Action Scenes 101 · 2:07am Jul 29th, 2014
Summer is a time for action movies: multimillion dollar computer generated temples to Explodius, the god of fiery concussion. A good action movie can get your heart racing and fist pumping in the air. So why is it that with written action scenes, there are a sizable number of people who will read the first few lines and skip to the end? Read on for a few tips to prevent your action scenes from becoming filler. An explosion is a terrible thing to waste.
Action scenes are work for the reader
In a movie, the experience is passive and everything is provided. No need to imagine any of the details: you just look on the screen and BOOM, there it is (in 3D!). Not so in a written action scene. A reader will not truly appreciate that epic roundhouse kick unless they devote a few of their braincells to conjuring up exactly what a roundhouse kick to the face means. Then there is the question of how much of an action scene is really necessary to understand the rest of the story. Who lives? Who dies? Who lost an arm? Was there emotional trauma? The actual blow by blow is filler unless you do something to make the reader want to read it.
Write scenes that involve fighting
Action is a how, not a why. In and of itself action has no goal and no part of it naturally suggests when the scene will be over. You may think that the scene is over when someone dies or is incapacitated, but remember that the author ultimately has control over when that happens. Written characters have no hp bar that requires X attacks to deplete. Fluttershy could punch a hydra in the toe and level it in one shot if you so chose, or Rainbow could suplex Angel for a year. Of course, there is some question of believability, but the overall point is that the author must decide how long the action will go, and there are not many in-scene guides for when that should happen.
It does not make sense to have an action scene if it will be over in the blink of an eye, but we do not want to go on forever. We need grounding. This can be supplied by refusing to think of action scenes as any different from any other scene. Action is a tool for the characters to pursue the goal that they entered the scene with, the same as dialog or any other interaction. At every point in your action scene, an author should be able to say: what is the goal of each party? What stops them from attaining that goal? How close are they to overcoming that obstacle? Every movement must then be understood in the context of how it helps a character fulfill their goal rather than by whatever "awesome moves" you wanted to toss in. The result is that the story keeps a sense of direction and progression that carries the reader through the scene.
Take the perspective of your characters
It is very easy to get into tell mode when writing action. Derpy shot Flim, then Derpy kicked Flam, and finally Derpy ate a muffin. Ho hum. Why go through all the work to conjure the action in your mind when the story is presenting it like a shopping list? No fun here. Long chains of action after action will soon become meaningless to the reader because each one is there and gone with no time to leave an impression. This is a shame, because skirting death is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can go through. One slice of a knife and you will be recovering for weeks. Pain hurts. Die in real life and you die in real life. Behind every action scene lies a powerful ride that the author has a duty to tap into and make present to the reader. The ever-present experience is the delicious deep-fried goodness that will keep your reader hooked on action.
Who has the experience? Characters. Not the narrator. Characters. Characters who do not have time to think of the theoretical tactical considerations of flanking bonuses, but do know having a person stabbing your back no matter where you turn is a terrifyingly vulnerable position to be in. The more you can allow your characters to describe their own circumstances through reaction, the more engaging the fight will be. When your character gets punched, do they scream? Fall over? Grit their teeth through the pain? Maybe it was a baby punch and they shrug it off. How does it sound? What breaks? Point is that a good action scene needs a minimum amount of narration, just enough description to get the gist of the important bits, and the rest of the meat should be provided by your characters dealing with their circumstances.
And of course do not forget to communicate the urgency that drives all these characters to take up arms and risk their lives in the first place. This is not so much about communicating the whys and wherefores of everyone's motivation, but rather a matter of writing the characters in such a way that reflects their emotional investment in the outcome. Do they swing their bat as though they were defeating the enemy, or flailing in blind panic as they run from their assailants? Putting a character's attitude towards the situation in their every line and action makes your action scene more personal.
Be specific
As noted above, action is an emotionally traumatizing experience. One misstep and you will find yourself messed up, possibly permanently. It is a place for the immediate and powerful, not the generic. "A longsword clanged off my armor" is far more riveting than "I blocked an attack." "The masked mountain of a stallion" is scary, while "the enemy" might as well be a pawn on a gameboard. Keep an eye out for generic terms like these and try to find more vivid replacements of roughly equal length.
