From Curtis Winkle’s (Executive Director at Tate Publishing) blog, there’s a terrific article to read, written by Meghan Barnes, about creating suspense in your story.  Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in writing suspenseful tales.  You can find the entry here: http://tatepublishingeditors.blogspot.com/2008/10/building-suspense-by-meghan-barnes.html

From the "bonus" section of the entry, we’ve created a little writing exercise for you to enjoy.  Have fun!

Write a scene where your character(s) have to endure a primal fear, such as darkness, the basement, etc.

Write a paragraph or two that shows the character’s internal struggle between sanity and madness.  Better yet, a few paragraphs where the character is oblivious to the changes but an interacting character questions the other’s sanity or lack thereof.

For our workshop attendees, if you chose to rise to the challenge, why not bring in your completed exercise and share it with us?