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I loved writing the tense chase and action sequences in Dig Down. To me, this was one of the key ingredients that made the story stand out among all the other stories out there. A lot of books have glossed over scenes containing combat. I remember when I read Lord of the Rings epic battles were boiled down into an overview of how the battle was progressing with a few moments sprinkled in where the main characters felled some orcs. Other novels I’ve read that are even categorized as action have hand to hand conflicts resolved very quickly.

I don’t mean this as a critique on these other books. Lord of the Rings had deeper themes it focused on, and the trilogy is a masterpiece for it. Those action books that I read usually had an intriguing plot, whether it was unraveling a cover up or getting entwined in some conspiracy, and the action scenes were sprinkled in there to keep the reader engaged. All I mean is that I noticed that if I focused on putting Rob Moore in dire straits constantly, my story would stand out in the marketplace.

As I wrote last week, I wanted to put my main character through the ringer as he was running for his life. If there was something that would make his life even harder, I threw it at him. I absolutely believe it was the right call for this type of story, but as I was writing it, I came to appreciate why so many other stories don’t go into the weeds like I did describing tense action sequences.

If you’re an aspiring writer who wants to write books loaded with action, be forewarned: this is extremely challenging.

At any given point, you have to be omniscient about spatial awareness among your characters. The mall sequence is a good example of this. I had to constantly know where the characters were in relation to each other and their environment. When Rob first enters the mall, I had to know the distance between him and Rocco. If Rocco was too close, how does Rob lose him in the crowd? When the sicarios enter the mall, where is Rob so that they all see each other? When Rob’s trying to evade them by following Rocco but not so closely that Rocco sees that Rob is behind him, where are they all in relation to each other, and what is keeping Rocco from turning around and seeing the man he’s after. The more creative I was with my scenes, the more I had to account for.

The same went for the suffering I put Rob through. As I also mentioned in last week’s post, I wanted the reader to feel the impact of everything that Rob went through. When I had him jump off the roof of the mall to escape the sicarios, there was repercussions for doing so. In keeping himself alive, Rob injured himself mightily. It affected not only what he did next, but his ability to move through the rest of the story.  It factored into his decision about whether to pull up into the driveway of Vicky’s house or park in a neighbor’s and walk the rest of the way because he suspected an ambush. Having the car right there would make his escape attempt quicker, but the sound of the car pulling up would tip off anyone waiting inside that he’d arrived. If he walked there, he might be able to spot the ambush before they even knew Rob was there, but if Rob was spotted, he’d then have a hard time escaping because his max speed was hobbling.

Don’t read this as a deterrent, just keep this in mind if you ever decide to venture into writing action. You’ll need to constantly keep these aspects in mind, both in setting up the tension and conflict, and in executing the scene. It’s challenging, but it can be done. And if you stick to it, you’ll find it very rewarding, your story will stand out among its peers, and it will be better for.

“I’m very sorry that this is what you have to settle for as a bed,” she said, though her face looked anything but sympathetic. At facing his initial resistance, her cheeks had started to blossom into muted reds. But now that he’d stood his ground after she had tried a second time, her whole face had turned a dark crimson.

Bruce could tell before she even got the words out that she was still going to insist that he leave.

“But I’d just really appreciate it if you could move along until we’re gone.”

Seeing him fight back a smile didn’t improve her mood in the slightest. He couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care either. It felt good, watching his predictions come true. It made him believe he could still read a situation, still forecast the results.

A sense of vindication pulsed through him, reinforcing his belief that he should’ve never been fired.

“I know you’re giving up a lot, stepping away from this park bench, but maybe it’ll give you a better perspective,” she said. Bemused, he turned to her, his silence imploring her to go on. Her eyes went wide when she realized he was putting her on the spot, waiting for her to provide more.

“You could…” she stammered for a moment, before regaining herself. “Maybe it’ll be good to stop wallowing in your own self-pity all day. Maybe you lose claim to this bench, but if you do, you’ll see it’s not that big a loss because it wasn’t that much to begin with.”

