How to write the middle of your crime novel, part 2

How to write a crime novel, episode 6

The second half of the middle of your crime novel is the most demanding to write. It has to be emotional and stressful for the readers. Here’s how you get it right.

Here’s how you do it, briefly:

• This is the most emotional part of the book. It’s where your hero is really tested. Where they think they’ve failed. And find the strength to keep going anyway
• Things get tougher. The bad guy increases the pressure. The hero finds themselves alone
• Feeling desperate and isolated, the hero wishes they’d never started investigating. But that makes them think about why they decided to investigate in the first place. And that reminds them of a clue you planted back in Act I, when they made that decision.
• Which gives them the impetus for more action, taking them to the big moment at the end of Act II called Plot Point 2–the subject of my next video.

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