Consecutive Action Overload, How not to have a CAO · 6:29pm Apr 27th, 2014
First off, I'd like to thank SirTruffles for suggesting this one.
Okay, so what is a Consecutive Action Overload? How better to explain than to show an example?
She twirled the fork in the spaghetti and looked across the table to her dinner partner. Lifting the fork, careful to not let any of the noodles slip off the end, she brought it to her mouth and slipped the noodles off.
Across the table, her partner was doing the same. She chewed and swallowed. He followed suit.
"Is it good?" she asked and lowered her fork to rest in the trough left behind. Then she picked up her glass and brought it up to eye level before taking a drink.
That was, quite honestly, hard to write. It's boring. I think you can see why. Every action is followed by another action. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this setting, it's not necessary to go into quite so much detail. Structurally, this snippet of story is fine. There's no telling, there's a decent variation of sentence length, but the thing is pointless. There's no emotion. The actions tell us nothing about the two actors playing in this little charade I came up with. I'm going to spice it up two ways. The same scene, the same actors, but with emotion inserted to make this little snippet work.
Because, quite frankly, as it stands right now, this snippet is not needed for any story unless you're trying to show the reader how utterly boring their lives are.
She jabbed the fork into the spaghetti and twisted harshly as she glared across the table to her dinner partner, apparently obliviously enjoying his dinner. Lifting the fork, not caring if any noodles fell off, she brought it to her mouth and snapped off the few strands that remained.
Across the table, her partner was sitting there, just happy as could be while she...
She ground her teeth as she chewed and choked down the noodles. He followed suit, only occasionally glancing her way.
"Is it good?" she asked, pouring syrup over words she wanted to spit at him, and dropped her fork to rest in the crater left behind. Then she snatched up her wineglass and brought it up to gauge the quality of the wine before taking a quick swig, almost gagging.
Now, here, we have the same scene, but some was added, a paragraph split, and the word choice carries a clear theme. She's not just angry, she's livid. But, for whatever reason, she's keeping a lid on it. Why? Well, you'd have to read on to find out. Or have read the preceeding story. The careful choice of words can have a huge impact on the mood of a scene and tell your reader little clues as to the state of mind of both parties. In the third paragraph, we see a little glimpse that perhaps her dinner partner is not so unaware of her mood as she might suspect, he's just trying to keep a low profile.
Finally...
She idly swirled her fork to and fro in her spaghetti and gazed across the table to her dinner partner. Sighing, she raised the fork, careful to let one of the noodles trail longer than the others and brought it to her mouth and slurped the noodles off, leaving the one trailing noodle to oh-so-slowly disappear between her pursed lips.
Across the table, her partner was staring, but finally followed suit clumsily, fumbling with the fork. She laughed languidly around her mouthful, chewed delicately, and swallowed. He followed suit and she could see a rising flush creeping in his ears.
"Is it good?" she purred, lowering her fork to rest in the valley of slippery noodles she'd been careful to make. Then she cradled her wineglass in a rose hued magic field and lifted it up to swirl under her nose to take a slow, deep breath. She let out a sigh before bringing it to her lips and taking a long, slow pull to let the heat of the wine trickle enticingly down her throat, giving her partner a good, long look at her neck as she swallowed only tiny sip by tiny sip.
My, oh my. I do believe I'm getting the vapors.
So... Yeah. Probably a prelude to clop here. But again, the careful use of word choice sets the tone for the scene. Right from the start, we see that she's probably only pretending to eat to get her partner's attention. Every bit of it should convey a sense of the sensual mood that she's trying so hard to set. I only spent about a half an hour crafting these three, so they're considered spur of the moment and not quality works. It helps that they're not connected to any plot, so I'm free to hint and suggest without breaking character.
So, with three examples there of Consecutive Action in use with three very different intents. The first, honestly, could have been pared down to this:
That night, they sat down and had a quiet dinner of spaghetti and mushrooms, enjoying each other's company.
And then move on with the story. The other two serve a purpose. They set up something in the future and set an expectation of action or a resolution to the conflict presented in the short scene. The first hints that she's not very happy with him and that while she thinks he's not aware of this, a tiny little clue, that he only glances at her occasionally, hints that perhaps he's not so unaware as she thinks - she's just too mad to notice.
The second hints that she's ready for something more than dinner and she's pretty overt in that fact and it appears that he's not unaware of her not so subtle flirting. Also, depending on the rest of the story, it may be a hint that she's been wanting this for a while, or maybe she's in season, or any number of other reasons.
The point is, any consecutive action scene needs a purpose. It needs to be there. Otherwise it's just words on a page and you threaten breaking your reader away from the story you're trying to set.
I think that's all I have to say about that. Comment below if you want to add something that I may have missed or glossed over. Thanks for reading and following!
Mmmm. You are lovely. I think I need to start making links of peeps with blog posts about writing. Also, I think I need to share this with someone.
I think you wrote another blog recently about writing and I didn't sit down to read it but I thought the topic was good. I'll get to that in a moment...
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I would very much appreciate any other links you come across! I'm always on the lookout for other perspectives.
Dat. Third. Example.
dreamwidth.org/userpic/792970/387412
And two blog posts in one day? You're a machine
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I'm actually taking a break from re-editing Chapter 2. Yesterday, I edited chapter 1, adding close to 3k words by replacing all the telling with showing and then read and re-read it about 4 times over the course of the day... Today, my goal is to at least find all the telling in Chapter 2 and make notes on the emotive qualities I want to portray in each bit of scene.
It's easier, honestly, because these two chapters have been percolating in my head for about a month, and I know what the characters are feeling almost as if they were whispering in my ear.
I credit listening to the Nightwish station on Pandora One (the premium edition). The feels of some of these songs. Especially Within Temptation (the band) and Nightwish itself are strong and get the brain juices flowing.
Edit:
Kinda the point
But I haven't written anything that overtly sexual in, well, a long time.
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Well, Viking ZX has a bunch on writing in general. His profile has a link to some of them. I think you probably know a lot of what he has to say but it's worth a look anyway.
Your examples are very good btw; I forgot to say that. I think Scoots2 is right and it helps to show samples of good advice rather than just trying to describe what works.