Suspense and the Single Writer
October 9th, 2007
No, I’m not single, but I do write by myself, so I say that counts. 
Anyway, I’m participating in the The Muse 2007 Online Writers Conference that’s underway right now. I’m taking part in a number of workshops, and I’m having a great time. I’m learning a lot, and making a number of promises to myself. Updating this blog on a regular basis is one of them, and that’s in part what pushed me to blog today.
The other reason is that I’m rather proud of something I accomplished today. One of the workshops I’m taking is by J. D. Webb, Pepper Smith, and Diane Newton, about how to put suspense on your stories. The exercise I did today was to write a two to three sentence piece setting up conflict and suspense for a situation that could be expanded into a story. As I’m working on The Morgan Affair, I decided to use that as the subject. This is what I came up with:
When she was a child, Alexandra Morgan dreamed about lifetimes spent in never-ending conflict. Now the dreams have come back even worse than before, and after a museum robbery, she discovers a priceless necklace in her purse - the very necklace she’s seen herself wearing in every single dream. Is it just coincidence, or has the war found her again?
The instructor liked it. Whee!
Popularity: 22% [?]
Entry Filed under: Art of Writing, Novel In Progress
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Hello, Lisa. Just wanted to check in and thank you for your participation in the Muse 2007 conference suspense workshop today. Hope to run into you again soon. Just a bump not a full collision.
J. D. Webb
Comment by jdavewebb — October 10, 2007 @ 2:35 pm