That cut deep. Bruce knew better than most of the vagrants who slept in the park how little the bench really was because he once had more than they ever did.

“Maybe you’ll see the reason you ended up on this bench was your own doing.”

That was where he drew the line.

“What could I have done differently?” he shot back at her.

“What?”

“What could I have done differently?” he repeated, more collected this time around, but his voice cooler.

“Well, I mean…I don’t…” she let her voice trail off as she glanced over her shoulder, looking to her colleagues for help. They were busy yapping with one another, still none of them intervening with the kids and the ducks.

She turned back to him. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you,” she admitted, but the way she spoke made it sound like she expected him to justify her point for her.

“That’s right, you don’t,” he said, before taking a swig of the whisky he kept in his paper bag. He frowned when he felt how light it was. Not so much an idea, but a high popped into his head. He’d gotten such a rush when he guessed correctly she’d still push for him to leave that he wanted to chase that feeling.

It was one of the few good thoughts he’d had since he’d taken up residence in the park.

“Tell you what, I’ll leave,” he saw, relishing the way she perked up before he dropped the ultimatum. “For twenty bucks.”

Her eyes dropped down to the bottle he kept in the brown paper bag. “You’ll just drink it all.”

Bruce shrugged. “What’ll you care? I’ll be gone.”

She glared at him for the longest time. He got the impression she regarded herself as a princess, expecting everything her heart desired the moment she asked for it. He almost barked out a laugh thinking she was the kind of girl he used to try to pick up in bars, drawn to that insatiable thirst of wanting, taking it up as a challenge to try to deliver their every demand for as long as he could.

When he refused to look away, she finally fished through her purse. “All I’ve got is a ten.” He snatched it from her and sprung from the bench in the same fluid motion.

Still got it.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever read about writing was to beat up your characters. The advice didn’t mean have them physically assaulted in the story. Rather, constantly throw obstacles and hurdles at them, escalating the severity of the challenges that they have to face, so that they’re constantly just able to overcome one before another is thrown at them.

I knew that I wanted Dig Down to have intense sequences where Rob was in immediate danger. The premise for the story is that he’s managed to piss off lots of shady characters who now all want him dead, so these scenes needed to be as brutal as possible. If I just say he’s in danger, have him get cornered by one of the people after him, only to get away unscathed, there would be no lasting impact on the reader. They might get a thrill seeing him in hot water again and again, but if he kept getting away just before things got rough, I think the audience would see it as formulaic and forgettable.

That’s why I focused a lot of love and care into crafting the scenes in which he’s in danger. I wanted the reader to feel the impact of his situation. The book, and the experience the reader had, would be all the better for it.

When Rob is trying to escape with the briefcase, I went the reader to feel the turmoil that he’s in as he’s trying to escape from his pursuers while having to haul the heavy contents along as well. I did my best to remind the reader about how much of a burden carrying the case is during his escape by having him constantly switch it from one hand to another, or setting it down every moment he gets.

Rob takes his fair share of abuse from many people who are after his hide. I wanted to make sure the reader felt the impact of every blow his body sustained through the course of the novel. The damage he did to his ankle lingers through the rest of the story, influencing where he has to go next to deal with it, and cutting out the option of a possible escape later. It’s also on his mind as something he has to compensate for when he enters places he feels where he feels someone might be waiting for him.

I made the death of Spears particularly vicious so that it would be something that tormented Rob throughout the story, an ugly conclusion he’d have to face himself if he were to be caught by the police. I wanted to make sure everything Rob was going through as he made his escape felt suffocating to him.

Judging by the responses I’ve gotten to Dig Down, I’m glad I did. So if you’re writing your own story, once you’re done with your first draft, go back and reread it to see how tough you’ve been on your characters. Have you been lenient at times with them where you could have put them through the ringer? Is there something you can add that would spice up these points in your story? If so, I’d recommend making those changes. Your story will be a richer experience for it.

