Writing Action Scenes :Part IV Chases

     Chase scenes encompass a wide variety of action sequences, from car chases, to rooftop chases over the iconic rooftops of Istanbul, to evasive maneuvers through asteroid fields. A good action story will use a combination of combat sequences and chases to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. In general you will want to carefully position lulls in the action filled by dialogue, exposition, plot advancement, maybe character building or love scenes, then right back to the action. These lulls are to keep the audience from becoming numb to all the action you throw at them.

     Questions you will want to consider, are does the story require the person being chased to get away or not? What are the physical abilities of the participants? A rooftop chase involving a physically fit Parkour enthusiast is going to play out differently that an out of shape cop chasing a purse snatcher up a fire escape. An expert driver will weave in and out of oncoming traffic a lot more effectively than the average driver, with a lot fewer collisions involved. A good chase will have a number of obstacles that the runner and the chaser will have to clear. This could include gaps that have to be jumped, busy intersections, space debris to be avoided and so on. Those are kind of the beats of the chase scene. Some of the obstacles are created by the runner to slow the pursuit down. He tips over a shelf to block the hallway, he shouts fire in a crowded theater to create a panicked mob that the pursuer has to fight his way through. Maybe he puts someone in jeopardy that the person chasing him has to stop to save.

If the runner is to get away, you need to employ some sort of chase breaker. It isn't dramatic if one or both of the runners just get tired, slows down and stops, then gets caught trying to catch his breath.
A chase breaker is something that interrupts the chase allowing the runner to get away. A classic example is the car chase where the runner gets across the train tracks just before the train comes through and the pursuer has to stop. Jumping off a high cliff into water where the guy chasing you is afraid to jump after you is another popular one. If the runner is meant to be caught, maybe he gets cut off by someone working with the chaser. He might try to run across a street and be hit by a car and too injured to continue. Maybe he tries to make a jump and dies.

     So your basic chase scene is Initiate pursuit, throw in a few obstacles or location changes then have the runner get caught or employ a chase breaker. By location changes I mean you can't just have someone run up the road like he's running a marathon. For Instance, the police kick a suspects door in and he jumps out the window to the fire escape. The police chase him and radio ahead that he's on his way down the back alley. A patrol car pulls up and cuts him off. He turns and runs through the back door of a Chinese restaurant. The policeman chases him into the kitchen where he grabs up a butcher knife and throws it at the cop. The cop dodges behind a door. The runner turns and shoves his way through to the front of the restaurant and out into another street....

Try not to let your chases go for too long. If your story were filmed, you probably wouldn't want it to run for more than two or three minutes. Also when you're running from the police you can't outrun their radios. You have to break the chase and be out of sight before they can get roads cut off and helicopters in the air. Typically one might lose the first cop chasing him by causing him to crash, then duck quickly into a parking garage and steal a different car to get away in.