Actions - Writers Forum

Clockwork · 01-06-2005, 09:36 AM

Hey Clockwork here \

/ ,

This thread is about describing actions when it comes to writing a story. whether it be a high powered fight scene with lots of explosions Or a calm talk between two character's there is always actions.

What helps me in decribing actions is to plan it out before hand if it's a really intense scene and maybe map out the room it's happening in so you kniw exactly whats going on.

Does anyone else have any advice about this sort of thing?

Oracle · 01-06-2005, 10:25 AM

Hmm... actually, I could probably use some advice when it comes to actions. As far as plot structure goes, I know what I'm doing, but when it comes to actions, I'm just writing on a whim.

Clockwork · 01-06-2005, 11:15 AM

Well maybe actually acting out the scene would help. So you would have a better chance of getting good details correct. But that might be kind of hard if you need two people (Well you could always do it by yourself.), Convincing a person to act out a fight scene with you isnt always the greatest ice breaker for a conversation (holds for laughs). \

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Ps. There seems to be some sort of problem I can't find this topic anywhere on the forum but it does come up beside the forum name on the homepage as the lastest topic posted in. Any infromation on why this is happening would be greatly appreciated.

Nazareth · 01-06-2005, 02:05 PM

If you're going to add fight scenes to a story, then they should be key events & as such need to be drawn out and described in detail. A fight scene is an important scene. Even if nothing major happens, it still needs to be treated with care.
In this scene you will see that not much happens, but you get the feel of it's importance, and see the emotion & feel the passion of a young fella named Pete that normally isn't violent who just loses it. He has admired this woman Sherri for years and when someone suggest she is a tramp, He looses control:

Pete stood and for a fraction of a second he saw the face of Sherri Bouchard clear and beautiful as he'd remembered her in his younger years. And when Phil folded his arms and grinned after declaring that Sherri was a whore, Pete had another image -- this one of a wild animal with no more thought of honor than a mange infested cotyote. Phil turned to the crowd with an arrogant smirk on his face, and the scroungy drunks looked Pete up and down and sneered. One fellow spat a gob of tobacco that landed across the new Nike sneaker on Pete's foot. Light from an over head lantern gleemd off of the deputies badge, pinned just above Phil's black heart. Pete tried to control the foriegn emotions, but the more he thought about the worthless punk standing before him, the more it seemed that the fire dwelling within him spread, threatening to engulf him. He attempted to tell himself that he was a civilized, educated eastern business man. He glanced around the bar and noted that everyone in there was the same as he was. The plain reality was that he was no more than a savage grunt himself. He was aware of the cowpoke's faces that had fixed their steady, hardened eyes on him, waiting to see what he'd do. Fred -- the grain store owner -- was slowly backing away from him with his arms out, pushing others to the back of the room. And Pete thought then that he wanted to kill Fred too. Kill him for hiding the fact that Sherri's attacker was his cousin. That and lying to him about what had happened. He was struggling with wether or not to react the way he wanted to -- seeing the faces on the men around him almost begging him to do something -- when a hand reached around from behind and lifted the shotgun barrel toard the ceiling. Tile shattered into tiny pieces that floated down like a heavy snow and covered him in formica.(Or whatever ceiling tiles are made of lol)

An actual fight hasn't broken out here, but the potential was that this citified dude Pete was going to kill Phil for what he had done- you see the emotion, the anger and the building fury, and although noone gets killed & the actual shot misses and infact was accidental, the scene is still packed with an internal action. Yuo see a crowd hungry for a show even if it means murder, and you see a smug deputy who thinks he can get away with anything- it's an important scene even though nothing terrible happens, and sets up the rest of the novel. The westerner who went east, became citified, then comes back west & people think he's been 'sissified' and almost dare him to 'show his true colors' (They don't care if he'd be arrested, all they want is a show)

Instead of having Pete walk into the bar and talk with Phil at the end of his barrel, We learn more about Pete and the attitude of the town and Phil's decrapid attitude as well by taking extra time and showing things this way

Clockwork · 01-06-2005, 03:23 PM

I agree with what Nazareth said. That is a good way to show things about the enviroment and the characters etc.,
That is why I put alot of effort into scenes like that becuase alot can be descovered from a fight scene or even just a scene that could have resulted in a fight scene.

But Incase you thought I was suggesting every scene should be a fight scene I wasn't. I was just giving advice on how to show actions clearly (and hopes someone else would put in some advice of there own like you did.).

So anyone else have advice on this sort of thing?

Scratches · 01-06-2005, 04:10 PM

Play with your sentences. If there's anything I'm learning from English it's how to use structure to its greatest effect. When the action is fast paced, your sentences should be fast paced too. You can do this with short blunt sentences or small clauses linked together by commas and hyphens. For instance, looking at these two:

1. X grabbed the bottle and smashed it against the corner of the old wooden table, glimmering green shards scattering onto the floor. He raised it high above his head, grinning with malice, and brought the jagged edges of the bottle's remains down onto the unsuspecting skull of Y.

