How to Write about Rivers in Our Stories

This is a repost for a few years ago. For the past nineteen years, we have lived across a road from a river and a creek that flows into it. The change that rivers bring to any locations make it a wonderful setting for almost any story. Below are some ideas and tips on how to write about rivers in our stories.

Crossing Rivers

Crossing rivers throughout history and literature is a sure sign of an irrevocable decision or event–Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the Israelites crossing the Jordan, the dead in Greek mythology crossing the River Styx. Once the river is crossed, there is no going back. (Fortunately, that hasn’t been the fate of my family. We cross back and forth all the time, but we’re not a future dictator, ancient Hebrews, or mythological characters.)

If a character is trying to leave the past behind, crossing a river can be sign of not looking back. Or the opposite can be true. A character crosses a river as a symbol of going to confront something from her past.

A river can also be a symbol of an obstacle or barrier in the character’s life. When he crosses it, it means he can now conquer the situation.

Flowing Rivers

The flow of our river during different seasons brings all kinds of change with it. In the winter, when there’s a thaw, the river can rise many feet. In the summer, when it’s low, we never know what we might find. These changes can symbolize changes in the main character’s life. A suddenly high river or flooding river can symbolize danger or an overwhelming emotion. A low river can show that a character’s life is drying up, without vitality.

I always find time spent on the river and creek, away from the routine demands of living, refreshing to my soul. So the river can be a refuge. When it isn’t flooding.

Rivers in Mysteries

A river is a very handy natural feature in mysteries. An unusually low river can reveal the body of a long-lost person. A fast river can sweep away evidence. In A Storm of Doubts, I used rising waters of a flooded creek to add drama to my climax and complicate a rescue.

.Here are more tips on how to explore settings in our stories.

How would you write about rivers in your stories? What book has used a river effectively?

September 25, 2025 0

My Video Interview

I’m interrupting my regularly scheduled writing tip today to post my video interview with children’s and YA author Kathy J. Perry. Kathy invited me to discuss JPC Allen Writes and the posts on writing tips and prompts I’ve provided here since 2016. We also talk about the research I do for my mysteries and how the old TV show Columbo inspired one of my short stories. Enjoy my whole interview below for a peek behind the curtain at the stories behind my stories. I promise–it’s isn’t scary!

September 18, 2025 2

How to Use a County Fair in Our Stories

It’s county fair time in my neck of the woods, so I decided to revisit how to use a county fair in our stories. I love county fairs, so it’s no surprise that I see them as writing inspiration.

Part of that love comes from nostalgia. In the county where I grew up in eastern Ohio, the county fair arrived the week after Labor Day. The fairgrounds were right across from my elementary school, and I always looked forward to the afternoon when we left the classroom and took a walking field trip to the fair. I was also eaten up by envy at the kids from the farms who got out of school to show their animals in 4-H competitions. I competed but in baking and won five blue ribbons.

When I discovered that the county where my husband and I built our home holds its fair in September, it felt just right. And when my kids won their own ribbons at the fair, I had a satisfying feeling of coming full circle.

That feeling could inspire a story of a parent or grandparent passing on a tradition which includes going to the county fair for some reason, not just competition.

Another thing I love about county fairs is how it brings together the land, animals, and people of a community. You don’t get that at a state fair. Too many strangers. But at the county fair, you run into so many friends, neighbors, and acquaintances that it feels like an enormous family reunion. When my family and I visit the fair, we make a point of reading the names fastened to the pens and cages of the 4-H animals, so we can see the animals kids from school and church have entered. It also reminds me that, no matter how sophisticated we become, we still depend on the land to produce crops and sustain animals and on our neighbors who farm and manage it all.

Those themes of community, family reunion, or ties to the land could be explored in a story set at the fair.

A special feature of our fair is the prominence of harness racing. Our fair really has a split personality. The front half, where the barns, rides, and buildings for exhibits are located, is for the local people. The back half has the stadium and barns for the horses that come to race. I can thoroughly enjoy the fair and never venture into the back half, which has a completely different atmosphere. The harness racing is business, as well as the gambling, so I feel no sense of community, but I’m an outsider looking in. I’m sure the members of the harness racing business probably feel differently.

I recently watched the film noir from 1956, The Killing. In this heist movie, a gang of crooks plot to rob a racetrack. One of them shoots a horse in an important race to create chaos while the robbery is executed. I’ve been wondering if I could write a story about a robbery at county fair with harness racing. I don’t know enough about how the betting is done to know if there’s enough cash on hand to make it worthwhile. But it would be interesting to research.

I like to research small, local events like a county fair and see if they have unique or unusual aspects to them, like harness racing. These quirks can ignite all kinds of inspiration and set my story apart from others.

Do you love a county fair? How can it inspire your writing?

Here are more posts how different settings can inspire our stories.

