Injecting energy into your crime novel

[John Dean]

I am currently 43,000 words into my latest DCI Blizzard crime novel for The Book Folks and key to getting the process right is to ensure that the story continually benefits from injections of energy to maintain its momentum - and increase it, where necessary.

But how do you do that? It’s not as simple as the old crime writers adage that if you want to inject momentum into the story, it’s time to murder someone else!

In fact, energy can come in much less dramatic form. It doesn’t have to be someone being attacked or a massive police raid on the homes of suspects, although they can work really well, of course.

It could just as easily be something much smaller, a line of spicy dialogue, a dispute between people who normally get on well, a revelation about the plot, an encounter with a villain, reports of a stranger seen spying on a potential victim, the ringing of a phone in the middle of the night. The possibilities are  endless.

Each one injects that energy that the story needs and keeps the reader interested … not to mention the author who can glimpse the finishing line and is seeking the inspiration to reach it!