To you who are competing in NaNoWriMo, congratulations on finishing more than two weeks! I\u2019m rooting for you! If you have a minute, tell us your obstacles and triumphs. Questions are welcome too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On January 24, 2020, Pleasure Writer wrote, I have a really hard time writing action scenes. They turn out so awkward and most of the time I feel like they\u2019re boring to read, which is obviously not the goal for an action scene. Any suggestions on how to better engage my readers in the story?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Two writers responded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Erica: For me, a good part of what makes action scenes exciting is the vocabulary. \u201cHe looked around at\u201d is much less exciting than \u201cHe caught glimpses of.\u201d As a general rule, use fewer, vivid words. Also, you might need to adjust the amount of showing vs. telling. I think there is an old post about how to write action scenes, but I don\u2019t remember what it was called.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christie V Powell: For action, you want shorter, simpler sentences, and shorter paragraphs. It makes it faster to read, and it also creates white space.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, the writer I edit for had a sentence that reads: \u201cThe outline of a man holding a knife in the air sent her screaming as she struggled out of her bed and ran out of the bedroom.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I changed it to four sentences: \u201cA shadow crossed her chest of drawers: a man with a knife. She screamed. Her feet tangled in her covers and she struggled out of bed. Somehow she made it out of the bedroom.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nice edits! I especially like the last sentence and the humor tucked into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A fundamental strategy for action scenes is to make sure the stakes are high, that the reader cares about the outcome. A reason for this is that we give up the tools we usually use to draw in the reader in favor of action. We\u2019re not charming the reader with character development, dialogue, thoughts, emotions, or setting, though we may sneak in a tiny bit of these. In an action scene, we\u2019re probably not going to reveal that our MC loves dogs. No one will give a long speech. Thoughts and feelings will be uncomplicated and limited to what can be conveyed quickly. The setting will be only what\u2019s needed to make the action visible and possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An action scene is mostly physical, and the physical alone is just moving body parts and possibly weapons\u2013not inherently interesting. Think of watching a sport or a game. If we don\u2019t know the rules, don\u2019t know the teams or the players, or haven\u2019t placed a bet, we see just movement and aren\u2019t engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine, though, that we\u2019re watching a baseball game and a runner twists an ankle on the way to first base. We don\u2019t know what is going on since we don\u2019t understand the game, but we see he\u2019s trying to get somewhere. We\u2019re a little more interested then, because we want to see how the wounded player does. Not much is at stake, but it\u2019s a beginning. We may put off going to the kitchen for ice cream or to another room to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means everything has to be set up in advance. The poor reader has to be induced to care about the MC and the characters she values. He has to be made to hate or fear the villain or the antagonist, which might be something in the natural world\u2013a wildfire, a storm, a bear. We can do this quickly if we decide to start our story with an action scene: \u201cMom!\u201d I yelled. \u201cBack away!\u201d I ran toward her\u2013what I told her not<\/em> to do. Didn\u2019t she see? Didn\u2019t she hear the branches breaking? I vaulted the fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We care about this POV character because she\u2019s trying to save her mom. We care about the mom because the narrator seems to love her. And the questions about seeing and hearing make us begin to fear the peril, even if we don\u2019t know exactly what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the danger is over, we can add more to reveal who these people are and what the problem will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the reader cares about what\u2019s at stake, he\u2019ll read intensely and quickly. He won\u2019t want character development or any of the other things I mentioned because he has to find out fast!<\/em> how it turns out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where the short sentences come in. The reader is stressed out! Long sentences are too complicated. I\u2019m thinking like a reader here. When I\u2019m reading an action scene, I\u2019m going so fast I\u2019m almost skimming. I don\u2019t take in a sentence with a lot of clauses. My eyes will jump thoughts. Is the MC okay? Is the villain getting away with it? Will the trapdoor work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reader has to care, which we set up with a relatable MC. Whatever is at stake has to do with her, not that she has to be at risk. In the battle scene near the end of The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em>, for example, the MC\u2019s sister Meryl is the one the reader worries most about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once we\u2019ve written a draft of our action scene, we can make it more concise so that it moves faster. We can make sure it\u2019s clear what\u2019s riding on the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Continue my beginning: \u201cMom!\u201d I yelled. \u201cBack away!\u201d I ran toward her\u2013what I told her not<\/em> to do. Didn\u2019t she see? Didn\u2019t she hear the branches breaking? I vaulted the fence. Write the scene or the whole story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Snow White realizes that the evil queen wants to harm her and refuses to open the dwarfs\u2019 door. Undaunted, the queen goes through a window. The poison in this apple is so potent that Snow White doesn\u2019t have to bite or swallow. If it so much as touches her lip, she\u2019s a goner. Write the action scene in which the queen, wielding the apple and possibly a weapon, chases Snow White through the cottage, which can be as big or small as you like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Sleeping Beauty has an enemy in her castle, who wants to kill her before she falls asleep, when she\u2019ll be safe from him for a hundred years and forever. You decide who he is and why he\u2019s her enemy. He doesn\u2019t have to be human. Write the action scene in which she is trying to get to the spindle and he is trying to get to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To you who are competing in NaNoWriMo, congratulations on finishing more than two weeks! I\u2019m rooting for you! If you have a minute, tell us your obstacles and triumphs. Questions are welcome too. On January 24, 2020, Pleasure Writer wrote, I have a really hard time writing action scenes. They turn out so awkward and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[113],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1223,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions\/1223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}