Crime Writing with Catherine Ryan Howard

Over the course of five sessions, this workshop will explore topics such as developing your ideas, plotting, creating suspense, research, and preparing your work for submission to agents and publishers. Suitable for writers at all levels, it will especially appeal to those with an interest in the mechanics of plotting.

Each session will have a mix of seminar-style teaching, practical writing exercises and group discussion. The idea is not to advance existing work during this week but to spend the time stretching writing muscles, considering new approaches, and learning the nuts and bolts (or fingerprints and blood splatter!) of writing crime fiction, before returning to your work-in-progress with fresh eyes, renewed enthusiasm and more creative tools at your disposal.

Session breakdown:

1. The Interrogation: Taking Ideas from Brain to Blurb
2. Get Your Story Straight: Plotting and the Mechanics of Storytelling
3. The Art of Suspense: Characters, Conversations & Cliffhangers
4. How To Get Away With Murder: Research and Procedure
5. Crime Does Pay: Preparing Your Work for Submission