Our guest today for Writer Wednesday is Justin Allen, who is the author of Slaves of the Shinar (link to my review) and The Year of the Horse.
For those of us who write in what our “betters” oft-times refer to as ‘genre-fiction,’ the action scene is a mainstay. In fantasy – be it high, heroic or otherwise – your hero is sooner or later going test his mettle against your villain. Swords must be drawn, even if they aren’t actually swords. Likewise, the phaser pistols in our favorite sci-fi adventures must go off with lethal results. The villains in a mystery must try to escape justice. The man of our dreams simply has to do some sort of battle to win the heart of his romantic lady. Those vampires don’t put stakes in their own hearts. Eventually, a spy must destroy that super-secret government agency. There ain’t room in this town for both our western cowboys. The superhero and supervillain must stand toe to toe and see which is stronger, ice-power or fire-power. Yes, indeed, the action scene is without doubt the defining moment in most of ‘our’ work.
And you know what? Most of those scenes are darned hard to write convincingly. The “unimaginative-fiction” writers (my term) would have you believe that describing an exciting fistfight is a trick more or less in the realm of flushing the toilet, difficulty-wise. But those of us on the imaginative side of the literary coin know that the big fight, the great action set-piece, is all-too-often the downfall of what promised to be a most-excellent adventure.
Why are they so darned hard? How do those big fights bring us down? There are innumerable ways, of course. The way battle scenes most often wreck me can be summed up in two words – “And then.”
Need an example? All right – imagine a battle between two wizards. One is a mage of great power. Let’s call him Yorick. The other is a novice, though possessed of a magic wand he believes will more than make up for his lack of experience. I’ll name him Leif. They’ve come together in a forested mountain pass.
Let’s see what happens! (I’m all tingly.)
Yorick laughed at his opponent. “You have no power to face me, Boy!” And with a wave of his hand he unleashed a bolt of blue lightning, and then, just as quickly, another.
“You’re wrong,” Leif dodged first to the left, and then to the right. And then he leapt behind the nearest tree, pointing his wand around the trunk while shouting, “Terrorizio!”
But the mage was too quick for Leif’s spell. In a moment he too had leapt behind a tree, and was once again poised to attack, this time with blazing fire.
Leif looked up, screaming as the tree swayed precariously and rained flaming needles and pinecones all around him. And then, dragging his robes over his head, he lunged behind the next tree. But Yorick had already anticipated this move, and had already begun to torch that tree as well. And so Leif leapt from tree to tree screaming and wishing he could find someplace that this monster could not find him.
And then, he saw what he needed to do…
Of course, most of the above is clearly a joke. But it also highlights one of the chief problems we face when we describe a battle – Over-Describing. If one lightning bolt is cool, then two is extra super-cool. And why not have the battle go on and on? Won’t the tension rise? Let me ask you, in all seriousness, didn’t it make you feel just a little tired to read that scene? Need another example? Read Chapter 35 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Or better yet, the scene in Angels and Demons where Robert Langdon fights Hassassin in a fountain.
And these problems don’t overcome us as writers only in our fight scenes. Try writing a really hot sex scene, describing every slippery embrace, and see how many times you end up wanting to use some version of “and then.” I’ll spare you an example.
But let’s not blame “And then” too much. Throw one in now and then, and you will be just great! Just don’t make a habit of it. Habitual writing makes for a flat, boring scene.
So that’s my pitfall, the habit I most often fall into. What’s yours? In any action scene, the problems and challenges seem to rise up almost as quickly as we knock them down. But there is a reward that repays us for the struggle. Writing action, I think, can teach us a good deal about how to – and how NOT to – describe any complicated physical activity.
I’ll finish this introductory essay by inviting you to read one of my own action scenes. This is a big risk, I know. You’ll be tempted to find all the places where I fell down (particularly those of you with acute Langdonitis or Potterfilia), and especially every place where I used the dreaded “and then.” But I am putting myself out there because I had real problems with this scene. I had to rework it many, many – oh so many – times. I switched characters, length, and pretty much everything else you can imagine. Could I have changed more? You betcha! Likely I could have spent the next decade combing through this thing, word by word. But finally, of course, at some point you just have to let go, and let the reader do her work. It’s the reader’s imagination, after all, that really makes the battle what it is. He or she will fill in the blanks. So why not let them?
