For the City Times

Historical mystery author Susanna Calkins to lead fiction workshop at McMillan Memorial Library

WISCONSIN RAPIDS — Susanna Calkins, author of the Lucy Campion mystery series, will lead a writing workshop on “Building Tension and Suspense in Fiction” at McMillan Memorial Library on Saturday, Nov. 18 at 2PM in the library’s All Purpose Room.

Susanna Calkins. (Contributed Photo)

This workshop is part of McMillan Library’s series of events for National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo.  Admission is free but registration on the library website is required. A brief description of the event is below:

Whether you are trying to complete a 50,000 word novel in November for NaNoWriMo or are working at your own pace, one of the most important aspects of fiction is creating tension in your story. You want your readers asking what’s going to happen next? How do you keep your readers feverishly turning pages? In this workshop participants will explore the elements of tension and suspense, considering strategies for creating and heightening anticipation in readers. Attendees will analyze passages from published works to examine how components such as pacing, expectations, obstacles, and emotions can build—or reduce—tension. Participants will also engage in several activities which are designed to allow them to apply components of suspense and tension to their own writing.

Susanna Calkins, Ph. D. is a historian and academic, currently working at Northwestern University. She’s had a morbid curiosity about murder in seventeenth-century England ever since grad school, when working on her Ph.D. ‘The Ephemera From the Archives—tantalizing true accounts of the fantastic and the strange’—inspired her award-winning historical mysteries, including A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate, From the Charred Remains, Masque of a Murderer, and A Death Along the River Fleet (St. Martin’s/Minotaur Books).  Born and raised in Philadelphia, she lives outside Chicago now with her husband and two sons.  Visit her website, www.susannacalkins.com to learn more about her.

For more information on this program, contact the McMillan Library’s Information Desk at 715-422-5136 or email [email protected].  Visit http://tinyurl.com/McMworkshop to register for the workshop.