September 11, 2025 2

How to Use the Sea in Your Stories

I’m away at a writing conference this week, so I’m reposting this article on how to use the sea in your stories.

Since I was twelve and went sailing with my cousin and her husband on their sailboat in Chesapeake Bay, I’ve been in love with ships and the sea. The might and the mystery of the sea fires my imagination. Below is inspiration for using the sea in speculative fiction, mysteries, and adventures.

Speculative Fiction

I’ve only visited the beaches on the east coast of the U.S. where European settlers first arrived, leaving behind four hundred years of recorded history. That history infuses the area, making it perfect for a tale of time travel.

In North Carolina, my family and I stay at Emerald Isle, a barrier island near a maritime archaeology site. Experts believe they are excavating the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s flagship. In a speculative story, an archaeologist finds a way to Blackbeard’s time—a portal or some item salvaged from the wreck. Blackbeard discovers the way and travels to our time. The archaeologist has to get Blackbeard back to the 18^thcentury.

A monster story works so well in the sea because, unlike stories of lake monsters, the unexplored depths of the oceans gives a hint of reality to the idea of giant, undiscovered forms of sea life. A fantastic story based on some fact has always appealed to me. “The Foghorn”, a short story by Ray Bradbury, comes to mind.

Mysteries

The possibilities for this genre are nearly limitless. How many middle grade mysteries have centered around an old lighthouse or sunken treasure? Tons, but that doesn’t mean current authors can’t put a new spin on classic settings.

For adult stories, the episode “Shark Mountain” from the PBS show Nature inspired me. It featured Howard and Michele Hall, a couple who run Howard Hall Productions. They produce and direct underwater films. Michele is also an underwater photographer and logistics coordinator for their expeditions around the world as they travel for their films.

I would love to invent a couple like the Halls. In a foreign country, the couple record or photograph something dealing with a crime but don’t know it. Their boat is searched, a colleague is attacked. When the local police seem unconcerned or corrupt, the couple conduct their own investigation.

To give a mystery an eerie atmosphere, nothing beats a deserted boat. The crew of a fishing boat finds a deserted ship. They can bring it in to harbor and then mysterious events start occurring, like someone following the captain or the fishing boat is vandalized. Or after the crew finds that abandoned boat, another ship begins to chase them and it’s a battle of wits for the fishing crew to reach port safely. That storyline combines mystery and adventure, which leads me to my next genre …

Adventure

When a writer sets a story in nature, she can count on using that element for all kinds of plot twists and tension.

Two of my favorite nonfiction books are The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone and Dove, both by Robin Lee Graham. The first is a children’s books, stuffed with photos and the latter is for adults. Both recount the adventure of the author who became the youngest person to solo around the world starting when he was sixteen in 1965 and ending in 1970.

Those books alone provide a host of story elements from falling into the sea while working on the ship, to losing the main mast, to experiencing star-spangled nights on a still sea.

I could incorporate or adapt those real world experiences into a story involving a teen trying to sail around the world in the 21^stcentury.

What books have taken advantage of the sea as a setting?

September 4, 2025 0

Pitfalls When Writing YA Christian Fiction

Because most novels for teens are written by adults, they sometimes forget what they liked to read as teens. In YA Christian fiction, adult authors want to produce novels that contrast or contradict themes in the secular market. But that attitude can lead to pitfalls when writing YA Christian fiction.

Too Perfect?

The key to creating a main character for a YA novel is to make them likable and relatable. But sometimes adults authors want to make their teen main characters (MC) role models for teen readers. That’s not bad in itself. But if authors think the only way to create a role model is to create a perfect main character, the story will suffer for it and turn away readers. A perfect teen MC is not relatable and eventually will become unlikable. All major characters need flaws and giving the MC of a Christian fiction novel flaws makes them human.

Too Easy?

Teen MCs also need to wrestle with their problems. Giving a teen a problem that is solved simply by listening to an adult is not only unrealistic but also undramatic. As a parent of teens, I know full well there are times I’m not sure what advice to give my kids. Or I do know what they should and tell them, but then I have to let them come to agreeing with that view in their own way and in their own time.

Since I have to let my own teens struggle with their own problems, I should do the same for my teen MC and, honestly, all my characters. Authors of YA Christian fiction need to show how our faith works in a complicated world. Our faith does have the answers, but often it’s a struggle to discover what that answer is, and teen readers benefit when they see teen MCs with struggles they can relate to.

Many rookie authors, regardless of genre, have a hard time letting the characters they like suffer. But the suffering and struggle is what makes the characters grow and is the gas that propels the story vehicle.

What do you think? Should characters be flawed and struggle? Writers, is it hard to make your characters flawed and give them struggles?

Here are more tips on writing Christian fiction.

August 28, 2025 0

Category: Writing Tips