Alright so we’ve had a wonderful rec, there’s a fantastic greeting board—what else can there be? Request for assistance.

Or, at least, in my way of doing things: a request to find out other peoples styles and opinions on how to do something. As a general warning I have not had a lot of sleep, I’m studying classical myth, and I’m very long winded. There are also references to sex :x which I know none of you have ever even imagined before so be careful with your eyes. I also use bits of rough drafts to try to illustrate my point around my babbling nonsense.

Anyway.

A few years ago if asked what caused me the most grief in writing I would have pointed at transitions. Those not-here-or-there periods where you’re moving time, place, location, characters. How to do that smoothly boggled my mind (and still does on occasion). However, my concern has now shifted (knock on wood). I want to know about writing action.

Action. Particularly fights but over all: periods of time where there’s supposed to be quick movements. Perhaps the characters are running to or from something? Maybe their fist fighting, or shooting it out. Maybe their just having a quickie in the back room—your choice.

But the sequence is undeniably an action one. It’s supposed to be quicker. Description is good, of course, but you need movement--but you also need the setting, location, and who is involved to be just as clear as what is going on. To me, that takes skill--skill I don't quite have.

Maybe its because of ignorance, I'm not sure, but I think its mainly a stylistic thing that has to be considered and worked on like everything else. Or at least that's what I'm hoping.

Now, I don’t know much about fighting. I can kick, I know a bit of boxing—but I know squat otherwise. This isn’t too much of a problem because if I needed a character who knows martial arts I could just go ask a friend of the appropriate style and adjust that information. However, giving a name to a particular move does not always help the reader visualize what they’re reading. I can say “hook kick” all I want—but that may or may not mean something to the reader. Similarly, I might know very well that So-and-So is running away, or Character X is driving Character Y backwards with aggressive steps forward--I might have done that sort of thing before...but how to write it so everyone knows that feeling, or that experience one way or another.

To weigh in even more I’m also curious about how action is dealt with in every tense and point of view. As I’ve been practicing with less familiar povs (first person and third person present) I’ve noticed quite a bit of difference in how, or what, I write. The tone and style of each piece would be different if I changed the pov, and so too would be how an action scene would be portrayed.

So, first—How do you handle action in third person past tense? I have one example of me attempting it and even just glancing at it now makes me want to revise it. Nevertheless I’m putting it up here to show. WARNING: There’s some mean name calling, bad language, internalized homophobia, two men fighting, kissing, and so on. Yeah, I cut it off before the good part. Sorry.

---

Peter licked his lips and slammed Ross into a wall next to a broken-down Italian restaurant that hadn’t been open in years. Ross, still struggling with mud on his cheek and engine grease on his fingers, looped his hands in the collar of Peter’s t-shirt and dragged them both down the mouth of an alleyway somewhere between Queen and Friend Street. It was better if they were out of sight; well-meaning neighbors and outstanding citizens couldn’t appear quite so easily to pull them apart if they couldn’t see them from their windows.

Ross cracked his knuckles across Peter's face. His hand came away bleeding. “Pussy-whipped bitch.”

Peter threw his hands out with a quick jerk and then pulled them back, leaving his middle open for no more than a second as he spat blood back at Ross’ feet. “Becca’s right, newspaper ads might work.”

“If we had the money.” Ross hiss back, lunging forward to shove the other man. Peter was tall and lanky, it was easy to knock him off balance and send him on his ass, but he was also fast on his feet.

He stepped around the shove and used Ross’ momentum to press him against the wall again—forearm to throat. “We have the money.”

“The fuck we do.” Ross struggled again. He shoved at Peter’s arm, scraping his nails against the other man’s skin. It was cold out, just past the worst of winter, and warmth burned where their skin touched. “Can’t even pay for a round of beers at the Griffin.”

“But we can pay for a two dollar newspaper ad.”

“Won’t do no good.”

“Do enough good.”

“Just enough for you to get some.” Peter’s Adam’s apple jumped and Ross laughed, then heaved Peter into the opposing wall with a sudden hard push. “That’s all you want, right? Horny bastard.”

Peter eyed Ross from his scuffed up boots to his fight-tussled red hair and smirked, “Sheet-biter.”

Ross opened his mouth to retaliate only to find Peter’s lips instead. The older man’s hands were back on Ross’ and pushing him back towards the opposing wall.

There was no gentleness in the kiss—just teeth hitting teeth and hard lips next to five o’clock shadows. Ross felt like his soul was being sucked out from his windpipe and ripped a few hairs from Peter’s head as he shoved back hard. They bounced off paralleled walls.

“Cunt-licker.”

“Ass-peddler.”

Pushing and shoving turned into wrestling. They tripped over each other’s feet, scrambled back and forth and knocked against each other until both their cheeks were rubbed raw and red and they had matching bloody lips.

