literature

Advice: How not to write action scenes

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Jon-Wood
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Literature Text



The cafeteria was not a good place to be for anyone who didn't want to spend the rest of the day smelling like mystery meat.

Caroline watched the food fly as she poked her head up. She could make a run for it-

Caroline spun as someone yelled "Hey, Jackson!" There was Destiny, her arm cocked back, an open Snack Pack in her hand, and a smile on her face.

Oh, for - she was still salty about that stupid puddle?

Caroline ducked as Destiny threw, and there was the sound of a wet splat, followed by a gasp. Who did it-?

Priya Chaudhri, as it happens. And more importantly, it hit her very, very expensive-looking cashmere sweater.

Everyone froze.

The bright yellow pudding lemoned down the black wool as the Indian girl looked down. Drip...drip...

Her teeth gritted and her eyes narrowed as she looked up.

"This," she said, as she picked up her yogurt, "is Dior."



See what I did there?

Not really.

If you look really closely at the scene, you'll notice that I kept writing the reaction before the action, so to speak. This is a common mistake. It's usually in the format "Bobby [reacted] as Alex [did something]." 

This can be fine if used sparingly, but when you use it all the time, it's like taking two steps forward, one step back. The reader has to keep changing direction just to make any progress. 

In an action scene, that can be deadly. Heck, it can derail plain ol' banter, especially if it's supposed to be fast-paced, or has more than two participants. 


Let's try that scene again, but punched up a little.


The cafeteria was not a good place to be for anyone who didn't want to spend the rest of the day smelling like mystery meat.

Caroline poked her head up, watched the food fly. She could make a run for it-

"Hey, Jackson!" someone yelled, and Caroline spun. There was Destiny, her arm cocked back, an open Snack Pack in her hand, and a smile on her face.

Oh, for - she was still salty about that stupid puddle?

Destiny threw, and Caroline ducked, and there was the sound of a wet splat, followed by a gasp. Who did it-?

Priya Chaudhri, as it happens. And more importantly, it hit her very, very expensive-looking cashmere sweater.

Everyone froze.

The Indian girl looked down. The bright yellow pudding lemoned down the black wool. Drip...drip...

Then she looked up, teeth gritted, eyes narrowed. 

"This," she said, as she picked up her yogurt, "is Dior."


But isn't that last line exactly what you were talking about?

Nope. It's two actions happening at the same time, not the reaction and then the cause.

Now, you may also have noticed the point where Caroline hears the splat and has to take a second to figure out who got hit. That's one of the few times it's actually okay to go back; when the point-of-view character doesn't know what happened, and has to figure it out.

Another hypothetical example is when the character is fighting someone, and suddenly they're looking at the wall and the left side of their face hurts, and they realize their opponent just snuck in a right hook. 

Or in a war story when something hits a soldier in the chest, he looks down and sees the blood, and realizes he just got shot.

Of course, by definition, these little incidents are major breaks in the flow and rhythm of the story. Which is, again, fine in moderation. 

The only way to figure out what works, really, is experimenting. And getting critique. And the ol' "read your story out loud" trick.

Good Hunting,
Jon
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Graeystone's avatar
Graeystone
There was Destiny <---- Uh oh, Mary Stu alert! Unrealistic character name when everyone else has realistic names!

I agree with your idea about action/fight scenes. An action/fight scene is an unformed lump of stone just like the rest of the story. Care must be taken that the flow of the action/fight scene is coherent instead of turning into a mess.

I think the big mistake that's made is the constant breaking of the 'Golden Rule of Fighting'(Cafeteria Food Fight or War Fight) and that is; "Never EVER take your eyes of your opponent(s)". Whether its mashed potatoes or a bullet to a chest, a fighter would not look down to see what just happened. And if a person does get shot in the chest by a bullet, they aren't going look down to see what happened. . .they're going to be collapsing/falling to the ground.

An example is a Naruto fanfic idea I got is that two characters are fighting on a roof one-on-one. A punch is blocked. In the next instant they grabbed the other's wrist and use an attack that hurts the arm that was used for punching and blocking. They jump back and while I describe the damage in the narrative I have the fighters resist the urge to look at their injured limbs. Because again no experienced fighter would do that.