From “Year of the Horse” by Justin Allen
Under attack by a local militia known as the Danites, Henry, Chino and John MacLemore take up positions along a stone ridge. They send the younger members of their gang, Sadie and Lu, along with all of their horses, to a place of relative safety in the woods back of the ridge.
Lu and Sadie rode better than a hundred yards from the ridge, but could still see the blue chambray shirts of the men they were leaving behind. It wasn’t until they’d reached a hard bend in the path, around which they discovered a fallen pine tree, that they finally got clear of the battle site.
“I guess we’ve gone far enough,” Lu said, climbing out of his saddle.
There was a patch of green grass behind the fallen tree. Lu led the animals to it and stood by while they grazed.
“He ain’t my boss,” Sadie muttered. “I don’t have to follow no dern orders.”
“He’s your father,” Lu said. “That’s sort of like a boss.”
Sadie glowered at him.
Just then, they heard the first of what was to be hundreds of shots. Lu and Sadie both recognized the source. Henry’s rifle had a way of rumbling in the inner ear long after it had been fired, like thunder after a bolt of lightning. The horses nickered, but made no move to bolt. Henry’s horse, having spent the better part of its life as a cavalry mount, didn’t even perk up its ears.
The next shot rang out soon after, followed by a third. These must’ve come from MacLemore’s rifle. More shots followed. Thus far, they’d heard no return fire. Lu guessed the Danites had been taken by surprise. That wouldn’t last long. It’d only take a moment for them to determine where the bullets were originating from, and adopt the proper response. Unfortunately, Lu was right. In no time they were hearing the whine of lead slugs, ricocheting off the boulders behind which their friends were crouched, and clattering through the trees.
Sadie tied her horse to the fallen pine.
“What are you doing?” Lu asked her.
“I’m goin’ to watch.” She’d finished tying Carrot, and was rapidly doing the same with Henry’s quarter-horse. “And you’re comin’ with me.”
“No, I’m not. Your father ordered me to hold these horses, and I aim to do it.”
“Well, I’m ordering you to come with me.”
“You can’t order me.”
“Sure I can. Don’t you remember your contract? It said you worked for the MacLemores. That means both of us, Daddy and me.”
Lu paused. He didn’t think that sounded right. It was months ago that he’d signed his name to that bit of parchment, but he didn’t recall its saying anything about his working for Sadie MacLemore. To be honest, he didn’t recall its saying anything about John MacLemore either. All he remembered was a long bit about the ‘reclamation of a property.’ He voiced his doubts, but Sadie just sneered.
“I tell you it was in there. Now tie off that horse of yours and let’s get going.”
Lu did as he was told, sure that he’d regret it later.
“How do you want to go?” he asked. “We can’t just go sauntering down the trail. We’d be killed for sure.”
“Let’s just go ‘til we see the others. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”
So they crept back down the center of the path, quiet as mice. It wasn’t long before they saw a blue chambray shirt, crouched behind a boulder on the lip of the stone ridge. At first, Lu couldn’t tell who it was. Then he saw the man stand up, a pistol in either hand, and send a half-dozen slugs blasting down the hillside. Chino shot so fast, Lu didn’t see how he could possibly know where any of his bullets were going. He seemed content merely to fill the air with lead and let the chips fall where they may.
“What now?” Lu whispered.
“I can’t see Daddy, but I think I hear his rifle.” Sadie pointed through the trees to their right. “Let’s sneak through there.”
So they ducked and twisted their way amidst the tightly grown wood, coming at last to a place where they could see fully thirty yards of the stone ridge. Sadie was all for going on, but Lu held her arm.
“I still can’t see him,” she complained.
Lu pointed. A blue chambray shirt was just visible to their left, and it wasn’t Henry.
“What’s he doin’?” Sadie asked.“Looks like he’s reloading his gun.”
For the next few minutes they sat, shoulder to shoulder, watching as MacLemore twice more loaded and fired his rifle empty. He was fast. Not as fast as Henry, maybe, but still a good deal quicker than Lu would’ve guessed. Brass cartridges littered the ground at his feet. Lu couldn’t see the box, but figured MacLemore’s ammunition must be at least half gone.
“I wonder if he’s hittin’ anything,” Sadie whispered.
“I’ll bet Henry is.”
Just then, one of the Danites attempted to gallop to the top of the ridge. Lu and Sadie both held their breath as horse and rider leapt over the escarpment, nearly trampling Sadie’s father in their rush. MacLemore barely got his rifle up in time, and likely wouldn’t have if the horse hadn’t reared. But it did, and MacLemore blasted him.
