Trivia Time

For something a little different, I have an interactive post this month.  Try this little quiz to see if you are a solid fan or if maybe it’s time to reread some of my books.  Follow this link to enter answers. 

1 - What is NOT kooky about one of Audra’s paintings in the Romance Arts series?
A) a face in a patch of wildflowers
B) a purple bee
C) corn in a wheat field
D) striped clouds

2 - When Owen tries to change the frosting color while making cookies with Gaby in The Christmas Project, what does she threaten to do if he tries again?
A) frost him
B) kick him out
C) not give him any cookies
D) write his name on the burnt ones

3 - Julia Dierksheide is the narrator of which book?
A) The Christmas Project
B) Everything Old
C) By Its Cover
D) Not Complicated

4 - In which Coffee and Donuts book do the donuts go missing?
A) Said and Unsaid
B) A Perfectly Good Man
C) Sofie Waits
D) all of the above

5 - What does Daniel say he is willing to do for Molly in Not Complicated?
A) dunk his hands in lice water
B) walk through fire
C) yodel in front of strangers
D) wait in line at the DMV

6 - Which book is the 2nd book in the Love in Andauk series?
A) By Its Cover
B) Into the Fire
C) What Goes Around
D) Everything Old

7 - In Said and Unsaid, what does Alexa say would be a good name for a band?
A) Brilliant Hippo
B) Sparkly Alligator
C) Bald Monkey
D) Jumping Fleas

8 - Which book is the 3rd book in the Coffee and Donut series?
A) Said and Unsaid
B) A Perfectly Good Man
C) Not Complicated
D) Sofie Waits

9 - Angel Melling is the narrator of which book?
A) Into the Fire
B) The Art of Communication
C) Sofie Waits
D) Collecting Zebras

10 - Where does everyone try to hide in Andauk?
A) Burger Brothers
B) St. Jude’s
C) Granny’s Shelf
D) Seymour’s Market

11 - In A Perfectly Good Man, what is wrong with Heidi’s perfectly good remote?
A) battery cover is taped in place
B) the 5 doesn’t work
C) the 7 doesn’t work
D) a large crack on the side

12 - Which book is the 1st book in the Stories From Hartford series?
A) Jealousy & Yams
B) The Christmas Project
C) Andrew’s Key
D) Collecting Zebras

13 - In They See a Family, what does William’s young niece say he does badly?
A) bark like a dog
B) sing
C) pretend to be a person
D) pretend to chop wood

14 - Whose house in Hartford is rumored to be haunted?
A) Andrew’s
B) Rebecca’s
C) Jill’s
D) Mabel’s

15 - Which book is the 4th book in the Romance Arts series?
A) The Art of Introductions
B) The Art of Patience
C) The Art of Communication
D) It doesn’t have an official title yet.

0 – 3 correct: You probably don’t even remember what links you followed to end up at the quiz.

4 – 7 correct: Maybe you’re a new fan and haven’t gotten through all the books yet. Keep reading. You can do it!

8 – 11 correct: Either you got some lucky guesses or I should thank you again for reading.

12 – 15 correct: You might know the books as well as I do. It means a lot that you’ve spent so much time with my work.

Predictable

A hobby of mine, as well as a few other members of my family, is to try to predict events in the movies or TV shows we’re watching. It makes screen time a little more interactive (or competitive, depending on the night). I think we’re pretty good at it, and it’s usually fun to be right.

There are people who might not agree that this is fun. I’ve seen plenty of reviews that imply predictable only has four letters. The word is used to dismiss a book or show as having no surprises, no imagination and maybe no entertainment value at all. What’s the point, some people say, if the ending is obvious?

But for those of us who want a happy ending, a dose of predictability is a must. I want to know from the moment I learn the hero’s goal that he will eventually accomplish it. I want to know as soon as the bad guys are introduced that someone will stop them. I want to know that the unrequited love won’t stay that way. I maintain that it is the how and not the what that is important.

I need examples to explain myself. If, not that this has ever been part of a real plot, we were watching a love story and guess the girl’s conniving boss will lie to the guy to cause a split, we will be happy when we’re proven right. (We will be. I said we were good.) But our opinion of the movie will change based on how the scene plays out. If the guy walks off in a huff without even talking to the girl, we’ll groan at the ridiculous development and care very little about what happens next. But if the writer manages a clever conversation where he thinks she’s confirming what the boss said, and she’s actually saying something else, we might root for them to figure out the truth and start guessing what will tip someone off. The fact that we saw the misunderstanding coming matters less than how the characters handle it.