Another thing to be aware of is abstract terms. I know we all like to play video games, but I have seen authors pick up bad terminology habits from them. Speaking of "accuracy," "defense," and "damage" are nice when you have an hp bar that you whack at until it empties, but story characters have no such thing. These abstract terms have no meaning in written stories. A crossbow does not have an "accuracy" stat that can be compared with other crossbows. Instead, mention the size of object you can reliably hit at a distance with it. "This crossbow can hit a bit on the other end of a hoofball field." Armor is tough, so focus on what kind of hits it can withstand -- "Big Macintosh bucked the platemail with all he had and left no dent." Watch for "stats" words. Replace them with their physical implications. This is a story, not a video game.
Focus determines importance
The thing that you spend the most words on is the thing that the reader will conclude is the most important. If the source of danger is not treated as important, it is hard to get the reader invested in the peril. This means the secret to getting a reader to take your action seriously is weighing the relative importance of your dangers and giving them screen time proportional to their significance. If there are gryphon-riding diamond dogs with flaming battle axes ambushing you from on high, don't let your characters be more concerned about discussing the price of tea in Neighpon. Unless, of course, the tea is actually more important to your characters. Aristocracy is a silly thing.
This applies to detail as well as subject. If lava bombs are raining on your head, you will be more likely to notice details such as the shadows falling across you or the hiss of molten rock from near misses -- things that help you escape death if you notice them. You will likely not be noticing that pretty flower to the left or thinking about the symbolic significance of the death raining on your head because neither of these relate to the problem of staying alive. The more little asides you throw in, the more you spread out your reader's attention and reduce the menace of whatever the threat is. Identify the one main threat, go back through your writing, and ensure that when that threat is present, as many details as possible relate to the danger of the threat be it demonstrating the danger or avoiding the danger.
However, you can take this a step further. A dangerous threat may absorb most of the characters' attention, but nothing shows a threat's power better than having it steal the focus from whatever else the characters were doing. Gojira does not wait quietly outside Sugarcube Corner for service -- he rips off the roof and demands all of the crescent rolls whether Pinkie likes it or not! By allowing the danger to interrupt, it establishes a pecking order of importance and gives this supreme danger power over the narrative itself. The reader must always be wondering if it will decide to drop in. It forces everyone, reader included, to keep on their toes and as a consequence appears much more dangerous than before.
Remember to let the reader rest
Action fatigue is a thing. If the peril keeps building and building, eventually all the heightened stakes start to blend together, and the brain turns off. Why get invested in THIS "final form" when we've already killed the past ten? It's probably not even their final form anyway...
Before you begin writing your action scene, you need to get a feel for what pacing you are going for and why. Is this a quick mid-scene burst of action, a dedicated scene, or a marathon multi-scene run? Each of these requires a different approach. Midscene action has room for a provocation, 1-2 paragraphs of action, and the aftermath. You might be able to work in one quick reversal, but for all intents and purposes, it is open and shut.
A dedicated action scene differs from the above by giving you enough room to add some status quo. You have room for a setup, provocation, some status quo, one or two reversals to build tension, a climax, and a period of reaction/recovery on the tail to let the action sink in. Where before your action is one and done, here you have room to let the action play out more. Again, economy is important, so the rule of threes is your best friend. Also remember to do your cooldown or risk brain cramps. A dedicated action scene is a big deal, so to move on without giving your characters time to take a breath and give some kind of reaction to what just happened means you did not give the scene time to sink in.
Multi-scene action sequences are best constructed from two to four of the above dedicated action scenes strung together. This does two things for you: it breaks your back and forth up into manageable chunks and gives each chunk its own payoff and time to sink in so the pieces are individually more significant and memorable. The only adjustment you have to make for a multi-scene action sequence is that recovery period between scenes should retain some danger from the overall threat of the sequence. The tension is lessened, but not completely gone. It also pays to incorporate the presence of the overall threat throughout the action or in the recovery scenes to keep the real objective in the back of the reader's mind.
Some grammatical structures to be aware of
The clause is one noun, one verb, and possibly one object. You jerk your head around and what immediately leaps out at you is the contents of a clause.
Words happened. Words happened. Noun-verb-period makes for a terse and frantic clause. The action whams you in the face, especially if you cut down on the syllables. Use these quick clauses for a sudden start/end of the action, reversals, and possibly the climactic blow.
The wordy words happened. The wordy words happened. Here we've added an adjective to our single clause. The sentence becomes more thoughtful, the emphasis is toned down, but it is still snappy. Short but not terse sentences make a good base for the middle of your scene where we have gotten to the meat of the action.
The sentence is made of one or more clauses. Semantically, a sentence is one idea: it pulls all the clauses together in one unified whole. Key words: unified whole.
