Engage all five/six senses to create an adventure
your readers can embrace
~ puns intended
***

         Greetings, fellow Adventurers. Think about it ~ all action scenes are sensual (no, not Valentine's day sensual)

         You know, sensual - tactile, vivid, engaging the senses to make your reader a part of the story or poem; ratcheting up the pace, making him/her need ot turn the page or continue to the next stanza. While writing an action scene, do you sometimes find yourself squeezing the words from your pen, or pounding them out of the keyboard? Does your body sometimes tense up, breath speed up, along with that of your characters?

         Then, do you sometimes get lost along the way? One vivid scene in your adventure comes to a close and another waits to begin (or continue), How to connect them so that your reader stays absorbed in the story, needing to turn the page to continue the adventure. How to keep the chain of events and interactions going for your characters and readers.

         Transitions provide such links between chapters, scenes, stanzas, even paragraphs. In action/adventure stories and verse, when effectively used, they provide a link between settings, direct the reader's (and sometimes the character's) attention to the action about to take place or a foreshadowed reason for an action.

         Transitions can direct the reader's attention with just a few words ~
Move your reader from one locale to another.
Move your reader through time - recalling the past or foreshadowing future action.
Change point of view or perspective.
Shift the tone or mood, picking up the pace or probing with a bit more depth.
Conclude one action.
Create associations in the reader's mind.

         Now, how do we apply transitions to move the action from one place to another, or pass the ball from one character to another, while keeping the images tight and vivid, making our readers need to turn the page and continue the adventure.

         Time ~ via adverbs such as then, now, meanwhile, later, once again or adverb sentences such as Five years passed with the goal no nearer.

         Place - either with single words or phrases, or sentences, such as here, there, beyond, Inside the cabin.{/ii} Also, movement from one place to another - action - I closed the door, leaving the plane and such things familiar, for the vast open green of the forest. Here also in a longer piece, using a space or chapter break prepares your reader for another locale or perspective.

         Point of view or perspective. Changing from first person to third-person, for example, to introduce a change of venue or perception for the adventurer by introducing a battle or vivid interaction with new surroundings. Changing perspective, while holding the same point of view, from the adventurer to perhaps the antagonists's eye and hand.

         Focus - either on a comparison of what's different or what's the same in a different locale. For example, Sam was sweating profusely despite the sudden drop in temperature as the plane nosedived into the snow bank. Here we focused on Sam's tension/attitude while moving him to another locale - action.

         Emphasis - comparing or contrasting one thing to another - i.e., further, but, yet, not only, in fact This would emphasize what is to follow immediately afterwards.

         I think these are the most effective transitions in adventure writing, drawing the reader deeper into the action, keeping him/her turning the page to see what will happen next.

         Meanwhile, we can scroll down and embark on some adventures with fellow writers in our Community. See, a transition inviting further action

Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading