Action scenes are not like you and me
Mar. 14th, 2007 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI've come across a number of s/f/f books lately that have gotten generally good reviews and are generally good books—well imagined, inventive, lovely prose, doing fairly well with the genre cognoscenti—and yet the writers can't write action scenes worth beans.
This is not just a matter of taste, I don't think, but a general misperception of how action scenes should be written. Action requires a language all its own, a pacing all its own, and if a writer tries to approach it with the same literary style in which they describe, for instance, the shimmering dance of light on water, then they are going to wind up with passive and lifeless scenes.
Action requires shorter, punchier sentences, activist verbs that carry a wallop. It needs jazz--flexible and improvisational jazz--not a classical quartet. Make the characters jump, don't go stringing them through the air like clouds on a windless day. Make them move and twist, don't go all minuet and lyrical. Above all, make them feel, let 'em hurt and sweat and pull some muscles. Give them room to move and flex and range across the page. Don't skim over it and hope no one notices. Because somebody will notice. Maybe even feel cheated.
Me, I blame Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and its clones. Maybe some graphic novels, too. Don't get me wrong: I like both of these things, but they make action look balletic, lyrical, elegant. They make blood just another interesting color choice—a clash, a harmony, a bright flare on the screen or graphic page.
But it doesn't work that way with the printed word. I think it's possible to write an elegant action scene; I think it's possible to write an action scene that comes off the page and sets the reader's mind on fire; I think sometimes it's possible to do both at the same time. But not if you use passive verbs, and not if you try to rush through it because action just isn't your thing. Learn to write action scenes, learn their hidden language and separate magic. Action and sex are two sides of the same coin: the only way to carry them off is to face them directly and go into the experience. Skirting the edges, or confusing them with the luminous gold of daffodils reflected in a dark window, will only lead to cheating the reader and making your action and sex scenes not much more than a hill of beans.
Or, at least, that's the way I see at it.
Random quote of the day:
"I am not superstitious, but my scepticism wanes at night and returns with daylight."
—John Maddox Roberts, SPQR V: Saturnalia
This is not just a matter of taste, I don't think, but a general misperception of how action scenes should be written. Action requires a language all its own, a pacing all its own, and if a writer tries to approach it with the same literary style in which they describe, for instance, the shimmering dance of light on water, then they are going to wind up with passive and lifeless scenes.
Action requires shorter, punchier sentences, activist verbs that carry a wallop. It needs jazz--flexible and improvisational jazz--not a classical quartet. Make the characters jump, don't go stringing them through the air like clouds on a windless day. Make them move and twist, don't go all minuet and lyrical. Above all, make them feel, let 'em hurt and sweat and pull some muscles. Give them room to move and flex and range across the page. Don't skim over it and hope no one notices. Because somebody will notice. Maybe even feel cheated.
Me, I blame Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and its clones. Maybe some graphic novels, too. Don't get me wrong: I like both of these things, but they make action look balletic, lyrical, elegant. They make blood just another interesting color choice—a clash, a harmony, a bright flare on the screen or graphic page.
But it doesn't work that way with the printed word. I think it's possible to write an elegant action scene; I think it's possible to write an action scene that comes off the page and sets the reader's mind on fire; I think sometimes it's possible to do both at the same time. But not if you use passive verbs, and not if you try to rush through it because action just isn't your thing. Learn to write action scenes, learn their hidden language and separate magic. Action and sex are two sides of the same coin: the only way to carry them off is to face them directly and go into the experience. Skirting the edges, or confusing them with the luminous gold of daffodils reflected in a dark window, will only lead to cheating the reader and making your action and sex scenes not much more than a hill of beans.
Or, at least, that's the way I see at it.
Random quote of the day:
"I am not superstitious, but my scepticism wanes at night and returns with daylight."
—John Maddox Roberts, SPQR V: Saturnalia
no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 07:55 pm (UTC)I completely agree, action scene or scene with tension require a different kind of writing. Terry Brooks is one of my favourite writers when it comes to action scenes (his later books).
no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 09:46 pm (UTC)And another bit of odd synchronicity is that I was talking to Julien about the effect film has had on the written word in recent years, specifically reader expectations.
Surfin' the mindwaves, dude.
I think that for a pittoresque, say, fight scene, à la recent sampling of Asian fight movies (including the choreography of the Matrix trilogy) to work, it would need to be in a book that already showed that the author is consummately skilled in penning "effective" fight scenes--read punchy and well-paced. Used as a contrast, I think it could be interesting (I do think it would need to be written to a purpose, understand) to do the lyrical, elegant prose dance you described; but in general, I agree that the subset of language and pacing of action scenes should be respected.
Interesting, too, that you should bring it around to cheating the reader. I guess I've never taken it that far in regards to how an action (fight) scene should work, but I suppose that someone reading a sex scene could very easily feel thus if instead of
torridhonest prose/emotions, they got pussyfooting and daffodil reflections.no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 10:52 pm (UTC)Interesting, too, that you should bring it around to cheating the reader. I guess I've never taken it that far in regards to how an action (fight) scene should work,
Hey, I take my action (and sex) very seriously. ;-) Perhaps "cheated" was too much of a buzz word, but since I've recently encountered more than one example of this in otherwise well-done and critically acclaimed books, it does irritate the heck-all out of me.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 07:49 am (UTC):) Even if "cheat" isn't le mot juste, it still does the job in implying that the reader has certain expectations. It behooves writers to realize/remember that "other 50%" so that they may do their best not to disappoint. I, for one, intend to think on this a little more and to reread my ms with reader expectations in mind.
That implies a certain desire to always meet or fulfill the expectations, but it can also serve to help you exceed them with surprises and twists--the good, non-jarring kind, of course.
Thanks for giving me something to think about.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 05:21 pm (UTC)Same here. So maybe it's not a case of learning to write action scenes so much as learning to edit them. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 05:37 pm (UTC)Fred Charles Said:
Date: 2007-03-16 02:44 pm (UTC)I think that many fantasy writers are so in love with the details of their world, they forget to create a compelling story.
Fred Charles
http://fredcharles.wordpress.com
Re: Fred Charles Said:
Date: 2007-03-16 05:04 pm (UTC)I think that many fantasy writers are so in love with the details of their world, they forget to create a compelling story.
There's that. In the case of the two writers I was thinking about, they were so in love with the jeweled prose that they could do a change up that made for more effective storytelling.