How do I make a non-cliche escape scene?

[Elanor]

@power

Yes!! The bullets, arrows, and explosions all mysteriously missing the main character by a hair, leaving them unscathed after a very intense scene is so annoying. And then the times they do get injured and brush it off like, “I’m fine. I’m the main character. I’m invincible!”

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." - Gandalf

[Madelyn]

@elanor

Hey there!

As far as the technical details of the escape, other people have given some great tips already, and action is definitely not my forte so I’ll leave that for wiser people to address 😉

However, if you’re looking to make your escape scene unique and non-cliche, here are a few random ideas…

– Skip the part where the character plan out their escape (so that the readers don’t know the plan), and make it look like the supposed “plan” goes on wrong. Then turn it around to show the readers that what they thought was the plan was just the decoy plan and the real plan is actually working just as planned. Hmm… that sentence was confusing, let me try to give an example…

There’s a part in one of the Story Thieves books *mild spoiler alert* where one of the characters comes to the bad guys with a letter. Since one of the other good guys can transport into stories/paper, the bad guy “figures out” that that person is hiding in the letter and throws it into the fire. For a moment, it looks to the readers like everything went wrong. It turns out that they weren’t in the letter, it was just a semi-obvious decoy for the bad guy to “figure out” so he wouldn’t realize that they had a different plan.

Man, that was a super long explanation… sorry about that ;P XD

 

-Make the least likely character (aka the least smart or least helpful) break them out (whether by accident or on purpose ;P)

 

-Have them befriend a guard, only to have that person turn on them… and it turns out they expected that all along and planned for it.

 

Cliches to avoid:

-The characters dressing up like guards or bad guys to sneak out unnoticed. (Alternitive: they get caught immedietly on purpose so that they can be brought close to the exit/place-they-need-to-go)

-Tech-savy character breaking in to the computer room and hacking all the cameras and security systems to make it fairly easy for them to escape. (Alternitive: The tech-savy character accidently sets off all the alarms as soon as he/she tries to hack into the super-secure computers–which is more realistic XD)

-Super complicated and well-thought-out plan that goes perfectly until the last second. (Alternitive: Hastily-thrown together plan that goes wrong the first second and everything after that is impromtu)

 

I hope I could be of service! Good luck! 🙂

~In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found~

[Elanor]

@madelyn

Those are all great ideas! I love hearing what everybody’s ideas are it gets my imagination really going.

Unfortunately with my medieval fantasy set book there’s no technology. But if I do write a book someday in the days of technology those ones will be helpful.

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." - Gandalf

[Madelyn]

@elanor

Ohhhh, gotcha, sorry XD

I hope it goes well!!

~In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found~

[Elanor]

@madelyn

Thank you. 😊

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." - Gandalf

[Abigail.M.]

@elanor

This scene is stacking up to be very interesting the more I hear about it! My favorite part of this (I know, I’m a cruel writer to characters) is that Kedja knows she can’t escape and that only Zlya will be able to make it out of the prison. This is great story-wise because most escape scenes get pretty much everyone out without a ton of injury, (cue characters getting hit with arrows just to run like they were hit with spitballs XD ) No seriously though, this is great and leaves lots of trouble for Zyla as she has to make it on her own. Are they outside the prison when Zyla learns Kedja won’t be escaping? If so, then that leaves room for Zyla to either run scared or follow a plan as best as she can while grieved about Kedja. That opens up lots of opportunity for conflict (my favorite) such as stumbling into traps, enemies, another escapee, or a supposed new ally. She might even get recaptured and break loose before they can get her back inside the prison.

Or if they are still inside the prison when it becomes known that Kedja can’t escape, she might fall into some secret door in the floor and believe she has been caught… except that that door is really an exit with some odd inhabitants already living down there. Or she might no of something a guard or another prisoner took from her that she wants to get back before getting out of there. She might have to locate another cell and threaten or plea with that other prisoner for the object or information and only escape if she gets it, or has to escape without it, doubling her sorrow. Or Kedja could have sent a reptile/s of some sort after her whether known or unknown to Zyla, to help.

XD Sorry, I kind of just started jabbering there. All just ideas of course. If any are helpful, I’m extremely happy to have helped and if not, I’m just as happy ‘cause I love hearing about other writers novels and offering ideas:) Plus your story is awesome and it sparked my imagination to wonder all the things that might happen 😀 😀

[Abigail.M.]

@not-so-secret-secret-assassin

That post you wrote is awesome! And is actually very helpful, (probably more so than several articles out there), so even though it was written for the awesome writer Elanor, I just wanted to say that it was very good and actually inspired me to write an escape scene for my current novel!

[Elanor]

@abigail-m

Glad you like my story idea so much. Those are great thoughts too. I love hearing what everyone else thinks of as a good scene in a book generally.

Ahhh the snake with parylizing venom  was killed protecting her. She has to jump blindly out a small gap that could barely be called a window used to vent the prison. In a beaten malnourished state with a mauled arm (which she later looses) hoping a dragon catches her. Only to be hunted by wolves, and then is taken in by a man and his wife whom she’s not even sure if she can trust thinking they’ll betray her so she can’t reveal her identity… And of course her friend left behind…. gets it. Bad. For helping her.

Hahaha. Yeah I think the evil side comes out of all writers when writing such scenes. 😆

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." - Gandalf

[Abigail.M.]

@Elanor

Of course, I’m happy to ramble about ideas and I love talking with writers about their writing too:) I think you have a great story here and I already have a lot of sympathy for your poor characters; she loses her arm?! That’s aweful! (But awesome for character development).

Defiently.

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