It’s been an exciting few months since I began this project. It started with a simple goal of creating a method to share my knowledge of writing action scenes and has since morphed into a book project, live workshops, and eventually an online workshop. I hope that some of these plans will come to fruition in the following year.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll keep submitting me action scenes to critique. Likewise, I hope the critiques I’ve already provided have been useful to you as readers and writers. If you have any suggestions for changes or additions to the blog, I’d love to hear about them.

Coming up next: a treatise on Chase scenes.

And finally, whether you celebrate it or not, I do and would like to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas.

 The Shootout
or, “PEW PEW PEW!”

Once upon a time, humans developed technology that allowed us to stand away from our opponents and kill them at a distance.  Ever since then, we’ve been obsessed with ranged combat in all its myriad forms.

In fiction, there are three rather broad categories of ranged weapons, roughly equivalent to the past, the present, and the future:  arrows, bullets, and lasers.  Note that these are personal hand weapons as opposed to large siege engines requiring a crew, for example; those fall under a different style of action scene which will be discussed later.  Arrows in this circumstance refers to any kind of pre-gunpowder projectile, either thrown, slung, or launched using string tension.  Bullets mean any projectile fired using gunpowder (or a variation thereof).  Lasers refer to any kind of futuristic energy weapon based upon technology not yet invented.

Action scenes involving ranged combat are similar in setup to Fights.  You still need to work out the details of the set piece and where your characters fit within that area.  The primary difference between a Shootout and a Fight is the distance between the opponents.  No matter what type of weapon in use during a Shootout, the goal of each character should be the same:  Shoot your opponent before your opponent shoots you.

Stunts in Shootouts will generally fall under the following categories:

1. Shooting your weapon at your opponent.
2. Moving through fire between cover to close or increase the distance between you and your opponent.
3. Using the set piece to your advantage, ie: taking cover, moving to high ground, or shooting set piece elements to change the outcome of the shootout.  Example:  firing an arrow through a rope supporting a heavy cask which then falls upon your opponent, catching him unawares.

Narrating a Shootout works best in either first-person or third-person close.  If you’re beginning to detect a pattern here in using limited points-of-view for action scenes, you’re right.  The further apart characters get in physical distance, the harder it is to provide effective narration from an omniscient point of view.

A Shootout ends when one side dies, surrenders, or escapes.

There are some factors in Shootouts which an author needs to pay more attention to than in a simple Fight.  The first of these is Cover.  Cover is a portion of the set piece behind which a character can hide to make it harder to hit him  or her with a ranged weapon.  It is the single most important factor for any character in a Shootout.  If you can’t see your opponent, you can’t shoot him.  Cover protects characters from enemy fire.  It gives them a place to plan their next moves, which is something an author should take full advantage of when writing the scene.  It also gives them a place to pop up/out from to fire their own weapons.  Cover may be static set pieces, like wall corners, tree trunks, car doors (although a staple of cop shows and movies, not recommended because bullets go right through them), rocks, etc.  They may also be mobile pieces, such as animals, vehicles, or the ever-popular human shield.  In the event a character is using a mobile set piece for cover, he or she will have to move with it, or guide it if possible.

Another important factor in a Shootout is ammunition.  Although you don’t need to keep track of every arrow and shot fired in every situation, there will be times where that becomes important and you need to know when your character either has to reload or is out of ammunition, necessitating a change of plans.  If you, the author, want to have your characters run out of ammunition at a crucial part of a scene, make sure they fire enough arrows/bullets/lasers beforehand.  A soldier in a pitched battle in World War II, for example, has access to a great many rounds of ammunition, either his own or from fallen comrades.  The same soldier who’s parachuted down behind enemy lines may only have six bullets with which to fight his way back to his allies.  Reloading a weapon is always a good opportunity for characters to interact with other characters, whether whispering to each other behind cover about their next move or shouting across open space to taunt opponents.

Wounds are a big factor of any action scene, but they have a special place in the Shootout.  Injuries that happen in the course of a Fight often have their effects minimized until after the engagement because of adrenaline, guts, or whatever the fiction equivalent is in your world.  In a Shootout, wounds are much more immediate, often painful and possibly quite damaging.  The character is under high stress from being in a combat situation, but if he is behind cover and takes a bullet, he will have much more time to realize how much it hurts and how badly he may have been wounded.  Because of the penetrating nature of ranged projectiles, victims in Shootouts may find themselves peppered with buckshot, grazed by bullets, pierced by arrows or spears, or burned and charred by lasers or blasters.  As a writer, it is imperative to take full advantage of those opportunities to make your characters more believable and bring the readers closer to them. 

