Lights, Camera. . .

I’ve been invited to do a class for a bunch of kids on how to go about writing an action scene/sequence.  Thought I’d use the blog to flesh out some of the ideas I want to get across.  So here are some of the necessary elements of a successful action scene (and most other scenes, actually):

Necessity: The scene itself must be integral to the story. Even the best written sequence will feel empty if it has no consequences on the surrounding story. If the whole scene can be cut, and the story around it doesn’t either collapse or require an equal amount of new verbiage to explain its absence, it should go.

Clarity: Action requires forward momentum. There is no quicker way to lose that momentum than for the reader to stop and ask, “how did his foot get there?” “What did the author mean by that?” “What does that word mean?” In an action scene, you need to make sure that every sentence is unambiguous, ever bit of scene-setting has been done, and all the elements are in clearly defined relationships to each other. You don’t need to describe every blow landing in a bar-fight, but you must make sure that everything on the page has been fully described in a clear unambitious manner. This is not the time to coin new words.

Stakes: There must be something riding on the outcome of the scene. Even if it’s the default, “the protagonist’s life is at stake,” we better care that the protagonist lives or dies. Better yet if what’s riding on the outcome is something the protagonist cares deeply about, beyond their own survival. (We have higher standards for fictional characters than for real people.)

The Senses: The one thing the written word has over a movie is the ability to put you inside a character’s skin. This is the time to use it to its full effect. A purely visual description of a pitched battle will, in fact, distance the reader from the action. The reader will see it as a movie or TV show. However, once you mention the smell of smoke, the stinging of sweat in the eye, the feel of acceleration and the jerk in the neck as everything suddenly stops: the reader is there, viscerally.

Pacing: This is affected by the surrounding text, but generally speaking, every scene consists of action rising toward some sort of climax. If the “action” of the scene is at a more or less constant level throughout, the scene feels flat. But if the risk increases, the stakes increase, the effect on the surrounding world increases, there’s a sense of the story moving as well as the characters. It is not just movement, but acceleration, the sense of driving toward something faster and faster. The climatic event generally signals the end of the action sequence, if not the scene itself. (Is there a need to show the rebels mopping up Tie Fighters after the Death Star blows up?)