Workshop Title: Adding Tension to Your Work
No matter the genre, tension is the driving force that keeps readers hooked and turning pages. In this session, Michele will share practical strategies to heighten tension in your writing, helping you create stories that captivate and leave readers wanting more.
How do we create these tensions that add action and spice to our stories? Michele explains, “The way I’ve found–both in working with reporters in journalism and as an author myself–is to ask: ‘What If’? At any spot in your story, your characters will have opportunities to change their realities and shift their responses, and this is where you can examine the ‘What if…’ and bring in a nail-biter.”
Bio:
Michele Drier is a fifth generation Californian. During her career in journalism at daily newspapers in California, she won awards for investigative series. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, a Sisters in Crime chapter; the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime; current president of NorCal Sisters in Crime, co-chaired Bouchercon 2020, the world’s oldest and largest convention for mystery fans and authors and is the co-chair for Left Coast Crime in San Francisco in 2026.
Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.
Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG includes: SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, PLAGUE: A Love Story, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, (Best paranormal book 2013, PRG reviewers); SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Nights, SNAP; All That Jazz ( best paranormal vampire book of 2014, PRG reviewers), SNAP: I, Vampire, SNAP: Red Bear Rising, SNAP: Pandemic Games. She’s currently working on the twelfth book in the series.
Her new series is the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul, Tapestry of Tears, and Resurrection of the Roses.
She lives in Sacramento with her cat, Malley.
Visit her webpage, www.MicheleDrier.me
Or her Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleDrier
Or find her on her author page at http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G/
Meeting on Saturday, April 19, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield