Genre Workshop: Write a Thriller with Roger Boylan

THE DATE OF THIS WORKSHOP HAS NOW PASSED. REGISTRATION IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

Purchase price includes an online processing fee of approximately 4%.  Refunds are given only in the event of class cancellation.  Please purchase carefully.

Workshop: Write a Thriller with Roger Boylan

Date: Saturday, Sept. 10 from 1 – 4 p.m.

In this 3-hr. workshop, you will learn practical, focused ways to structure a thriller. You will analyze how to organize your thriller’s structure, and what to leave in—and what to take out. Participants must bring at least a synopsis draft of a proposed thriller, which will be discussed but not critiqued. Featured will be excerpts from the films The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935) and The Bourne Identity (2004), archetypal thrillers from their respective eras. Students will comment on what changed in the genre between 1935 and 2004, and what stayed the same. What stayed the same is what a good thriller must have. Excerpts from the novels will be read and discussed in conjunction with the film excerpts.

Topics will include:

•Prioritizing: Plot or characters first?

•Analyzing the basic elements of a thriller

•Elements of suspense

•Coming up with the “first-page hook”

Who should attend:

•Writers who are just starting a thriller

•Writers who have completed most of a thriller but need a reality check

•Whoever has an idea for a thriller but is uncertain how to proceed

Roger Boylan is an ex-New Yorker who lived in Europe for many years. His novel Killoyle is published by Dalkey Archive Press. Harvey Pekar called it “among the most impressive novels written by an American in recent years.” Boylan’s second novel, The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad, published by Grove Press, is a satirical thriller that the Village Voice compared favorably with the work of James Joyce. German versions of both novels have been critically and commercially successful. The third volume in the Killoyle trilogy, The Maladjusted Terrorist, was published in Germany in 2006 and again in 2007. Boylan’s latest novel, The Adorations, deals with historical and religious themes, and is forthcoming. Boylan is a regular contributor to Boston Review, and his stories and articles have appeared in many journals and reviews, including The New York Times, The Economist, The Literary Review, The Recorder, The Texas Observer, and the Austin American-Statesman. Boylan is an online lecturer in creative writing at Western Connecticut State University. He lives in San Marcos.