8 months ago
10
Three weeks ago, on a fine Sunday morning, I was taking a 45-minute neighborhood walk. To amuse myself, I thought about life, resolved issues, organized my schedule for the week, and pondered writing. Thirty-five minutes in, I spotted two men walking. One was traveling backward while holding a baseball bat, while the other yelled incoherent remarks. This second man had a disheveled appearance, which made me suspect he was homeless. The man with the bat noticed me and told me to be a witness. Not how I expected my day to go.
They continued to argue, and then a car drove up. The driver moved his vehicle to allow the dash camera to record the incident. The argument became heated, and the incoherent man threw a rock at the man with the bat. This gesture tipped the fragile truce, causing the man with the bat to swing and miss. Now the two began trading awkward blows. As the fight raged, the man with the car took the bat away. Then the incoherent man locked the man who used to have the bat in a chokehold. This took the fight out of him, and after breaking free from the chokehold, the two separated. The incoherent man walked away, while the man who used to have the bat sat on the curb, likely thinking he had almost had his neck broken.
While this was happening, I called the police (several people had also phoned them) and requested an ambulance. The police came, arrested the incoherent man, and questioned everybody. Side note: The ambulance never arrived.
As a witness, I waited to give my statement to the police. In the interim, I spoke with the man who used to hold the bat and the car driver. He told me the incident began with the incoherent man attacking a female jogger (his wife) and scaring three boys. She called her husband, who grabbed a baseball bat to pursue the man. The event concluded with the police arresting the incoherent man. The man who used to have the bat was not arrested, but I believe charges were pending.
Why were so many bad decisions made? It occurred to me that everyone (I also made bad decisions) was under the influence of adrenaline. During stress, our adrenal glands release a hormone that allows us to achieve extraordinary physical effort. Additionally, it clouds our judgment and forces us to make hasty decisions. We refer to this as the “fight or flight” reaction.
Let’s examine the participants, starting with the incoherent man. He probably took too many drugs and had preexisting mental issues. The guy saw a jogger and, in his drug-induced delusion, tried to get a date. Her refusal upset him, so he went after her. This physical effort caused his adrenal gland to begin pumping. When his efforts were unsuccessful, he verbally took out his stress on some boys.
Then, when a man with a bat confronted him, his increased adrenaline caused more poor decisions, including attacking a person with a bat.
The jogger should have called the police, but a surge of adrenaline caused her to call her husband.
The man with the bat was having breakfast when he received an urgent call from his wife: she was under attack. This caused his adrenaline to flow like a river. From that moment on, his logical mind was turned off, and he grabbed a bat. The correct course of action should have been to locate his wife and protect her from further attack while calling the police.
The car driver should have put more effort into defusing the situation and not recording video.
I forced myself to stay at a distance and keep a close eye on my surroundings. I did not protect the man with the bat, defuse the situation, or record the incident on my phone. Bonehead!
If all these people had acted reasonably, this incident would not have occurred, or at the very least, been handled much better.
Now, if you have read my prior articles, you should expect, “What does this have to do with writing?” at this point. I am glad you asked.
This incident is likely similar to one you might have witnessed or seen in your local news: a fight between two people. The tie-in is that you will never encounter such a chaotic situation in a book or movie. This is because the real-life event was messy, illogical, scary, and disorganized. Now with some time to think, I would describe the violence as “A crazy fight happened for no reason.”
Instead, viewers and readers expect organized incidents. Bruce Lee makes a quick jab with expert timing. Indiana Jones fights with a gun and a whip. Captain Kirk fires his phasor and Batman arrests the Joker.
Bold characters apply calm intelligence to make brilliant decisions during violent events. Any mistakes are for comedic value, and there is no ambiguity. All readers and viewers clearly understood what was going on. The only place for adrenaline is in creating a more powerful punch.
Well, what was I expecting? An epic battle scene between two knights in shining armor? Just like in the old west, everybody had a six-shooter and dealt out western justice? Yes, because that is how epic books and movies play out. I am not exaggerating in this article. I was expecting an organized fistfight, not a sloppy mess.
The problem is that books and movies are not reality. Meaning that if I wrote a scene like the one I witnessed, it would be awful. Readers would say, “That makes no sense.” “A person would die if a bat hit them.” “Both men would be bleeding profusely, and there would be broken bones.”
Well, I could calmly write, “All participants were influenced by adrenaline.” That would explain the scene, and all my readers would be impressed with my honesty and understanding of how the real world works. I make myself laugh. No reader would be impressed by that drivel. Like me, all readers expect epic action.
Still, this direct experience gave me a lot to think about, and I am going to put more effort into making my action scenes more chaotic, like what I witnessed. However, I must keep in mind that readers are not expecting adrenaline-fueled rages and big mistakes. Thus, I must take great care with my words. Or is that my adrenaline taking control of the keyboard?
You’re the best -Bill
October 05, 2025
Hey, book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:
Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.
Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.
Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.
Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.
These books are available in softcover on Amazon and in eBook format everywhere.
