Building Tension in Your Story: Surprise Vs. Suspense
This live webinar will walk you through the process of writing effective surprises and suspense for your audience, showing you how to blend the two and create tension in your work.
Building tension in stories can be a difficult balance between competing drives in your story. How do you know when a surprise will be more effective for the audience than the slow burn of suspense? How do you accomplish them? This live webinar will walk you through that process, showing you how to blend the two and create tension in your work.
Bryan Young has been studying the finer points of writing for more than two decades. He teaches writing at the University of Utah in their Continuing Education Program, as well as for Writer’s Digest and Script University. As a critic of literary and film theory, he’s written story analysis for everyone from /Film to Script Magazine and all points in between.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- How Tension works
- When to Lean on Surprise
- When to Lean on Suspense
- How to blend Surprise and Suspense to deliver a maximum amount of tension
- How to incorporate match your pacing and tension
- When to excise exposition to increase the tension
- How to make this work for screenplays and prose
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
- Writers who are looking to create tension in any genre
- Writers of any medium, including prose and screenplays
- Writers who want to learn more subtle ways to include suspense in their stories
- Writers who need a better understanding of narrative intrigue
- Writers looking to maximize the readability of their work
- Writers wanting to fine-tune the exposition in their work
- Writers who want to challenge themselves
Learn from an expert instructor!
Bryan Young (he/they) works across many different media. His work as a writer and producer has been called "filmmaking gold" by The New York Times. He's also published comic books with Slave Labor Graphics and Image Comics. He's been a regular contributor for the Huffington Post, StarWars.com, Star Wars Insider magazine, SYFY, /Film, and was the founder and editor-in-chief of the geek news and review site Big Shiny Robot! In 2014, he wrote the critically acclaimed history book, A Children’s Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination. He co-authored Robotech: The Macross Saga RPG has written two books in the BattleTech Universe: Honor's Gauntlet and A Question of Survival. His latest book, The Big Bang Theory Book of Lists is a #1 Bestseller on Amazon. He teaches writing for Writer’s Digest, Script Magazine, and at the University of Utah. Follow him on Twitter @swankmotron.
Top screenwriting and film publication, founded in 1989, published by Active Interest Media. Twitter: @scriptmag
