What are Your Three Favorite Novels?

Since the theme for JPC Allen Writes this year is how to write a novel, I’m spending January discussing aspects that prep you for writing a novel. So what are your three favorite novels and what does this have to do with writing one? Well, usually what you love to read will be what you want to write. Also, it’s impossible to write a well-crafted novel in a genre you aren’t familiar with as a reader.

My question asks you to name three favorite novels, but as I worked on this post, I realized I’d have to include more than three. So feel free to answer the question with the titles of as many of your favorite novels as you want.

My criteria for a novel to qualify as a favorite is that I like to read it over and over again and still enjoy it. So here are some of my favorite novels in no particular order:

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. I still think this is her best novel.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. This was the first story to used a machine, instead of magic, to travel through time.
Watership Down by Richard Adams. A wonderful fantasy adventure.
Plot It Yourself by Rex Stout. One of my favorite novels from my favorite mystery series.
Fantastic Voyage by Issac Asimov. A sci-fi adventure with a mystery.

Your turn. List your favorite novels and why you love them.

January 12, 2026 2

First Step You Must Take to Write a Novel

What is the first step you must take to write a novel? It’s simple. You must read. As simple as it is, many aspiring novelists don’t realize how critical this step is.

Read What You Love

If you’ve decided you’re writing a political thriller, don’t limit yourself to just political thrillers. If you’re in the mood for a romcom, read that. All reading is helpful if you approach it with a teachable attitude. From the theology book, Mere Christianity, I learned how important it is to write precisely, especially when creating analogies. Reading the comic novels and short stories of P. G. Wodehouse showed me how crafting a humorous simile or metaphor can put fun in a story as well as reveals something about the character who came up with simile or metaphor. I have no plans to write a book on theology or a comic novel, but reading those books has had a profound impact on my writing because I approached them like a student.

Since middle school, I’ve loved to read about cryptids, like bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Sightings of mysterious animals always give me a thrill as I wonder “what if”. How does that affect my mystery novels? I was able to include Ohio’s connection to bigfoot and the people who look for the creature in my latest Rae Riley mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October.

You Have to Know Your Genre

Whatever genre you want to write in, you need to know what the rules are for that genre because readers expect you to follow those rules. A mystery in which the detective does not reveal the identity of the murderer will leave mystery fans confused and ticked off. Also, knowing the rules of the genre backwards and forwards allows you to know when and how to bend the rules.

Don’t Read Only Current Novels

As a first-time novelist, you may have just come up with a killer climax to your space opera. If you aren’t well read in your genre, you wouldn’t realize that a famous novelist came up with that same climax in a best-selling space opera ten years ago. When you submit your novel to a publisher, or even just let family read your work, they’ll think your story is either unimaginative or boring.

Knowing the history of the genre you want to write will show you where the genre has been, what’s considered fresh and what’s considered old hat. Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes still loom large over the mystery genre. A new writer is well-advised to read some of their most famous works to understand why an author who died in the 1970s and a fictional character over a hundred years old retain so much influence over the genre.

Also, reading older novels can inspire you to put a fresh twist on their concepts. Tough female PIs became popular in the 1980s. What if you wrote about a tough female PI during the 1940s when the male version dominated? How could write your main character to fit in that historical context?

What do you love to read? Here are some of my favorite stories and books. No matter the genre or topic, they are stories I’ve learned something from.

January 8, 2026 0

What Novel Writing Tips Do You Want?

A few years ago, JPC Allen Writes had a theme for the entire year, “The Journey of a Book”. For 2026, I’m doing a variation of that on how to write a novel. I’m working on my fourth novel and I’ve discovered it takes me about a year from when I write the first words until I hand it off to my editor. So I will cover the basic and not-so-basic concepts involved in novel writing. I also want to ask readers what novel writing tips do you want? Articles on pacing? Or creating believable character flaws? What about how to find settings that advance the plot? Please let me know it the comments what would help you to finish a novel this year.

January 5, 2026 8

Happy New Year 2026!

Hope you have a wonderful first day in 2026! Do you observe any New Year’s Day traditions? We always take down our Christmas tree on New Year’s Day. What do you usually do?

January 1, 2026 0

Using Holiday Folklore to Inspire Your Story

If you want to combine Christmas or New Year’s Day with speculative fiction, or to give any story a touch of magic or wonder, you can accomplish this by using holiday folklore to inspire your story.

Many, many superstitions are attached to these holidays at the end of the year. This is probably because Europeans held on to some pagan beliefs as they converted on Christianity. In Celtic lands, the winter solstice was a time to be on guard against evil spirits, who were said to roam the long nights. Ancient Celts lit bonfires and made noise to scare them away. (Side note: Celts also believed evil spirits were out and about during the fall celebration of Samhain, the holiday from which Halloween derives its origin. I get the impression that it was no picnic to be ancient Celt.)

This fear of evil spirits may have led to the English tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. I believe that may have influenced Charles Dicken’s decision to use ghosts to haunt Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

The Christmas Encyclopedia by William D. Crump (the link is to a newer edition than I have) lists many superstitions from various countries. Here are a few.

“A child born a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day will have good fortune.”

“A child born during the twelve nights of Christmas may become a werewolf. (Germany and Poland)”

“From cockcrow until dawn on Christmas Day, trolls roam the land. (Sweden)”

“A windy Christmas Day brings good luck.”

In my YA mystery, “A Rose from the Ashes”, I refer to a Christmas legend. Early Christmas morning, under an almost full moon in the clear, frozen dark, Rae Riley confronts the three men who are the only candidates to be her father and her mother’s attacker. The moon gilds everything, giving the land and everyone under it a magical appearance. Rae says she believes animals could speak on a night like this.

I couldn’t find a country of origin for the legend, but it states that because the animals in the stable were kind of Jesus at his birth, he granted them the ability to speak at midnight on every Christmas Day since then. I use the legend to underline the wonder Rae feels when she solves the mystery of her mother’s attack and her father’s identity.

A lot of superstitions deal with performing rituals to predict the future.

“On Christmas Eve, if an unmarried woman peels an apple, making sure it remains as a single ribbon, and if she throws it on the floor from above her head, the pattern of the peeling on the floor will disclose her future husband’s initials.”

What if a young woman performs this ritual and doesn’t like the initials she sees because she knows to whom they belong? Or what if such rituals are accurate but can only be performed by trained fortune tellers? In this world, the best fortune tellers run businesses and customers scramble to make appointments with them for New Year’s Eve and Day, changing the important days from Christmas Eve.

One way to insure good luck for the coming year was to get the right person to enter the home after midnight on New Year’s Eve. This custom, called first-footing, was popular in Scotland and northern England. A powerful man with dark hair brought the best luck. Agatha Christie uses this superstition to help solve a ten-year-old death in the short story, “The Coming of Mr. Quin” in the book The Mysterious Mr. Quin.

Do you know of some holiday folklore in your area or a tradition that’s been passed down through your family?

December 29, 2025 0

JPC Allen Writes