The bullet tore through the lower leg of the rider, a man of no more than twenty, dressed in a homespun shirt and straw hat, and into the side of his mount. Lu’s stomach dropped as both horse and rider toppled backward off the ridge and fell out of sight.
“My lord!” he whispered. “Did you see all that blood?”
Sadie grabbed one of Lu’s hands and squeezed. Lu thought she looked a trifle green.
“Another horse,” she said. “That’s all we ever do, shoot horses.”
“What about the man on it? He looked mighty young.”
Sadie nodded. The horror was plain in her eyes.
Lu wondered about the part of the battle they couldn’t see. He remembered the way the deer had been blasted open when he shot it, one of its front legs having been sheered clean away. And how Cody’s neck had spurted blood like a fountain until he’d sunk beneath the surface of the lake. He thought about the buffalo Henry shot, the slug driving right through its enormous skull. From where they crouched, Lu couldn’t see Henry at all, but he could hear the boom of his rifle, and knew all too well the sort of damage it might do. All at once, he didn’t want to be there any longer. Sadie’s orders or no, he was going back to the horses.
“I don’t want to see any more,” he whispered.
Sadie nodded. “Me either.”
They began to scoot back through the trees. But before they’d gone even five feet, Sadie grabbed Lu’s arm. “Look!” she squealed.
Ahead of them, and just a hair to their right, a group of men was attempting to climb over the ridge. Lu could just see their eyes, and the brims of their hats, as they raised up, took a quick gander along the edge of the rock outcropping, and then ducked back down. They were only about ten yards from MacLemore, but for some reason he hadn’t noticed them. Maybe they’d found a blind spot, Lu guessed. He knew he had to do something, and fast. Any second, one of those men was liable to rise up with a gun in his hand. MacLemore would be dead where he sat.
Lu didn’t want to do it, but could see no other way. He drew his revolver, thumbed back the hammer, making sure as he did that there was a bullet in the next chamber, and took careful aim on the rocks over which the Saints were trying to sneak. He was just about to pull the trigger when the memory of the last time he’d fired the gun leapt to his mind.
“Hold my shoulders,” he whispered to Sadie.
“What?”
“Last time, the kick knocked me off my feet.”
“This is ridiculous,” Sadie muttered, but did as he asked. Lu could feel her breath on the back of his neck.
“I’m going to shoot now,” he warned.
“Just do it. And hurry.” One of the Danites had just stuck his head over the tops of the rocks again, and this time he made no move to duck back down.
Lu squeezed the trigger and his pistol gave its deafening boom. The recoil tore through his elbows and shoulders, and even into Sadie, who lost her grip and fell against Lu’s back. She’d added sufficient weight to keep him from going over backward, however, and so Lu got to see what became of the bullet he’d fired.
It was a bad shot. Lu missed the Danite by a good two feet, hitting instead a piece of the stone ridge. But the results were amazing. A chunk of granite as big around as a dinner plate exploded, sending bits of stone flying in every direction. Lu might not have done so much damage if he’d used dynamite. More importantly, the blast drew MacLemore’s attention while it sent his attackers scrambling for safety.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sadie said.
Lu didn’t need to be asked twice. He leapt to his feet, slid his pistol back into its holster, and ran.
They crashed through the underbrush, bouncing off the trunks of trees and tripping over old logs, but somehow managed to keep their balance long enough to reach the path. Sadie was a swift runner, but Lu matched her step for step. By the time they reached the horses, both were out of breath.
“My Lord,” Sadie wheezed. “When Daddy said you had a cannon, I thought he was just foolin’. But that pistol of yours puts Henry’s rifle to shame. You must’ve put the fear of God in them.”
~*~
Please join us in the discussion! For easier reading, please keep comments and excerpts in separate posts, and limit any excerpts to 300 words or so. Justin will be joining us in the late afternoon, so let’s accumulate some questions for him.