---

In the first incarnation of this scene I had things much slower. The scene crawled. To try to remedy this I removed a good portion of description and tried shortening a lot of sentences. For example, “Ross cracked his knuckles across Peter's face. His hand came away bleeding.”—I also did more ‘floating dialog’ than I normally use. Did this work? Not a clue--I look at it now two months later and itch for my revised copy (which I'm still...revising). Still, writing this was very different than my more recent foray into Third Person Present Tense--and I suspect that my future first person past tense action scene will be even more difficult and strange.

Nevertheless, here's a section I intended to be sort of 'action oriented' with very general characters. There's no real action here. Or, well, there is--but its not traditional. There's no real fight. I was just trying out the style with generic characters in third person present tense.

---

Conventional wisdom says: what is heard cannot be unheard.

Justin decides that conventional wisdom can just about go suck it and storms from his house at a run with big stomping feet and a slamming door. He is seventeen going on eighteen. He is blond haired and blue eyed, the golden boy of the track team, and high school heartthrob in everything but name. If he wants to forget something he is damn well going to forget it and there is nothing and no one that can tell him different.

He is halfway down the street before the porch door finishes shuddering closed and in Terrel’s yard before his mother starts yelling about how he treats her house. Terrel is staring up at him from the porch steps, broken down high-tops knocking against paint chipped wood floors, with a back issue of Hard Drive Int. Magazine curled in his palm like a weapon in training. It’d be more useless than nerf gun if Justin were here for any sort of fight but he doesn’t begrudge Terrel his unease. Weariness is less than he was expecting, even as he sucks dry, tasteless air into his lunges in front of a house he hasn’t visited in years.

Terrel’s yard hasn’t changed. It’s all potholes and crabgrass and Justin looks like he’s taste something so bitter his eyes are watering.

Terrel’s hair hasn’t been cut in a while. Shaggy brown tips cover half his face as he inspects Justin’s face in-between layers of fringe. Justin hasn’t searched out Terrel in years but the awkward lump of a boy follows Justin around like a puppy at school. He hang dogs around until the blond shoves him away, ducking into the gym, or class, or into a closet with a hot chick during lunch or in-between classes.

Now Justin stands in Terrel’s yard like he owns it, kicking up crabgrass and staring at Terrel as if he is the answer to everything. Justin licks his lips, screwing his face into a smile that is more like a grimace. It’s as if the very idea turns his stomach and it takes him too long to straighten his posture into a stance that is more cocky-little-shit than venerable-kid.

“Uh, hey, Justin.” Terrel offers after a long moment of gawking and chewing on the right inside corner of his mouth. He’s done that since he was five, after he watched Justin knock some little punk-ass off his bike for making fun of Justin’s hand-me-downs. It says, you’re going to get us in trouble, again, aren’t you?

“Come on,” Justin grins again, fervently this time, and steps forward. “Let’s go to St. Peter’s.”

“Why?”

“’Cause.” Terrel knows that means, You’ll do what I want. Other boys from the same neighborhood have made it mean: you’re not a yellow-belly-cock-sucker, are you? Justin means neither of those even as he says, “We’ll pick up sodas and scare the fuck out of you before it gets dark.”

“I—but—what?”

Terrel’s gripping the magazine tighter, balling the ends together and ruining the cover. He’s a straight edged kid and nervous, standing on his own porch like it’s a firing line as Justin looms over him all big hands a hard feet. Justin snatches the magazine from Terrel’s hands, claps his forearm, and starts dragging him towards the road.

Terrel does little more than drag his feet.

---

In some ways I found writing this ten times easier than Ross and Peter's fight'n'fuck in the alleyway. Now, this could be because Ross and Peter had a bit more action and Terrel and Justin are just being stupid kids...but nevertheless, in many ways I have found that I like writing action more in third person present tense perhaps because its sort of 'in the moment' and might pull the reader along easier. However, one fact that I find in my own attempt of this is that it sort of degrades the visual descriptions that I normally love. This could be a problem created soley by my writing placement of description in this single piece but its something I am aware of and somewhat concerned about.

So, after a much too long exposition I want to know the following:

What's your favorite tense? How do you use that tense in action sequences? Any suggestions on action in general? How badass are you with your kickass action scenes?

('cause, seriously, so far most of the people hanging here seem pretty awesome so I'm assuming you all can pull up some stuff and leave me fascinated by your ramblings on action sequences or point of view decisions.)

If anything is unclear in my rambling please let me know and the moment I am conscious or coherent again I will fix it.

Way to put us on the spot. :(

I'm joking! :D

Ummm, well i'm not very good at writing fighting scenes but i'll try to say something intelligent about the rest. My favorite is present tense, it's probably the easiest for me to write. As far as suggestions go: in chase sequences you don't really need any details other than ones that'll prevent the readers from following along. In intimae actions I don't think you'd really need any details that the characters themselves wouldn't notice.

