4-Week: Creating Suspense in Every Story

In Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction Patricia Highsmith writes, “Every story with a beginning, middle, and end has suspense; a suspense story presumably has it more so.” Whether you're writing suspense or hoping to create suspense in whatever you're writing, this is the class for you. Each week we’ll discuss the craft of suspense—plotting, pacing, building and sustaining tension, creating atmosphere, and more. We’ll look at examples from mysteries, crime stories, psychological suspense, and thrillers. We’ll also look at suspenseful stories that don’t fit neatly into any genre. Each class will include a mixture of craft discussion and in-class generative writing exercises. Writers will come away with a deeper understanding of suspense and practical tools to make their own work more suspenseful.