Stuck On a Scene for The Trine
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Written by Kodi Wolf at 3:30 AM
I've been doing a ton of research for The Trine, reading books about hackers for the character Robyn and interviewing a detective friend of my wife's for the character Karen, as well as reading more books about police procedure and forensics. It's all been very interesting, not to mention useful, since part of a scene I had initially envisioned was completely wrong where police procedure was concerned.
But now I find myself really stuck on a fight scene. It involves a mutant dog pack attacking one of my main characters and her mother. They both have superhuman strength and are masters in multiple martial arts, but they've been caught without armor or weapons and one of them has just been injured, making her slightly disabled.
For some reason, I just cannot figure out how to write this scene. Everything I come up with sounds overly detailed, so that the time flow of the scene is ridiculously drawn out, when it should happen in what feels like just a minute or two (maybe less). Yes, I could write it in such a way that having it feel drawn out works, but that's not how I want the scene to flow. I want it to be BAM, BAM, BAM! (Great, now I sound like a Flintstones character; at least Bamm-Bamm was my favorite, after Dino.) I want the reader to feel the same sense of suddenness that the characters do, with no time to think, just react.
I've considered doing a cheat, where the main character blacks out and misses the action and just wakes up to the results, but I don't think I really want to go that route.
I've also thought about leaving it and writing the scenes that come after, but this really is a pivotal scene for the main character and I feel like the following scenes sort of hang off this one; whatever momentum or tone that I end up with at the end of the fight scene will directly lead into those next few scenes. I need to know how that scene plays out before I can really continue with the next ones.
I guess my biggest problem is that I'm having a hard time actually visualizing the attack/fight. I have multiple ways it could go... Okay, I just wrote a long-ass paragraph that was far too detailed. I'm trying to talk about this without giving serious spoilers for a story that hasn't even been posted yet.
So anyway, I think I need to do a search for dog attack videos. I've already researched techniques for stopping a dog attack, which was useful, but I think I need to see something in action, and the movies I have that show dog attacks (Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction, True Lies) either don't show multiple dogs going after a single prey or they don't look very realistic regarding dog behavior... Hey, maybe I should search for wolves taking down prey. That might get me better results.
Here's hoping.
...A little while later...
Well, it's National Geographic and YouTube to the rescue. I found a really cool clip showing how different dogs attack. I just wish it had shown how they might behave as part of a group. That seems to be something I can't find. Well, I have found several videos that show multiple wolves hunting and taking down prey, but it always seems to take place as part of a long chase or pacing next to the prey until it becomes too weak to continue, and that's not the same as an immediate direct attack.
Oh well. I think I'm going to give this a rest. I've been sick since I woke up Sunday afternoon, and though I was feeling better enough today to be up at the computer again, I'm still pretty washed out. It kinda sucks, since I was sort of looking forward to maybe going out to dinner with my wife tomorrow, since it's my birthday, but I think we're going to push that to Saturday (not Sunday, since everyone will probably be out for Valentine's Day, and I hate crowds).
Later.