I... am actually really bad with physical action (and description, but that's beside the point) and most of the 'fighting' that goes on is run on emotions or brain power. And I can't write sex at all. :(

Sorry. ^^; But I hope my suggestions weren't entirely unhelpful.

I like to think I'm pretty decent at writing action. It's my favorite thing, after all. :D

I've found that POV is the most important element of an action scene. A tight focus gives immediacy to the scene. I'm careful only to describe things the acting character sees/knows/thinks.

Here's a third-person past tense example from 'God Eaters':

Kieran knew that the man outside would most likely shoot anything that came out, but there was a good chance his trigger finger would be a little slow, anticipation messing up his sense of time. He took the door at a run, leaping over the crumpled bodies that held the bullet-pocked wood open, not even listening for gunfire -- he'd be hit or he wouldn't. Without pausing to look for his target, he vaulted the porch railing, hit the ground and rolled to his feet.

The last man's gun was following his path; in the heartbeat before that man could correct his aim, Kieran whipped his remaining clip at the guy left-handed. The man's eyes followed the blocky black object flipping toward him, and then red blossoms thumped across his chest and up his face, and he fell.

I give a bit of Kieran's thought process, but only as much as it takes to explain his actions; he doesn't have time for any deep pondering, and he's not thinking about why he knows it; there's no room for reminiscence in the middle of a firefight. I trust the reader to trust the writer -- which is to say, since I've established that this character has been in plenty of tight situations before, it makes sense that he'd be able to come up with this tactic, so I don't have to explain it. I don't show the enemy until Kieran looks at him, and I describe only a quick glimpse of his actions, just enough for Kieran to react.

And here's a first-person present-tense example from 'Jack Saturday':

I grab Jacob by the shirt and pretty much throw him down the sidewalk toward the nearest alley. I catch up with him in two strides and grab him again, this time hauling him with me around the corner and behind a dumpster.

And then, the next split-second, out from behind the dumpster and back to the front side of it before my ears have quite registered the snap-whish of a dart gun. Shit. They herded us back here. The thought's just a single spark, goes straight to motion without analysis; this is all happening way too fast for decisions. I'm a machine.

Just one of the several the things I noticed all at once -- but the most urgent, even more than the shooter -- is the hypo dart sticking in Jacob's hand. The skin around it is discolored and starting to mottle as the dart's load spreads along blood vessels to eat his flesh into lace. He's just opening his mouth to scream. The patch of rot is about an inch across when I grab his wrist. Two inches when I get my knife out of the back of my jacket. Two and a half, just creeping over the heel of his hand toward mine, when my knife whacks through his forearm like a chef's cleaver through a ham bone. His newborn scream is choked silent by shock.

I throw the still-blackening hand over the dumpster as Jacob's knees fold up. Dodge and be distracted, dart guy. I come out low, zagging off the wall, then the other wall higher, spot the ambusher loading another dart into his gun. His eyes are still tracking my previous bounce. I come down like a hailstone, straight and sharp, driving the knife through the top of his skull.

I'm not quite as satisfied with this one, but so far I haven't been able to think of a way to improve it. Jack's internal monologue does a little too much telling about how it's all happening fast, and not quite enough showing. It's possible that the solution to that problem lies, not in this action scene, but in the previous chapters -- if I can establish that Jack is one mad fast sonofabitch, then I can just chop a sentence or two from this bit.

But anyway -- the technique. Action first, no explanation. He's throwing Jacob around like a rag doll and we don't know why. That brings the reader inside Jack's sense of shock and confusion and acting-on-reflex. (Which I should not have to say outright, thus the need for edits.) When Jack sees the hypo dart, I used 'noticed', past tense, in an attempt to show he's collating the past few seconds' data; I'm not sure it worked. And then I put the whole thing into slow-mo, showing the poison's progress and Jack's reaction in a sorta freeze-frame style. When he throws the hand, the action speeds back up -- again, showing only the snapshot glimpses that Jack needs for his reactions -- and bring it down with a bang.

Or at least, that's what I was trying to do. :D

I watch a lot of action movies, and when I plan out a fight scene, I visualize it like John Woo's directing it or something. I try to describe it in such a way that the reader gets an action movie playing out in the mind's eye. An exercise you could try is to pick a favorite action scene in video, watch it once, pause it, and then close your eyes and try to remember the key points of the scene. There's a kind of cadence to it, points where your mind gives a kind of click of satisfaction. Most of these points are impacts -- punches, gunshots, explosions -- but some aren't, and those are the ones people often miss when writing. A two-beat pause, an arc of motion, something happening in the background. While describing those things in words doesn't always work, you can get the same effect by using a thought or an extra bit of description.

Action scenes do not come naturally to me. So I think I shall be reading and re-reading this topic...

As it happens, I'm in the middle of writing a story with an action scene - usually I cop out of those. (If my characters get any action it tends to be of the bedroom variety, which I'm guessing would not be entirely suitable for this forum). As it is way easier to crit than to create, I shall put on my yellow jersey and do so:

(Please, btw, to be excusing my lack of competence with the quotes thingy. I'm kind of new to forum posting.)

