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Building Suspense in Crime Thrillers with Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Introduction
Introduction
Meet Your Teacher: Ashley Kalagian Blunt (2:46)
Part One: Getting Technical
Part One Introduction: Two Kinds of Books (1:37)
Key Terms
What is Suspense?
The Four Essential Components of Narrative Drive
Exercise: The Secret History
Raising Questions in the Reader’s Mind
Intros to Dark Mode and Cold Truth
Story Loops
Exercise: Raising questions
Suggested Responses
Crafting Suspense
Exercise: Raising questions
Your Protagonist’s Goal
Establish Stakes and Obstacles
Exercise: Goals, stakes and obstacles
Dark Mode Prologue Responses
How Goals, Stakes and Obstacles Affect Plot and Character Arcs
Three Levels of Conflict
Exercise: Amp up the conflict
Exercise: Getting started with scenes
Part One Conclusion: Let’s talk about engines (2:41)
Part Two: Building Suspense in Scenes
Part Two Introduction: Breaking down scenes (1:47)
A Common Manuscript Issue
The Two Main Narrative Modes: Scene
The Two Main Narrative Modes: Summary
Scene Versus Summary
Exercise: Scene versus summary
Responses
Scenes Versus Vignettes
So What Makes a Scene?
Understanding the Turn
Cheat Sheet: The five parts of scene
Important Notes on Structure
Scene Analysis: Phantom Prey by John Sandford
Exercise: Three levels of conflict
Responses
Exercise: Analysing In the Woods by Tana French
Responses
Exercise: Analysing Dark Mode
Responses
Exercise: Analysing Cold Truth
Responses
Exercise: Developing your scenes
Part Two Conclusion: From initial idea to Dark Mode (4:59)
Part Three: Amping Up the Suspense
Part Three Introduction: More suspense techniques (1:32)
Scene Polarity
Exercise: Scene polarity
Suggested Responses
Tracking Your Polarity (5:05)
Building Suspense Through Setting
Exercise: Analysing setting and atmosphere
Strategies for Building Suspense with Setting
Exercise: Enhancing your atmosphere
Building Suspense through Tone
Analysing Tone
Exercise: Enhancing your tone
Exercise: Your suspense-filled scene
Conclusion: Suspense is only one aspect of a manuscript that works (5:33)
Feedback
Thank You
A Common Manuscript Issue
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