John Dean – Crime Writer

I have finished my edits on the latest Jack Harris novel (due out November 2026) and thought it was worth reminding emerging writers of the importance of the process.

Editing has meant working with the excellent team at Joffe Book (Polly and Tarek) and I always ask myself the same questions as part of the edit – and I know the editors will have something similar:

• Plot: Does the book have a strong plot with enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested and does it feel like it could happen in the real world?
• Atmosphere: Have you created enough atmosphere and tension to keep the reader engrossed?
• The ending: Is the ending enough of a climax to satisfy the reader and is the beginning compelling, for that matter?
• Characters: Does the book have realistic well-drawn characters rather than inadequately-depicted cliched cardboard cut-outs?
• Place: Does the book have a strong sense of place, providing the reader with enough information to see the location but not overdoing it?
• Pace: Does the story keep moving at a decent pace? Are there scenes that can come out because they duplicate similar ones?
• Title: Have you picked a good title that sums up the story, one that gives the reader a sense of what kind of book it is? Ideally, titles should be no more than four or five words but there are plenty longer that indicate that it’s not a hard and fast rule, not least the Harry Potter books.
• Accuracy: Yes, you are an author and, as such, are permitted to use artistic licence but if you are describing places, history, geography, organisations that exist etc, have you got your facts right? And if you decide to change some of those things, do you know enough to make the changes with confidence?
• The minutaea: Have you done a thorough edit? Have you checked for clumsy sentence structure, poor grammar, incorrect spelling, and have you caught all the inconsistencies, characters whose names change half-way through without explanation (it happens more often than you might think), impossible chronology (eg characters who your novel says were a teenager when an event occurred, but the dates you have used mean that they would actually have been in their mid-twenties; mistakes like this happen frequently)?

            Repetition: Editing often throws up excessive repetition, an important consideration for authors, who often do not realise they are doing it. An author may not realise, for instance, that they have used the same phrase repeatedly, which will become an irritant that drives readers away.

The overall aim of the editing is to ensure that the book is as good as it can be.

My book John Dean On Writing has lots more handy hints and can be found in paperback and ebook formats on Amazon.