Dear Readers, Writers, and Precious Patrons,
Today on All Authors Friday Rewind, we bring you an article from Issue 4 of All Authors Magazine called Writing Action.
Writing Action
“Learn the rules like
a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”― Pablo Picasso
First of all, how long
is too long? I like a good fight scene
as much as the next person, it's why I watch certain movies or pick one author
over another sometimes. Have you ever
seen one where they drag it out forever? The key here is to keep it brief, don't go one for six or eight pages because while you might have a
really intense scene, eventually your reader is going to get punch punk like a
boxer who's been in the ring too long. I
find the easiest way to avoid this is to describe a few exchanges and then give
an overview of the action. A few good
descriptions sprinkled through the scene allows your readers to envision what's
happening when you don't tell them directly.
Sometimes lengthy that
can't be helped, like when you're writing a large battle scene or a siege but
there are ways to avoid wearing out your reader. I guess the best way that
works for me is to break the scene into smaller scenes. For my book, The Gatherer, I have large-scale
siege of a city. Because it is such a
large sequence and a key one at that, I broke it down into sections. I take the attack and divide it into
smaller pieces, not just defenders but attackers as well. The readers see the battle from different
perspectives .
Your action needs to
have a pace to it. It shouldn't be four pages of frenzied activity, ending with
one or the other character defeated. Fights only last an average of a few seconds in reality. That is unless you're watching a title fight
on cable. But if we wrote them as they
might really happen, who'd want to read them. So we set a pace, our hero is
overcome and runs for cover or our villain goes into hiding to ambush his
victim. Now during the fight, there's
not a lot of time for reflection, your characters are too busy. During my years in the martial arts, I had a
chance to compete in tournaments and when you're face to face, you're not thinking
about what you had for breakfast or what movie to watch later. You're focused on the other person. Your characters need to be also.
But during those lull,
while your villain is lying in wait, there is a small window for a little
snippets of what they're thinking or how they're feeling. Now is the time to make mention of why your
villain might be so obsessed with killing your hero. Still not time to consider why he didn't
turn in that third grade book report but it is time to mention that twisted
ankle that's going to cause him trouble later.
The next thing is
don't fall into a rut. For me, this
means predictability. Action is fluid,
outside influences can have a real impact on what happens. I was part of a group of martial arts
instructors who put on demonstrations for local events. We trained in one fight scene for weeks and
the night before we were to perform it, it had rained. That seemingly insignificant event changed
how we performed our demonstration, which we had practiced inside. One thing, a little water on the grass made
the entire fight sequence different. As
a side note to this, what should have been a harmless kick that should have
missed, broke someone's nose. So when we
write, we should think about the small things that can impact what's going on. So look the surroundings, what might your
character find to use to either attack or defend? What are they standing on, a slanted roof or
maybe it's raining. Because let's face
it, predictable action is boring. Or not
as exciting as a scene that catches them by surprise and makes them need to
turn to the next page.
But this doesn't just
go for a fight but the classic chase as well. And for this, I go back to what for me are the best when it comes to the
chase scenes, 007 himself. Ok, pick any of those movies and how does it
start? It starts with a chase. The
sequence, is always fantastic, our hero being pursued by twenty henchman down a steep alpine slope armed with nothing more than a ski
pole. And yet, he always survives and
usually there's a gorgeous woman waiting for him at the lodge. Martini anyone? But even here, our hero lives in a real world
with real laws of gravity and physics. So when he skis off the edge of
the cliff, he will fall. He might only
drop a few feet to a conveniently place
slope while his enemies crash
into trees and rocks and he comes out unscathed but it's still within the boundaries
of reality. Still even in a chase,
things happen that can change the course the chase takes like a badly parked
truck (the bigger the better), or the mother pushing the stroller across the
street. Our villain may try to use this
to his advantage but for the hero, this could be a problem. Played right, it might allow the villain to
get away until later in the book.
The best illustration
of complete fly-in-your-face-I don't-care-about-the-rules writing is Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon. This for my money has
the most outrageous actions and fighting sequences. They fought on treetops and running across
water but the action was written in in the style of the old Black Belt Theater
movies I grew up with. It was
fantastical but that was established very early so nothing that happened came
as a shock or looked out of place with the rest of the movie.
Another good one for
this were the Matrix movies. The writers
got around the real world physics by
offering two realities, one real world, with normal rules that govern
everything. And an artificial, computer
generated reality where normal rules didn't apply. The rules or lack of them was established by
the writers early so we didn't sit there shaking our heads in disbelief.
So how
do we write our scenes? The time has
come for the hero and the villain to face one another. We've picked our time and our place but then
what? Now when it comes to one on one or
even one against a few, I have an understanding of how fights happen because of
my time in the martial arts. I'm also
constantly watching videos. However,
even with my understanding, to make it realistic, I sometimes have to rely on people who have a greater
understanding of what's possible and what isn't. But not all writers have access to black
belts who can help them. Sure, if you're
a writer in a Hollywood studio, you can get all the help you need. All you have to do is pick up the phone
The key here is on line. Websites like youtube or sites that have
libraries of martial arts and self-defense videos. There's a treasure trove of information out
there for the asking. Need your hero to
slide down a roof, land on parked car and then jump into a moving pickup? There's a video for it. In some areas you might have more than enough
experience to draw from but for the rest, it's all about the research. Our scenes have to make the reader or
audience believe and for that, we need to learn it. The internet is a wonderful resource because
everything we need to know to make or writing better is right there. This works for action that takes place
inside as well. There are plenty of
videos and pictures to furnish you with all the large or small details you need,
whether your action takes place in a turn of the century train station or
Fisherman's Wharf.
This goes for chase
scenes as well because there are hundreds of clips from movies and videos on
defensive driving to let you create your own action. And when it comes to mapping a chase, my
all-time favorite website when it comes to learning about places is Google Maps,
especially street view. Whether I need
to know the layout of a small fishing village in Ireland or my way around
Boston, it's there, furnishing those little details like whether or not you're
going uphill or down or what the buildings look like. You
take your chase through down a street in New York that doesn't run where you
say or misplace a park, anyone familiar with that area is going to call you on
it. This can have a big impact on your
readers and make them more critical of your work, especially when leaving
reviews.
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