Basic Instinct – Writing Crime & Thrillers with Poppy Gee

Helpful tips, tricks and tools for the emerging crime writers' toolbox.

This workshop will help writers prepare their blurb, hook, character arcs, twists and reveals, satisfying climax, setting, and other techniques. Attendees will leave having made solid, tangible work on their work-in-progress or new project and with a clear sense of what they need to do next.

Learning outcomes

As part of this workshop, participants will learn more about:

• Creating a rough draft of a blurb
• Drafting a good outline of both a protagonist and an antagonist
• Getting an idea of what your Major Dramatic Question is
• Notes on the ending
• Layering as a helpful technique for plotters and pansters
• Twists versus Reveals
• Gathering ideas
• How to perfect your pacing.

Format

This is an in-person workshop with a focus on writing craft; it will be held at State Library of Queensland. This workshop is suitable for writers of all levels and writing backgrounds.

About Poppy

Poppy Gee is a Brisbane based writer, with two internationally published crime novels: Bay of Fires (Little Brown, Headline Review, Hachette Australia, 2013) and Vanishing Falls (Harper Collins USA, and Booktopia Edtions, 2020). Poppy sits on the board of the Terror Australis Reader and Writer Festival in Tasmania, and is an active member of Brisbane's crime writing community. She has a background in newspaper and magazine journalism, has worked as a subeditor on the Courier Mail and Girlfriend magazine, and taught journalism at QUT. Poppy is represented by Julia Kenny at DCL Literary Agency New York and is currently working on her third novel.

For more information about Queensland Writers Centre’s Program of Events and answers to FAQs, please visit: www.queenslandwriters.org.au/program-info