Justin, I actually spent an hour running up and down a highway in a pink silk slip once trying to keep a calf from being hit by some unlucky driver… The only really embarrassing part of it was when our 84 year old neighbor (a very formal gentleman whose only love was tragically killed in a car crash coming home from her final bridal gown fitting sixty years ago) came to try and help. He never even wears short sleeves, and there I was dashing around in a silk slip, barefoot… well, as the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear…
As for the celts, they were totally naked as far as I know, beyond knife belts and body paint, beads or amulets…
My computer’s a little slow, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a few steps behind topic. I’ve never been to New Orleans, actually. I’m not surprised that there’s a chicory flavored coffee, though. People used to make chicory tea. It’s just another name for chick-weed. I love the chicory’s jupuxation of grit and delicacy (I’ve seen it growing in dump-yards) so I made it my sort-of totem flower. (That, and I invented a mouse detective named Chicory back when I was sixteen). Oh, and I’m a girl (so the `delicacy’ half of grit and delicacy doesn’t come across as too weird.)
I’ll give the `my’ prowler some thought. I think she referred to him that way earlier, so it’d still have the same affect even if I change it here.
No problem Chicory. I just discovered that we had gone onto a second page. Started to think that you and Gray had abandoned us.
A. Grey… What a totally Miss Havisham image. A man who remains a bachelor, pure of heart, mind and body, because his beloved dies getting fitted for her wedding dress. There is a great character in that.
Dibbs!!!!
Now you can’t use it, Ha!
Gladiators often fought naked as well, having had to earn their armor through valor. My gladiators also fight naked.
Man, Tia, you had better watch out, you are going to develop a reputation.
Want to hear something funny?
I once rewrote a scene in a story, making the characters get naked and then pay no attention, with the idea of telling nudist groups all about it… you know, that wasn’t such a bad idea…
Justin, you write a book around that and I’ll come to your release party and run around in a pink silk slip! And then your wife can chase me away with a folding chair and the tabloids will take it as they might… the book will become a bestseller from the publicity… sounds like a plan!
it’s a deal. But I get to choose the slip….
Seriously, though. Where does everyone live?
That sounded screwy. When you mentioned book release parties it reminded me that I wanted, earlier, to let everyone know that I was going to be in Boise, Idaho, doing a couple of signings on Dec. 22nd, so if you know anyone in the area… And next week i will be appearing as the Mouse King for Dances Patrelle’s Nutcracker here in New York. Yep, New York AND Idaho. Now That’s cosmopolitan
I’m in Virginia. Rural, but not way out. This part of VA is an area where you can pass a mansion and then a mile down the road find yourself in a hollow where they pass around mason jars full of last year’s best berries. A great place for running wild and barefooted, riding horses in bathing suits to the swimming hole and then putting on pinafores and patent leather shoes and going to the local Easter egg hunt…
That’s the only book I ever wrote with any nudity worth mentioning. And Abriel isn’t used to all the nudity either — she’s from a different culture. So it was a culture shock thing.
We almost decided to go to the Nutcracker this year, but we decided to give my daughter another year or two to mature. Do you have any clips on YouTube? We are always watching ballet on YouTube. I’m trying to prepare her, but it will be a while before she’s prepared to sit for 3 hours and watch a ballet, due to certain challenges she has. Maybe when she’s 10.
Grey, you have an adventurous life!
Sounds lovely. I am from Idaho myself, which is how I came to write “Year of the Horse” Long cowboy and western tradition, mixed with fantasy, and voila.
By the way, if anyone else is still out there, do we have anything more to say about Action scenes?
I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of you dancing classical ballet! Not that I have any vision of you personally being incapable of it, it is simply that you’re the first person I’ve interacted with that has, and nurtures such a skill. Such dance, to me, is like watching songs take a physical shape, or perhaps emotions. The only reasonable dancing I’ve ever managed was period middle age pieces. Well, I’ve a (married, and not to me) friend who taught classical ballroom, and because of my relationship with Mark, I’ll let him toss me any which way, so I look relaxed and serviceable when I gallop around to waltzes with him. Otherwise, I’m a disaster when it comes to physical grace, unless riding horses counts…
I’d love to see the Nutcracker. I will not, alas, be anywhere closer to NY that the east coast any time soon…
I think our takeaways could be:
1) Keep descriptions to a minimum.
2) Mind your pronouns.
3) Short and punchy.
4) Avoid “and then”-itis.
5) Keep physiological problems (heavy breathing, extreme pain of an impending scalping) in mind when writing reactions and dialog.
Any others?
