Introduction

Do you like chase sequences? When danger suddenly appears, and then heroes are on the run, bolting through a crowded street or a lab full of evil robots?

Here’s a chase scene from Zeyn Joukhadar’s story, The Map of Salt and Stars.

“Sir . . .” Rawiya tugged on al-Idrisi’s sleeve.

Al-Idrisi turned. “It seems we know more people in Cairo than we thought.”

They ran, their camels opening a path for them. They dodged the crowds, diving between shop signs and old men hawking tea and hats, between merchants with monkeys and women with small children. They knocked over vials of spices and jugs of oil and flour, spilling a mess on the street.

They hurtled into a side street, crowded with wrought-iron and brass lamps, their glow flickering. Laundry lines lurched in their wake. They dodged stray cats and men buying lusterware dishes decorated with copper birds and fish.

Read the snippet again, and look at two things:

  1. The choice of verbs: ran, dodged, diving, knocked, spilling, hurtled, lurched... The word choices add a lot of colour and flavour to the actions.
  2. The environment the characters are running through: laundry lines, crowds, old men, monkeys... The chase sequence describes a whole miniature world.

That's what we'll be focusing on in this lesson.

You’ll need:

  • A couple of characters going about their business
  • Possibly some companion creatures or mounts, like the camels in the snippet
  • An enemy or threat that can appear
  • And a detailed environment for them to run through.