Bruce’s eyes had started to grow bleary eyed from the whisky he hadn’t even noticed the teacher approach him until she had pulled up alongside the bench.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said tentatively, and he recognized she was doing her best to be overly polite while she spoke to him because the way her eyes scanned him over told him she viewed him as lower than dirt.

At that moment, for the first time in (…weeks?…months?) he felt sheepish for drinking out of a bottle this early in the day. It felt heavy in his hand, but he didn’t want to let it go either.

It was one of his few worldly possessions.

She cleared her throat. “Sir,” she said a little louder, even though they both knew he’d heard her the first time. Bruce knew she wasn’t going to just walk away, and turned his head as slightly as he could. She understood it at as the only acknowledgement she was going to get.

“I was wondering if maybe you’d like to leave for a little while,” she said. “You’re frightening the children.”

Bruce’s bleary eyes drifted back across the park. The kids that weren’t still trying to feed the ducks were playing tag, or eating their lunches. The few that were facing his direction were too absorbed in their own worlds to notice he was there.

“They don’t look scared,” he said, not bringing his eyes back to her.

The teacher sighed so deeply Bruce would’ve thought she leaned over to exhale directly into his ear. His skin crawled as he felt her eyes examining him, and the bugs that had nested in his scraggly beard a couple weeks ago felt like they were gnawing on his chin again.

“Well, you’re scaring me.”

Bruce pursed his lips. It both felt ages ago and not that long ago that he would’ve been approaching a woman like her at a bar on a Friday during happy hour. She would have gone out with a couple friends from work not looking to meet anyone, just to “unwind.” It felt like bragging now thinking he could have picked her up, gotten her number. Even if she turned him down, it had always been thrilling going for it when someone caught her eye.

His barhopping days had been back when he had an intoxicating confidence about him after long hours at the office. Now he couldn’t get out in and out of the liquor store fast enough, especially if there was more than just the cashier in there.

“I scared you into coming all the way over to tell me I’m scaring you?” he challenged.

He could feel her whole body stiffen in frustration that he wasn’t complying with what she thought was a very reasonable request, and his own frustrations started to surface. Bruce finally turned to face her, fighting the urge to look away from her eyes.

It’d been a while since he’d looked someone directly in the eyes.

“This is where I live now lady,” he growled at her. “It’s not my choice, but it’s what I got. This bench,” he patted the rumpled newspapers, “is what I have to settle for as a bed. If I get up and leave, there’s a good chance it’s claimed by someone else by the time I get back. If I’m lucky, it’s someone who just wanted to come to the park for the day, but then I have to wait for them to leave until I can get it back. But it might be taken by someone else who’s also looking for a place to use as a bed for the night. So realize what you’re asking. You want me to clear out while the kids are here, but you’re acting like I’ve got another place to go. And you’re not just asking me to stay on my feet until it suits you, but possibly give up a bed for the night.

“So, if you were in my shoes,” and he involuntarily wriggled his toes to see how deteriorated his footwear had become, recognizing he’d have to fish through the garbage for another pair soon, “would you risk all of that just because you were scaring someone?”

Writing a book is hard work. When you’re in the thick of things, everything feels like a challenge. You’re constantly doubting yourself. Thought like “This sucks!” “People won’t understand this” and “I don’t think I’ll ever finish” constantly creep into your head. And it’s not like you can just tell yourself to get out of your own head because that’s where you have to go to access your idea.

When I write, I try to do little things to constantly frame my mindset so that I’ve got a positive focus during the process. Spending months outlining so that I’ve got a clear vision for the idea before I start page one is the first thing I do. Not going back to do rewrites while I’m still completing the first draft was another.

Another key is my use of time allotment when I write.

I only write one page at a time, and I allot myself an hour to get it done. So, in a given day, if I have to write four pages, I’ve blocked out four hours during the day to do so.

But, as I mentioned in recent posts, with rare exceptions, only the first page takes me anywhere near that long. As I start chugging along putting the idea down on paper, the average time it takes me to write a page is roughly a half an hour. And when I really hit my stride, the average dips even further.