You might be able to see me dancing on you-tube if you search for Eidolon Ballet. Can’t say for sure exactly what you will see, but…
And Grey, she’s right, you do lead an interesting life…
By the way Tia, I am interested as to how you handled the initial nude fighting. Which was more important, description-wise, the battling or the newness for Abriel? Also, if this society goes to nude gladiatorial combats, what does that say about the rest of their lives? Are they sort of Romanesque?
How about keeping in mind that your readers can’t see what’s going on the way you can within your own mind? Does that make sense? I find that even beyond action (but sometimes in a more pronounced manner where action scenes come into play) that what I know is happening, and what is portrayed to the reader, is lost in translation. I think it’s easier to miss things in such a way in action sequences because of the speed associated with the scene.
Sometimes… it’s like I live in one of those badly written SyFy movies…
But it’s fodder for the pen!
Really, I think there is one thing about describing an action scene that we ought to always keep in mind. And that is this…
The action scene is not more important than all the other scenes. Yes, a lot can be decided in those moments when swords are drawn, but really it is the lead-up to the action that makes it what it is. Understanding why the characters are fighting is vastly more important than How they are fighting.
A very good friend, the screenwriter Walter Bernstein, once told me that in any scene, by the time the gun actually goes off, the real battle has already been decided. The real battle is inside the heart of the heroic character. What led him to this moment? At what point did he choose to follow the path that would lead to violence? If that moment, that turning point, is crystal clear, then you have a BOOK! After all, once that choice was made, the violence and the ultimate outcome of the scene were preordained…
So work hard on your action scenes, but keep them simple. And don’t let them wreck the important work you have been doing up to that time…
Yep, Grey, keep it simple. Just like everything else in writing… KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Justin, I tried to make it very uncomfortable for her. Only the combatants are nude in the gladiator fighting; not the attendees. Yes, they are Romanesque. I adapted customs from ancient Rome (the concept of pietas – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietas_%28virtue%29), modern day India (my own version of saris and tea) and Egypt (slightly).
Before we end, I think you ought to share that first nude moment with us… might wrap up all of our conversations.. and we can all leave uncomfortable…
You don’t actually have to. And I have one more thought… one blessing… one Mitzvah.. to pass along, when we are ready.
I’m a Western Marylander, just far enough from the ocean that I never get to vacation by the sea. I have country roots (My grandma grew up in WV) but I’m pure town-bred. I don’t know my history very well and can’t talk battles, but I’m contrary enough to insist that the Union invasion of the Confederacy was illegal. I don’t froth at the mouth about it, though.
Before you go – thank you very much! This was a wonderful conversation. I literally have done nothing else all night, just trying to keep up!
Love that last comment Chicory. Read my book “Year of the Horse,” and see if you don’t hate me just a little bit… Union versus Confederacy-wise… although there are some Yankee readers who positively seethe with hatred for my having a Yankee as the main villain.
Thanks so much for having me, Tia, and thanks to everyone who commented, and to those of you who commented to the comments…
I still want that first nude battle, but Tia can send it over at her leisure
Justin Allen, what you said about lead-up to the action reminds me of Donald Maast’s advice in his Breakout Novel Workbook, that -oh, I don’t know if I can say this right- that you need to figure out the center motivation, the heart of the character that leads them to take action. Once you got that, you’ve got the reader.
I’m going to look for `Year of the Horse’. Like I said, I don’t take the whole North/South thing too seriously. I tend to treat it as just one of those local interest things. `Up from the meadows rich with corn’ and all that.
So, I just wanted to end this by offering all of the writers who honored us with an action scene here today a blessing.
I expect that a number of you will find yourselves publishing your work with huge and wonderful houses in the coming months and years… I am certain of it.
When that time comes you will find that the irritations you have now – when trying to properly compose an action scene (be it nude or in full armor), describe the feelings a boy has for a girl, the route your armies take to the next city, the power of a rogue god, or the mysteries of the cult that has taken your heroine captive – are nothing compared with the unending work you owe to the published book.
But please, when you are tempted to curse a reviewer, wonder why the top journals won’t do a feature about you (or even your hometown paper), and can’t believe how difficult it is to fill a store for a reading, remember this moment, when your book was just a lot of words, striving to find a way out into the world, this very moment when you hoped – God how you hoped – that the miracle would happen (or happen again) and your literary baby would see life.
If you can keep some small bit of that hope always before your mind, you can enjoy knowing that you have been published – and that there are people out there who LOVE what you do.
Believe me, there will be people out there who will LOVE what each of you is doing. I guarantee it!
