John Dean – Crime Writer

John Dean Handy Hint

I am working on the latest DCI John Blizzard novel and will find myself with a working first draft in a matter of weeks.

The next task will be to print it out then embark on editing the manuscript. I have written extensively in my free Handy Hints -Editing section about what an author should be looking for in the first draft and it can be a complicated, forensic and protracted process.

So, here’s a useful quick and easy tip to work out, before you edit anything, if what you have produced is any good.

Turn to page 95 (always page 95, book after book, in the interests of consistency!) and read it top to bottom. If it’s an excellent page, you know you have produced a good draft, if it’s not very good… you know the rest!

It may sound simplistic but I have never known the Page 95 Test to fail.