When I started writing The Smoke Eater, I knew the story wasn’t going to shy away from violence. You can’t write a crime novel about a fire chief, a police department on edge, and a town being quietly swallowed by outside forces without dealing with the physical realities of danger. But I also knew I didn’t want violence to become spectacle.

That’s a tricky balance. Crime fiction readers have a sharp radar for authenticity. They can tell when a fight scene or a shooting is just window dressing, something thrown in to jolt the plot forward without any real weight. I wanted every punch thrown, every shot fired, and every scrape with danger to matter—to echo back into the characters’ choices and shape who they are becoming. Violence, when written with purpose, is never just action. It’s revelation.

Before you go, remember to like this blog, give us a thumbs up and connect with us!

The First Rule: Violence Serves the Story

I wrote The Smoke Eater with the mindset that violence is never random, even when it surprises the characters. Every moment of conflict had to serve a bigger purpose. Was it testing loyalty? Was it forcing a character to confront their own limits? Was it exposing the cracks in a fragile alliance?

Take a scene where two men wrestle in the mud outside a bar. On the surface, it’s a brawl—gritty, messy, and raw. But under the surface, it’s not about fists or bruises. It’s about the way power shifts in Hillfort, how one man uses dominance to assert control while the other discovers just how far he’s willing to go to defend himself. The violence isn’t filler—it’s the stage where their real selves are revealed.

Readers may remember writers like Elmore Leonard or Michael Connelly for their clean prose, but one thing that sticks with me is how their violence is purposeful. A shove, a gun drawn, or a sudden blow—each detail tells you something about who has the upper hand and who is losing ground. That became a rule I applied to my own work.

Realism Versus Drama: Walking the Line

Crime fiction is at its most gripping when it feels real. But “real” violence—what actually happens in bar fights, gang disputes, or a tactical raid—is often quick, confusing, and over before it begins. A single punch can end a fight. A gunshot can silence a room.

On the other hand, fiction thrives on drama. If you made every violent encounter last three seconds, it would be technically accurate but narratively flat. The challenge is finding the sweet spot: pacing the scene so that readers feel the adrenaline and danger without drifting into comic-book exaggeration.

In The Smoke Eater, I leaned into sensory detail rather than drawn-out choreography. Instead of cataloging every jab and counter, I focused on the crack of bone, the sudden silence after a gunshot, the ragged breathing of someone who just realized they could have died. Violence in real life leaves echoes—physical pain, emotional trauma, the realization that life just tilted in a way you can’t undo. Those echoes are where the story lives.

The Character Lens

One of the creative decisions I made was to filter every act of violence through the character experiencing it. That means a punch doesn’t land in the abstract—it lands on the jaw of a man who has memories, doubts, and private fears. A bullet doesn’t just tear through flesh—it rips open the inner world of someone who may have thought themselves untouchable.

For example, when Fire Chief Dave Fulton sees his crew in danger, his instinct isn’t to run toward the gunfire like a cop would. His instinct is to protect, to contain, to shield others even when he knows he’s outmatched. His reactions in moments of violence reveal him as a leader under pressure, but also as a father searching for a son. Violence exposes his desperation as much as his strength.

Contrast that with Elijah, the outsider who sees himself as a prophet of chaos. For him, violence is ritual, symbolic. He references Biblical imagery, cloaks his brutality in destiny. Writing his violence required a different rhythm—calculated, unsettling, and almost cold in its inevitability. Through him, I could explore how violence becomes ideology.

By keeping violence anchored in character, it avoids slipping into spectacle. Instead, it becomes a mirror: what does this person do when pushed past the line?

Violence as Escalation

Crime fiction thrives on rising tension. Each scene should push the characters closer to breaking points, exposing vulnerabilities or hardening their resolve. Violence is one of the strongest levers a writer has for escalation.

In The Smoke Eater, I used violence not only to propel the plot forward but to raise the stakes. An assault in the dark isn’t just a scene of danger—it’s a signal that Hillfort is no longer a safe place. A gun drawn at a negotiation isn’t just a threat—it’s the moment when words fail, and the true cost of trust is revealed.

Escalation is about context. A punch early in the story might be shrugged off, but later, when alliances have shifted and everyone is frayed, that same punch might topple the balance of power. The physical act becomes a pivot point, and the fallout ripples into every chapter that follows.

The Research Side

Violence in fiction has to feel real, even if it’s dramatized. To write it responsibly, I dug into both technical research and human reactions.

On the technical side, I looked at how firearms actually sound and behave, how fights unfold under stress, and what physical injuries really look like. Movies often glamorize a character taking ten punches and walking away fine. In reality, even one punch can cause a concussion, break a jaw, or change a life forever. I wanted those consequences to be present, even if subtly, so the reader feels the weight of every blow.

On the human side, I leaned into psychology. What happens to your vision when adrenaline floods your body? How do people actually respond in moments of fear—freeze, flight, or fight? These details help ground the violence in truth. Readers can feel the difference between a fight scene written with lived or researched understanding versus one written purely for effect.

For those interested in further reading on trauma and human response, resources like the National Institute of Mental Health (https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/trauma-and-violence) provide an evidence-based look at how people carry violence with them long after the moment has passed.

The Cost of Violence

One thing I refused to do in The Smoke Eater was let violence be clean. In real life, it never is. Violence leaves scars, both visible and invisible.

Reid and Gunner, two firefighters in the book, are celebrated as heroes after a rescue, but the physical pain and lingering injuries tell a deeper story. Dave Fulton, already worn down by leadership pressure, is pulled apart by grief and the strain of facing violence outside the firehall walls. And Jim Harris, the police chief, carries the burden of trying to maintain order in a town where each act of violence chips away at his authority.

The cost is what makes the violence matter. If a character can walk away without consequence, the reader feels cheated. But if the cost is real—if it changes how they see themselves, their town, or the people they thought they could trust—then violence becomes story.

Writing With Restraint

Perhaps the hardest part of writing violence was knowing when not to use it. Not every conflict needs a fist or a gun. Sometimes the most chilling tension is in what doesn’t happen—the hand hovering over a weapon, the silence between threats, the decision not to strike.

Restraint makes the moments of actual violence sharper. When the bullet finally flies or the fight breaks out, it matters more because the reader knows it wasn’t wasted. Restraint also honors the realism of violence: in the real world, most people avoid it until they can’t.

Why Every Bullet Matters

In the end, my philosophy was simple: every punch and bullet in The Smoke Eater had to carry narrative weight. If it didn’t reveal something about a character, escalate the story, or show the true cost of conflict, it didn’t belong.

Violence in crime fiction is never just about shock. It’s about stakes. It’s about who these people are when their backs are against the wall. And it’s about how a small town like Hillfort can become a pressure cooker where every act of violence echoes louder than the last.

For readers, I hope the result is a book where the tension feels authentic, the fights cut deep, and the bullets aren’t just noise—they’re decisions, mistakes, or turning points that change everything.

Closing Thoughts

Writing The Smoke Eater was as much about restraint as it was about release. Crafting violence with purpose meant looking past the surface action and into the psychology, the aftermath, and the moral weight. It meant giving readers the grit they expect from crime fiction while holding on to the humanity that makes it matter.

So, when you open The Smoke Eater and find yourself in the middle of a fight, or staring down the barrel of a gun, know that you’re not just there for spectacle. You’re there to see what breaks, what bends, and what survives when violence comes knocking in Hillfort.

Because in crime fiction—as in life—violence is never free. It always leaves a mark.