Write On: 'Countdown' Creator/Writer Derek Haas

“One thing I’ve found in the crime genre is that homicides are
always interesting. When somebody’s killed, whatever that case
may be, it’s usually compelling drama. So then it’s up to you as
the writer to surprise the audience and do things that they
didn’t think were coming. I’ve described it like this before: If
you can hit the sweet spot of, ‘I didn’t see that coming! I
should have seen it coming, but I didn’t see it coming,’ That, to
me, is the best writing. It’s like, when you got to the end of
The Sixth Sense, and you were like, ‘Oh my god, I should have
seen that coming!’ That was great writing,” says Derek Haas,
creator and writer for the show Countdown on Prime. 


You may know Derek Haas from the popular NBC procedural dramas
like Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD. Now, he’s got a
new crime drama on Prime called Countdown that tells one twisty
crime story over 13 episodes – all written by Haas. Set in Los
Angeles, Countdown follows a secret task force who discover a
sinister international plot that threatens millions of lives. The
show stars Eric Dane, Jensen Ackles and Jessica Camacho as
undercover agents all harboring dark secrets of their own. 


On this episode of the podcast, we chat with Haas about starting
his career as a crime novelist, writing movies like 2 Fast 2
Furious, 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted before making the switch to TV.
Haas talks about working with director John Singleton, prolific
TV producer Dick Wolf and writing characters that hook audiences.
He also shares his advice for writing action sequences that both
stun visually and surprise the audience. 


“When I think about action sequences, I always go back to Raiders
of the Lost Ark. My favorite action sequence of any movie ever is
when Indiana Jones has to fight this gigantic Nazi guy, and – in
any other movie – that would have been the only thing that’s
happening. But they put Marion in a plane where she gets trapped
because the cover of the plane closes. Then the plane’s
propellers start spinning. The plane starts spinning, gas is
leaking out of the plane, there’s other people running by with
machine guns. So it’s not just, ‘Oh, here’s a fight,’ it’s
‘Here’s a fight, but there’s eight other things happening at
once.’ I really try to do that in these chase sequences, because
you have seen a million of them. What’s the other factors I can
bring to it? How can I show you something you haven’t seen
before? Sometimes it’s character, and sometimes, it’s the stunt
itself,” says Haas. 


To hear more screenwriting advice from Haas, listen to the
podcast.