Introduction

So far, the events in Gone have stayed small. First, Sam and Quinn’s teacher vanishes, then Astrid’s class. Those passages have also introduced our three heroes.

Now, in the next passage, the view widens suddenly.

Someone screamed.

The three of them stumbled into the hall, which was now full of kids. A sixth grader named Becka was the one screaming. She was holding her cell phone. “There’s no answer. There’s no answer,” she cried. “There’s nothing.”

For two seconds everyone froze. Then a rustle and a clatter, followed by the sound of dozens of fingers punching dozens of keypads.

“It’s not doing anything.”

“My mom would be home, she would answer. It’s not even ringing.”

“Oh, my God: there’s no internet, either. I have a signal, but there’s nothing.”

“I have three bars.”

“Me too, but it’s not there.”

Someone started wailing, a creepy, flesh-crawly sound. Everybody talked at once, the chatter escalating to yelling.

“Try 911,” a scared voice demanded.

“Who do you think I called, numbnuts?”

“There’s no 911?”

“There’s nothing. I’ve gone through half my speed dials, and there’s not anything.”

The hall was as full of kids as it would have been during a class change. But people weren’t rushing to their next class, or playing around, or spinning the locks on their lockers. There was no direction. People just stood there, like a herd of cattle waiting to stampede.

Gone(2008)

We’re introduced to the mob, aka everyone else.

The mob.

From a storytelling point of view, while not villains, they’re different from our heroes. They’re sometimes helpful, sometimes in need of help. Usually, they’re another thing for the main characters to deal with, because they don’t have the special set of skills or qualities our heroes have and can’t cope with the situation.

How do the mob seem to be taking the event? How is this different from what we’ve seen of the three main characters (from Lesson One and Two)?

This passage is going to need some preparation.

Think about your event:

How has it affected everyone in the mob? Are they scared? Angry? Upset?
Make sure your mob are reacting differently to your main characters, otherwise there’s no reason to be following the story’s heroes! Usually this will mean the mob are not handling things well.

Let’s build, step-by-step, our own version of this snippet.

High-concept storytelling in Gone 3: Ramping up