October 20 – 23, 2022

Pasadena, CA

Writing Scary

Best-selling author and veteran editor Philip Athans, author of Writing Monsters (Writer’s Digest Books, 2014) and The Guide to Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction (Adams Media 2010), gets into some hands-on techniques for using wordplay to build suspense, evoke fear, and thrill your readers with a satisfyingly good scare. We’ll look at how people read and how to use that to the best effect. Recommended for authors in any genre that depends on at least the occasional scare: horror, thriller, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.

Reading, breathing, and the long sentence.
Fear, panic, and the short sentence.
Staging the reveal, or: What to show when.
Using punctuation for shock and awe.
Examples from some of the scariest authors on the planet.