 Action/Adventure: December 03, 2014 Issue [#6689] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Realistic Action Scenes Edited by: NaNoNette  
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| Hello writers and readers of action and adventure, I am NaNoNette , your guest editor for this issue. |
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Realistic Action Scenes
Know your action to make it believable.
Writing action scenes can be difficult to do, especially when you rely on your character having a specific skill they need for their scene. In this case, I recommend two things:
1. Don't over-think your action. Write it in a way that the average uninitiated reader can follow along in the action.
When narrating a car chase for instance, it might be fun to add when the driver shifts down to gain more power for his/her next move. At the same time, it might also be easier and more crowd-compatible to describe that the driver sped up or hit the gas pedal.
When narrating a fist fight, there might not be a need for excruciating descriptions of the angles that the fists fly. The same move might be called "roundhouse," or "haymaker," or something else completely. Although I have participated in boxing instructions, I will most likely not know what I am looking at in your reading if you name a punch or a kick. Describing the hit as coming in from the side to the temples with the knuckles meeting the skull right at that soft spot on the outside next to the eye works as a description.
2. While not bogging down your readers with too many specific names for the actions you are describing, you have to have a solid understanding of what it is you are writing.
While I don't recommend attempting any type of car-stunt, you might try and watch some videos on the subject. Maybe find some articles or interviews with professional stunt drivers. The challenges they face, their fears when performing the stunts, and the successes and misses they experience can inform you and make your writing richer.
If you like to have hand-to-hand fighting in your stories, you can either take a couple of classes in the martial art you want to describe, or again watch a few videos on the subject. There are some very good and realistic documentaries on fighting in many types of martial arts.
 Finally: Once you've written your action scene, let it sit for a couple of days before you go back to edit. Even before you show it to anybody else, let the scene play out for yourself and on paper. After those days, go back and see if the way you pictured your scene is the same as what you see when you read it. Be sure get another person's input on your scene too.
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Comments I got for my last Action Adventure Newsletter "Sensible Hero versus Loser" .
Joto-Kai  wrote: I'm worried my current character is too strong. She's known to ambush her people just because she thinks they're too naive, for example. Anyhow, this article is both thorough and nothing like anything I've ever read! Great work.
If you send me the link to your story, or even just an excerpt where you feel she is too overbearing, I'll be happy to let you know how she comes across to me as a reader.
BIG BAD WOLF Feeling Thankful  wrote: But what if the Hero is the Cover/Decoy for the Real Hero? I mean, what if the Real Hero hates being in the Limelight, but the People demand a Face, or some such thing, and thus hires someone to be the Stand-in, as it were, for those Photo Ops. Of course, one thing that would help the Fake Hero keep the masquerade up would be if the guy had some skills - maybe he's not as strong as the Real Hero, but he can hold his own in a fight, at least until the Real Hero sneaks in through a back door, and changes places with the Fake, takes care of the Bad Guy, and trades places again, with the Fake getting all the credit. "The Werewolf's Gun"
I guess your way of looking at it is an angle I had not considered. My newsletter was in regards to the character and how he himself/herself comes across. Not how a copy or stand in performs. That is a very different type of character the way I see that. |
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