Thanks so much, Justin!
Chicory, the North probably did overstep the Constitution in the war between the states, so I can see your point! I have Donald Maass’s book as well, but not the workbook. If you think it’s worth getting, I may order it.
You’re welcome. And thank you!
And thank you all…
Off to have dinner with my wife and tell her all about your fabulous scenes.
Justin
Amen to that! And best wishes to you and yours Justin, and you Tia, who so kindly hosts us for this weekly conjunction of all things literary!
You’re welcome. Believe me, I have fun with this too!
Tia: I think the book’s worth it. It’ll teach you a lot, but you’ll be putting a lot of work into it, too. The Breakout Novel Workbook is kind of a one-person equivalent to going to a Writing Workshop. In fact, the exercises are based on Donald Maast’s workshops. What you get out of it depends a lot on what you put in.
This was a great discussion. Thanks, everyone, and best wishes!
Wow! This comments thread just grew and grew. Thank you, Justin, for your feedback and enthusiasm. Thanks, Tia, for hosting. I’m looking forward to your next Writer Wednesday. I apologize for the lack of context around my excerpt.
Wow, I am really late to the party! What a great discussion.
Holy merde! I come home from rehearsal and there are 85 comments! Last time I looked, there were 10!
So. Just finished reading some Civil War stuff (I grew up in General Grant’s boyhood hometown, so I encounter a lot of that), and yes, the North did overstep its bounds constitutionally speaking when it comes to the Civil War. But you know…It’s not like nobody has bent the Constitution’s rules since then. (Not that I’m saying it’s okay. Just sayin’.)
Justin, thank you so much for all your wonderful comments and discussion! I hope you’ll come back again for another Writer Wednesday, be you the guest author or just to say hi.
I’m sure there’s something else I wanted to comment about that I’m forgetting. I’m supposed to tell where I’m from, right? Ohio. The Cincinnati tri-state area. That would make an interesting Writer Wednesday topic, too–how where we’re from affects the way we write.
Love the idea of a “kissy scene” Writer Wednesday, by the way. Oh, and it’s so cool that you’re a ballet dancer, Justin! I couldn’t dance my way out of a paper bag. But my daughter takes ballet, and she’s pretty good, if I do say so myself. Not that I’m biased or anything.
Okay. I think that covers everything. Wonder if there will be another 85 comments by the time I come back tomorrow.
Ah… A. Grey? Necks are hard to break, and hair is hard to pull out by the roots. The main problem is the tensile strength of the hair, and that can really be improved by braiding it tightly. I learned that when I looked into Japanese braiding; they used it extensively in their armor! {Impressed Smile}
On a different note, the Celts who fought naked thought their tattoos and war paint were better armor than any leather or metal. {Amused Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Wow, this was great. As I said earlier, we have a wonderful group that shows up here, which makes me love doing this.
We will tackle sex scenes for the next Writer Wednesday, which will be whenever I can find and book another writer.
And before the next Writer Wednesday, I hope to have installed a threaded conversation widget, which I think would have made this even cooler because all the various subthreads would have stayed together.
Thanks everyone for participating! I’d say, “Tell all your friends!” but we don’t want to let this discussion grow unreasonably huge, do we?
Sex scene Wednesday sounds worthwhile. I also like the idea of doing a topic on how where we’re from (or where we’re located) affects the way we write. We could even add in how our family roots affect us – or maybe that’s another topic!
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great conversation and i’m glad to know i’m not the only one who has challenges with fight scenes — I agonized over the first one I wrote. Like Rabia, I tend to skip over the blow by blow.
the only thing I fear writing more than a fight is that hot sex scene… and I guess to top that would be one of those fighting naked scenes… or a sex scene that turned violent? Yikes.
i like your tip of “keeping it simple” – that takes some pressure off. I wonder if finding HUMOUR in the scene would help, too?
Tia – I was just thinking a threaded conversation widget would be useful… it was difficult to follow all the threads.
The first sex scene I wrote involved two amputees. Now that was a challenge.
I’m behind the times, but… I like the discussion on action scenes! What I always find painful (mostly in stuff I’ve critiqued at online writing sites) is scenes where I just can’t figure out what’s going on. It’s sometimes hard for the author to explain what’s in his or her own mind when putting such a scene on paper. You have to re-read it from the perspective of someone who is new to the book’s world… and get objective critiquers to read it too.
