John Dean – Crime Writer

A question which I am sometimes asked by readers is ‘what do you think is your best book?’ The answer may come over as glib but is absolutely genuine. ‘The next one,’ I say.

That is because I genuinely believe that an author never stops learning, however many books they sell and however positive reviews their work attracts. An author, however experienced, can always make a mistake, can always find something to learn.

‘Such as?’ I hear you ask? Well, it could be something big, like the way in which the pace of the story is held up by a surfeit of unnecessary detail or it could be a plotline which needs clarifying to avoid confusing the reader.

But it could just as easily be something small and easily overlooked, a word used ungrammatically (sometimes that can be the right thing to do, such as using one word sentences, but sometimes it’s a case of sheer carelessness).

So yes, my best book is my next one (and in case you are wondering, I have just signed a contract with The Book Folks, a Joffe Books company, for the latest DCi John Blizzard mystery. It’s ambitious in its plot and I fully expect to learn a lesson or two as the excellent editors expose the manuscript to their forensic attention to detail).

It’s my best book – but not for long because I have already moved onto the next one, the latest in the DCI Jack Harris series for the same publisher, which has already presented me with some challenges related to plot chronology and has required a major rewrite of the first one hundred pages because I did not pay enough detail to planning and wrote myself into a dead end.

Another lesson learned – or should I say re-learned? Or not learned at all. And I thought I was getting the hang of this writing malarkey. Maybe next time. If you were to force me to give a more specific reply, it’s not the best novel but it’s the first time I felt like I was starting to understand the craft of writing, one of the early DCI Blizzard novels Strange Little Girl (the Book Folks, a Joffe Books company)