanent hook arrives. Write your opening lines and then keep going.

Now write the whole novel.

What? What about the hook? Often, especially for first-time novelists, you have to slog through a first draft before you understand your characters and their journey through the story. Only when you’ve reached the final page are you in a position to understand how to create a hook for your particular story. Go back to your interim hook and throw it out or refine it to fit the rest of your book.

2 Secrets for Creating a Hook

The two secrets are that your hook should be meaningful and project tension. By meaningful, I mean the hook should reflect what readers should expect in your novel. The exciting opening sequence that turns out to be a dream, a flashback, or a scene on a movie set is not meaningful. Readers will feel cheated.

The best hooks also project tension, either hinting at the problem facing your protagonist that will soon become clear in the first chapters or plunking the problem in front of readers with the first line.

Here are the first line of my three novels:

A Shadow on the Snow. “I’M NOT FOOLED, RAE. YOU’RE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER.”

19-year-old Rae Riley receives anonymous notes that grow more threatening. That’s the mystery she has to solve, and I begin the novel with the message from the first anonymous note. I put the problem front and center in the first line.

A Storm of Doubts. “‘Just stop it!’ The shout made me jerk and get poked by a dead branch of a honeysuckle bush. Wasn’t that a woman’s voice? Not a girl’s, not my cousin Coral’s.”

Since this is a mystery, someone shouting like she’s in trouble creates immediate tension.

A Riddle in the Lonesome October. “‘We’ve got a bit of a situation here at the children’s home, Mal.’ Aunt Carrie’s voice came over the phone.”

The line of dialogue carries tension. What’s the situation? What could be happening at a children’s home? This first line hints at the tension involved in a hunt for a missing inheritance which is explained in the first chapter.

So let me know which opening lines did a great job of pulling you into a novel.

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