Pecking away at my sequel novel tonight, and just finished the chapter which, according to my Draft Zero, marks the one-third-of-the-way mark. This is where it starts to get exciting, at least for this work in progress.

I’ve always liked the idea of a spy thriller opening with a bang. This is sometimes known as the “Opening Gambit,” wherein the hero has some quick, exciting adventure or action sequence that somehow relates to the rest of the story, and often helps set it up. The James Bond films are notorious for this. The part before the title and music sequence is the “opening gambit,” and it’s often very good.

And then the necessary lull. You can’t just have ACTION ACTION ACTION all the way through. The audience has to occasionally catch their breath. They need to learn about what just happened and understand why it will matter going forward. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of character development is in order.

But at some point, inevitably … tick tick tick tick … BANG! And it’s off to the races again. It’s a little bit of dance, bridging the gap between adrenaline bursts. Those rests have to be there, but they can’t go too long, and they need to be stimulating in some other way.

For a smart action hero, like the one I’m writing, it’s his thought processes and the emotional heights and depths that do the trick. When it isn’t time to make the reader’s pulse pound, the idea is to tickle a their neurons or tug on their heartstrings. The dance continues until, as the story finally approaches the end, the goal is to do all three at once.

Tonight, I’m just excited knowing that for the next little while, it’s adrenaline time. The kind of stuff that, as I’m writing it, I absent-mindedly roll my sleeves up. Wouldn’t want to get blood on them, you know?