2. X leapt into action, grabbing the bottle and smashing it with ire onto the table corner, an explosion of fragments - then let the bottle hover in the air, a moment of possibilty, intuition - but then down again, and a sickening crunch of glass into Y's exposed forehead.

Regardless of which you think is better, the second clearly reads faster, and you can use this technique to build up tension to the scene's climax.

Queasy Dillo · 01-06-2005, 04:13 PM

Writing action scenes are the best part of writing (in my opinion, anyway). I actually put up with plot, scenery, character developement and all that other BS just for the chance to destroy stuff. Always was a bit different, but I digress.

Action scenes are something you pick up with time and practice. Odds are your first efforts will be crap. That's the unfortunate fact. Happily, it gets better.

The biggest problem I've had with action is striking a balance between ACTION and DETAIL. While ACTION is clearly the star at this point, you need to keep at least a moderate amount of DETAIL present.

Failing to keep things balanced out will mean one of two things:

- You have a cut-and-dried scene where the verbs carry the entire message. The action is too forward and obvious, and there's nothing to distinguish your scene from all the other action drivel out there. Authors of fan fiction hold the all-time record for this.

Or...

- The action takes places, but nobody notices because it's buried under such a morass of description that the narrative collapses under its own weight. Like I stated earlier, DETAIL is important. I'll amend that here by say RELEVANT DETAIL is important. If your descriptions are about the people/places/things involved in the action, you've got the right idea. If you're describing the pattern of the wallpaper during a shootout....get back to the point.

Every writer has been guilty of at least one of the above. An improving writer has done both. Personally, I tend to overwrite the scene, then return a few days later with my editing flamethrower (....oooh....fire...) to thin out the chaff.

However, this is just my take on things. You might find a method that works better for your particular situation.

Oh, and since this is an ACTION thread, I figure I'd put my two cents in. This is from a story I haven't worked on in a while. It's crime fiction set in the early 1930s and has also been edited, tweaked, and rewritten several times over.

Hope it helps.
Dillo

***

Quote:

The current calm was shattered before the noise from the getaway car faded. Two men in long coats—only after a minute did Kelly recognize them as the doormen from earlier—walked in. The shorter of the pair carried a short-barreled Winchester loose in his right hand. The taller, having shed his overcoat, showed a revolver hung below his left arm. The two came in talking, neither one seeing the interloper.

All at once they became aware of Kelly behind the bar. Conversation ceased. Realization dawned. And then things started happening fast.

The shorter brought the Winchester up, his hand sliding into place on the forearm and hauling off a shot from the hip. Glasses lining the bar disintegrated. Kelly, his shooting hand occupied, resolved the problem by hurling the mostly full mug their way. Snatching the Luger, he dropped behind the cover offered by the bar itself. More glass shattered, this time the mirror on the opposite wall. Shards and beverages rained on his back.

The shotgun sounded again. Kelly didn’t have a clue what he was aiming at. Sure was doing a number on the furnishings, though. He counted five reports with the lighter .38s mixed in for good measure. He stood up and snapped off one of his own. Aiming for the short guy. A miss. He sought cover as the taller doorman reloaded and fired. Kelly felt a spray of pinpricks on the left side of his face and neck. Nothing serious there. Near-misses were seldom fatal. Annoying, but not lethal. Another blast tattooed a group of holes in the wallpaper. Thank God the Winchester had a short barrel. Any longer and the shot pattern would have stayed tight enough to kill him through the bar.

Now prone, Kelly crawled across the glass and spilled booze to the end of the bar. Both guards were still shooting, and doing a monumentally shabby job. He managed to get his head and shooting arm around the corner without notice. He squeezed off a round and the taller doorman collapsed, bleeding from a thigh wound. Count him out. Kelly retreated as the remaining guard compensated and tore another chunk from the furniture.

In the midst of this, Kelly actually had a plan: waiting. Somehow he’d lost count of the shots fired by the man with the Winchester, but the thing only held five rounds. He had to reload sometime and that was when he was vulnerable. That was his chance.

Nazareth · 01-06-2005, 07:37 PM

You should describe fight scenes with alot of detail- why? Because a fight is central to the characters & therefore if it's important to them then it must be important to us the readers. Something important is being determined between the characters- if it wasn't important, they wouldn't throw caution to the wind and risk injury to themselves and others.

Wordage to a readers tells them "Hey, pay attention, this is important." (Although many novels contain plenty of wordage blocks that are absolutely about nothing important- Make your scenes important- think them out carefully- don't send a person into a park if there is no ryme or reason for it- I'll see if I can find something I wrote to explain this)

Nazareth · 01-06-2005, 07:44 PM

This was long so I'll post a second one instead of in the other post:

Following you'll see two scenes that say the same thing, but one is more descriptive and character revealing without actually telling the reader why the character feels as they do- it's a walk in the park by a troubled youth- not a very action oriented scene- but it can be made easily into a compelling one that shows a rounded figure.

