Mar 02 2008
Writing Action Vs. Writing a Story
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This piece describes how to write the right amount of action for a book.
Some writers, particularly novice male authors like myself, tend to write fiction as a series of actions. That is generally a mistake. Although action can be used to engage readers, it can distract you from developing the characters, scenery and dialogue that make a story work.
A piece with too much action frequently reads like a movie script. The author provides little except for what is absolutely necessary to understand the action. Most pieces that begin with an action scene suffer from that problem. The author shows us a character, but frequently doesn’t take the time to establish why we should care about him or his plight.
Likewise, action movies often start with an unintroduced character doing something dramatic and usually dangerous. That does not translate well to novels because movie actors can use their presence to communicate who they are and why the audience should care. Furthermore, movies are inherently more visceral and less cerebral. A novel reader has to create a character from the group up with only the clues you provide.
Many novelists write in an action-dominated way because they fear that an audience will get bored of a character if “nothing happens”. Usually these authors are males and, if asked for examples of stories where “nothing happens,” will almost invariably give works written by females. I think guys are afraid that focusing on details like character and scenery early will make their work into chick lit. I’m only one guy, but I think that I absolutely have a problem with a surplus of action/character-growth vs. exposition and scene-setting.
I think that most action-dominated novelists tend to misunderstand the problem they’re trying to avoid. Pieces that are heavy on exposition/scenery tend to fail for the same reason as action-dominated pieces: the characters are not engrossing. Strong characters are a prerequisite to compelling action. Let me demonstrate this with a quick writing exercise for you: please take five minutes to write a quick fight scene between two guys. Let’s keep it short, at most 250 words.
I’ll give you some time to finish…
Finished?
I’ll be blunt with you. I am at least 95% sure that your action scene sucks. That prompt made it virtually impossible to write a scene that readers would care about. Re-read your fight scene.
WHY ARE THE CHARACTERS FIGHTING?
Your sample probably glossed over this, but it is the main question of any fight scene. Why. Why should we care who wins? Why does this fight matter? Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that you created a scene with a Protagonist punching the hell out of a Villain(s). Fight scenes with faceless combatants are dreadfully boring.
Fellow Superhero Nation contributor Cadet Davis offers this rebuttal: “characters matter, obviously. However, I still think that my action scene is compelling even though we don’t know why the characters are fighting. In general, I would say that strong language and sentence craft can make a fight interesting even though the characters might be dull.”
I respect Cadet’s opinion, but he is absolutely wrong. You probably have a favorite fight scene. Did you enjoy the fight because the fight itself was memorable and the punches were described in great, vivid detail? Or did you enjoy it because the fight was a fitting climax to a conflict between two great characters? Let me put it another way. Have you ever enjoyed a literary fight between two mediocre characters? I would argue that it’s actually impossible to write a strong fight scene if the characters are disappointing.
Many fantasy authors seem to agree with Davis. Christopher Paolini, the author of Eragon, is a prime offender. Eragon’s climax is a siege similar to the Battle of Helm’s Deep (from Tolkein).
I thought that Paolini’s use of language was uncharacteristically strong in this scene. I found his descriptions of the dragon’s actions vivid, almost exciting. Regardless, the scene failed for several related reasons.
- The battle was a climax to a banal conflict between an Evil emperor and his oppressed, Good subjects (led by Eragon). By the time Paolini’s battle started, it never could have been anything but an “epic” brawl between mobs of faceless Evil enemies against The Good Guys.
- It failed to answer this question that had been bothering me since page 1 of Eragon: why is Eragon the hero of this book? There isn’t anything special about Eragon, anything that screams that this story and this world are unquestionably about him. The selection of him as the main character seems completely arbitrary. By contrast, the audience connection with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader was so strong—even though these characters were themselves archetypical!—that their fights felt intense and climactic even though the fights were technically middling.
- The scene was like a rolling LOTR homage.
To recap, compelling action requires strong characters. Focusing too heavily on action is a problem because 1) we probably won’t care about whether the character lives and 2) we aren’t invested in his mission. It’s important to spend enough time on character, mood, scenery and world-building to immerse in the story, particularly the story’s conflicts. If we care about the conflict, it’s hard to write a bad fight scene.
I wish you the best in your writing endeavours. If you need beta-review assistance, please e-mail us at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com. Good luck!
My fight scenes are about 20 pages long. Is that good?
20 pages is pretty long and probably redundant. I usually get bored with fights that go beyond 3 pages. Then again, my attention span is short. If you’re writing for an adult audience, you could probably go up to maybe 5-7 pages, but I think that’s pushing it. That’s 1500-2000 words. How many punches and kicks do you have to describe?
Well, I’ve changed my writing style. Although some fights last longer than others, my novel has characters with a variety of abilities. The fights last as long as they can but not too long. If one person has telekinesis against a person who can read minds, the fight won’t be long. But a superstrong character against someone with telekinesis may take longer.