This is from a fantasy WIP.  Abbreviated backstory: Sorcha is a sort of Paladin, hunting down an evil warlock.  She finally tracks him down at the edges of a reef where a half-drowned ruin lies buried in mud and encroaching tides.  Her goal is to capture him and prevent his escape.

***

Where was the vile man?  Sorcha could feel the cold trail of his soul’s hate snaking through the waterlogged reeds, deeper into the muddy stones of the drowned ruins. She stretched out her feelers and traced the trail to a giant column of stone rising out of the muck before her.   He was there, and she could feel his hunched form coiled around his soulfire. A gentle lapping of turgid water hissed against the stone. 

Ah, I have you now, she thought, and hiked up her shield.  She stepped towards the column, muddy water sloshing against her knees.   His soulfire waited, drawn up inside him like a ball of snow with a core of ice.  She tightened her hold on her wooden shield, hefted her sword, and stepped around the megalith. 

The man lunged himself at her with a shrill shout, a kris aimed at her head. She threw up her shield arm and gasped as the full weight his body slammed against her shield.  She heard a dull thunk as the kris cut into the wood.  She yanked it back, tugging the warlock off-balance, and kicked him in the knee.  He yelled and stumbled back, cursing.  “Bare-faced bitch!” [This is quite simply a very good start to a fight scene. The pacing is good and the description of action is fast-paced and detailed without being overbearing.]

He pulled on his soulfire and Sorcha’s senses shrieked alarm. Her nerves buzzed, and pain shot up her arm and down her back. [Maybe it’s because I haven’t read more of this story to understand it, but I’m confused by the whole “pulling on the soulfire” thing which is somehow injuring Sorcha.] “Oh no, you don’t!” She said and threw herself at him, sword aimed at his hip.  [A paladin and professional warrior wouldn’t be aiming for a hip unless she didn’t want to kill him immediately. If she wants him dead, she should ALWAYS be going for a fatal blow if she can, which means head or heart.]

Ice froze her Core, and a blue ball of Fire exploded into the air, engulfing her head and chest. [Is this a result of her attacking him? That’s unclear.] She screamed.  The Fire burned and flayed with whips angrier than any desert wind.  She toppled onto the warlock, and they hit the water, sinking under the silky dark shallows.   The fire winked out, but the burn continued on, consuming her nerves, steaming under her skin, scraping her senses raw.  The warlock thrashed under her, and his knee slammed into her thigh.  She gasped and choked.   Focus, Sorcha!  She bit her lip and pushed him down under her into the thick bed of mud and weeds.  He gurgled and struggled against her, hitting her in the ribs with his fists and elbows.  Her lungs tightened for need of air and she pulled him up with her, gasping. [This is a good series of stunts here, but Sorcha has now gasped three times in two paragraphs. See if you can find some other words to describe her reactions.]

He coughed and gasped, [gasp #4] flinging himself away.  She grabbed him [If he just flung himself away, she needs to pursue him first for continuity.] by the hair and punched him hard on the nose.  [What happened to her sword?] Bones cracked under her fist, and blood exploded on his face. He howled and retaliated with a boot to her gut. [A knee would make more sense in a close combat like this. A kick is a long-range attack and Sorcha is right up in his face.]

She doubled over, coughing, and the man hit her on the back, sending her back into the water. Churned mud funneled into her mouth.  Gagging, she pushed herself out of the water, spitting curses.  The warlock ran away, down towards the shore, where a tall strand of slime-covered rocks stood as bulwarks against the sky, and a small skiff bobbed on the breaking waves. 
  
Cursing, Sorcha ran after him, even though her face and lungs burned, and her back ached, throbbing with a new-made bruise.  She reached for her sword, but came up empty. Fires! She must have dropped it into the mire during the fight. [She should already know she lost her sword when she was forced to punch at him.]

The cursed man had almost reached his ship.  She unbuckled the shield from her arm and yanked out the kris.  She flipped the wooden disk, holding it by the sides. She twisted her body and flung the shield at the fleeing warlock’s back, sending it spinning through the air. [A little redundant here – either she flung it or sent it spinning through the air. You don’t need to say both.]

The edge of the shield hit him between the shoulders and he stumbled.  His head hit the edge of the boat’s gunwale with a dull crack.  He bounced off the wood and crumpled into the sands, the tide washing over him.

