 Action/Adventure: April 13, 2011 Issue [#4336] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Action and Re-Action ~Engage the Battle! Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Each day is a blank page, an adventure to be written, action and re-action ~ be pro-active
Greetings! and welcome to this week's edition of the Writing.Com Action & Adventure Newsletter.
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Greetings, I think most of us agree that life itself can be an adventure, as we daily encounter (fellow writers, we don't merely pass by, we notice) something to solve, surmount, answer, question - you get the point And we can write of such adventure, real or invented, in a number of genres. Adventure stories and poems can be romantic, historical, science fiction, fantasy, mystery....
Action, by definition, is movement. Action and Adventure stories and poems therefore are intense, forceful and maybe violent. The action keeps your reader involved, on edge, and needing (not just wanting) to keep reading
Action is movement. We don't want to see it interrupted by reflection, internal thought. We want to see the characters react to the situation, their environment.
 For example, we wouldn't want to read that "Jack ran quickly across the parking lot, thinking that a sniper could be in one of the cars." Instead,. how about,
"Jack darted across the parking lot, gun raised to pan the tangle of cars, each a potential sniper's shield."
Not nearly perfect, but you see that I traded adverbs and adjectives for descriptive words to make it more vivid, more active, less introspective.
Keep up the pace with shorter, cleaner, sentences and paragraphs. Again, if we eliminate the picturesque descriptions, the action stands on its own. Your hero (or villain) would not be contemplating the myriad stars lighting his way beneath a cerulean sky as he/she plots the next move. He or she would be engaging in the next move.
Movement. An Action and Adventure moves the characters from one place to another. The story moves from one locale to another; from a jungle with insurgents chasing potential hostages to a city with terrorists chasing your hero. (I 'borrowed' this from 24's prequel as an example.)
Clean, crisp transitions from one scene or sequence to another. This maintains momentum and keeps the story or plot on track. We don't see the hero or heroine sleeping and dreaming, or having a nice relaxing dinner, or in the washroom (unless perhaps he/she busts through the door after a villain).
Dialogue that's on point and moves the plot along. This means few, if any, extraneous dialogue tags. Stick with "he said," or "she replied," ejecting the spent shell casings. - Then move, once again. Dialogue can also thus introduce a shift in point of view.
Backstory cut. In an Action & Adventure, readers don't want to spend a chapter on the hero's childhood fear of spiders. Dialogue, or disgust expressed with a shudder upon finding one in a weapons cache akin to his mother's utensil drawer gives the reader the picture and forwards the plot (weapons cache - utensil drawer - both have knives).
Minimize pathos; be realistic. For example, when in hand-to-hand combat, your hero can trade a comment or two with the villain, perhaps recall a past battle or maybe a time they were on the same side, in a few words. But your hero would not engage in such a discourse if the battle were being waged by trading fire a block away, or across a field.
Know your facts. Readers of Action & Adventure do. Embelish with realistic possibilities. For example, if your character downloads a list of counteragents to your cellphone, then exchanges the cell for a prisoner, it may have a code command ot self destroy the data upon replay. (This was done on 24 and a friend broke open his cellphone to look for such a chip (possibility) - what with gps encoding (fact). He didn't find it, and had to get a replacement cellphone for the one he broke).
If you like to write it, you already do this - read and watch Action & Adventure. The challenging movement, action, plot advancement, to the satisfying resolution is what keeps you reading, and writing it!
Keep it Active!
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Check out the battle plans envisioned by several members of our Community ~ join in with a comment or review ~ and then, take up the challenge to battle on
| |  | The Battle (13+)
A brave warrior encounters a fearsome foe in a duel to the death.
#1762842 by Wiz  |
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This item number is not valid.
#1718715 by Not Available. |
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#1765965 by Not Available. |
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I invite you to take action ~ incite your characters in verse and prose to move and interact with their environment and co-conspirators and those who/what would thwart their goals.
Until we next meet,
May your action incite the re-action you desire
Write On!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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