 Action/Adventure: March 19, 2008 Issue [#2289] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Edited by: Puditat  
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Life without action is static, and by necessity, it would therefore be dead. Action writing takes the normal and shares it for all to live vicariously.
Adventure is the spice: the exciting, adrenalin-pumping, thrill that makes one feel so alive. Everyone has an adventuresome spirit. Maybe dreams of excavating some long-lost treasure, visiting a new country, or trying a new flavour of potato chip.  Some of us prefer our adventures to come between the pages of a book, and many of us like to write that adventure.
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 Sleep through An Adventure?
Your hero or villain has struggled through many harrowing adventures and misadventures. They’ve scaled the heights of adversity and come out with nary a scratch, except for the loss, maybe, of a few expendable supporting characters. They’ve run, fought, hidden, escaped, and possibly even tangoed there way through the series of events the master of their fate (YOU) has deemed necessary.
Did they ever get tired? Did they sleep even once during the rampage of action?
When one thinks of action and adventure, a night of sleep rarely figures into one’s ‘storyscape’ of necessary events. However, a time of rest can be very rewarding within a story.
A slower period makes the racy areas stand out more. It provides a change of rhythm for the reader by letting them breathe after a head-rush. It allows a build of more subtle flavours such as the suspense found in a fear of the unknown, or the drama of huddling over a pathetic flame in need of its insubstantial warmth and protection whilst avoiding bringing the enemy straight to the target.
These ‘slower’ areas can provide many elements essential to a good novel or story. It is here that you can inject:
dream scenes,
 backstabbing amongst mates,
show the mental and physical effects of stress after the adrenalin abates,
develop characterization,
introduce matters required for believability and realism (such as how and when they attain food, or give rest or treatment for wounds and travel sores),
vary the enemy (a temporary foe such as a wild animal or element of nature).
Sleep or rest scenes are not scenes where nothing happens. Neither are they a place that is weak. A good rest scene can bring many complexities into a storyline or reveal the answers to plot questions. I think of JRR Tolkien’s novels and his story of the great battle between good and evil. The Lord of the Rings includes many scenes of rest and a good few of these were translated into the films. The stay at the Prancing Pony is a classic example where they find sleep, but it still includes a great sense of tension because of the close threat of the mysterious, scary dark riders.
A short story may not require the necessity of a sleep/rest scene that is anything more than a sentence. However, a novel cries out for the change of pace and focus it can bring.
My recommendations:
 Include some sleep scenes
Look for ways to make them different from the main action, but so they still relate to the overall theme, plot, or subplot.
Consider what subtle clues can be woven into the character’s ‘thinking time’.
There should be no scene which is wasted. No scene which a reader says they could have lived without. So combine realism for your characters with plot elements for the reader to bring something different and revealing. Because the pace of a rest scene is slower, this is often a place where the reader may also be more thoughtful. Use it to your advantage.
I hope this is useful in your writing endeavours.
Puditat
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** Contest Results **
I loved receiving everyone's entries into my little "Write Puditat an Adventure" challenge. I hope those who participated enjoyed writing the stories as much as I did in reading them. All of the featured items this week were entries in the challenge. Congratulations everyone on taking up my prompts. I do so enjoy the different takes people provide from the same set of cues.
1st place
(received a 10k awardicon)
2nd place
(received 6000 GPs)
3rd place
(received 3000 GPs)
Other entries
(received 500 GPs each)
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