Keep your reader engaged through tension and promises.
Creating suspense involves more than leaving questions unanswered; a lot of it has to do with dramatic irony. But hanging questions are a great entryway into building tension, as are using irony, temporality or the movement of time, and narrative delay. In this workshop, students will learn how to build and sustain tension, writing beyond a surprises similar to literary clickbait. Also, we’ll explore how the audience is as much a part of creating suspense as the writer.
Live video conference: This workshop will be held via our online video conferencing platform, Zoom. You can view brief tutorials on using the platform here. On the start date or the day before, participants will receive an email with login info (please check your spam if you don’t see it).
In this workshop you’ll:
- Analyze examples of dramatic irony and create examples of our own
- Determine the difference between surprise and suspense, and how to use them both
- Unpack details in dialog and narrative in ways to keep the audience engaged
- Manage time in short fiction
- Write short fiction that employs suspense
Time requirements
- 1 hour/week
Materials
- All reading materials will be provided.
Who should take this workshop?
- This workshop is for beginning and emerging writers of fiction, but seasoned writers who want to hone their craft will feel comfortable in the class.
If you need an accommodation for this workshop, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.
