I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for, but here's how I think about this at a discrete level (this follows the Wikipedia article on the wave equation).
Consider a line of springs each of mass $m$ and length $h$, with spring constant $k$. The distance a spring, located at $x$, is displaced from equilibrium is denoted by $y(x)$.
The force of the spring at location $x+h$ is
$$F = m \frac{d^2 y(x+h)}{dt^2}.$$
From Hooke's law, the mass balance on this spring is given by
$$F = F^{x+2h}-F^{x}$$
where the superscript means the force exerted by all of the springs on that side of the spring under consideration.
Next,
$$F = F^{x+2h}-F^{x}=k([y(x+2h)-y(x+h)]-[y(x+h)-y(x)]).$$
Finally, we take the number of springs to be $N$, with the total mass being $M=Nm$, the total spring constant being $K=k/N$ and the total length is defined as $L=Nh$.
Therefore, we have
$$\frac{d^2 y(x+h)}{dt^2}=\frac{KL^2}{M}\frac{ y(x+2h)-2y(x+h)-y(x)}{h^2}.$$
Taking the limits $h \to 0, N\to \infty$ and defining $c^2 =KL^2/M$, we have the wave equation
$$y_{tt}-c^2 y_{xx}=0.$$