Help me "blow" something up?

Why is it blowing up? Is it a complete accident? Is it someone (who?) blowing it up who wants it to look like an accident? It it someone who wants to kill someone who is inside, but is willing to take out others? Is it an assassination attempt that's being hidden by blowing up the building?

Try posting your question in the Story Research: Experts and Interviewees Wanted here: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=66

There's also a brainstorming thread somewhere.

First off, are you sure you need to blow up a building?

If you just want a punch to the pacing -- Sometimes you need a middle-aged man choking on a fish bone in the restaurant. Sometimes you need a crazy git with a machine gun walking into the mayor's office. Or somebody's pet tarantula escapes. Or Mildred asks for a divorce.

You don't necessarily need an event that draws city-wide notice.

But let's say you actually have to specifically wipe out that building for some good reason.

So it's winter and the contractor cut corners and the roof collapses under snow. Or there's a fire because somebody was storing mattresses in the stairwell. Or aliens arrive and their ray guns disrupt the steel beams. Or Fimbull McKelly finally perfects his time machine and the office building is merely the beginning of the disaster that will destroy the earth. Or there's an earthquake. Or White Power supremists blow up the newspaper office. Or Thor gets pissed off and lobs a thunderbolt. Or the transformers on the roof explode (as transformers will). Or the place gets struck by lightening when a tanker of jet fuel happens to be stopped at the light out front. Or Harry Dresden is chasing demons through the cellar. Or they've installed an extra water tank on the roof without consulting an engineer and the place goes whoomp under the weight. Or they're demolishing the house next door and it shakes the structure apart. Or a light airplane crashes into it, out of the sky. Or the owner saws through the supports as an insurance scam. Or somebody wants to rob a safe on the second floor and overestimates the dynamite needed. Or an old, abandoned and forgotten piece of the subway system finally falls in upon itself (ditto sink hole. ditto underground crypt of the mummies. ditto tunnel to get into the bank next door. ditto former granite mine from the 1800s.)

But the greatest question, and the first, is -- is this the best way to add interest and excitement?

We don't confuse 'big and important crash boom' event with story significance or emotional response. A mean little dog escaping its leash can be more thrilling and immediate than a four storey building coming down.

Rather than blowing up the joint, could you have it falling down? A roof full of snow can cause a collapse, as can an earthquake.

In a similar vein, my cousin bought a "fixer-upper" house that needed waaaaay more fixing up than she and her husband could have ever anticipated. One day, her husband (who is an engineer) was idly gazing at the loft above the kitchen and suddenly thought, "Wait -- what's holding that up?"

The previous owner had sawed out the weight-bearing pillar that supported that loft. It was only the dodgy integrity of the platform's floor that was keeping the whole thing from collapsing into their kitchen. And it was still loaded up with the piles of junk the previous owner had abandoned there.

In other words, if your office building has an idiotic landlord who is certain s/he can save tons of money by doing the work his/herself despite zero qualification to, then the building could be one loose wire away from a massive electrical fire or one tipped filing cabinet away from a ceiling collapse.

Gas leak and someone innocently flicking their lighter. BOOM!

What LindsayM said! That is exactly what I was thinking.. and you can do it in a Hitchcock type of way... it's coming... you know it's coming... but then you see the guy light the smoke, and BOOM!

hell... Timothy McVeigh with a car bomb would work too. A crazed pissed off architect who got screwed wants to get back at the company and plants bombs strategically. It takes an engineering type of mind to have a building fail systematically. that is why there was contraversy over the towers on 9/11. some people couldnt believe they came straight down without weeks of planning.

My favorite building destruction scene is in Gust Front, by John Ringo. It's also possibly the best use of a tourism office catch phrase in literary history.

Spoilers follow:
They lure the invading alien force into the heart of Fredericksburg, then detonate a huge office building in the center of downtown as a carefully detailed fuel-air explosion. Wipes out most of the army and city, too. As the engineer touches the leads together to detonate the explosives, she shouts "Welcome to historic downtown Fredericksburg" at the aliens. Then BOOM. It was awesome.

What kind of details would you like to know? I can provide a little info on the subject.