What I want for my readers

Savan­nah, from Stan­field, OR asked:

What do you want read­ers to learn from your stories?

More than any­thing, I would like my read­ers to enjoy a good sto­ry. I want readers—depending on the book—to laugh, to cry, to feel the ten­sion, to feel a lot of emotion—to want turn pages because they care about the char­ac­ters. True, in my his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, I would like read­ers to learn some­thing about the time and place about which I write. I would like read­ers to know how extra­or­di­nary the Civ­il War ship The Mon­i­tor was (in Iron Thun­der), what it was like to be caught up in an eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry mil­i­tary action (The Fight­ing Ground) or what it was like to be an immi­grant in New York City at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry (City of Orphans). But if you don’t care about the peo­ple who inhab­it those sto­ries, none of that mat­ters. From my point of view—and the way I try to write—is that facts allow me to tell some­thing about the peo­ple. The peo­ple are not there to share facts. One of the nicest things that any­one ever said about The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle was, “An improb­a­ble but deeply sat­is­fy­ing story.”

Learn more about:
Iron Thun­der
The Fight­ing Ground
City of Orphans
The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle