Live online weekend workshop. | Join from anywhere in the world. | Two half-days across Saturday & Sunday 21–22 March 2026.

Join a fun-filled hands-on online workshop exploring how to balance suspense, secrets, and clues in fiction, with cunning techniques from thrillers, mysteries, and crime fiction.

How do you tell a story when everything that's happened is a secret? In thrillers, mysteries, and crime fiction, that's exactly what we need to do. And when we bring those elements of mystery and crime into our stories, those are the genres we need to borrow skills from.

The Unravelling Secrets workshop will explore how to structure a story around secrets, red herrings, and hidden clues, while keeping the suspense high. Across two half-days, you'll develop a deeper understanding of all three genres, enrich your own story (a new story created in the workshop OR your own work in progress), and map it out, balancing the different levels of secrets, to keep the reader eagerly guessing all the way to the thrilling final reveal.

All in a joyous supportive atmosphere, brimming with laughter, discovery, and hands-on creation.

When, where, and what

• Live workshop, with lively discussion, group activities, and individual eager scribbling
• 21–22 March 2026 10am–12:30pm UK time. (Jump to What time is that for me?)
• Online, open to bookings from anywhere in the world
• £100 total total for the weekend (Currency converter).
• Maximum 16 students
• All levels welcome: all my courses and workshops cater for a range of experience, from beginners to published writers
• Booking deadline: End of Thursday 19 March 2026.

Practical questions

What's an online workshop like? Very lively! It's held on Zoom, and packed with activities, games, discussion, and snippets of writing. For games and discussions, you're in small groups of 2–4. In the breaks and between the two days, I switch the groups around so you get a chance to work with and meet everyone.

Do I need to have a story I'm working on? Nope. If you do, you can work on it in the workshop. If you don't, you'll create a story through the workshop.

Do I need to be writing a thriller / mystery / detective fiction? Not at all: managing clues, red herrings, and reveals crops up in all sorts of stories. They're the stock in trade of those three genres, which is why we learn from them to apply the principles more widely. That said, within the workshop, you might want to create a practice story so you can try out all the prnciples, then later apply those to your own story.

Do I have to share my writing? Absolutely not. In the round-off discussions, you have the chance to say how you found a particular exercise or to share what you wrote, and you can choose whichever option you're comfortable with.

Will there be a replay? No: this is a live workshop only.

Will we get notes? Yes: you'll get a booklet in the post, with everything we've covered in the workshop, and you'll also get a PDF copy of that by email immediately after the workshop.

What time does the workshop start for me?

Each half of the workshop is 2.5 hours long, with a break in the middle. Check for your time zone in the table below, for the start time.