Peter licked his lips and slammed Ross into a wall next to a broken-down Italian restaurant that hadn’t been open in years. Ross, still struggling with mud on his cheek and engine grease on his fingers, looped his hands in the collar of Peter’s t-shirt and dragged them both down the mouth of an alleyway somewhere between Queen and Friend Street. It was better if they were out of sight; well-meaning neighbors and outstanding citizens couldn’t appear quite so easily to pull them apart if they couldn’t see them from their windows.

I'd put the description before the action starts, as it seems to slow it down a little. Maybe this:

They were walking past a broken-down Italian restaurant that hadn’t been open in years, somewhere between Queen and Friend Street. Peter licked his lips and slammed Ross into the wall. Ross, still struggling with mud on his cheek and engine grease on his fingers, looped his hands in the collar of Peter’s t-shirt and dragged them both down the mouth of an alleyway. He figured it was better if they were out of sight; well-meaning neighbors and outstanding citizens couldn’t appear quite so easily to pull them apart if they couldn’t see them from their windows.

Peter threw his hands out with a quick jerk and then pulled them backI'm not quite sure what he's doing there. Pushing Ross away?

Ross laughed, then heaved Peter into the opposing wall with a sudden hard push.

I love that bit. Actually, I really like most of it. I think the tagless dialogue is spot on, and shorter sentences give it that edgy feel. And you get a great feeling of two guys fighting who aren't trained, and it's all a bit push-and-shove.

The second snippet:

OK, I had some trouble with the POV of this one.

Justin decides that conventional wisdom can just about go suck it and storms from his house at a run with big stomping feet and a slamming door. He is seventeen going on eighteen. He is blond haired and blue eyed, the golden boy of the track team, and high school heartthrob in everything but name. If he wants to forget something he is damn well going to forget it and there is nothing and no one that can tell him different.

He is halfway down the street before the porch door finishes shuddering closed and in Terrel’s yard before his mother starts yelling about how he treats her house. Terrel is staring up at him from the porch steps, broken down high-tops knocking against paint chipped wood floors, with a back issue of Hard Drive Int. Magazine curled in his palm like a weapon in training. It’d be more useless than nerf gun if Justin were here for any sort of fight but he doesn’t begrudge Terrel his unease. Weariness is less than he was expecting, even as he sucks dry, tasteless air into his lunges in front of a house he hasn’t visited in years.

The first two paras, we're firmly in Justin's head.

Terrel’s yard hasn’t changed. It’s all potholes and crabgrass and Justin looks like he’s taste something so bitter his eyes are watering.

Unless the name's a typo, suddenly we're outside, looking in.

And it carries on like this, we're jumping about a bit. And I know there's this thing called third-person omniscient POV, but I decided long ago I wasn't going to go there as it is very difficult to carry off. Sorry, but I think the fact that I'm noticing this in your snippet means it hasn't quite worked here.

The tense, however, I think works very well. You're like me: you write longer sentences in present tense and it just seems right, somehow. You're right about the visual descriptions, though: when you're in real-time you have to really think about what your characters would notice. I'm not at all sure that's a bad thing in action scenes, however. Because what you notice when you're fighting someone is not what you notice when you're just out for a stroll, say.

(One last point: I realise this is an unedited off-the-cuff thing, but you really don't want to be confusing vulnerable and venerable! ;D)

Love, Mina of one day I will have the guts to post some of my stuff up here so you can tear it to shreds.

@ Mina: Action of the bedroom variety is totally suitable here. Although apparently we have to keep it 'appropriate for teens', whatever that means. What age of teens, I wonder? When I was sixteen I would've squirmed a bit at a clinical description of anatomy and emissions; when I was seventeen I was on a personal crusade to bang every halfway attractive guy west of the Mississippi. Perhaps I am not the ideal example case? Who knows?

Anyway, I say go ahead and discuss whatever you like. If you think the scene's too mature for excerpting, you can link to it with a warning. :D

For teens, huh? Wouldn't that cover pretty much everything? O_o

I reckon it's just a rule the site admins made so they can't get sued if some 13-year-old's mom witnesses a 4-chan moment.

Anyway, don't worry too much about it. I figure anyone too young to talk about grownup topics doesn't belong in a forum called 'Slash for Grownups' in the first place. :D

I tend to write 3rd person, and i find that the deciding factor in my action scenes is actually the style im writing in.

I've had to write a short story for a creative writing elective i took, and so far i've written it three different ways- once humorous, once as a kind of epic poem narrative thing, (like Aeneid, i guess. Only not as cool.) And once as a very heavy handed, philosophical treatise on robots and life and nostalgia.

.

