Short course
How to Write Compulsive Fiction: Tension and Suspense
Course status:
Applications being accepted
Dates and time:
19/01/2027 - 23/03/202719:00 - 21:00
Study format:
In-person weekly
Fees:
£315.00
Whether you're writing a psychological thriller, crime novel, or literary fiction with a strong sense of suspense, this course will show you how to keep readers turning the page. You'll learn how to craft irresistible openings, build compelling characters, create tension in every scene, and use setting, pacing, and carefully withheld information to keep readers guessing. We'll also explore how outlining and revision can transform a promising draft into a truly compulsive novel. Each week we'll discuss techniques used by bestselling suspense writers before putting them into practice through focused writing exercises and supportive workshops. Suitable for both beginners and intermediate writers, this course is for anyone who wants to make their fiction more immersive and unputdownable.
Book this course
Book your place online using the button below.
Course starts Tuesday 19 January 2027
This is an in-person course which requires your attendance at the weekly meetings in Oxford on Tuesdays, 7.00-9.00pm.
Week 1: Writing Tense Scenes: Conflict, fraught conversations, entering scenes late, leaving early, and ending every scene with a new question.
Week 2: Compelling Openings: How to hook the reader with “iceberg sentences,” voice, specific detail, and judicious back story.
Week 3: Characters Under Pressure: Why character goals matter so much, and how to raise the stakes. Why the most intriguing characters are driven by desires they can’t fully control.
Week 4: Something is Wrong: Creating unease through jarring details, other people’s behavior, and even a character’s own thoughts.
Week 5: The Secrets You Keep: Withholding information, planting clues, foreshadowing, red herrings, and earned twists.
Week 6: Time and Place: Using setting to create tension, then manipulating chronology with flashbacks, time compression and ticking clocks.
Week 7: Building a Compulsive Plot: Outlining a suspenseful story, but leaving just enough fuzziness to allow you to surprise yourself when you write.
Week 8: Voice, Point of View, and Unreliable Narrators: How point of view allows you to control what the reader knows and when. How to use an unreliable narrator or multiple points of view to jack up tension.
Week 9: Anxiety and Fear on the Page: How to convey character emotion without cliché, melodrama or repetition. How to use a character’s fear and anxiety to keep the reader hooked.
Week 10: Revising for Suspense: A practical revision process that tightens every page, strengthens tension, and transforms a solid draft into a page-turner.
Course aims
This course aims to introduce the fundamental elements of suspense to new and intermediate writers and to enable them to use these concepts in creative practice.
Course objectives
1. To encourage students to use suspense-building techniques in their creative writing
2. To help students identify why and how an author creates suspense
3. To encourage participation in discussion and debates about writing.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course students can expect to:
1. Understand the techniques that create suspense in fiction
2. Be confident in experimenting with these techniques in their own writing
3. Complete a piece of original work.
Level and demands
The Department’s Weekly Classes are taught at FHEQ Level 4, ie first year undergraduate level, and you will be expected to engage in a significant amount of private study in preparation for the classes. This may take the form, for instance, of reading and analysing set texts, responding to questions or tasks, or preparing work to present in class.
Teaching methods
Each class comprises a short talk on an aspect of writing craft or process, a discussion of a set text, and a workshop of student writing. The workshop has an atmosphere of friendly encouragement rather than critique. It’s a way for students to learn by writing, and by engaging with their peers’ work. Students receive a weekly reading and writing assignment.
Assessment methods
Only those students who have registered for assessment and accreditation, in advance of the course start date, can submit coursework/assignments for assessment.
Assessment
You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.
Ms Helena Echlin
Helena Echlin is the author of the psychological thriller, Clever Little Thing (2025). She taught fiction-writing for Stanford University in California and has written for many publications such as the Guardian and the Times.
Academic credit
Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme (CATS Points)
Please note, students who do not register for assessment and accreditation during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun. If you wish to gain credit from completing this course you must register to do so before the course starts.
Only those who have registered for assessment and accreditation will be awarded CATS points for completing work to the required standard. Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.
Learn more about the Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme.
If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee for assessment and accreditation.
Digital certificate of completion
Students who are registered for assessment and accreditation and pass their final assignment will also be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Information on how to access the digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course attended. You will be able to download the certificate and share it on social media if you choose to do so.
Fees
| Description | Costs |
|---|---|
| Course fee (with no assessment) | £315.00 |
| Assessment and Accreditation fee | £60.00 |
Funding
If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, or are a care-leaver in the UK, you may be eligible for a reduction of up to 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:
Concessionary fees for short courses
Recommended reading
Recommended reading is optional and you are not required to purchase these books to study this course.
Library facilities
All weekly class students may become borrowing members of the Rewley House Library, part of the Bodleian Libraries, for the duration of their course. Prospective students whose courses have not yet started are also welcome to use the Library for reference.
- More information about the Library can be found on the Bodleian Libraries website.
- This guide for Weekly Class students also provides further information.
Preparatory reading
- The Push / Audrain, Ashley
- None of This is True / Jewell, Lisa
Module code: O26P483CRW
How to enrol
Please use the ‘Book now’ button on this page.
How to register for accreditation and assessment
To be able to submit coursework and to earn credit (CATS points) for this course, if you wish to do so, you will need to register and pay an additional £60 fee. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online.
Students who do not register for CATS points during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun.
If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.
