How do I write a room full of panic?

Question

My story is set in a dystopia. The main character is on a train journey until suddenly the train got hijacked by a terrorist group. The terrorists aren’t inside the trains so most passengers don’t know what is actually happening. They just know the train is going at speeds faster than it should and that it’s going off the actual tracks into pedestrian areas.

Answer 1

So I would look into documentaries and first-hand accounts from actual train derailment survivors as to their experiences. Most of the time, a higher rate of speed in a train would not provoke a panic among all the passengers. Your regular commuters might raise an eyebrow because this is something they do daily and speeding up at this point is not normal, but they typically recognize this odd behavior after the fact.

Most survivors do not notice that the train is going to derail until the car starts moving in a direction that isn't the forward motion of the train. One of the more common causes of derails is hitting a turn in the track at a high rate of speed. It's rare for passengers to see signaling to indicate speed reductions because those lights and signs are meant to be seen by the engineer and assistant engineer in the driver's cab, which allows a view of what is ahead of the train, while most passenger cars have views of what is passing the train (Unless the train is a single engine in reversing operations on the line). There are some train cars that would have a forward window for passengers, such as the DC Metro, where the driver cab is on the right side of the leading car and passenger seating occupies the left side. However, these cars tend to have little in the way of survivors because they are going to take the brunt of the rest of the entire consist (In the rail industry, a consist refers to the totality of the engines and non-powered cars in a train.). The one time I've heard of a train passenger having any realization of impending doom was from a Canadian transcontinental train where the passenger was sitting in the Dome Car (a lounge car with an elevated dome on the second level that allows passengers to have a 360-degree view of the scenery. They're popular on Transcontinental Services in Canada and the U.S. because the scenery can get stunning and in some parts in the west, the rail tracks are the only signs of civilization). However, in this case, the problem that lied ahead was a cargo train that was traveling in the opposite direction and on a collision course so I'm not sure he would have recognized a speed derail in time (the accident was blamed on operator error on the freight train crew, as they missed the signal to stop them from entering the section of track until the passenger train passed.).

Often the first sign of trouble will be a lurching off the tracks as the cars pile around the derail. Watch some footage of derails happening as they can get wild (The resent East Palestine, OH derail had some civilian dash cam footage record the whole derail as it was waiting at the rail crossing.). Trains do not stop easy so it's a series of one car crashing into another. This is where a lot of panicked screaming occurs.

It will also likely be that the panic comes from the fact that the passenger cars will go dark before they derail since passenger cars do not generate their own electrical power. It's either supplied by the lead engines pulling the train and transferred through attachments in coupling, or from overhead catenary wires (popular in Europe and Asia) or the "Third Rail" all of which will likely disconnect (on lines that use this system, the evacuation instructions will tell you to avoid a route that puts you close to the third rail).

Answer 2

To establish a sense of fear and panic in writing, you can try being very intentional in your word choice to make a description of an incident more impactful on the reader. Words with connotative meaning(example: discipline is often associated with punishment) effectively adds more mood and depth into a description.

One example of authors using word choice in their writing in order to convey a mood is in Harry Potter, where the protagonist battles the antagonist.

Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands, staring down at his enemy's shell.

As you can see, the author intentionally uses descriptive word to add mood, helping the readers visualize this scene. By having good word choice, it makes a scene more powerful and impactful on the reader, which helps them feel what you were trying to make them feel. Here is the same scene, omitting the word choice that makes this scene powerful.

Tom Riddle hit the floor, his body small, his hands empty, his face blank. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands, staring down at his enemy.

Word choice can make or break a scene, so choose your words wisely.

Answer 3

People, like all social animals, are very attuned to the crowd around us, even when we are not consciously paying attention. If someone within earshot or our sight reacts to something unexpectedly negative, the primitive parts of our brains (limbic system) reacts - like canaries reacting to a cat. This reaction is something we experience as anything from in sense of dis-ease to fear.

This I think is a good place to start with showing a roomful of panic. Start with someone noticing that other people are reacting to something bad. The viewpoint character's character is a kind of canvas for you to increase the intensity of the moment.

For example, a person that thinks other people are wimps and tend to overreact might view the canaries with annoyance, wondering why those people are distributing their commute. Still, they might be curious about what the commotion is about, then they'll witness the unfolding events and react. And, they'll witness the rest of the commuters reacting to unfolding events. Given human nature, when faced with danger we tend to either flee, fight or freeze. Imagining a train full of people where some are frozen with fear blocking the escape of people trying to flee while some are punching and fighting their way to the exit (whatever that is perceived to be) seems like it would make for a very visceral scene since it presents itself with lots of opportunity for emotions, sensations, description and action.

Answer 4

Thanks for clarifying your question. You've already got some great comments and insightful color to begin with, but I would recommend doing even more research to understand as much as you can about what happens when a train derails (though I'm not sure from your description if it actually does, more on that in a moment) and the physical and physiological responses of passengers. The more you know, the more you can immerse your reader into an event few will ever experience.

Here's where that knowledge can come in handy: how long does it take a passenger train of X number of cars traveling at Y speed on Z terrain to come to a stop? 10 seconds? 20? Once you've written the passage, read it aloud and time it. If what you write takes 10 minutes to read, very likely your pacing is off. Not a hard rule, of course, a well-written action sequence can certainly be stretched out, but this can help you with writing something that reads fast.

Adding to Alexandrang's excellent answer, word choice, as always, is super important. This sounds like an action scene to me (and a lot of fun to write!!) so I would keep the sentences short. Staccato. Teetering on an edge. Use power words: "groaning, screeching steel". Use tiny details: the Twitter screen of an open laptop flashing past, the face of a shocked traffic cop bouncing off the window outside. Use an unreliable narrator to misinterpret events. Are we derailing? Are we airborne? Is that blood or coffee? Mind your rhythm.

And don't forget the senses. We have five of them; if you want to immerse your reader, make them feel it. Adrenaline pounding in your temples, the smell of the vinyl seats or a broken perfume bottle. Weightlessness or slowing time. And personally, I think the sounds of it would be the most overwhelming, unfathomable thing in existence for those moments. Not just the cacophony of two thousand tons of iron and glass carving a trench through downtown Market Boulevard, but the cries and curses of passengers, couples and co-workers, aghast grandmas and yawping dogs, the jerk lawyer who wouldn't give up his seat, ripping fabric and gasps of pain and the crunch of breakage, a hundred-forty-six lives tossed into the jaws of a furiously dying dragon. Yeah, that should be fun to write. :)

One last thing: I find Meisner and Adler acting techniques super helpful in writing these types of exaggerated moments; e.g. "living truthfully in imagined circumstances". Which is to say that when you do read it out loud, you should feel exhilarated... you should enjoy a fist-pumping "nailed it!" moment. That's how you'll know when you've actually done it; because if you don't feel it, neither will your reader.