How to Plan a Murder with William Ryan
Info
Date: November 8, 2025
Time: 10.30 am – 4.30 pm
Duration: 1 day
Level: Intermediate |
Cost: €100 (€90 Members)
In Person:
This course will take place online on Saturday 8 Nov 2025.
Course Summary
This one-day crime novel workshop is aimed at writers who have either completed their novel or are working on a first draft, as well as beginners who hope to turn a promising idea into something more. It will focus on developing a victim, a group of suspects and a detective. It will then use the cast of characters to create a story with a beginning a middle and an end and investigate narrating perspectives, opening scenes, challenges and obstacles, tension, conflict and momentum
There will be a one hour break for lunch.
Course Outline
Breakout session 1: Developing the victim. How were they murdered? Why were they murdered? Who do they appear to be? Who are they really? Establishing motives for the crime.
Breakout session 2: Developing the suspects. Creating a dramatic world around the victim and populating it. Who do they appear to be? Who are they really? Are they honest or dishonest? What are their conflicts with the victim and the other suspects?
Session 3: Developing the detective. Why is this crime important to them? What is their in their backstory that connects them to the crime? Who do they appear to be? Who are they really? Are they a lone wolf or a team player?
Sessions 4 onwards: Developing the story – introducing the characters and setting, creating lines of investigation, establishing challenges and obstacles for the detective, using narrating points of view to create tension, false endings and midpoint moments, inciting incidents, twists and turns, narrowing down the suspects, building to the climax.
Course Outcomes
The tools to create their own crime novel or to develop one that is already written
William Ryan is the author of six novels, including the Moscow Noir series set in 1930s Russia, The Constant Soldier, A House of Ghosts and The Winter Guest. His books have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and the Crime Writer Association’s Gold, Steel, Historical and New Blood Daggers. He has also lectured in creative writing at the University of East Anglia and City University.
