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It always irritates me when I'm watching a movie, and the heroine is dressed in some gorgeous gown and high heels when she has to save her life - I mean really, can' t the bad guy ever come after her when she's in her hiking boots and pants?
Personally, I can barely make it from my car to the restaurant without ripping my pantyhose - how can these ladies crawl through glass and still
keep everything intact? I want to know the brand
of stockings they buy.
My heroine will definitely not be dressed in her Greek-revival toga dress with strappy sandal stilettos because, let's face it, in reality - she's not getting very far that way. She will not be clean and beautiful when she's done saving her life. Yes, she will have ripped her stockings into shreds and no, it is definitely not attractive.
Even dressed properly, if you're writing it right, she's in for the world of hurt.
To do research for my story, I just ran the Mudderella. Mudderella raises money to support initiatives to stop domestic abuse. It was a five-mile course with thirteen mud obstacles. I was dressed for it. I wore Spandex shorts, an exercise tank and light weight shoes built to let water pass through them. What I wasn't wearing was my glasses. I knew they'd go flying off right away. Not being able to see clearly can mess with your heroine - and we know that nothing should ever come easily for our heroines.
Now to be clear, I'm not writing this as a bitch session - I had an AWESOME time running Mudderella and CANNOT WAIT to do it again. I am merely posting my observations so that perhaps it can give texture to your plot line.
Some observations:
*Running in nature is nothing
like running on a treadmill or
even running on pavement. It's
a lot more work/fatiguing.
* Running along this
fairly clean
path, I constantly encountered
brambles and roots. The
thorny vines wrapped my
ankles and tripped and cut me as I went.
* The uneven ground was taxing on my ankles and knees - so your
heroine will feel those early on, after the adrenaline starts to
abate, and she is hunkering down for the long haul to civilization
and safety.
* If your heroine is going in the drink, let's hope she has on light
weight shoes, or she may have to pull them off to stay up,
especially if she's tired. Now she's running barefoot? Those rocks
are going to bruise her feet quickly to the point that she can only
hobble if she can stand up at all. Also, getting shoes to untie
when they are wet (and mud-caked) is nearly impossible. She's
going to have to hope her feet haven't swollen from the run,
because she'll have to pull the shoes off still tied.
* She should try her best to keep the mud and dirt out of her eyes -
there's nothing clean to wash them with and a scratched cornea is
bad news.
* While the water feels good on tired legs, it makes her shoes
harder to run in, especially if she is developing blisters.
were running in running shorts that came to their knees. These
soaked up the water and flapped about their legs as they ran. At
some point, if I were escaping, I would have just taken them off
and run in my undies (keeping my pants or skirt with me around
my neck - they may be useful later) but then you'd have to
write in the trade off of more exposure to the environs, twigs, and
sharp rocks etc.
* While the water might be a great way to escape - floating on a
current, not leaving a trail. Currents will also wear your heroine
out.
* Once she's in the water, eventually she has to get back out.
* This was a very steep slope. It was clay, which is extremely
slippery. There were no toe holds or hand holds. My teammates
(you can see behind me) took a few tries to get up. I was clinging
to the tiniest baby weeds trying for anything that would keep me
from sliding back down. You can hear in this film people were
growling - me included. The growling actually was very helpful.
It worked a little like a martial arts k'ihap. It kept the power
focused.
* This exercise was mainly about balance, weight distribution, and
upper arm/back strength.
* If someone were close on my heels, this would be a very
dangerous time. I would try to find a bank that had a friendlier
exit, especially if it provided cover - but sometimes beggars can't
be choosers and your heroine will have to make it up the slippery
slope.
* Is your heroine running with someone? This could be
a hindrance, or it could be very helpful. It would help if the friend
was in the same shape or better shape than your heroine or had
special skills. And was healthy and unhurt. It would help if the
friend was positive and encouraging and going forward as a
team. Just having someone around who could catch the
heroine if she were falling, or to help over the obstacles you're
sure to throw in their way is morale boosting.
It would not help if any of these were reversed.
* The most effective way my team found to get out of the deep
water onto dry land was for one person to link their fingers to
make a stirrup and let someone step into the hand hold. Then they
would do a squat thrust. Once one person is up, they can reach
down for the second. Lifting in any other way was taxing and not
as effective.
Things I learned in the mud -
* Shoes will fill with tiny rock particles and clay.
* The rocks and clay will take up quite a bit of space in the shoes
and become very heavy.
* Cleaning this out is problematic because - the shoe laces won't
come undone. If she were washing them out, the heroine would
be using the same water that made them that way in the first
place, and she couldn't stop anyway - there's a villain on
her heels!
* The rocks and mud will cause bruises, blisters, and tiny cuts in
very weird places.
* All the cuts will be infected by the time she gets to a place where
she can clean herself.
* Bruises will appear in random places on her body, and she will
have no idea how they got there.
* She probably won't feel any of this until she gets to a place to
rest.
Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,
Fiona
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Very nice, I do have a heroine running for her life in my current wip.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information as I have a number of running scenes through a park, but aside from the fatigue I didn't have a scratch on them. Time to add some!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the cool little tidbit, brambles and roots lol
ReplyDeleteWell done and I agree about writing realism!
ReplyDeleteBless you for that run. Since I can barely walk and hurt all over, I am making you my substitute runner. A week or so ago, my memory is also bad, I tried to walk down the block where I live and my shoe was hurting me and I sat down on a short wall. Well the wall was shorter than I thought and I could not get back up. I sat there for some time and a woman who was running came by and I asked her if she could give me a hand and she said that she was running and could not stop and just left me there. I sat there for about 30 minutes and finally pushed myself forward and was able to get up, thank goodness. I was afraid to try to do it earlier because I was on a busy street and I was afraid I would fall into it.
ReplyDeleteI am so distressed to hear that that runner left you there! My goodness. I can't wrap my brain around that. I'm so glad you finally got up and made it home.
Delete~Fiona
I can't stand it when the women are in heels and either trying to be sneaky or run for their life. Only a few times have I seen it written in where the lady takes the heels off, or breaks off the heels... romancing the stone has a scene where he cuts off her heels so she can hike better... not great but better. Now for you... you knew what you were getting in for... so why didn't you have goggles to keep the mud and stuff out of your eyes. Yeah, they get muddy, but better to have it on the glasses than your eyes. Just once I'd like to see an experienced outdoors woman the the bad guy not knowing squat about the outdoors.
ReplyDeleteBrava! Excellent example of really doing your research. The same principles apply to every story element. If you don't know what you are writing about, find out--or find somebody who does know. I pride myself in the technical accuracy of the action in my thrillers, so I even went through police training at one point. For what I don't know or can't experience myself, I draw on subject-matter experts who read and comment on drafts. --Larry Constantine (pen name, Lior Samson)
ReplyDelete