The one "action" scene i have is a fist fight between and indestructible "metal man" (it's a bit of steampunk space adventure) and the subject of the story, who is human but we don't know much more than that. In each version, the scene differs not in perspective, but in style. So a kick alternates between being some kind of poorly constructed dance move more suited to one of Beyonce's back-up boys than a man in space, a gesture of defiance and a non event that gets interrupted halfway through by a treatise on why robots are incapable of awe.

I try to avoid having to write detailed fight scenes because the closest i get to experiencing one is jostling in a bus line during peak hour.

I figure that readers don't expect a blow by blow description of every encounter, unless you're writing about, or from the perspective of, a man who studies fight scenes, is a stunt man, hurts things for a living, or is some kind of martial arts prodigy. Most instances (barring thsoe and similar examples) of "action" tend to also involve an element of confusion, bias, or emotion, and i try to abuse that fact in order to get away with writing about it without actually being clear on the details myself.

Which probably isn't the best way to go about things, but it works for the styles im currently trying to emulate =)

It also means i get to fawn over pieces like yours, Rose, and jack's, because it's pretty and so far away from what i do.

Steampunk space adventure? *drools*

I agree about not needing a blow-by-blow description. I think I may provide a bit too much detail, but I compensate by keeping fights short. Most fights are, after all. I've been in my share of them, and I think the only ones that lasted more than a handful of seconds were Fight Club type matches with friends. Actual hostility speeds things up considerably, and it only takes one or two hits to decide the outcome, at least if everyone's human.

Oh, see, i've thrown a chair at a teacher, sat next to a guy while he slammed someone's head against a bus window until there was lots of blood, and had fights in boarding school that were more hair pulling and tackling than actual punch ups. Oh, though once i was amost in a knife fight, but the other girls knife was one of those switchblade things, and mine was used for disposing of dead pigs. So it never actually eventuated. Which of course i am very glad of.

But i don't think you go into too much detail. Too much detail is when some recounts, blow by blow, an battle scene for an entire chapter and only breaks for a short montage on how the protagonist came to own their stunning blade skills in the first place. I cna think of a lot of published sci fi and fantasy authors who do, this actually. heh.

Just a quick note to say--I have actually read all the replies but I'm currently unable to form coherent sentences (not any of you all's fault) so I'm going to wait and respond after logic, coherency, and so on filter back into my head and replace Dionysus or something. Um... probably in 24 hours or so.

Having a bit of a Bacchanal, are you? :D

No worries, have fun!

*grin* Oh I wish! No, just exams and writing out seven essays on classica Myth. My favorite is with the Maenads ripping off people/animals heads because with the first read through its like WTF? (That and Dionysus is a bit one with the idea of madness and going into my last exam means I'm right there practically a follower spouting nonsense about Greek Gods and Linguistic/Syntax)

I'm with Jack. POV is everything.

Not so much that it's the type--third, first, limited, etc--but that you have one and that you use it appropriately. Third limited is easiest for me, but I really think it's the same, and the one that's right for the story/character is the one that will work. Assuming you have the character right, but that's a whole 'nother basket of gnats. But point of view will answer all your questions. Describe? Or not? Well, what would the character notice here? The trick becomes balancing what the character would notice/report/react to with what the reader needs to get into the story, and with that comes the hardest part of all: trusting the reader. I have always found that less is more. I am not a describey person, but I constantly have people tell me they really "saw" a scene. I used to go back and read the scene they "saw" and try to find out how the hell that happened, and I'm giving up. Usually at best there's a few random words I feel might have done it, but usually I can't. Whatever happens is that something in there is evoking mental pictures, and it's working, so don't mess with it. BUT the catch is, of course, that it won't paint for everyone. Which is okay. You can't make it perfect. Much to my dismay.

Action is hard because any description will slow it down. Any commentary will slow it down. And, actually, stay away from too much blow-by-blow of who hit whom where and with what thrust. I have a lot of swordfighting in one series I do, which is funny because I am not so much with the swordplay. I took fencing and seriously sucked, largely because I kept spacing off trying to block the scene in my head. But I read a lot on it, and took some how-to classes, and a fencing master really gave me some food for thought: don't list the moves, he said. It will be boring for anyone who doesn't know them, and incorrect for someone who does, unless you really, really know your stuff. He also pointed out that the only really interesting stuff in fencing is going on inside the fencer's heads--that is worth reporting far more than who thrust when. A working knowledge of how a fight can progress will give you enough to frame a swordfight scene and then pepper it with "parry" and "lunge" and "counter" and you can look really authentic, but the meat is going to be what they are saying, or how they are reacting to the strategy. The best example I know is The Princess Bride, especially the movie: the scene between Inigo and Wesley on the clifftop. It's funny, it's amazingly well-paced, and it's full of action, and it's an homage to all the swordfighting movies of yore. But it's so light on its feet.

