A Minute for Mystery

Ever wanted to murder somebody, but didn't want to go to jail? Ever wanted to pull the perfect robbery, but not want people with guns shooting bullets at you during the high speed getaway? Now's your chance to dodge the hangman's noose and the hot lead, while murdering and robbing all you want.

This January I'll be giving a workshop on mystery writing called A Minute for Mystery ... mostly because we'll be writing a lot of minute mysteries. We'll cover creating characters that people actually care about, plotting the perfect crime, how to plant clues, how to create settings that give readers the creeps, and how to write a minute mystery. We'll also touch briefly on the various sub-genres of mystery fiction, such as whodunits, hard-boiled detective, and adventure mysteries.

This is not a course on how to spell and punctuate. We'll look briefly at some online resources for that stuff. This workshop will focus on writing mysteries and will force you to take those ideas you've had kicking around in the back of your head and put them down on paper, on the computer screen, or on huge slabs of bristol board.

The first session will meet at Memorial Hall on the UNB Campus. After that we'll meet here ...

... and, as needed, we'll meet at various locations throughout the city ... places where you might see sleazy people doing sleazy things in the underbelly of civilized society ... things like ... murder.

For more information, go to the UNB College of Extended Learning and scroll down to A Minute for Mystery.