John Dean – Crime Writer

September 28, 2025

The valuable role of the delete button

I have been working on the latest DCI John Blizzard novel and am editing the final version before I submit it to the team at my publisher (The Book Folks, a Joffe Books company) for consideration for publication.

As I have mentioned in blogs before, but it’s worth mentioning again, even at this late stage an author still has to be prepared to be brutal with their words.

In my case, the words that tend to become victims of the delete button turn out, when I analyse it, to be the ones which were written to increase the word count.

Now, in the final edit, they must go because they’re unnecessary, usually excess dialogue or internal point-of-view passages that overdo it.

Does that mean I wasted my time writing them? Far from it, they were the words that triggered those many others that did survive.

When they are removed in that final edit, it’s like removing the bits of scaffolding that kept the building up when you were still engaged on construction but are now  no longer needed.

Removing them tends to give the remaining chapters extra pace and a sharper focus and, for me, the words that don’t make the final cut are just as important as those that do.

September 8 2025

The tried and trusted Page 95 Test

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.