  Action/Adventure
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Greetings! Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Action & Adventure Newsletter!
Each day is a blank page, an adventure to be written, action and re-action ~ be pro-active. Writing itself is action ~ creating an adventure for your readers to embrace in prose or verse. I'm back again in search of adventure and hope you will share with me this exploration and maybe create one of your own in prose or verse.
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| ASIN: 0995498113 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 19.95
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Greetings!
It's action that propels your hero/protagonist along the path of his/her quest, and the journey from the idea or need to achieve the quest is the adventure. Your reader will run alongside, turning the page or seeking the next stanza to see, hear, and experience the action along with your character, joining in the adventure.
Action is movement! Something that makes the heart beat a bit faster, be it a chase, an argument, physical or emotional. And no, you don't need to write in the 'oomph' and 'splat' and 'banff' to bring your reader into the experience. Instead, as you step through the doorway of the night-darkened house, a fist connects with your chin, snapping your head sideways just shy of the doorjamb. Your right hand clenches and instinctively punches out, the resulting grunt a beacon in the darkness for your left fist to hit a bullseye.
Notice the action and reaction. It's reflexive and immediate. You don't stop to ponder, 'I just got hit, felt like a fist, a strong one, but a fist, so what do I do? I will raise my hand and make a fist and punch..." or "I just got hit in the doorway, I wonder if there's only one and I can take him, or are there more and should I run and do they have a weapon, maybe even a gun, so really I should duck and run..." You get where I'm going.? Action is movement, not reflection or contemplation.
Don't interrupt the action in the scene. Your characters wouldn't be thinking during the scene, but reacting to immediate events. There's tension, in your mind's eye (and your readers') you can feel the tension as the action unfolds engaging the senses. The fist could smell of lood or of sushi, but it hits just as hard. Now isn't the time to contemplate the culinary preferences of the attacker, but respond to the attack, then continue along the adventure. Now once the battle or event is done, you can realize that you've bested someone or something trying to thwart your journey or maybe a longitme fear (perhaps a fear of sharks no longer so strong after besting the fist that smelled of sushi, or was it money-laundering? = see the potential).
Don't interrupt the action with internal conflict. When facing a fist, or an immediate threat of somekind, it's not the time to consider the intrinsic violence of fisticuffs. Your character (and reader) doesn't want to think here, but react to the events and strive to change or adapt to the situation as it unfolds.
Consider the action scene as a mini-story within the story, or a stanza that propels the poem forward or onward to the next image. As a self-contained mini-story, it has a beginning (the fist, a middle, returning a blow, and a resolution, which could be besting the assailant, or not, but resolving the conflict that began with the visceral encounter in the entrance to the darkened room.
Action in a scene keeps the story's momentum going forward (envision the flinch from your reader who must turn the page to see what comes next), and it should keep the plot or subplot moving forward.
When you envision an action scene or sequence, ask a reporter's questions as if you were viewing the action unfolding in front of you. -- What happens? Why? How? Show just what you need to know in answer these three questions and your reader will flinch or gasp along with your characters. Set the scene (the darkened entrance to a room, a mausoleum, a schoolhouse...) before engaging the action. Then, once engaged, don't interrupt the action with musings or reflection or thought, but react and act to resolve the encounter.
Consider the viewpoint - showing the action and reactions from the viewpoint of one of those engaged in the encounter or an omniscient view, but not headhopping, which would slow down the action by interrupting with tags to change character views, taking away the immediacy of the action. And it doesn't have to be a 'fight,' per se. Recall Indiana Jones escaping from the pit of snakes, which he feared. He didn't watch and ponder as a snake reared and hissed, wonder if it was a mamba or rattler or other type of snake, but reacted with action to get away from the snakes, yes, with some battle, though the intent wasn't to vanquish the snakes, but to escape and continue the quest.
Watch films and TV programs and you can see how action scenes flow physically. A gunfight in a western - one draws, the other reacts, and one falls. Action, reaction, resolution. Act out the scene (not with real guns), but walk to a mirror and toss a punch stopping short of breaking the reflective glass. You will flinch and your arm will reflexively rise to ward the blow perhaps, or maybe you duck, or blink, or turn away. Each of those is a valid reaction for your character as well.
Listen also to the action words used in film and tv. The action verbs and adverbs themselves are visual and show what's going on. If you are writing a fight, use a jab or a roundhouse, not merely 'hit' your opponent (hit where, how, with what?)
Once you write the scene, consider more visual and sensory words to convey the action. Your scene above, perhaps he sidled towards the darkened entrance, or tiptoed, or crept. Some words evoke common emotional responses, and with action you can direct or shift those responses in your readers. When't the last time you 'sidled,' but you can close your eyes and see yourself (or your character) doing it. There are alternative words (and they're not the $20 words, but ones that are intrinsically visual or sensory. "Who's there," he whispered? or she shouted? instead of 'he/she said' lets your reader react with the characters, their very demeanor set by tone of the words being used to create the image, and the action.
Have fun with it - writing action will free the muse creative to play and have fun, and share the adventure with your readers and fellow members of our community.
Write On!
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Check out the action in these adventures ~ not all are battles with fisticuffs (or swords), but challenges met and resolved? Share your thoughts with the writers and, enjoy the adventure
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| |  | Battle (13+)
Utterly alone in a futuristic enemy battlefield, Royk must fight his way out.
#1436836 by Avantol13  |
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
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Thank you for this moment's rest in your virtual home ~ now, before we make a 'scene' I'll take my leave until we meet again,
May your adventures be vivid and resolved to your satisfaction, but mostly, may they be fun.
Write On!
Kate
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Product Type: Toys & Games
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Action/Adventure: April 14, 2010 Issue [#3666]
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