I have a blog-related dilemma coming up. In September I’m going back to school, to poetry school, to be exact for a masters degree in poetry. (Very exciting!) I’m also going to continue writing my books, and I’m worrying about time, particularly having time for the blog, which I don’t want to give up. What I love most is reading your comments; I’d feel deprived without them. So I’ve thought of three possibilities, and I’d like feedback. One would be to post every other week. Another would be to write a post and break it in two, half posted every week. A third would be short posts every week with only one prompt, or two at the most. I’d welcome other ideas. What do you think?

Onto today’s post. On June 27, 2013, Tiki Armsford wrote, One of the scenarios that I have the hardest time writing is chase scenes, particularly the ones where there’s a lot of running. There are only so many times I can write, ‘her heart was pounding’ before it gets repetitive (usually once). Do you have any advice to help keep people from getting into this rut? Any words on writing scenes that could easily get repetitious?

Michelle Dyck weighed in with: Some of that repetition you may not need at all. Only a few mentions of a pounding heart, burning lungs, or aching calves may be all you need to immerse the reader in the chase scene. Of course, you want to put in enough of that kind of detail so that the reader doesn’t forget what the character is feeling… Stuff like ‘her heart was pounding’ is, unfortunately, used a lot. (I’ll admit I use it too!) But if you can, at key moments, find a new way to say it — delightful! Maybe liken that pounding heart to a thrashing animal trying to get out. Or instead of saying that her lungs are burning, write that they’re straining, expanding, hungry for air. Just so you know, you’re not alone in this! Repetitious scenes are tricky, and I’m sure most of us have had trouble with them before. 🙂 Hope this helps!

And I pointed out that I’d written a related post, which anyof you can find by clicking on the “showing feelings” label.

I like Michelle Dyck’s idea of using metaphor to get to the feeling in an interesting way. As our MC runs she can become in her mind a hunted creature, and she can describe herself as one, a mouse, a rabbit, even a cockroach.

So how can we achieve variety in a scene with repetitive action, particularly a chase? What do we have to work with?

• Feelings. This is where the pounding heart comes in and the other physical manifestations Michelle Dyck mentions. My old post may come in handy here for more ideas. If our MC happens to be nonhuman or more than human there may be other feelings we can mention. For example, if she happens to be super empathic, we can use that. Does it make her legs tremble as she runs? Is her mind clouded? Or maybe she’s not human and her skin color changes when she’s scared.

• Senses. Her can be heightened. She’s more than usually aware of shadows. Her hearing is unusually sharp; her panting sounds explosive, but she still hears pebbles rattling behind her. She smells the slightest odors on the wind.

• Thoughts. What might our MC be thinking? Maybe about where to go next, what to do next, why her pursuer is after her, how to stop him, what she can use to fight him. We can reflect the desperation of a chase in rushed thoughts or thought fragments, because this isn’t the time for her to think in complete paragraphs. If she’s telepathic, her thoughts may be muddled with the thoughts of her pursuer.

• Speech. When I’m scared I talk to myself out loud. She can do this too. She can have a running internal conversation going that she may not even be conscious of. She can give herself directions, like, “Faster. Faster. Don’t give up. You can do it. Do it.” And so on. It doesn’t occur to her that she’s wasting energy by talking.

• Appearance. She can give us hints of this in her thoughts: that her lip is bleeding, her scarf is streaming out behind her and what if it catches on something, her jacket is torn, people are staring.

We can also mix things up by having her think she’s gotten away. She’s run into an alley and is crouching behind a dumpster, wondering how long she has to stay there before it’s safe to leave. Her thoughts and her breathing slow down. She thinks about telling the story of her great escape to her friends when she hears the pebbles again, and she’s off, running.

She can appeal for aid from a stranger or from someone she knows. Another character will introduce new interest. Can the new character be trusted? Is she well-meaning but useless? Does she just happen to be on the scene, or for good or ill, is she there for some reason that’s connected to the chase?

It’s also nice if we can vary the transportation she uses in her attempt to get away. She can commandeer a bike, get on a bus, jump into the back of a truck, launch herself in a rowboat or even swim. All these will mix it up, and they can introduce new problems. Whose bike is it? If the pursuer gets on the bus, too, she’s in an enclosed space with him. A rowboat isn’t exactly a fast getaway vehicle. And so on.

The setting of a chase can lend interest, too. If our MC is running across a vast prairie, we’re going to have to work to break things up, maybe with a haystack, a grain silo, an irrigation ditch – not a lot. But put her in a mall, for example, and the opportunities multiply. Of course, we may not want to give her a lot of options. We may want her to run until she collapses.

Here are four prompts:

• Your MC, Holly Run-Lightly, is being pursued by your villain’s private security squad. Include three modes of transportation in your chase, one of which can be running. Write the scene. If you like, write the circumstances that led to the chase and the story that follows.

• Holly is being chased at a roller skating rink. She doesn’t have time to unlace her skates. Write the scene.

• Mary is trying to get away from the lamb who follows her everywhere. Write the chase.

• Tell Alice’s pursuit of the White Rabbit from his POV.

Have fun, and save what you write!