Thursday, June 25, 2009

Help, Action Needed


Need some action words and help with a scene.

A young woman is in her bed on the second floor of the house and hears a noise. The noise is coming from the foot of her bed. She notices the window, which she closed earlier, is open and the sheer curtains are bellowing in the wind. The intruder is between her and the door to the hall. The window is her only escape. The sound of the man coming closer, she jumps out of bed intent on escaping through the window when the man grabs a handful of hair and yanks her backward, ouch. Before she can yelp, he clamps a hand over her mouth.

Here's the deal, she can't see him, not because she's blind, but because I don't want her identifying him. She can't get killed or immobilized. He only wants to scare her, not hurt her, not yet.

Questions:

What does it feel like to get your hair yanked so brutally? I mean, I've had my hair pulled, but how do you describe the pain?

How is she going to get out of this situation? Should the attacker 1, knock her out or 2, manage his escape without being seen.

Also, I need a list of action words.

Think of this as an exercise, and thank you in advance.



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6 comments:

  1. This is hard because I don't know your character and how she would be in this situation.

    If she's a damsel in distress type, she'll scream and thrash and cry. The intruder would be able to get away without her seeing him (and without knocking her out) because she's more caught up in her own fear and emotions than to think to pay attention to his face.

    If she's a tough bad-a@@ then she'll be trying to find a way to get out of the intruder's grip. Starting with biting his hand or digging her fingernails into his hand. She wouldn't scream, but would be calculating - exploring her options. The intruder would probably have to knock this one out.

    Hope some of that helps!

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  2. I can't answer about the pulling of the hair. As far as her seeing his face, I guess that depends on how capable you want him to be. I would imagine the only thing that would keep her from trying to look would be if she is scared to death of trying. If he is an extremely competent individual however, perhaps he could slip out without being seen (i.e. ninja-type retreat into darkness). Otherwise, he may have to disable her in some fashion.

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  3. Maybe he pulls her from behind and holds her tightly, her back to his chest, and she never is able to turn around and see him...she just stares at those curtains moving in the light breeze and listens to her attacker whisper into her ear...then the throws her face down on the bed, when she turns around - he's gone.

    good luck!

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  4. Mmmm, the hair pulling feels hot,as if bruised.
    She would fall backwards, so her arms would automatically fly outwards to give her balance.
    Her breath would be caught in her chest, no sound would come for a few seconds.
    Then adrenalin would kick in and she would fight back.

    Hot breath, rancid breath.
    Flailing.
    clutching, grabbing, snatching.

    Hope you get something from my rambles :)

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  5. Hi, I'm a little late to comment, but here goes. OK, it's dark so it's hard to see his face and when she does get a glimpse of it he has a mask on. Her hand reaches up to try to pull it off, he panics , let's her go and jumps from the window. Action words: grasp, heaves, hurls, jerks, lash, leap, mangle,slash, thrash, soar, thrust, thwart, and whirl.

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