Looking forward to the sex scene post. My agent said she laughed out loud about the (intended, comical) ending to one of my sex scenes in DEMON’S BANE… I was really pleased ’bout that.
Danika, I came to the same conclusion far up in the conversation thread! I love writing action scenes, but I, as you, prefer to write and read the absolute minimum in order to be able to figure out what is going on.
Which brings us to Dave’s point. Lots of pronouns tend to make it confusing, and I’ve noticed that lots of writers – including some here – use short capitalized descriptions to distinguish each person, such as Scar Face and Blond Hair:
“Scar Face yanked out a knife. Blond Hair lazily drew out a sap and started whirling it around his head.”
I think this works great in certain genres, but I didn’t think it worked for either my epic fantasy or my regency fantasy. I do think it could work for my time travel historical and my Christian novel. I really depends on the voice.
Tia and Danika reminded me of a guy I knew in high school. He thought that describing the last few fantasy role-playing battles in great detail made riveting conversation. Even the most avid of us fellow role-players tended to think of one or two good reasons why we couldn’t hang around and chat too long when we saw him coming. {Smile, wink}
By all means, keep the blow-by-blow to a minimum. {SMILE}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Dave and Tia — yes! The pronoun issue. If you have several people, it gets confusing. But the alternate is just as clunky, i.e. using their proper names in every sentence. Gertrude did this. Jack did that. Henry did this. Lance ran for help.
I’ve only been able to use that nickname idea once… in a scene where my protagonists were fighting off several giant frogs. Then it became Mean Frog, Fat Frog, Purple Frog, etc.
That’s why I like screenwriting! Someone else gets to worry about staging the fight scene. All you have to do is write “Bob kicks the living daylights out of Gus.” The fight coordinators do the rest.
I’ve never tried writing a screenplay, but I did write three issues of a comic book once, which uses similar formatting. It was a huge amount of fun. Maybe I should rewrite my unfinished Christian novel as a screenplay, since the only reason I stopped is I didn’t have enough material for a full novel. Might work that way.
I found it helpful to concentrate on two people at once during a fight scene. After all, the protagonist can really only concentrate on the person directly opposite him, even if he is being beset 3 on one. This way, a blow can come flying in from behind or beside him when he loses sight of his other opponent.
If you keep your point of view “high and tight” behind the protagonist’s eyeballs, it really helps.
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Just checking in on all this… I think there is a major problem with writing a fight scene involving more than two combatants. A MAJOR problem. And what we see on the screen is seldom (never) helpful. You know how in Steven Segal movies the bad guys never come at him all at once, but wait their turn to be defeated? That is inherently going to happen in a written fight, owing to the fact that writing is by its nature a time ordered art form. Multiple things might be happening at once, but we can only describe any one thing happening at a time. Thus, the challenge.
This relates, as it happens, to the writing of battles, in which hundreds and maybe thousands of individual fights are happening simultaneously. You will note how often those scenes are told from the point of view of a general or bystander (or god). That was my solution in Slaves of the Shinar, and as I had two principal characters, i always had one who was on the outside making judgments about the meaning of what was happening.
But in a two (or more) on one fight, you are in trouble. The more people involved, the more you will inherently fall into the trap of “and then.” You know how it goes. He hit the man with the gun in the jaw, and then turned in time to stab the woman running up behind him, and then swiveled back to face the gunman, and then looked over his shoulder to make sure the woman really was dead, and then kicked the gunman in the crotch, and then beat it for the door. A big yawner.
I have no real advice for how to deal with such an occasion except to say, the writer ought to consider having his protagonist either win each fight with a single blow, or lose in a moment (this determined by the fact that your protagonist is either the world’s greatest badass, or hopelessly outmatched raising the tension).
And, most importantly, as a writer you should ask yourself whether such a scene actually forwards the story, telling us something about the meaning of life (I know, too big, but you get what I mean maybe), as understood in the mind of your character, or whether this is really just what you imagine the world’s coolest video game would be like – hint, do not be like later Matrix movies.
Wow; I think this is the 100th comment.
I agree, all too often, exciting action scenes turn out to be anything but. I like it when the author stays in the reader’s head. And I kinda like it when the hero loses.
Hmm. This kind of makes me want to reread that scene in The Three Musketeers when D’Artagnan schedules himself to duel each of the musketeers, and they all end up battling the Cardinal’s men.