“Amazing the resources and speed the American machine will mobilize to eliminate one they find undesirable.”
- Keith Hayden
- Cereus & Limnic: Escape From Okinawa - Type B
How I write action scenes - Quick clip - (20 seconds)
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Behind Exhibit 061 - Author commentary (5 mins)
Text
Writing Commentary — Exhibit 061: Major T’s Emergency Briefing
Keith Hayden | October 18, 2026
I wanted to record and talk about a few thoughts of this Exhibit 061, Major T's Emergency Briefing.
The first thing was the method of recording, of writing this chapter, which was on my phone, which I regularly write on my phone. But this is the first time that I've actually recorded myself writing on my phone, which was a different experience.
And this was a fitting chapter to do it with, because certain chapters, when you're writing a novel, they lend themselves to just being relaxed and just getting in the flow and just getting started. But this was not one of those chapters. This is one of those chapters that's breakneck speed. There's just an escalation of tension.
It starts out tense, because the prior scene, they've basically been waiting for this briefing for days now. [Unclear] briefed before they left Ishigaki Island.
And now they've been on the open ocean riding these genetically enhanced, DNA-spliced human-ocean hybrids. There's a whale shark and two orca whales that are characters here in this scene. And they've been waiting, and they've been basically suffering on the open ocean. It takes a long time to get from Ishigaki to Iejima, where this next part of the story takes place.
So this scene was a long time coming, and I knew it was going to be a Major T chapter. And Major T is one of those characters that, you know, he's bombastic, he's inappropriate. He'll say what he wants. He has this kind of theatrical register to him. And so he's a really fun character to write. I know any scene that he's in, he just kind of consumes the space. So you have to kind of give him room. He's not one of those characters that comes in as a side character.
But the escalation of tension is different this time, because every other briefing he's given throughout the novel so far has been him. You know, the classic mission briefing, like Metal Gear Solid. Here's your mission. Go get this. Go destroy that. Go recover this. That type of thing.
But this is the first time that he's under pressure throughout this chapter. And so showing that and then still having that kind of dynamic, because he has his medic, Tra Uma. You know, that's a—Tra Uma is just kind of this funny, you know. It's just kind of this funny, you know. I thought I thought it was a very clever. But anyway, he's been Ryu's medic, kind of looking after his status.
So we have this kind of revelation of information. And none of this information is new to the reader at this point in the story. Like the reader knows pretty much everything. But it's the delivery of it that makes this this section that much more like, you know,
Ryu's about to reach Iejima where there's assassins waiting for him. Major T has Frank Tower, who's this kind of crooked CIA officer. And he sent a guy over in, assumingly, D.C. Not sure where Major T is based at. I should probably know that. But he's not in Okinawa this time. So he sent somebody to go get him at the headquarters level.
So they're trying to bug out. He's trying to brief Ryu on the threat. Ryu is getting closer and closer to the island the entire time. There's a ticking clock throughout this entire thing. The problem is, like, we got five minutes. We got to make this briefing happen.
And then it ends with an airstrike, which is significant because there's been no planes flying until up to, I think, like two chapters ago. So it’s a huge huge escalation.
And it's one of those scenes where when I'm writing this type of scene, you kind of feel the tension of writing it. Like, I need to write it all at once because if it doesn't, if I don't do it, then you lose the thread of action and tension and the immediacy of the scene.
So any time I write a fight scene, any time I write a heavy action scene, which this isn't a heavy action scene, but you know we're getting there. We're getting to a peak, which it does end on a peak. I have to write it all at once.
I can't stop. I have to continue. So being on the phone forced that because the phone is kind of just my fastest method of writing.
To me, you know, maybe some people get distracted a lot by writing on their phone. I don't. When I just see the text in front of me, no windows. There's no all my tabs and tools on my desktop. It's just me and the words.
And it's a very small screen. It does take some getting used to.
But I mean, I wrote most of my first novel on my phone several years ago, and I've been doing it for better part of half a decade now. I've gotten used to it.
Full Writing Session (45 mins)
Exhibit 061 - AI Analysis (39 mins)
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