I enjoy action scenes as long as they aren’t redundant. Also, I’m a skilled martial artist, so my characters wouldn’t be doing basic punches and kicks. They’d do some spin kicks, knee smashes, upward down blocks, etc.
Just a warning about that last sentence, Chulance: Be sure the reader knows what it is you’re referring to. Spin kicks are fine, as well as knee smashes, but as someone nearing the blackbelt myself, I understand that you start to recognize an incredible number of techniques by name in a way that the reader wouldn’t.
It’s like a person who has owned horses for twenty years writing a fantasy story with horses involved, and going into things like which lead the canter is on or the specifics of the breed.
If you know a lot about something, and it’s touched on in your writing, it’s so easy to make it a ‘look how many words I know’. Just figured I’d point this out, just for thought.
My main concern would be that using fancy moves might lead you to redundancy. From the reader’s perspective, a spin kick is just another kick. It’s probably redundant with any other kind of kick.
Of course I wouldn’t simply say the hero used a side kick I would describe the kick, because I know not everyone has a high degree black belt and knows multiple deadly techniques. My main character is a martial artist and I’m keeping his skills around the same level as mine. Also for example when I mention a kick for example the spin kick or or a knife hand smash I would write he was doing a knife hand smash after describing what it was,
Well It depends on how long they use the fancy moves and each character has a different way they fight. I’ve studied many forms of combat and I want the reader to be able to tell the differences between a spin kick and a plain old kick.
Hey, it’s me, David. I thought I’d try a different name. Anyways, I have a question.
Much later in my book, I’m going to have a large-scale epic fight between Cara and the main villain. At one point, there’s gonna be a standstill and a bit of talking between the two. I want to jump from character to character once to show how they’re getting on in the fight. Their scenes will be brief. I know I’ve been told it’s a bad idea to switch characters mid-chapter, but surely there must be a way to do it without confusing people.
I love martial arts. I could never afford formal training, so I don’t know much about terminology and discipline. But I like to think that I’m pretty good at home-trained martials arts, I’m not sure what style. Plus, my minor skills in breakdancing help me with the complex stuff. I’m really good at flipping, although that doesn’t help much in actual combat.
Maybe one day I’ll fly to Brasil and learn capoeira. As for now I just study forms and whatnot.
If you need to know about martial arts, I’m your man. I have a black belt in Karate, a yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do and a green belt in Judo. So don’t ask me about Kung-Fu.
But seriously, the most important thing people who don’t know about martial arts should understand is that black belt isn’t the end of the line. I achieved black belt at almost 12 years old, but I still had a long way to go. When you get Black Belt you get first ‘Dan’. Then after about 2 more years of training you can go for your second ‘Dan’, then after more time you can go for third ‘Dan’. By the time you’re trying for fifth Dan you’ll be expected to write essays and contribute to the martial art in some way to advance. Only a handful of people worldwide are 10th Dan, and they’ve dedicated their entire life to the martial art (this applies to any Japanese martial art by the way).
If it’s important to switch perspectives, I’d recommend adding a chapter break. As a rule of thumb, I think that if it’s important enough to switch perspectives, it’s important enough to justify a chapter break. That will help you make the transition without disorientating readers.
“I know I’ve been told it’s a bad idea to switch characters mid-chapter, but surely there must be a way to do it without confusing people.” I can’t think of any.
There is one way. If you do that page break thing.
*
That thing, that’s kinda like a mini-chapter break. It’s like a semi-colon. It’s not as strong as a fullstop but it does the same job. Same here, it’s not as strong as a chapter break but it does the same job.
Although really if you’re going to use that you might aswell use a chapter break.
Ok, cool. That will work. I just need to get that far. I shall continue with my story as is.
I participate in a lot of role-play games, and there are a lot of fighting/battle based ones. Since every one is forum-based, the description in everything, not just the fights, is very important.
At one point, my character (long story) ended up fighting several enemies, so I had to get creative in how to take them out. I don’t remember precisely what my character did, but *squeamish, stop reading* I ripped someone’s head off, severed someone in two, tore a throat open, and raked my character’s claws across someone’s face. So yeah, I had to get imaginative for the many ways I killed people. Gruesome, I know, but effective.
- Wings
Full name: Helios
Place of birth:
Citizenship: Tronian
Occupation: Intergalactic mercenary
Abilities: Energy sourcing Ability to draw power from large or small but abundant sources of energy, such as turning kinetic energy into physical blasts or converting solar energy into other forms. Sometimes based on proximity to source, sometimes stored for future use and Energy manipulation these powers deal with energy generation, conversion and manipulation. In addition to generic energy, versions of these powers exist that deal with such things as light, sound, electricity, nuclear energy, and the Dark force dimension.
Race: Novaras
Height: 6’3
Weight: 159 lbs
Eyes: grey
Hair: White
wat do u dink guys
What’s his personality like? That’s probably more important than his powers.
This only matters if you’re doing a comic book, but I think that gray eyes and white hair are a bit bland. (They may also make the character feel really old, which might be a turnoff to younger readers).