This is such a psychological boost for me. On a given day, if I’m only writing one page, and I do my writing first thing in the morning, it’s an AMAZING feeling to know that I’ve already met my goal and still have the whole day ahead of me. As for days in which I write my max, four pages, having these four victories throughout the day in which I’ve finished them with half the time I allotted myself to spare fuels my confidence and keeps me hungry to want to do it again.

Each time I write a page using this method, my mind gets positive reinforcement not just from meeting my goal for that hour, but in seeing how much time remains in the hour I budgeted. When that happens again and again, my mindset starts to become overwhelming positively. After all, I keep writing a page in half the time, which is my average on any project, but because I budgeted an hour for it, my mind can’t help but think the writing is going very well.

Success breeds success.

Every time I earn these little victories, I get a little rush, and am eagerly looking forward to the next hour I’ve blocked out for writing. Each day I meet my writing goal reminds me that I can do this, and encourages me to keep at it until I’ve seen it through.

Every writer has doubts about their work. You’re not alone. So if you’ve ever thought about writing a story yourself but haven’t been able to see an idea through, try this method  to keep yourself in the right mindset to keep going until you’re done.

Finishing a book is a major accomplishment that no one can ever take away from you. If this trick helps you achieve that goal, that I’m thrilled I was able to lend a helping hand in your triumph.

“Look at them go!”

Bruce shifted his attention to the pond in the middle of the park. Clusters of kids who had hopped off the yellow school buses were doing their level best to corner some of the ducks along the shoreline of the pond, while their friends offered bits of sandwiches from their lunches. The kids were always discouraged when the ducks retreated back into the safety of the water, until they spotted another waddling out of the pond they could focus their attention on.

“This might be the one, Nancy.”

Bruce held his breath as he watched. This duck appeared to be eyeing the clump of bread, tilting its head to the side as though suspicious, but willing to chance its life for a morsel of human food. One of the kids grew restless and made to push the duck toward the bread. The entire mob of elementary school kids jumped back when it honked and flapped its wings at them before charging back into the water.

“Ohhh! Shouldn’t have rushed it,” Nancy remarked. “Thanks for talking me into doing this, Kyle.”

The cluster of kids were turning on their saboteur. Anxious over the prospect of being labeled unpopular, the child who had tried to speed the duck along pointed out another one venturing out of the pond. The group quickly abandoned their quarrel, rushing to the other side of the pond.

“After the brutal winter we had, I’ve been waiting for a day like this for almost two months,” Kyle replied, before taking a bite of his sandwich and washing it down with a soda.

The latest duck to step out of the pond onto solid ground noticed the oncoming battalion of screaming kids and waddled back into the water. The kids let out a collective groan.

“I know,” Nancy agreed. “I feel like I’ve been cooped up inside for months. I’ve either been confined to my apartment or that damn office.”

As Bruce tracked the packs of kids trying to sneak up on another duck, his eyes caught a smaller band of teachers. They, like the kids, were also ignoring the ‘Don’t Feed the Ducks’ signs posted all over the park. They also barely afforded the kids a moment’s glance.

They were all watching him.

“Speaking of that damn office,” Kyle began reluctantly. “We probably better get back. Our lunch hour is almost up.”

Bruce squirmed in his seat. When Kyle and Nancy rose from the nearby picnic table, his eyes immediately flew to them. It was euphoric breaking eye contact with those teachers.

“Alright,” Nancy sighed. “It’d be great not having to go back to that office ever again.” She paused to take one last look at the park. “It’d be wonderful to spend the rest of my life out here in the park.”

A slight breeze swept after them as they trudged away. Bruce had mistakenly taken that moment to sip on today’s whisky, and had to slam his fist down on last week’s crumpled newspapers to keep them from blowing away. They were right. Winter had been brutal. And even though it was warm today, it was still bitterly cold at night. The park bench did little provide warmth on its own.

Spend the rest of your life at the park? Yeah right. I’d give anything to be indoors again.