SQUAD 10: A MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE WORKSHOP WITH EMMA

If you were going to describe it to others, would you start with what happens? Very often we do this. It’s natural.

By extension, we often have a big focus on the what of our own story’s when we’re developing them too. What happens next? What does that idea mean?  What happens in the end? Etc etc etc… This stuff of course is crucial. Nonetheless, in reality, at least half of the pleasure of a story is to be found not in what happens but how.

How am I discovering the story’s events? How does that make me feel? These how questions form the glue that keeps a reader/audience member stuck in and engaged right through to the end.  When we think back to a story we love, we might often remember the destination, but the journey of how we get there is crucial. So as writers, it’s really important that we don’t overlook this.  All the stories we love have used mystery and suspense to hook us in and keep us questioning all the way to the end.  As such, mystery and suspense are some of the most powerful tools a writer has in their armoury.

In this workshop we’re going to think about what mystery and suspense actually are, how they work and how we can use them to structure our stories to engage audiences.  As ever this topic will start out from a play writing/ screen writing point of view, but everyone is welcome and the stuff we’ll cover will be useful for prose writers and poets too.

In terms of what to bring with you:

A favourite object (small enough to hold). A pen. A pad. You.