My novel Dead Hill (The Book Folks), the first in the DCI Jack Harris series, is approaching 60 (mostly positive reviews) on Amazon, which got me thinking about how it came into being.…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 31, 2019 at 14:13 — No Comments
There have been largely encouraging reviews for the most recent DCI Jack Harris crime novel, Thou Shalt Kill (The Book Folks), which explores high emotions in the world of religion (with a nod to the tensions that exist on allotments!).
I value reviews; the good ones boost your confidence as a writer and you can often learn from the negative…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 30, 2019 at 15:30 — No Comments
One of my students came up with a cracking first line the other day and it got me thinking about one of my favourite topics.
A busy and harassed judge/editor/agent reads so much that anything that makes them notice you has got to be good. Compelling, gripping, intriguing, the…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 30, 2019 at 11:23 — No Comments
I am currently developing a talk on the role of Conflict in Crime Fiction, to be delivered as part of Darlington Arts Festival in North East England (May 17-20, 2019, details to be announced).
But why choose conflict as a subject? Because we live in an age when people increasingly challenge each other and when the ‘ordinary’ man or women is more prepared to challenge those in positions of authority as well.
A world where they are more prepared to be outspoken, particularly on…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 29, 2019 at 10:23 — No Comments
John Blizzard story The Railway Man, set in the world of retired rail workers, is approaching 50 reviews on Amazon - you can check out what readers think about it at …
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 25, 2019 at 15:09 — No Comments
All writing is about every word doing its job. It’s true of novels but becomes an even more pronounced skill when you are writing something short, like a poem or a short story.
My company Inscribe Media used to run a short story competition and we used to receive entries which were not the top limit 2,000 words long but 200 words instead (flash fiction length).
The length meant that the writers had to make every word do its job and discard every word, every thought, every…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 22, 2019 at 15:07 — No Comments
I was writing the other day and part of the novel deals with a character dying from a serious bronchial illness, fighting for every breath.
My detectives go to see him only to discover that, since they last met him, he has died. I found myself writing (slightly changed as the original contained crucial plot information) “Five minutes later, the officers were seated in the living room, acutely aware that his chair was empty and that the oxygen cannister had gone. They could see the…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 17, 2019 at 11:01 — No Comments
Delighted to say that the new Blizzard crime novel is now out in paperback as well as e-book…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 15, 2019 at 11:47 — No Comments
I have just written this for aspiring writers who joined the Crime Readers’ Association (if you not done so, I heartily recommend it, more on https://thecra.co.uk/) and thought it might interest.
As part of my work, I am often hired to assess aspiring authors’ manuscripts, including for the Crime Writers’ Association, and one of the recurring themes that crops up in the feedback that I give is how to build tension.
Tension is…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 10, 2019 at 10:17 — No Comments
Best-selling crime novelist John Dean is to run two weekend courses for aspiring writers at his home near Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway.
John, author of 17 novels and currently published by London-based The Book Folks, is the creator of the popular DCI John Blizzard and DCI Jack Harris series.
He will run courses based around sense of…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 9, 2019 at 11:57 — No Comments
I am delighted to say that the DCI Jack Harris novel Dead Hill (Book Folks) reached No 1 in the Amazon Kindle organised crime chart!…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on January 8, 2019 at 12:30 — No Comments
Added by John Dean on January 5, 2019 at 9:12 — No Comments
Added by John Dean on December 20, 2018 at 9:15 — No Comments
Really excited to have been invited to be a guest at the Selkirk Speakers Club with fellow crime writer Ian Patrick. The event happens at the Selkirk Arms in Kirkudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, on the evening of Thursday February 7, 2019 at 7pm.
The format is a buffet supper…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on December 19, 2018 at 9:42 — No Comments
I love it when a novel starts to assume a life of its own. I am 32,000 words into the new DCI Jack Harris novel and things are slotting together nicely now.
That was not always the case. Writing is like a jigsaw and, whereas at the beginning of the process, the author has lots of fragments floating around, in time they start to make sense.
Relationships between characters start to come together, plotlines link up, lines of dialogue find their home. That is what is happening at…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on December 18, 2018 at 11:46 — No Comments
You can check out the reviews of the latest Jack Harris novel Thou Shalt Kill (The Book Folks) at …
Added by John Dean on December 17, 2018 at 13:44 — No Comments
The Blizzard mystery The Secrets Man (The Book Folks) is climbing the Amazon Kindle bestseller…
Added by John Dean on December 17, 2018 at 13:30 — No Comments
I recently assessed a manuscript for an aspiring writer and was delighted to discover that they understood the importance of a good beginning to a novel.
The opening chapter got the book off to a cracking start. Opening…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on December 17, 2018 at 11:28 — No Comments
One of the biggest lessons I have had to learn as a novelist is how to create pace. It’s a lesson about which I continually remind myself and which I find myself often writing about when I carry out assessments of…
ContinueAdded by John Dean on December 12, 2018 at 9:30 — No Comments
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