Scanning through your questions . . . not sure how badass I am with action sequences, though I've been complimented on them before. I think what I do is lean on my strengths, which is emotional writing. (Not emo: emotional.) I pretty much always write third limited, and I get very deep during action sequences. I get way inside the head of my pilot, and I write what happens, but how they feel, and how they react seem to drive it. I dunno. It sounds lame when I say so. I feel like I should post an example. Well, let's see what I can find.

Okay, this is action that goes flat fast, but I think it works to illustrate my point. Maybe. It's subtle, but I write so long that to find a big ACT-SHUN!! scene would mean posting the whole. So, anyway. This is from an early-ish scene in a very long fantasy which is part of a seven part series. This novel is "done," but getting tweaks, so I can talk about it with some distance and intelligence.

The handle on the door turned and the barrier swung open, admitting a tall, dark figure swathed head to toe in black, carrying a lantern in its hand. It did not look like healing. It looked like Death itself. The hood and veil turned from Timothy, saw the figure on the bed, and began to advance.

Timothy drew his knife. “Hold,” he said, raising his knife before him as he stepped into the figure’s path. “State your name and your purpose, or I will strike.”

The black robed figure only raised a white palm as strange, dark words hissed in a susurrus from the shroud. Timothy raised his knife higher and shut his eyes as the lantern in the figure’s hand exploded and the dark, dreary bedroom became alive with light.

The light faded.

The figure in black lowered its hand, but slowly, with a hesitation that told Timothy whatever had just happened had not gone according to plan. The lantern lowered, and the pale hand came out again, aimed this time at the cold hearth. Another sibilant hiss; more light, and this time the hearth responded, bursting into brilliant, perfect flame. The figure paused, then swung the white palm back at Timothy. More words. More light, brighter this time.

When it faded again, Timothy shifted his grip on the handle of the blade, still waiting to see what was going to happen.

The figure lowered its hand, then the lantern, setting it down on a table near the door. Then both hands rose to lift the heavy black veil and pull it away.

The figure was a woman, as the ghost had said it would be. She was young, or rather, she was not old, as Jonathan had hinted the witch would be. She also was not bald, or ugly, as he had also said; she had high cheekbones, wide, dark eyes, and thick, curling tresses of dark brown hair that hung in the sort of sultry tangle around her shoulders that would send most men’s blood straight to their groins. She looked at Timothy, actually, as if she were hoping he would be one of them.

He couldn’t stop a brief grin at the thought, but he checked it as quickly as it came, keeping the knife high as he spoke. “State your name and your purpose here.”

She held out her empty hands and made a sort of half-bow. “I am Madeline Elliott, and I am here to help.” Her eyes darted to Timothy’s knife, then to his hand, then his clothes, his boots, then back to his face. “You?”

@ Rose: Aw, that's not nearly as much fun. Maybe you can have your Bacchanal after exams? :D Anyway, best of luck!

@ Iowa: I can definitely see the fencing cadence in your exerpt. Though I didn't pick up that she was trying to be seductive; you might want to fill that out a bit. Unless, of course, it's been established in previous scenes with her that her body language is sexxay.

Come to think of it, I do a lot less blow-by-blow in swordfights than in other kinds of action scene. Hm, lemme have a look at something of Kastor's and see if that's true...

Oh hi, yes, I do have an interesting example. Brace for enormous excerpt:

From the first second, he knew it would go differently this time. He hadn’t let it get so close in the first place, and was holding it well back, scratching up its arms just as it had scratched his before. He didn’t have nearly the mobility he would have liked, due to the depth of the snow, but he couldn’t have competed with it in speed anyway. Instead he focused on his defenses, using bits and scraps of remembered forms, improvising where he had to. In the back of his mind he chanted the names of defensive forms as he cannibalized them for parts. Shooting star. Birds and arrows. Riverman’s journey. Blade flower. Iron gull. Plains and mountains. The demon couldn’t get anywhere near him, and its clawed limbs were dripping with milky blood, shreds of oil-black skin dangling, digits missing. Soon it would have no means of attack but its easily avoided teeth, and he would destroy it.

It saw doom coming, and it changed its method. With a roar that blasted his face with charnel breath, it leapt, throwing itself upon him. Kastor saw, in the split-second before impact, how this would play out: he’d skewer it as it came, but then its teeth would crush his skull; it would survive the injury, but he wouldn’t. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. The unfairness of his impending death hit him in a wave of furnace heat, burst out of him in a bellow of rage.

Then the rage was in charge, and he was nowhere near it.

The feaheledd took his body and twisted it in an impossible contortion, ignoring ripping muscle and straining joints, using the impact between swords’ points and demon’s body for leverage to shove him aside. The demon’s jaws snapped just beside his ear, the clack of teeth echoing in his head. It took a few hairs from his tail, but none of his flesh. He rolled clear, and somehow in the process kicked a gob of wet snow into the demon’s eyes to blind it. One of his swords took it behind the knee, slicing through tendon; the other speared a descending claw, and with a twist and jerk snapped the bones of the demon’s wrist.

