Orlando Word Lab

This is a writing workshop that meets on the 4th Wednesday of every month at the Winter Park Library. We focus on learning a new technique or method each month. A guest speaker will share a sample of their work and then give a writing prompt for everyone to follow.

We'll all write for 30 minutes, and then share our work with others, and receive helpful suggestions about what to improve. Bring your laptops, tablets, a notebook and pen, and a willingness to learn.

This month, Ken Pelham will teach us about Great Danger: A Writer’s Guide to Building Suspense.

Why do some novels keep you on the edge of your seat, flipping pages as fast as you can read them, while others you trudge through, hoping it’ll end soon? What is it about the page-turner?

In a word, suspense. The author entices you, hooks you, and lands you. But how? It’s not by accident. Learn the tips, tricks, and techniques of building and maintaining suspense and of keeping your readers up long into the night. Based on Ken's nonfiction guide, GREAT DANGER: A WRITER’S GUIDE TO BUILDING SUSPENSE.

Ken Pelham has won eleven Royal Palm Literary Awards in both fiction and nonfiction. A member of International Thriller Writers, his novels Brigands Key and Place of Fear both won first-place RPLAs. His nonfiction book, Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A Writer’s Guide to Mastering Viewpoint, was named Royal Palm 2015 Published Book of the Year, and his book exploring the evolution of genre fiction, Gumshoes, Fangs, Rockets, & Spies, won the 2021 RPLA Gold for History.
Ken lives in Maitland, Florida, and is president of Florida Writers Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to expanding literacy in the state.