HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER A crime-writing workshop

From the author of The Only Way Out is Death comes an exclusive crime writing workshop where participants will have a chance to build their very own whodunit. Join us at the beautiful KMC Cafe for an evening of writing, murder and coffee. Chat with Varun Gwalani about creating nail-biting mysteries and a fast-paced plot as he unravels the mysterious formula. All we need you to bring is your creativity and curiosity.

Oh, and don't forget to pick up a free copy of the book and a cuppa on the house included in your event pass!

The aim of this workshop is to educate budding writers in the genres of crime, murder mystery and thriller. Author Varun Gwalani’s newest and biggest release, The Only Way Out is Death, is the ideal amalgamation of these genres and all the elements that are expected from them: red herrings, misdirection's, clues hidden in plain sight, suspicious characters. But it takes a certain quality to take a crime novel from the expected to the unpredictable—and that will be the prime focus of this workshop.

Outline:

1. Varun Gwalani introduces himself and the book. He can give a short synopsis of the book.

2. What makes the perfect murder mystery? (Discuss the elements that are essential to crime fiction.)

3. How to create individualistic characters—especially when there are a number of them—that are fitting for crime and thriller, and shed an equal amount of focus on each of them? (Discuss the “innocent until proven guilty” angle, how to share just enough about the characters that ties them to the murder mystery, without revealing all.)

4. Challenges that one might face while writing morally grey/ambiguous characters.

5. How to sustain the mystery until the very last page, while still leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind for the readers to connect the dots and for the ending to make perfect sense? (Discuss restraint, obvious clues, red herrings, the tendency to believe an answer is too-good-to-be-true amongst readers.) 6. What is it about crime fiction that appeals to people?

7. Crime fiction is all the rage now, across literature and multimedia platforms. How does one infuse originality in their work while still maintaining the things audiences love about this genre?

8. What kind of research goes into creating the perfect—fictional—crime? Does creative/artistic liberty have any space in this genre?