Writing ACTION 1: Action Scenes that Work

 

The Trick to Writing Action Scenes that Work:
Action THEN Reaction!

The #1 Most Common cause of Confusion in Action Scenes?
Putting the Reaction BEFORE the Action that caused it.

WARNING! This tutorial is NOT meant for those do Creative Writing.

This essay was originally written for writers seeking to be professionally published authors. As a multi-published author, I have been taught some fairly rigid rules on what is publishable and what is not. If my rather straight-laced (and occasionally snotty,) advice does not suit your creative style, by all means, IGNORE IT.

If you are new to my tutorials, please read this one first:
The Secret to Proper Paragraphing and Dialogue
Certain things covered in this tutorial are based on that information.

Why is Action THEN Reaction so Important? ​

The flash of pain exploded in my cheek from the slap her hand lashed out at me.

WRONG!

Why is this Wrong?
-- If you were watching this scene as a movie, that sentence is NOT how you would have seen it happen.

Actual Sequence of events:
1) Her hand lashed out at me in a slap. [Action]
2) A flash of pain exploded in my cheek [Reaction]

ACTION Sequences = Chronological Order​

Chronological Order --the order in which things actually happen-- is the ONLY way to write an Action Scene that won't confuse your readers. If you visualize the characters doing something in a specific order – you write it in THAT order.

REALITY =
Something random happens to you then…you react. 
- in Chronological order​

Action –> Reaction 

 

Dialogue and Action:
Which comes first?

ACTION.

Too many inexperienced writers put all their Dialogue at the beginning of their paragraphs -- before the action that caused that dialogue to happen.

The truth is, Dialogue belongs in the sentence when it happened; before the action, during the action, or after the action.

However...!

The finger pulls the trigger THEN the shooter wonders: “Oh no, what have I done?”​

Realistically, physical actions usually happen BEFORE dialogue. Most people ACT then comment because physical reactions normally happen faster than thought. Ask any cop or martial artist.

This Does Not mean that thoughts or dialogue don't happen before the gun or fist is raised and pointed! Bad-mouthing and instigation is usually how fights start to begin with. 

 

However, the human body has a habit of...jumping the gun -- reacting before the thought of doing said Action is even fully formed, especially if they are martially trained.​

Thoughts that come first FREEZE physical action. Not in the literary sense, for real. Most people stop whatever action they are doing, they pause to speak.

Fiction works exactly the same way.

FICTION =
The Plot happens to the characters then…they react.
- in Chronological order​

Action –> Reaction

1 - Something happened TO the character, (the Action.)
2 - The character feels the Physical Sensation - the effects of the Action, (the reaction.)
3 - THEN they have a thought and/or comment about what had just happened, (an Action.)
4 - THEN they DO something about it, (their Reaction.)

WRONG:

The flash of pain exploded in my cheek [Reaction] as the slap her hand lashed out at me. [Action]​

RIGHT:

Her hand lashed out in a slap [action].​

​

My cheek exploded with a flash of pain. [reaction]. “Ow!” [dialogue/action] I balled my hand into a fist and swung for her face. [reaction]​

(Stupid gif won't load. Click image to see Action!)

Why did I break that sequence into Two lines? ​

Because each character gets their own paragraph for their actions.

Why?

For exactly the same reason you separate each character's dialogue into two paragraphs. Dialogue is an Action.

And while we're on the subject, leave the Dialogue ATTACHED to that character's Actions! This way you never need to use dialogue tags such as 'he said' or 'she said' to identify who is speaking. The Actions do that for you.

Back to the topic...

Violating chronological order is a Bad Idea. If you knock the Actions out of order the reader’s Mental Movie STOPS because the reader has to STOP READING to Re-Read that sequence and mentally rearrange the sentences in into the correct order to get the movie back.

Making the story hard for the reader to PICTURE
-- is a VERY Bad Idea. ​

Anytime the reader has to STOP to rearrange the words to FIT their mental movie, you’ve made a break. Breaks are BAD – very, very bad! A break creates a moment where the reader can STOP READING your story, and start reading something else -- and possibly never look at your work again.