[This is an outstanding scene. The combat is crisp and clear, and you keep up a great pace throughout the sequence. Make sure your continuity is solid, especially involving the sword. Also, think carefully about the distances involved in close combat and whether your characters are at close range – “kissing distance”, medium range – “punching distance”, long range – “kicking distance”, or out of range. Other than that, great job!

Thanks for your submission!]

 The Fight
or, “Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves.”

A physical contest between two individuals is probably the oldest kind of conflict in human evolution, and forms the cornerstone of all action.  In any violent conflict, if you strip away all the weapons, gadgetry, vehicles, costumes, etc., you’re left with two naked savages trying to overpower each other with brute strength.  It sounds uncivilized, because it is.

Fights can be broken down into three sub-categories: Mano a Mano, the Gang-Up, and the Brawl.

Mano a Mano, Spanish for hand-to-hand, represents the most basic of all action scenes: two characters fighting in close quarters.  This kind of fight can be unarmed, meaning the only weapons the characters use will be their own bodies—like a martial arts duel with punching and kicking—or with melee weapons of any sort.  Little John and Robin Hood dueling with quarterstaves on a log bridge is a Mano a Mano fight.  So is the lightsaber battle between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars.

When writing a Mano a Mano scene, the narrative can follow one character, either in first-person, third-person close Point of View (POV), or third-person omniscient.  The main kinds of Stunts that will occur in a Mano a Mano scene are:

1. Flurries of punches, kicks, slaps, or use of melee weapons,
2. Throwing opponents against, onto, or through parts of the set,
3. Wrestling and grappling,
4. Using pieces of the set as improvised weaponry, especially when no other weapons are available, and
5. Falling, because fighting is treacherous even on flat, solid ground, and most fights aren’t going to take place in the best terrain.

A Mano a Mano scene ends when one character dies, surrenders, or runs away.  This last may lead to another kind of action scene which will be discussed later: The Chase.

The Gang-Up is similar to Mano a Mano, but instead involves one character or a small group fighting with a much larger group.  In a Gang-Up, sides may be intentionally balanced for dramatic purposes, or the underdog may have weapons, abilities, or in some other way be a match for the larger force.  This is most often the case in fiction because in reality, an underdog faced with a vastly superior force is going to wind up so much chum.

Narration in Gang-Ups requires careful planning to avoid headhopping, which is the bane of all fiction and especially the action scene.  If you are using a first-person or third-person close POV, you must take extra care not to narrate things that the POV character cannot know.  For example, if your hero is battling three enemy swordsmen on a staircase in a castle, he can’t know that one of his allies is perched on an adjoining tower, preparing to cast a fireball spell through a window.  All he’ll know is that a blast of flame comes into the stairwell and incinerates the enemy soldiers.  He may be able to draw a conclusion as to what happened, but he can’t know for certain if the narrative is only following him.  You may find an omniscient viewpoint is easier when writing a fight of this type.

Stunts in a Gang-Up will be essentially the same as those used in Mano a Mano, and the scene will end when one side dies, surrenders, or escapes.

The Brawl is the most difficult type of fight to write.  It is a fight between two large groups or a free-for-all between numerous characters with no clear sides.  The difficulty in constructing a Brawl in fiction is how to narrate it.  Most writers automatically pull back to use a third-person omniscient narrative, but in reality, that isn’t usually the best choice.  The problem with third-person omniscient in this case is that there are far too many characters to keep track of.  When writers try to do so, they wind up bogging down the action and interfering with the reader’s association with the narrative focal characters.  It also creates a “Dispassionate Distance,” which makes injuries and deaths meaningless to the reader.  Remember, your stories are about people (or should be), not about events.  A huge fight may be a grandiose spectacle to behold, but the reader wants to know first and foremost what happens to the Hero.

When writing a Brawl, consider approaching it using a third-person close or first person narrative, and make sure you keep the focus upon what the character can see/hear/otherwise experience with his or her senses.  Imagine the confusion of trying to write a bar fight with twenty different characters, four of which are the Heroes.  Now approach that same scene but keep the camera on just one character.  She may be aware of what’s happening off to one side, but she won’t see the big guy sneaking up behind her, until one of her allies clocks him with a beer mug and he hits the floor beside her.

The workshop for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers will be held Saturday, Jan. 22 from 1 PM to 3 PM (MST) at the Lakewood Library, 10200 W. 20th Ave., Lakewood, Colorado.

