The 9 Signs of an Excellent Action · 8:25pm May 4th, 2014
Part of my Writing from an Actor's Perspective series. First part here.
As I discussed in my previous post, every scene is the story of Alice and Bob pursuing their essential actions in the face of the circumstances they find themselves in. You could think of a character's essential action as a verb that expresses the one main goal they come to the scene to complete. It serves as the driving force behind everything a character does.
It should be clear, then, that an author writing a scene without more than a vague sense of where the plot should go is going to run into problems. The scene could get sidetracked, lose focus, go in circles, and so on. Worse, starting with a vague idea means you have to do more work while actually writing, so we stare at the keyboard and have no idea how to proceed. The end result is boredom and frustration.
We can't write without at least an intuitive sense of what we want to accomplish with a scene, and most of us will have a few plot bullet points we want to pass through. However, in order to make things crystal clear, it helps to write down an essential action for each major character that will serve as their main goal throughout the scene. Not only does this force an author to dig into their characters beforehand, but it also provides a structure to draw ideas for what a character is physically doing as you're writing. A Practical Handbook for the Actor provides these guidelines for coming up with an essential action that will both be engaging to the reader and make it easy to come up with what your character is actually doing when you write:
The character should be able to physically do their action
Writers have a lot of creative license when it comes to the laws of physics. That is not what this guideline is about. It is all too easy to come up with a vague pie-in-the-sky action like "live the American Dream." Well, how do you live the American Dream? What does it look like? How do you know when you've completed your action? If you have a hard time imagining what your action means in physical terms, then it's time to find something more concrete. How about "put the Jones family in its place." That's a much easier scene to write.
The action should be specific
However, just because an action is something you can physically picture does not mean you can extract an entire scene out of it. If you don't come up with an action you can unpack and explore, you're going to run out of ideas. Take 'cry for help' for example. We all know what it looks like, but it's plain, isn't it? You could easily picture someone cupping their hands around their mouth and stand around crying "HELP!", but that's all that comes to mind. Where does the scene go from there? If your character's driving action in the scene is to get help, you should try something more meaty: "Beg an uncaring world to aid my injured friend." Notice we've set a tone of desperation with the word 'beg.' We also know what our character will be up against: apathy from many strangers. Finally, we can get an idea of why: the friend is injured. The more specific you make your action, the more you have to work with.
The test of the action should be in another person
When characters ignore/don't have to interact with each other, your scene can become fragmented. Worse, if your characters have no reason to interact, you lose all the energy of them playing off of each other. Good actions always work to glue the actor to all the other people in the scene. The easiest way to do this is to have the 'test' of the action involve another character in some way: you judge your success by their reaction. You don't have to specifically mention who you're interacting with for this to work: "Cross the room unseen" still means you look to the guards' reactions to see if you did it right.
This is more a warning for situations in which you have one character who has a negative desire: Timmy doesn't want to play ball. The easy way out is to have Timmy "clam up until they go away." This isn't very strong because it's going to end up with your characters talking at Timmy and him doing nothing, which is boring. There's nothing else that he could possibly be doing with that action. A better action would be "get those icky girls to leave me alone." Now Timmy has a goal that he can actively pursue. He could still clam up, but now he has to judge how well he's doing based on whether someone else is leaving him alone. If he wants to be alone, he must interact with the other person. He could still 'clam up,' but when that doesn't work, he has grounds to try something else.
The action should make sense in the context of the plot you want to write and what has happened so far in the story
Self-explanatory.
The action should not be an errand
An errand is an action with an obvious, predetermined, outcome that could be completed in one or two lines. Fetch coffee for the boss. Deliver a message. Inconsequential things like that. They make terrible actions because they don't provide any drive for the scene. Extras can do errands because that is what they are for, but if your main characters are spending a whole scene with a main focus of doing an errand, then the scene itself is pointless. There is no story there. Find something of substance for people to do or cut it.
The action must have a cap
This is a commonsense safeguard against your scene going on for too long. There should be a specific thing you are looking for that tells you when you have completed your action. This also helps to clarify your goal: if you don't know what victory looks like, how can you know how to get there?
The action should not be manipulative or phrased to presuppose a specific outcome
In the course of writing a scene, there is a difference between what you walked in planning to write and what 'feels' right in the moment. You should not word one character's actions in such a way that you presuppose how the other person will react. If you give the hero an action: "Make the clerk give me bandages," then you've given to one character an action that ends the scene before you've begun. What if the store has no bandages? What if the clerk is 300lbs of former gangster muscle? What action could you even give the clerk in this context? "Give the hero bandages" is an errand. If you give the clerk something active to do, then how does the hero's constraining action interact with whatever the clerk is going to do?
A better action is "convince a pennypincher that I'm worth a buck." Notice how this cuts down to the meat of the issue: it suggests why the clerk wouldn't help in the first place and defines the problem as one of winning his attention. We can now approach the scene many ways. Play on guilt: "You wouldn't want my friend to die, would you? *sniffle*" Or maybe terrify him: "Give me what I want, or I'll end you! *pump shotgun*" Either way, there's an understanding of the problem so our hero can approach it as the situation develops and then react to the other characters' actions rather than going in prepared for things to go exactly one way.