For another example, let’s imagine a side character assures the heroine that she won’t have to leave the vacation early because her sister’s baby isn’t due for another three weeks. We don’t have to be good to know the baby is coming early. Anyone who read that sentence guessed it, too. Right? This is where predicting plots isn’t just a hobby. I’m trying to learn. Imagine if the same character ran off for a birth and we didn’t even know anyone was pregnant. That kind of left field event isn’t better. How could the writer work in enough details to make the incident seem natural but not completely expected? Hint: It usually has to do with not explicitly saying something won’t happen.

I’m pondering all this because I’m working on the fourth and final book in a series. People who have read the first three probably have a guess at which two characters are getting together in this upcoming book. If they want the happily ever after that I want, they’ll be kind of mad if they’re wrong. I need to consider how to write a story that is predictable in a sense but not completely void of surprises. Hopefully, a few laughs will help. It can be hard to see those coming.

In the Margins

I recently completed a quest inspired by the Apostles. It wasn’t as cool as that sounds. In fact, it wasn’t a religious experience at all. This is the part where I back up to explain.

The margins of my notebooks are littered with scribbles. Most of the scribbles are – no surprise – directly related to the book I’m writing. There are words and sentences pointing to where they should be inserted. Some are notes to myself to check for continuity when I type it or tiny diagrams to keep track of days of the week or where characters are sitting. If something happens two days after Thursday, it better sound like a weekend. And if the turn order mixes up in the middle of a game, readers will notice even if the players don’t.

But sometimes these notes don’t have anything to do with the book. I generally have a notebook within reach, and it can be a convenient place to jot stuff down. This is where the Apostles come in. I don’t remember how it came up, but my husband and I were trying to remember which of the twelve had been introduced in the first two seasons of The Chosen. With a notebook in my lap, the first thing I did was write the names along the margin so we could check them off as we thought about it. When I stumbled on that list of names a few weeks later, I smiled at the memory of why they were there. And then I wondered how many other random things might be recorded on the edges of my notebooks.

I grabbed a stack of the last half dozen or so for my quest. I found some unusual – if not terribly interesting – scrawls. There were several math problems. I occasionally write while my kids are doing homework nearby. If someone asks for math help, I’ll demonstrate a similar problem. I found the word “socks” written all by itself on the top of a page. No one in that book was talking about socks. Have I ever had characters talk about socks? If I made it entertaining, I was feeling more genius than I am right now. Was that a laundry reminder or a very unhelpful acronym?

Across the top of one page was a string of capital letters that would probably be meaningless to anyone else. I remember having my notebook at a cross country meet. When it was time to stop writing and start cheering, I marked the first letter of each girl’s school as she crossed the finish line. I can keep score in my head when there are only two or three teams, but this was the conference championship. I used my handy paper to track our school’s performance. (2nd place!)

There were other letters in a different notebook. I printed E A D G B E and no longer know why. Is it something to unscramble? Coincidence that all the letters are music notes? I didn’t hear a familiar melody and feel I would have sketched a staff to remember something musical. I did write a song title somewhere. It was one I liked on the radio and wanted to look up the artist later. I wrote an address because I knew I’d have my notebook when I needed to put it in the GPS.

There are several pages with pen scratches in the margins, places where I was in denial about running out of ink. Those do have to do with the book and with me not wanting to get up to find a new pen. The only place pencil appeared were the following lines: Hi! This will break. Ha! It did not. The lines also stick out for being not in my handwriting. I believe my daughter wrote that after asking if I thought some wiggly lead would fall out of her pencil if she tried to write with it.

I found a lowercase m with a tiny vertical line under it next to 2m with another line. That doesn’t jog a thing. I kind of wonder if it’s something algebraic, but I wonder if I only think that because there was other math. The most confusing discovery was a series of tiny vertical and horizontal lines. It sort of resembles Morse code. It is not a code I recognize or remember. It will stay tucked in my notebook with all the other little stories I didn’t intend to write. I didn’t even know I wrote mysteries.