Writing Workshops

Hallie Ephron is an award-winning Boston Globe crime fiction reviewer. Her how-tio-write book were Edgar and Anthony award finalists. She is the author of:

• Never Tell a Lie
• Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock 'Em Dead with Style
• 1001 Books for Every Mood
• The Bibliiophile's Devotional
• The Dr. Peter Zak series of mystery/thrillers by G. H. Ephron

Pulling together a writing workshop and looking for a great teacher? Putting together an event and looking for a compelling speaker? Contact Hallie (Hallie "at" hallieephron.com) and let's talk!

Here are some of the conferences and writing workshops where Hallie has presented writing workshops:

• Aspen Writers
• Willamette Writers
• Mystery Writers of America University
• Midwest Writers
• Florida Writers
• Cape Cod Writing Center
• BEA Writers Digest
• Surrey International Writers
• Pennwriters

Workshops topics that I've taught in the past, and that are available in 1-hour to days-long format, include:

• How to Write a Killer Mystery
  You know you’re reading a great mystery novel when you’re up at three in the morning, unable to put it down. When you finally get to sleep, the characters go romping around in your dreams. You get to the final page and smack yourself in the head because the solution is a complete surprise, and yet so obvious in retrospect. So how do you write a great mystery? This workshop demystifies the art and artifice, and gets down to the nuts and bolts of writing a killer mystery novel.
• Giving Your Manuscript a Do-Over: Fly-high, Fly-low Revision
  So you've finished the first draft of your novel and you're ready to revise. Where to begin? This workshop steps you through a revision process. Find out what's not working and fix it, what's working and don't mess with it. We start with how to hear criticism and translate comments into changes, then work our way from large issues (restructuring story, character, pacing) to small (polishing scenes and sentences) through analysis, leapfrog read-throughs, and multiple-pass rewrites.

• Twisting a Mystery Plot: The Secret's in the Secrets

  
  Probably the most important element of a mystery novel is the plot. This workshop covers ideas and where to find them, translating an idea into a premise, the shape of a plot, and the role of characters. Most importantly, how the revelation of surprising but thoroughly credible secrets fuel a mystery, and address the problem of the "mushy middle."

• Ready, Set, Go: Investigation, Suspense, and Action

  
  Investigation, suspense, and action: these are essential elements of any crime fiction novel. Each requires a different writing approach. Through analysis of examples and hands-on writing exercises, this workshop shows you how to turn your story into a page-turner.

• Creating Memorable Characters

  
  Where do these people come from? This hands-on workshop steps you through a process of noodling up compelling characters, writing that first turn on the stage, showing quirks and hiding secrets, creating a voice and writing dialogue, naming names...and so on.
• Point of View: What's the Big Deal?
  Point of view -- you don't even know what it is until you start trying to write fiction. Then the questions start. Whose story is this? First person or third? Can I use omniscient? What about multiple points of view? How to handle point-of-view shifts? How to keep the point of view from sliding all over the place? How does POV relate to narrative voice? This workshop explores answers to all these questions and more.
• Say What? The Art of Writing Dialogue
  How to write authentic, convincing dialogue that reveals character; mixing it up using action and dialogue in partnership to show emotion; with forays into dialect and when to summarize instead
• Layering in the Back Story

  How do you show the reader your character's past without bogging down the novel? A strategy for revealing layers of back story so that they enhance and deepen the storytelling; avoiding the 'back story dump.'

• Or… any of the topics in Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock'Em Dead with Style