Verso University Presents: Don't Go into the Basement!: Writing Suspense with T.M. Dunn

Course Details

Mondays, April 20 & 27 and May 4 & 11, 2-3:30 pm (Komansky Room)

Suspense isn’t just for thriller and mystery writers. In any genre, in all stories, suspense is key to engaging our readers and forcing their hands to turn those pages.

We will explore ways suspense is created in stories. We will look at examples of how setting, point of view, character traits (especially flaws), and conflict are used to create it. We will look at ticking clocks, foreshadowing, and other techniques that writers can use to create suspense. To tailored prompts, we will write a suspenseful scene. In the end, we can talk all we want about how to write suspense, but it’s in the writing that we make it happen.

The most important thing we will be doing… (See what we did there?)

About the Instructor

Patricia (a.k.a. T. M.) Dunn is the award-winning author of Her Father's Daughter (Crooked Lane Books 2023) as well as Firecracker-nominated Last Stop on the 6 (Bordighera Press, C.U.N.Y. 2021) and Rebels by Accident (Sourcebooks, 2014). She co-founded Keys to the Castle Workshop immerse writing retreats, with a signature retreat on the Amalfi Coast. She is the former Executive Director of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she holds an MFA in creative writing, and is a sought-after coach and developmental editor who works closely with both aspiring and established authors. Born and raised in the Bronx and a world traveler who has lived in places including Italy, Egypt, Jordan, and California, Dunn now lives in Stamford, where she is currently working on her next novel with her rescue pups Blanqui and Cookie curled at her side.

Important Information About Verso University Classes

• Classes are usually structured as a consecutive series.
• Class size is often limited.
• Each series has a one-time fee registration fee covering all classes in the series.
• Registration is mandatory.
• The Westport Library wants to ensure that all interested students are able to participate in Verso University courses. If the registration fee is a barrier to entry for you, please contact [email protected].

Verso University is the Library’s lifelong learning and education initiative, serving up year-round offerings of classes, workshops, and lectures designed to further education and learning. Offerings run the gamut of educational opportunities, ranging from one-time lectures to ongoing courses to classes that meet weekly or perhaps monthly.

Verso University programs are made possible by the generous support of the Nancy J. Beard Lifelong Learning and Education Fund.

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