Hope to see you there!

I have another Write Better Action workshop scheduled.  This one will be on Tuesday, Feb. 15 from 6:30-8:30 PM at a location to be determined in Colorado Springs.  This will be a full-length workshop I will do for the Pikes Peak Writers as part of their Write Brain series of monthly workshops.  More information on this as I get it.

NaNoWriMo is about done (officially on Tuesday at midnight), and I’m already 2000 words past 50k and still writing.  I’ve officially been pronounced a winner for the 7th year running.  What does this mean for Action?  I’ll be ready to do more action scene critiques ASAP (and I only have one left in the queue, so please, if you’re thinking about whether or not to submit one, I’d love to see it).  I will also get back to posting more material from the book and workshop, so stay tuned!

By the time David was driving back into the garage, I was feeling better. Then the thing was mewling at the front door, getting louder every second.  I opened the door. [I’m coming back with this comment after reading further. If the narrator knows this thing and it’s mewling at the door, why is she opening it?]  The thing had left a black trail on the sidewalk and front step and was reaching up to me with both arms.  Its knees were scraped down to black jelly.  I scooped the thing up and closed the door.

I didn’t think I was going to be able to help at that funeral tomorrow.  I laughed with hysterical relief.  No more cookies for Doreen!  I picked the thing up and held it.  Small blessings and all that.

David came back through the garage to the kitchen.  He opened the cupboard above the sink–the booze–sighed, and closed it again.  Then he opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of something. Probably milk.

The thing hissed and dropped to the floor, creeping on its skinless legs to the kitchen door. [Another sentence or two of description of the thing here wouldn’t be unwarranted. You don’t need to be super-specific, because part of the fear in this type of writing comes from letting the readers picture the creature on their own. But give them a basic framework upon which to hang the skin of their terror.]

“David!” I screamed.  “Stay back.  It’s trying to come through the door.” [That last sentence is really chilling. Added after reading further: So she lets it in, offers it comfort after a fashion, then fights it? That doesn’t make much sense to me.]

The thing nudged the kitchen door with its head, which caved in like a gelatin mold.  The door had latched; the thing beat the door with its head so hard–despite the way it stretched the thing’s skull like a balloon–it cracked the wood around the hinges. [The first sentence in this paragraph is nicely done, but the metaphor in the second one doesn’t work so well.  You might consider leaving it out to just have “The thing beat the door with its head so hard that it cracked the wood around the hinges.” which is a powerful visual image on its own without needing to mention the thing’s balloon-stretchy-skull-whatzit.]

David jerked the door open and kicked the thing across the room.  As it hit the wall, the thing curled its legs under it and sprang at David, sharp nubs streaking toward his throat.

But I’d been fighting that damned thing a long time.  Losing.  But fighting.  I caught the thing, swung it around in a circle, and wrapped my arms around it until it clung to me, shuddering with rage. [It’s a little unclear whether it’s the narrator or the thing doing the shuddering.]

“Well?”  David walked toward me, standing so close I could feel the heat from his body. [This line doesn’t work for me. David seems far too calm in his words and actions. “Well?” doesn’t imply that he’s overly concerned. Neither does him walking and standing. He just attacked this thing and kicked it across a room, and then it turned around and attacked the narrator. He needs to show much more urgency and concern in his actions, unless he has a clear reason not to be either.]

I held on tight and closed my eyes.  The thing jerked in my arms as David tried to pull it away from me, but he wasn’t fast enough this time.  The thing’s claws dug into my throat as David pulled harder.  I felt the claws slipping: [Colon not needed; a comma would be sufficient.]  the blood running down my shoulders.

“Please don’t,” I begged.

“Don’t make me do this,” David said.  “Let it go.”

“You don’t know how bad you’re making this,” I said.  “Let me–” [Consider replacing the “said” dialogue tags with some action tags instead. “Said” feels tame when the characters are fighting, possibly for the narrator’s life.]

“I’m still going to try.”  He pulled on the thing, but it only coiled its arms around me tighter.  I screamed.  David wouldn’t let go.  I couldn’t let go.  I felt blood on my breasts now.  The harder David pulled, the more it choked me, but David wouldn’t let go. [A sentence describing the pain would go well in this paragraph.]

I passed out.

