Many of the stories I’ve written, particularly those in the speculative arena, focus on the character’s finding his or her true purpose.

Ms. Bonne in the flash fiction fantasy Dream Job longs to work in administration and has a knack for it. Unfortunately, she’s locked into another position and can’t change her calling.

In The Monitor, a science fiction short story, Glenn and Anne-Marie are both new to their field and eager to make a name for themselves and prove themselves on this mission. When Dr. Otto, significantly their senior in terms of both age and status intrudes, how they handle his interruption will determine their futures—both in terms of career and faith. Should they err, it could adversely affect the space-bound crew that they are monitoring.

Grange Vallen, in the sci-fi work in progress, A Very Grimm Christmas, has to rediscover his purpose when his years of a successful writing career come crashing down through a case of persistent writers’ block. Things might turn out better than before should he address the personal and spiritual issues that he’s been ignoring. Because, as any writer knows, writers block isn’t as much about the writing as it is about the writer.

But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ Jeremiah 7:23, ESV

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath beforehand ordained, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10, KJV

As we walk this globe, we find ourselves discovering and rediscovering our purpose. Characters are much the same even if their struggles are simplified and confined to the page. The Westminster shorter catechism says Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. So, that is the true purpose of each and every human being. But how we apply it and live that purpose can often be the struggle that drives us. Since, as Ephesians says, we are God’s creations, his poems, (the Greek word used for workmanship is poiema), that means we are complex and finding out how to live our purpose can be just as complex.

That’s why it makes such a great story theme!

In Homeschooling Can Be Murder, Jeanine needs to find a purpose within her new community. She knows who she is in terms of her immediate family, but the Army move takes her away from a social environment that she loved and clicked with. Now that they’re in Gentle Springs, and at a new post, where does she fit?

Purpose isn’t always big and overarching. Sometimes, like with Jeanine, it’s brought on by a change of place or situation. When the characters need purpose, life is just a bit out of sync. That extra bit of tension makes the plot more realistic and helps us understand the character.

If we think about purpose as it relates to our own lives, we can experience it from a daily level (what would you have me do today, God) all the way up to a lifetime level (who have you made me to be). If you are awake and aware, you’re seeking your purpose to some degree.

That motivates characters, too.

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Many of my stories and books touch on the theme of family—both for the good and the bad.

In the Portal Watchers series, one of the early conflicts involved Garth and his Uncle Murenn. While Murenn has always been Garth’s favorite uncle, because their personalities are similar, the older Vieta keeps siding with the queen. Since Garth is trying to raise pterosaurs, which the queen claims are hers, but the prophet has told Garth to keep safe, the two are at odds. Family doesn’t always take our side or protect us.

There are good references to family in the series as well—both family that the young men have known and family that they find along the way of their journeys. But because they are told to become the cord of three, protecting the dinosaurs who come through the portals, Garth, Bern, and Ne-tel become their own family of sorts.

Though the mom, Jeanine, is the first-person voice of the Talbott Family Mysteries, it should be evident by the title of the series that family plays an integral part in the plots and the solutions of the mysteries themselves.

For instance, in the third book of the series, Plundered Christmas, we have also a mix of pre-existent or natural born family and found family.

You need not read the others in order to enjoy this mystery.

What do you need to know? That Jeanine and James (aka Captain Talbott) are an Army family. Also, because of the frequent moves, they have chosen to homeschool their two kids: Justin and Josie.

The older of the two, Justin, has two passions: soccer and taxidermy. That fateful summer, before their plundered Christmas, star soccer goalie Justin has just suffered defeat with his team, the Hornets. In order to get him out of his funk, his grandpa (and Jeanine’s dad) Robert takes Justin to the beach. But there, widower Robert meets Margo.

She is the beginning and source of all of Jeanine’s Christmas problems.

Rather than having any one of the traditional Christmases that Jeanine loves, the Talbotts will now head to a private tropical island to share the holiday with Robert’s fiancée and family. That’s uncomfortable enough. But when someone pushes Margo into shark-infested waters and then her nephew William winds up murdered, the Talbotts are facing their most dangerous Christmas ever. All because of a family that is not their own, but could be.

Of course, to add to the mess, a mighty nor’easter comes down to wreak havoc with the Coast Guard attempts to reach Banet Island, knocks out the power, and traps the island’s residents.

And what does it all have to do pirate tales and the mysterious Anne Banet whose letters loop all of them into the past? Was she really the infamous Anne Bonny? And is her legendary treasure truly worth killing for?

Of all four Talbott mysteries, this was my favorite to write and remains my favorite to read. Not only because I love Christmas nearly as much as Jeanine does, but also because I enjoyed giving Anne Bonny a hope, a future, and a family, while trying to remain true to what is known of her historically. Since her own father wasn’t the best influence (and he was known to spoil her), I tried to give the pirate queen a need to repent and a new family that honored that choice.

Family in reality or fiction can bring out our worst or our best. Or as The Message phrases Proverbs 17:17 Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.

One thing I know—They make for wonderful stories!

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Another one of my common writing themes is why do bad things happen to good people, or, at the very least, to people who are trying to do the right things.

The unpublished work that recently finaled in Get Pubbed at ScrivCon2026 is a case in point. Emilie (Hortense is her pseudonym) keeps trying to help others, but her actions cause repeated difficulties—even the sacrifice of her happily ever after. She wonders why she tries. Her mother and her sister, both of whom have no qualms about being evil, seem to run into far fewer trials and obstacles. So, why does she even bother?

While her fairy tale world barely mentions God, the idea is that Emilie, in spite of herself, has empathy. She sees other creatures and people as fellows within her world. Every time she tries to be selfish, she sees another’s plight and finds herself helping. Why? Because she has suffered pain and heartache. She puts herself in their places and treats them how she would like to be treated.

In “A Wedding to Die For”, one of the Talbott family mysteries, the wedding planner, Trish, dies/presumably murdered trying to find a cure for her mother’s terminal cancer. That situation in light of the wedding sparks a series of questions from 11-year-old Josie. She [Josie] nodded. Then, she looked suddenly serious. “I’m glad Papa found Grandma Margo, I really am. But why did my real Grandma die? Why is Miss Trish’s mom dying and no one can do anything to stop it? Or Mrs. Jones? I understand that everyone dies someday—I’m not a baby—but sometimes it doesn’t seem fair when people don’t get a full life. Doesn’t the Bible even say that life should last seventy years? How can God cut some people short, even if they love Him?”

You only need read the Bible to see people suffering in spite of doing good, attempting to do the right thing. Job is the classic account… and he never learns the answer.

The short answer is sin.

But it seems so unfair, like Josie said, when we try to live right and still suffer. Sometimes, it even seems like the doing right causes us more suffering. What gives?

Then we ask, how much wrong did Jesus do? And how much pain and agony did He suffer? “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Mark 8:31. ESV

Characters wrestle with the disconnect between right living and wrong circumstances in my stories because it’s a common quandary for people throughout time. Even the people of Jesus’ day struggled with the injustice of it. That’s why they tried to assign blame to the man born blind to some random sin by his parents. Because what sin can you commit before birth that deserves the fate? Or concerning Job, what did his friends try to do for most of the book that bears his name? They tried to find a sin of his that had earned the bad things.

But often, it’s the general condition of the fallen world that causes the pain, heartache, illness, and death. The person, like Jesus, may have done nothing deserving the fate. In those times, Jesus offers this comfort. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John16:33, ESV

Therefore, expect my characters to circle back to this theme time and again.