Both of them were emitting a continual roar now, both gripped in fury. The demon had a blood-madness of its own, it seemed, for it now abandoned any pretense at protecting itself, and took terrible wounds without flinching as it flung itself at him over and over. Both were drenched in blood, caked with snow, steaming. From somewhere high and deep and distant from this, Kastor reflected that it was like a clash between elements, with nothing sentient directing it. A battle of beasts, pure in murder, without intelligence. He was not afraid. He trusted his insanity.

At the beginning, while he's still in control of the situation, I do list off a bunch of moves, though the reader's not expected to know what they are. He's thinking quite a lot for someone in the middle of a fight; this is a particular quirk of his, I don't think any of my other characters do it. It's because he's got oodles of experience, so combat is pretty routine. Also a bit of a deathwish, so danger has to be right up in his face before he cares much about it.

Once the danger does get serious, and he goes into his berserker rage, the description goes a lot more abstract. He no longer has clue one what he's doing, it's all a blur. I wish I could've gotten away with not even describing how he kept from getting his face bitten off, but it would've felt like a copout not to give the reader at least a quick sketch of the move.

I did fencing in high school too, but I can't say it gave me much fodder for fight scenes. This may be because Kas is more the human-Cuisinart type of fighter. I'm curious to find out whether I'll draw on fencing when writing a more controlled kind of swordfighter later in book 3.

Okay, see, this is just what I'm talking about. Lots of action in Jack's scene, but the beats are all centered around Kastor giving up control and giving in to the beast. So at first he's plotting in his head, trying to find the way to win, but he's cerebral about it. When he can't see the way to win, he imagines his failure, but then as he cedes, something else in him rises, and the tide shifts. Now he's winning, and it's because he let go.

I think knowledge of fencing helps instill a subconscious sense of beats. Every good conflict scene I've ever written might as well have people with swords in their hands. It's not so much about the swords as the mindset. I bet chess would do the same.

Glad to hear from you, Rose!

*was not worried she had totally pissed you off with unasked-for crit, ooooohhh no*

Hope the exams went ok!

Love Mina x

Hm, yeah, I feel those beats when I'm working on an action scene as well. I think a certain balance of rhythm is necessary to make a scene satisfying. Not enough, and it feels sloppy and disjointed; too much, and it feels tame and artificial. The examples that come to mind are movies, not stories, but... in 'Hellboy 2', the fight in the goblin market lacked rhythm, so it didn't really satisfy; the long swordfight sequence in 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' was too measured, so it felt dreamlike, with no sense of immediacy.

The Mega Reply

So all my exams are done \o/ and I’ve gathered a bit of coherency back so I’m going to try my very best to respond to everyone’s response to my first discussion. I’d suggest doing a Webpage search for part of your name for a specific response.

As a group response I am utterly thrilled and floored by so many responses. I absolutely love it—because I’m constantly curious about how people do things and why. Critique is, of course, also absolutely fabulous but I was sort of vaguely thinking that there’d be one or two responses and nothing much more. I’m happy to be proven wrong!

@Qduck—Sorry! It was the first thing I thought of, honest. I was like: “What can I discuss… Well, I fail at commas, am a description whore, I’ve a caffeine addiction… Oh! Fuck, Action. Bain of my existence.”

It seems that present tense has been fairly popular as of late (or maybe I just missed the memo/didn’t notice before?) Still, good suggestions. I’ve found the best way to learn how to write something is to A) read a lot of it, B) practice. :D Your suggestions were perfectly fine.

@Jack I remember reading that section from ‘God Eaters’ last spring actually. I don’t remember all the details (it was my OMG MIDTERMS GONNA DIE stress relief) but I was quite impressed with your ability to write action. I don’t have too much to say in that regard except I liked your explination on how/why you wrote things as you did.

I have not read ‘Jack Saterday’ yet, though it is on my to read list. I also agree with your comments that you wrote on your own writing—that it’s a bit too much telling. However, first person, in my opinion, is a bit tricky like that. (I personally fear trying to deal with action scenes in first person in the coming weeks as I shake off my lethargy from finals) It is definitely clear that Jack is one crazy SOB and some of your explanations on what you were trying to do with the scene most certainly worked (in my opinion). Perhaps trying to find a way to remove some of the ‘I’s might help with the telling? (It is quite possible that I am currently talking out of my ass so please excuse me if needed)

And, yeah, I’m pretty sure I AM talking out of my ass because when taking one paragraph and rehashing it I used the exact same amount of ‘I’s as you did—they were just slightly differently placed because I don’t know the narrator and so changed it to suit my basic style. Hm. I’m going to chew on that more later as more coherency bleeds in between my ears.

Moving on, your exercise for writing action sounds like a really good idea. I’m definitely going to try that out sometime.