When I woke up, I was covered with black slime, crusted blood, and bruises, but the thing was gone.  My bones hurt, but not as bad.  I put my hand inside my blouse and tried to feel if my heart was still beating.  It was.  I was in the bedroom, lying on the bed–David must have put me there.  We’d made love only a few days ago, and I hadn’t changed the sheets.

David didn’t understand.  The thing would only come back.  I’d made it.  I’d made a deal with it.  I got to live a few more years without being sick, and it would poison everything I loved.  It had come.  It would always come.

I wasn’t going to be able to hide the cuts on my throat–they were fine, like red hairs, but they’d swollen up.  The slime was probably full of something nasty.  I dabbed around with rubbing alcohol, but I didn’t think it was going to do much good.  The cuts went all the way up to my ears and across my chin.  My blouse was shredded almost to the waist.  I took another shower.

Poor David.

No.  It was going to be fine.

Until I realized it wasn’t.  The thing was clinging to the wall above the bathroom door, waiting for him. [Does she notice this after she gets out of the shower or before she gets in? The order of events is a little unclear.]
I started screaming again.  I backed into the corner of the bathroom between the shower and the toilet, knowing I was only going to bring David running.  I was naked but for the towel around my head, screaming nonsense and howling.  My throat was already raw; the screaming quickly died into a painful croak.
Something touched my shoulder. [So something ran down the wall to touch her shoulder? Or is it David? If it’s him, how did she not notice him enter the bathroom and how did the thing not attack him when he did?]

“Aaahh–“

“Don’t try to talk,” David said.

“Where is it?” I whispered.  It was all I could get out.

David clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“It was above the door, it’s back already–“

The thing slammed into the back of David’s head and sliced him across the face with both claws.  David bucked, turned–but the thing had its arms around his neck already. [This is good right here. Simple and effective.]

I beat at the thing on David’s head with my hands.  Useless.  I tried to scream, but it was useless.

David snarled.  His face was already turning red, he was running out of– [Blood? Strength? I’m not sure ending this sentence prematurely works so well here.]

“I told you not to try to help me,” I hissed.  I shoved him out of the way and ran downstairs. [I find this a little awkward given the narrator’s motivation. She wants to save David from the thing, but instead of trying to help him right away at first, runs downstairs to the kitchen to find a knife and then returns. I’d rather see her try to help him more directly at first. Then when she can’t, she has the idea to kill it, but there’s nothing upstairs she could use – not even a nail file. A knife. Yes, a knife from the kitchen and she could cut the thing right off of David. Something like that.]  By the time I’d come back upstairs with the knife, David was lying still on the floor, unconscious or dead. The monster still had its arms around David’s throat and was dragging its teeth across his cheek.

I couldn’t stab it; the knife was too long.

I held the knife behind my back and stroked the thing’s soft head.

“Come on, dear,” I murmured.  “Don’t be afraid.  It’s over now.  You know I’ll do anything for you.  I haven’t forgotten what I promised. I told you to hide from my husband, didn’t I?  He’s not reasonable. But you and I, we’ll find a way to work it out.  Why don’t you come here?” [This leaves me going “huh?”, but maybe that’s because I haven’t read the entire story up to this part.]

Its head swiveled toward me, and one arm reached out.  I grabbed it by the arm–it swung toward me like a monkey to cling to me, sobbing. I patted it a few times, rubbed my face against the top of its head, soft as silk, and used the knife to slice across the thing’s back.  It screamed.  I pushed my hand inside until I found the one solid thing inside:  a tiny heart.  The scream stopped as I pulled it out.  I knelt down to the tile floor and traced a pentacle on the ground with the tip of the knife.  The tile split like butter under a blow torch.

I dropped the heart awkwardly in the center, then set it on fire with a black word.

The thing writhed and smoked in my arms until it fell into ash. I cried.  It was gone.  I cried with relief, I cried with longing, I cried out of betrayal, I cried because my chest was burnt and my bones were falling apart, I cried because I couldn’t stop.
[Very strong ending to this scene. The action is done well, as is the pacing. I like the pacing break in the middle where she thinks she’s safe for the moment. I’m a little unclear on the narrator’s motivation. What are her goals in relation to the thing? She lets it into the house and then fights it. She fights it, then comforts it, then kills it. That inconsistency of behavior makes the scene a little hard to follow. I think overall, the scene would benefit from just a little more description. Not too much, or you’d bog things down, but I don’t really have a good picture in my mind of this thing. I’d also like to see a little more of what the narrator is feeling, since this is a first-person narration.

Thanks for your submission!]