I have a blog-related dilemma coming up. In September I\u2019m going back to school, to poetry school, to be exact for a masters degree in poetry. (Very exciting!) I\u2019m also going to continue writing my books, and I\u2019m worrying about time, particularly having time for the blog, which I don\u2019t want to give up. What I love most is reading your comments; I\u2019d feel deprived without them. So I\u2019ve thought of three possibilities, and I\u2019d 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\u2019d welcome other ideas. What do you think?<\/p>\n
Onto today\u2019s 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\u2019s 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?<\/i><\/p>\n
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. \ud83d\ude42 Hope this helps!<\/i><\/p>\n
And I pointed out that I\u2019d written a related post, which anyof you can find by clicking on the “showing feelings” label.<\/p>\n
I like Michelle Dyck\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
So how can we achieve variety in a scene with repetitive action, particularly a chase? What do we have to work with?<\/p>\n
\u2022 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\u2019s not human and her skin color changes when she\u2019s scared.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Senses. Her can be heightened. She\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u2022 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\u2019t the time for her to think in complete paragraphs. If she\u2019s telepathic, her thoughts may be muddled with the thoughts of her pursuer.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Speech. When I\u2019m 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, \u201cFaster. Faster. Don\u2019t give up. You can do it. Do it.\u201d And so on. It doesn\u2019t occur to her that she\u2019s wasting energy by talking.<\/p>\n
\u2022 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.<\/p>\n
We can also mix things up by having her think she\u2019s gotten away. She\u2019s run into an alley and is crouching behind a dumpster, wondering how long she has to stay there before it\u2019s 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\u2019s off, running.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s connected to the chase?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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\u2019s in an enclosed space with him. A rowboat isn\u2019t exactly a fast getaway vehicle. And so on. <\/p>\n
The setting of a chase can lend interest, too. If our MC is running across a vast prairie, we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n
Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Your MC, Holly Run-Lightly, is being pursued by your villain\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Holly is being chased at a roller skating rink. She doesn\u2019t have time to unlace her skates. Write the scene.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Mary is trying to get away from the lamb who follows her everywhere. Write the chase.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tell Alice’s pursuit of the White Rabbit from his POV. <\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a blog-related dilemma coming up. In September I\u2019m going back to school, to poetry school, to be exact for a masters degree in poetry. (Very exciting!) I\u2019m also going to continue writing my books, and I\u2019m worrying about time, particularly having time for the blog, which I don\u2019t want to give up. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[64,65],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}