As authors, this helps us stay character-focused rather than plot-focused. Sure, certain plot elements need to happen, but if we often rely on "make the clerk give me bandages," actions, then we run the risk of turning actions with dramatic potential into boring errands that could probably be cut. The desperate struggle to convince a disaffected stranger to save our dying friend gets lost in the meh that is "and then we come up with some bandages from a store, I guess, so then the plot can move on." Basically: the more 'play' you give the characters, the more lively they will be and the more room you have to discover new ideas as you write.
The action should not presuppose any physical or emotional state
This one is more for actors, but there's a takeaway for authors at the end. As I've mentioned before, human beings cannot change emotions at the drop of a hat, and certainly cannot force themselves to feel something that they do not. Actors are thus encouraged to focus not on emotion, but on action, because it is much easier to act consistently than to feel consistently. Thus, an actor should not use an action that presupposes their scene partner is in a certain emotional state -- excited, miserable, lonely, exc -- because it may happen that you walk onstage, and your partner has decided to go with something completely different. You end up standing there like an idiot with nothing to play.
As authors, we know how our characters are going to walk in, but if we build incidental emotions into the action a character is playing, then we're committing to having the characters affected in that state. Instead of "calm down the raging dragon," try something like "help a friend accept a hard truth." This way, you keep the greater goal in mind and avoid locking the scene in a 'must be this way' state. You are free to play with the minor details while still having the heart of your action fully functioning and ready to go.
The action should be fun!
Actors go through a month of drilling the same scene over and over again. Authors are going to be editing and re-editing their words until they get it right. If you are not interested in what your characters are doing, then at best you're not going to want to read the words twice. At worst, you're not even going to have fun writing it the first time and your readers will be bored to boot.
Even if you want to ignore every other idea on this list, never use an action that you find boring. Dig in and find some angle or interpretation that you can have fun playing with. If you can't find some joy in every scene, then it's time to go and rework your plot to cut those parts out. There's a better plot waiting for you somewhere else.
The reason for this is twofold: you're writing fanfic for free, so if you're not having fun then I don't know why you're here. Also, if you like reading what you've written, then you're more likely to get interested, play around with your words, and make discoveries. The reader can feel it in more thought out plots, tighter editing, and those fun little touches that fans love to find.
Having trouble finding the fun? Try some overacting! So often we get carried away making our stories 'believable' (whatever that means) or guarding against the dreaded Mary Sue that we forget that art isn't always about recording life as it is. Art is heightened reality. If you wanted reality as it is, you'd go bounce your sportsball outside. Don't be afraid to push the envelope or write something completely stupidly over the top. You haven't hit the publish button yet, so there's still time to reign it in via editing. It's much harder to 'go a little bigger' one inch at a time. You have to blow the top clean off and then patch it back on with duct-tape and crazy glue.
Basically, this:
Bottom line: do yourself a favor and find a way to love what you do. No one can do it for you.
Next up: Making it personal >>
Thanks for reading! Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Leave a comment!
2077033
I'm not quite sure how to feel about this...
I think this section, honestly, is a stylistic choice. For some part of it, anyway. Not every action must be of significance, or hold a special meaning to the characters fulfilling it. Sometimes portraying an action as just that action is enough. It can punctuate an otherwise flowery or emotionally charged scene and mark a return to normalcy or a change in the flow of the story.
Granted, I think these actions should be used as scene closers or chapter enders. They mark a change in the story, a sudden one, and moving from one scene to the next with an action that's out of the norm for the previous scene sets the mood that what comes next shouldn't be anticipated, because it may not follow the same track.
That said, failing to give most action a reason for being there results, quickly, in having a CAO - Consecutive Action Overload - or, a list of events that just happen. Most action does need a reason to be there.
I think, maybe, I'm going a little off track with what you were trying to say in this section though, since a normal, boring action following a charged scene does have a reason to be there.
So... I agree, then.
Silly me.
2077086
It's a beautiful little moment
2077096
Well, as I mentioned last blog: there are multiple levels of actions. The point was that scenes are driven by essential actions and errands have no driving force behind them, so they are unsuited to being essential actions. You shouldn't 'show up' to perform an errand.
Of course, an essential action is fundamentally different from an activity and both have their place. If you're supposed to be in a restaurant, you can put sugar in your tea and drink it without any underlying motive because that's not an essential action. That's just part of your activity: having tea. It fleshes out the setting and helps everything feel natural, but you don't create a whole scene just for characters to have tea.
Granted, an actor interested in maximum efficiency might consider saving their sip of tea for when they need to buy time to think, or an author could use it to create a pause in the dialog. No one's going to notice sub-optimal tea-sipping, but some people will actively think through that stuff, or better yet reduce it to instinct. Analyzing acting is maddening because everything you do subconsciously in real life becomes an artistic tool for an actor to work with
And that's not even mentioning the author's desire to make non-character-focused scenes for the sake of pacing...
2077114
I'll take your word for it....
2077665
I am so tempted to do this now.
2077673
And I'll be equally tempted to do a scene analysis and tell you what your characters actually wanted based on my reading. You can't escape the subtext: if nothing was intended, your actors will fill in the lines and actions anyway!
2077720
Ah well... Back to writing bittersweet Appleshy.
I might still do it. It might even be a contest entry for the TwiLuna contest.
2547876
Well, if he is never opposed or challenged, then it would indeed be the case that our hero is on a long list of errands. Of course, if this is a game we are playing, then it may instead be that the player is the actor and the action is to prove our determination in the face of overwhelming tedium. Interactive mediums are weird like that.
2549441
Aaaaaand that's why I don't write video games