@Mina You critiqued me! :D Seriously, I was like “Ladeda, lets see what sexiness we have in this next post—hey that looks familiar and unsexy—Dude!” (…I’m a bit slow on the uptake here, and so I reread these posts more than once) I was not expecting that but I am utterly thrilled by it anyway—so thanks!

XD I would still so love to see your action sequence in the bedroom. Um… I’m sure we can figure out something for that. I’ll try to look into what-we-won’t-get-issues-from and then make another makeshift something if there’s a need. (Erotica/Porn critique and discussion is also awesome, I could write a book on what-words-are-not-sexy-and-should-never-be-used).

Anyway, I really do love the critique and will definitely implement both as I go through both stories again. The second, as you probably could tell, is a really rough draft that needs some good hard scrubbing. The first is slightly more polished, but also needs a bit of work. I think you found some of the key issues with both and I could very well just die with giddiness because finding someone to straight up tell me what I’m fudging on has been very, very difficult.

@ Discussion on what Teens Means

I know quite well I read just about anything when I was a teen. However, given the area I live in sex is generally considered not for teens (…like no teen has ever had sex… ever) I don’t post porn here. But I do post what I consider soft core or not too detailed porn… go figure? ßDouble standard.

Of course, I also think our movies are really weird because violence is PG-13 but consensual sex is R or more. (Not that I don’t love my slice of violence but it just seems funny to me)

@ Sychaeus I think writing things in different perspectives is a good practice—one that I rarely indulge in but probably should more often.

I suppose I should say that I prefer my fights to be with words, but that I struggle more with physical fights. I agree that they shouldn’t be blow-by-blow, though. I also thinking using elements of confusion and bias are perfectly good—especially depending on your narrators.

I’m certain that your writing is perfectly wonderful. I haven’t checked your account yet but pretty much everyone on here’s on my to-investigate list if I haven’t done so already. (and by investigate I mean stalk their profiles and meander around what fiction they have posted)

XD I’m also really glad you liked by bits!

@Amazon I can definitely see the beats in your piece. It’s a bit too dry for me, but that’s a personal preference and not really a negative about your writing. Its very… this is what happens. However, I do think that’s one of the detriments of posting bits of stories—the characters aren’t known to the people who are reading and considering, and what came before or after simply doesn’t exist. Thus, how the different scenes could impact each other is completely lost.

Your explanations do not at all sound lame—I followed them pretty well I think (even with my mind sort of dying on me) and the example definitely helped flesh them out.

@Jack Forgive me but I’ll reread your second post later. Its not that I don’t love it, but if I read one more action scene I think my brain will puddle out from between my ears in the shape of magic fights, fist fights, and sword fights.

Sorry everything’s sort of short and muddled. I’m still recovering from the OMG GONNA DIE phase of last week. Go me for using my infinite wisdom for posting something that actually generated discussion when I am mentally unavailable. XD

Thank you all so much for responding and critiquing and then talking amongst yourselves while I took a mental holiday!

Welcome back, Rose! Congrats on surviving your exams! ^_^

This is a great topic, well worth lots of discussion. And I don't think there's any need to worry about long posts; we're all avid readers here, so it's not like we're gonna go TL;DR at anything longer than a paragraph. When I see a long response I go 'ooh goody!' and grab my knitting. :D

Fights with words... hm, now that's something I haven't really analyzed. I have an inborn ear for dialogue, and I've just kinda done it by instinct so far. It's worth looking into. I'm going to give that some thought. I suspect verbal arguments have the same kind of 'beats' as a fight scene.

And what about sex scenes? You started us out with a kind of combo fight-and-sex scene, and I've focused on fights in my responses. Mainly because I don't think I'm half as good at sex scenes as I am at fight scenes. But once again, I think POV and rhythm are the core elements.

Thanks!

:D Yay. I went a bit soft in the head after responding to most of the posts just because there was so much to consider and I felt bad about not responding sooner.

As far as I can tell verbal arguments do have the same beats as a fight scene. I’ve written more fights with words than I have actual fights, however, so mileage may very. I’ll dig up some… um…sort of feme-slash fight when I get off work if anyone wants an example.

I started out with the fight/sex because, well, unfortunately that’s the most polished action scene I have at present (as far as I can tell). I feel that sex, like action, dialog, and description, is part of a set of tools that you have to practice—and like all others sometimes they blend. I don’t, personally, think I’m all that good at writing sex—but I know it’s a tool I want to be able to use when I need to. Thus, practice.

I’ll have to think about the beats in sex, as odd as that sounds, but I do think you have a point. POV is also important.

I’ll readily admit that I’m often perplexed at the idea of First Person stories which also include sex. I shouldn’t be, probably, but I am anyway.

Edit: For some reason everytime I post it hates my paragraph spaces.

• Forums are not to be used to post stories.
• All forum posts must be suitable for teens.
• The owner and moderators of this forum are solely responsible for the content posted within this area.
• All forum abuse must be reported to the moderators.