A lot of writers hesitate to break up the actions between characters because written chronological action and dialogue tends to look very choppy on the page. It doesn't look neat and tidy

Neat and tidy be damned!​

Who cares how the words are arranged on the page? Once the reader has their Mental Movie rolling the reader won’t even notice the specific words. They’ll be too busy watching the scenes playing out in their mental movie to care what they're reading.

Screw aesthetics! Your first priority is keeping that reader reading. That means keeping their Mental Movie going without interruptions!

How to FIX this chronic problem:​

VISUALIZE your scenes as you write them. Play them as a movie in your head and write everything down EXACTLY as you see it. If it comes out in a pile of one short sentence after another, then add some smart-assed internal comments and/or dialogue.

Just remember to keep the character's dialogue connected to their actions.

Don't Forget: Dialogue is an Action too!

What about Literary style?​

What about it?

If you simply MUST have stylish phrasing in your fiction, save it for the descriptions. Keep it out of the Actions!

If you want the reader to SEE the actions that you are trying to portray, Chronological Order is the ONLY way to make Action Scenes crystal clear in their imaginations.

-------- Original Message -----------​

"I can't write an action/fight scene worth a crap. Mind you, I can usually imagine them, I just can't write them." ​

-- Wanna Do a Fight Scene. ​

If you can imagine it - you can write it. The easiest way is by doing it in LAYERS.

A Quick and Dirty Method:
Writing Action Scenes in Layers

Start with a List of ACTIONS
and their following REACTIONS.

Don’t Forget! ~ Actions ALWAYS go Before Reactions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List of ACTIONS 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- IMPORTANT! Each Character gets their own paragraph. NEVER clump the separate actions of two different characters in the same paragraph or the reader will get confused as to who is doing what very quickly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 

​Will lunged forward, his sword fully extended in a stab.​​ 

 

Jack caught Will's blade with the flat of his blade. Pushing the blade just out of range of his skin, Jack slide down Will's blade in a short fast stab.​​

 

Will turned to the side to avoid Jack's sword's point. 

 

​​Jack did a quick side-step to stay in front of Will, keeping his sword's point on target.​ 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Add DIALOGUE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

​

"You're dead meat!" Will lunged forward, his sword fully extended in a stab.​

​

Jack caught Will's blade with the flat of his blade. "Oh really?" Pushing the blade just out of range of his skin, Jack slide down Will's blade in a short fast stab. "I don't think so!"​​ 

 

Will turned to the side to avoid Jack's sword's point. "Crap!"​​ 

 

Jack did a quick side-step to stay in front of Will, keeping his sword's point on target. "You're gonna have to do a lot better than that."​

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Add EMOTION.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

​

"You're dead meat!" Will bared his teeth and lunged forward, his sword fully extended in a stab.​​

 

Jack snorted in derision and caught Will's blade with the flat of his blade. "Oh really?" Pushing the blade just out of range of his skin, Jack slide down Will's blade in a short fast stab. He smiled. "I don't think so!" 

 

​​Startled, Will turned to the side to avoid Jack's sword's point. "Crap!" 

 

​​Jack did a quick side-step to stay in front of Will, keeping his sword's point on target. He chuckled. "You're gonna have to do a lot better than that."​ 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Add INTERNAL NARRATION. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Pick ONE character in that scene and add only THAT character's internal observations -- no others! (More than one POV in a scene is known as HEAD-HOPPING.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

​

"You're dead meat!" Will bared his teeth and lunged forward, his sword fully extended in a stab.​

​

Jack snorted in derision and caught Will's blade with the flat of his blade. "Oh really?" The kid certainly had guts. Too bad he didn't have the skill to go with it. Pushing the blade just out of range of his skin, Jack slide down Will's blade in a short fast stab. He smiled. "I don't think so!"​

​

Startled, Will turned to the side to avoid Jack's sword's point. "Crap!"​

​

Jack did a quick side-step to stay in front of Will, keeping his sword's point on target. He chuckled, knowing it would piss the kid off. "You're gonna have to do a lot better than that." He was hoping the kid would figure out that he was out-matched and just bolt. He didn't like killing those that didn't actually deserve to die.​

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seriously, if you can imagine it - you can write it.

Having problems imagining it?
- Watch a few MOVIES.


Morgan Hawke ☕
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