Quote:

John ran into the park -- ran away from the fight that was going on in the kitchen between his girlfriend and her father. He just couldn't take it. He had been through a similiar past, and the anger still welled within him everytime Julie and her pop fought. He had to get out before the voices started again. His girlfriend was always screaming at him whenewver her father came over to visit. The park, he thought. That's the safest place to be alone. Can't hurt anyone there.

He slowly walked down the cobblestone path looking for someplace to sit down. A slight breeze carried the scent of honysuckle across his face. He couldn't stand it. The smell brought back memories of being beaten as a child for nothing more than not taking the garbage out doors right. Nothing he did ever wa good enough for his drunken, stinking father.

He spotted a branch on the ground. Maybe he'd carve again. He sued to like that, and he was good, too. Made lots of usefull things. Perhaps he'd try it one last ime. Too dangerous he thought. Before he knew it, several hours had passed, and it was semi dark. He looked at his lap and saw the shape that he had been working on, and screamed. He rose, ran for the apartment, and fell.

here we are told of some of the background and the reason why John can't stand it (Also note that I mentioned scent- scent is a poweful memory stimulator,(If you'll note, sometimes when you are walking along and get a whiff of something you actually stop and try to think about why that smell means something to you) and scent is an easy way to show character as you';ll see in following paragraph). In the following paragraph- I'll try ot give a deeper reason for his escaping into the park, which will tie in better with the whole story instead of being a generic escape area.

Quote:

No! Not again, he thought. It came on like a mudslide. The head began to hurt and the uncontrollable trembling made standing in any one spot for long seem impossible. He covered one eye -- the eye where the pain began -- and slammed the screen door with the other.

"John ... don't you leave me. Not this time. You get back here and tell him. Tell him it's his fault. Don't you --"

John ran into the bushes behind the fire hydrant and pushed aside the chain-link fence, still holding onto his left eye with one unsteady hand.There, that's more like it. The scene before him at first had begun to whirl and spin. Bushes melted into green blobs, cobblestone paths heaved and rolled as if they were a carpet floating on the surface of the water, and the sounds of the animals began to fade in and out. Now, he stood and watched in the usual amazement as everything slowly regained all their right proportions again. It always amused him how a simple headache could distort the world so much. Even as a child, when shadows were monsters, and invisible animals squeaked and hissed and hooted, and generally just frightened the bejeebers out of him, he had always sought refuge in the only place he felt safer than he did at home -- the woods.

John began to pace the cobblestone path, back and forth, waiting for the pain to subside enough so that he could sit down and and carve. Whittling he was good at. Noone to critique his work out here. Noone to tell him he was an idiot. No more quick trips to the hospital for stiches, or casts. No sir. Out here he was somebody -- sombody important, somebody useful. He fingered the knife in his jacket pocket, picked up a fallen branch, and studied it. Yep, it was there alright. He could see the shape emerging, calling out to him.

John glanced at his watch. "Oh my gosh," he said to noone. "Has it been three hours already?"

His head no longer hurt, and the shapes of the trees seemed normal to him now. He exhaled and saw a puff of steam float across the path in front of him. Although darkness had set in, the trees had a ghastly tepid green illumination to them. He looked up and noticed that the street lamps were lit. His gaze fell the shape in his lap and slowly it dawned on him. He shoved the figure from his knees and swatted at the woodchips that covered his pants. He tired to scream, but the sound caught in his throat and all that came out was a gutteral grunt. Off in the distance he heard the ambulance. He leapt to his feet and began to run toward the apartment.

He landed hard. The stones dug into his flesh and he bit his lip -- the same way that he had bit his lip when his pappa had 'taught him a lesson'. John could still sense the barbs of the wire burrowing trenches into his back as it wrapped around his body over and over again. He lay on the ground and felt the warm blood as it ran down his forehead so many years ago. He licked his lips, and tasted that same coppery taste that had become so common to him that he had referred to it as an after dinner drink. No more, papa. No more kicks for you.

He thought about going back and picking the carving up. The pain was excrutiating, but he managed to ignore the gash in his palm, and he use his good arm to lift himself from the ground. Once on his feet he turned in the direction he had just come, took two steps, and that's when he heard the scream. Julie!

In the second one, (Sorry for being gorry) We get a bit better sense of why John likes to escape to the woods, what his mindset is, and get to see that something is terribly wrong with him. Later in the story, I'd work in the idea that while the woods was his safe-haven, it was also where he was when his pappa had murdered his brother. in the paragraph above, we see him in the woods where he feels safe, but something has happened while he was out there, and he doesn't know what. Was he responsible somehow? Was he irresponsible for wanting to be safe while Julie possibly in danger? Did he actual will something to happen to Julie or the father? Above, We also get to see that he found a way to stop the pain when he was a child- through carving- Carving what? Tune in tomorrow to find out