Someone screamed

We’ve been in quiet classrooms so far - things have been pretty calm. Time to up the stakes.

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.”

Gone(2008)

‘Someone screamed,’ is quick-focus stuff - it takes the main characters (and you as the reader) out of investigation mode. ‘Stumbled into the hall, which was now full of kids’ increases the scale of the issue considerably, quickly.

Can you find the same pattern in these examples?

Someone swore loudly.

The three of them swivelled towards the noise, despite not being able to see anything. Scattered shoppers all started muttering at once. An annoyed voice came from the source of the noise. “Sorry! Stupid bloody phone’s not working! Can I borrow someone’s, please? I need to ring my kids.”

There was the sound of shattering glass.

Trixie and the others turned to see the dude who worked in construction two doors down fly through his front window. He landed with a crunch on the lawn, rolled, and then jumped up, crying hysterically and swatting at himself. “Get it off me!” he was saying. Something dark was on his back, like a giant beetle. It jumped off and flew lazily away, over the roof of the man’s house.

Write your own variation. Remember the next part of this passage - the reason for this disruption needs to be something the rest of the mob can take part in.

High-concept storytelling in Gone 3: Ramping up