Words happened, meanwhile, Fluttershy ate veal. Observe how the two clauses have nothing to do with each other. Grammatically, it is a valid sentence, but it is not very useful in an action scene. The two clauses do not work together at all and the narrative becomes unfocused, which is the last thing that you want in an action scene. Do the smart thing: make it two sentences or even two separate paragraphs.
Words happened, and then more words happened. Here, the subject of the first clause is similar or equivalent to the subject of the second. The effect is to magnify or expand upon the first clause. This is most useful for building tension or showing an action took a noticeable amount of time as opposed to being over in a snap.
Words happened, and then they were on the page. The first clause is the cause and the second the effect. Putting them together in this way lets you treat the two as one complete unit instead of breaking them up into two more sudden single clause sentences. Be careful about following this sentence with another of the same type, as you can end up with a long list of actions without pausing to give them context (see the characters' perspective section above). Try to keep yourself to one of these per paragraph if you can help it. Two can work if they are non-consecutive, but if you need more, consider multiple paragraphs.
Words happened, and then a rogue semicolon appeared! We have an action interrupted by something completely different. This could be a defensive maneuver, a reversal of fortune, or a new entity breaking into the action. It differs from the "Fluttershy eats veal" example above because the second clause is connected to the first by virtue of both being in proximity to each other and part of the same action. These sentences change the status quo of the scene and thus are a big deal. Chain one reversal to another to quickly change things up and jerk them back to before, but three back to back is pushing it. Four is right out. If you are using two unrelated sentences of this type in the same paragraph, or even in adjacent paragraphs, then you are doing it wrong. If you let a reversal stand, you need to give it time to sink in.
The paragraph is a collection of several sentences with a common idea behind them. Its length will vary based on what pacing you want to go with, but if you are straying past six-line paragraphs, you should consider breaking them up to avoid writing walls of text. Time-wise, a paragraph should take between 6 to 10 seconds of one group of characters' in-story time.
Words happened, and ink went everywhere. The petunias yelped. They went for the pen and scribbled everything out for great justice!
Event, result, reaction, and counter-event. That is all you have time for in one paragraph of action. Anything more should have you considering a new paragraph to avoid linking cause to effect to cause to effect ad infinidum. That is how walls of text are made. Walls of text are not your friend. Refrain from making them.
... for great justice!
The pen burst into flames.
"Not again!"
The single sentence paragraph is a beautiful thing. It goes above and beyond the single clause "wham" sentence by smacking the reader in the face with something all on its own and then holding the reader's attention on that single solitary point. Your reader's blood should run cold at the impact of this type of paragraph. Use them sparingly -- one every page tops. Else, they become the norm and lose their effect.
The petunias surveyed the smoldering ruins of their sketchdesk. Ink stained the well-worn wood. The parchment was charred and torn. Everything was a mess.
And last but not least, the descriptive paragraph. These are good for closing out a scene or taking stock of the effects of a rapid series of actions. It could also describe a single event so big that it demands its own paragraph (ex: a dam collapsing). Here, I lead off with a longer sentence to slow down the action and take a good long look, but if you are still in the middle of things, you may wish to use a shorter lead sentence to signify we have an opening for a quick look around. Next comes two or three relevant details. More will clutter the paragraph, so note only what is most impactful. Finally, end with the overall impression you want to leave the reader with.
Do note: chaining these is not typically a good idea in the middle of the action unless you somehow find yourself with the time to look at everything. Think of a descriptive paragraph as needing ~10 seconds of your characters' time. If they do not have 10+ seconds, and nothing in particular begs them to look around, avoid chaining these paragraphs.
And now you have a basic toolbox with which to write an action sequence. Just remember to be vivid, character-focused, and to the point. You'll do fine.
I found this very helpful. It'll take me some time to write a good action scene, but at least I know what to look for. Thanks for taking the time to write this up!
There should be a guide somewhere with every informative blog that you do.
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Well, I'm trying to keep the chain of links going, but I suppose an index post might not be a bad idea one of these days. Might have to look into that.
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You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it
This is nice. I've always wanted to know how action scenes are done.
2324621 Yeah you should. I can admit that my writing needs a lot of work, but your blogs can show me how to improve.
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Well now you know, and knowing is half the battle!
We also sell supplemental red and blue lasers for a reasonable price.
2324842 images.cryhavok.org/d/1749-1/Knowing+Is+Half+The+Battle.gif
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And explosions, which are not exactly violent when they happen in the background for absolutely no reason