So many crime writer come unstuck at this point of their novel. You’ve written what you consider an absolute killer of an opening. You’ve got the plot up to the point of no return. the ending is pretty clear in your mind.

Now what?

The middle or Act 2 of the book is where many would be crime novelists come unstuck. A vast amount of writing lies ahead. The view ahead is like the Sahara desert. Where do we go from here>?

Congratulations. You’ve hit the wall.

So many novels re abandoned at this stage, it’s a crime.

So what can we do about this?

Here’s where Freemind comes in. We need to think of things that we want to happen to our hero. He shouldn’t have an easy time. Conflict brings pain and tension and that gets pages turned and publishers, editors and Agents interested.

In Freemind, start a new mind map. Edit the centre ellipse to read middle.

Now add child nodes labelled “action”, “emotion”, and “mental”.

Then build child nodes off these. Let your imagination run riot. A man with a gun? Put that in “action” make the colour so you can tell it will be a unified event.

Under mental, write the effect that it will have on our hero. The same with “emotion”.

Add another event.

Our hero’s girlfriend has he baby and the bad guys are heading for the hospital. There is a foot of snow and he’s three miles away and the car is Kaput.

I’m sure your imagination can come up with a lot more.

Keep Writing.

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