Taking stock of what you have written

[John Dean]

I am preparing to carry out the final edits on my latest DCI John Blizzard crime novel before sending it to those fine people at my publisher The Book Folks in the New Year - and that means taking as objective a view as I can manage of what I have written.

But what exactly does that mean? Well, for all authors, it means comparing what they have in front of them to what they set out to write all those months ago. To write a good crime story, I think you need to have:

* Created a strong story with plenty of twists and turns

* Created a strong sense of place - the reader must be able to visualise where the action happens

* Created strong characters – you should not have strayed into cliché but have made your characters real people

* If you have created a sidekick, make sure they have a job to do - passing on information, allowing your main character to react so we learn more about them etc

* Made the villain real, not some clichéd baddie you saw in the movies. The best thing is for them to have appeared earlier in the story so that the reader knows them and for you to have given them a good reason to commit the crime - secrets, secrets, always secrets

* Grabbed the reader from the first line

* Kept the story moving - nothing holds a reader better than tension created as the pace develops. You should have kept it driving on relentlessly

* Produced a strong ending - surprised the reader and included some drama, a chase, a fight, a killing, a dramatic revelation etc

* Possibly, if this is your thing, you will also have made the reader think - maybe you want to cast light on human nature, or perhaps a problem in society. You should not have preached but have allowed the idea to come through in your story.

But how do you know that you have met all these competing demands when you are reading your draft? I always think that if I get so wrapped up in the story when I am editing that I forget that I wrote it and that I am supposed to be checking technical elements then I have got it right.