Live Online via Google Meet
Our Author Events Academy Masterclasses are practical, welcoming online sessions designed to support writers at every stage of their writing journey.
Each masterclass focuses on a specific topic, led by an experienced author or publishing professional, sharing practical advice, real-world experience and techniques you can apply immediately to your own writing.
Running online allows writers from anywhere in the UK to join us, ask questions, and take part in a friendly, interactive session from the comfort of home.
Schedule
10:30am – Join the Google Meet & informal introductions
10:45am – Workshop begins
12:00pm – Live Q&A
12:15pm – Final questions & close
A Google Meet joining link will be emailed to all attendees a few days before the workshop.
Saturday 26 September 2026
So You Want to Write a Psychological Thriller?
with Alex Stone
Love psychological thrillers and wondering how to write one of your own?
Join bestselling psychological thriller author Alex Stone for a practical, interactive online masterclass exploring the ingredients that turn an initial idea into a story filled with uncertainty, secrets and suspense.
Whether you already have the beginnings of a novel or simply know that you’d love to try writing a psychological thriller, this session will help you understand what makes the genre work — and give you a framework for developing your own story.
Rather than trying to plot an entire novel in two hours, we’ll concentrate on the foundations: your central idea, your character, what they want, what threatens them, what they’re hiding and what is at stake.
Through a mixture of teaching, examples and guided exercises, you’ll begin building a psychological-thriller concept you can continue developing after the session.
What we’ll explore
- What makes a psychological thriller different from other crime and thriller fiction
- Finding story ideas and developing the “What if?”
- Creating a protagonist readers want to follow
- Giving your character a clear desire
- Finding the threat that puts pressure on this particular character
- Using secrets to create vulnerability and conflict
- Raising the personal stakes
- Creating uncertainty
- Understanding how uncertainty and stakes generate suspense
- Bringing the different elements together into the foundations of your own psychological thriller
Perfect for: This masterclass is suitable for new and developing fiction writers, including anyone who:
- has an idea for a psychological thriller but isn’t sure how to develop it;
- would like to try writing in the genre for the first time;
- has started a novel but feels the central idea needs strengthening; or
- simply wants to understand more about how psychological thrillers are constructed.
You do not need to have a completed story idea or manuscript before attending.
