The Mystery Makers:
a series of mystery-writing workshops
by Carol Pouliot, Tina deBellegarde, Lida Sideris, and Jen Collins Moore
When: February 7, 14, 21, and 28 (2024)
6:00pm-7:30pm (UK)
Where: Zoom
Cost: 100 GBP
Session 1: Carol Pouliot – Introduction
What’s so great about Agatha Christie? Learn the tricks of the trade used by the best-selling mystery writer of all time.
How did Agatha do it? With clever plots, carefully planted clues, and plenty of twists and turns, Agatha Christie’s books stand the test of time. Carol Pouliot breaks down the decisions mystery writers make about character, setting, and plot using passages from some of Christie’s most celebrated books. (Spoiler alert: Carol will discuss the solutions to the following: The Hollow, And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.)
Session 2: Tina deBellegarde – Settings
Settings and Micro-settings: How to use setting to do some heavy lifting in your writing.
Setting is not just about where you choose to place your story. Every scene has a micro-setting which can be used to influence mood, increase or relieve tension, and flesh out a character. With Tina deBellegarde you will investigate how each scene in your story can be an opportunity to build and enrich your big picture setting and support your character development.
Session 3: Lida Sideris – Characters
Getting into Character: Breathing Life into Fictional Sleuths, Sidekicks and Villains.
Poirot, Bosch, Millhone and Plum – what makes these characters so memorable? This workshop with Lida Sideris will provide the groundwork for developing engaging heroes, heroines, suspects and a supporting cast that readers can love, hate and even relate to. Learn why character conflict, interaction, reaction and relationships are essential to creating an intriguing mystery.
Session 4: Jen Collins Moore – Plots
Tension, Clues & Red Herrings: How to structure a mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page
Great mysteries are puzzles for the reader to untangle. Join Jen Collins Moore as she explains her step-by-step method for plotting stories that work. This interactive workshop includes activities to break your mystery into its key elements and tips for getting the pacing, structure, and stakes just right.
Jen Collins Moore transports readers to Rome in the captivating Roman Holiday Mysteries, most recently Murder in Trastevere. Her short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly and Masthead: The Best New England Crime Stories. She is president of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland and a founding member of Sleuths & Sidekicks. A transplanted New Englander, she lives in Chicago with her husband and two boys.
Tina deBellegarde writes the Batavia-on-Hudson Mysteries for which she has received two Agatha Award nominations. Her story “Tokyo Stranger,” from the 2021 Mystery Writers of America anthology, was nominated for a Derringer Award. Reviewers have called Tina “the Louise Penny of the Catskills.” Tina co-chairs the annual Murderous March conference. She is a founding member of Sleuths & Sidekicks, a team of four authors who blog together, tour virtually, and teach writing workshops online. Tina reviews books for BooksOnAsia.net and travels to Japan regularly to visit her son and to do research.
Carol Pouliot writes the acclaimed Blackwell and Watson Time-Travel Mysteries, traditional police procedurals with a time-travel twist and a seemingly impossible relationship between a Depression-era cop and a 21st-century journalist. With their fast pace and unexpected twists and turns, the books have earned praise from readers and mystery authors alike. Carol is a founding member of Sleuths and Sidekicks and Co-chair of the (online) Murderous March Mystery Conference.
Lida Sideris is the author of the Southern California Mysteries, a light-hearted series loosely based on her former life working as an entertainment attorney for a movie studio…except without the homicides. She is a 2x Killer Nashville, Silver Falchion Award finalist as well as a recipient of the Helen McCloy Mystery Writers of America Scholarship award. A founding member of Sleuths & Sidekicks, Lida lives in the northern tip of Southern California with her family, rescue dogs, and a flock of uppity chickens.