Should COVID be a part of your next novel?
The answer to the question: Should COVID be part of your novel? is: it depends. Several publishers thought my book The Flu Is Coming (republished in 2018) should sell like hot cakes during the COVID crisis. The pandemic and resulting public health measures did lead to a feature article in the Easter Sunday edition of the Albuquerque Journal . Sale of my mystery/thriller increased slightly. On the other hand, when I advertised the book on Facebook and in blogs, several readers said, ”The last thing I want to do is to read about a pandemic and a quarantine.” Generally, I think that facts are the best way to make novels realistic and appealing to readers. However, in the PBS series on Toni Morrison, she said that young writers should create their “own world” and not worry about facts in their novels. I guess in response to Morrison’s comment, I would say: Most of us aren’t young or potentially Nobel Prize-winning authors. I still think good mysteries and thrillers dep...