Catching the Reader by Surprise
June 1, Saturday, 1 P.M. PT
Horror is the genre of the unexpected, and the best thrills of the genre come to us as surprises, revelations, and shocks. This two hour workshop will cover insider tricks and tactics for surprising even the most jaded horror reader. It will include a lively interactive talk that explores how to set traps that will catch your audience by surprise. By examining examples and practicing in class, you’ll learn how to employ your cunning to stun your reader and build tension, and to better exploit turning points in your plots to generate powerful twists and shocking outcomes.
Instructor: Michael Arnzen
Amityville-born horror writer Michael Arnzen holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his often funny, always disturbing fiction and poetry. Always experimenting, Arnzen's work in the genre has appeared in everything from poetry magnets (Fridge of the Damned) to Palm Pilots (Gorelets) to playing cards (Play Dead) to moving pictures (Exquisite Corpse). Learn the latest on his website: http://gorelets.com
Arnzen holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Oregon and since 1999 has taught fulltime at Seton Hill University, near Pittsburgh, in their MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. He has published a helpful collection of "story starters" for dark fiction authors called Instigation: Creative Prompts on the Dark Side, and co-edited the book, Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction. He has taught genre authors at StokerCon, Odyssey, Alpha, World Horror Con and many other venues, in addition to appearing in the HWA's classic On Writing Horror anthology (Writer's Digest).
Horror University Online
Check out these recorded workshops from the Horror University Online Library!
