sathinfection:

So, you have to write an action scene – but how? Action
scenes can be difficult to get into at first, but they can be fun if you keep
some simple guidelines in mind. While many people feel like it takes a movie to
make action interesting, there’s several ways you can make action jump off the
page and excite your readers.

There are four things you should keep in mind: energy,
weight, setting, and gimmicks. The first 2 are actually more interesting
written than in a visual format, since you can communicate them directly to the
reader in ways a visual medium can’t. ‘Gimmicks’ I’ll explain when we get
there.

Energy

People get tired! The longer an action sequence goes on, the
more tired your character gets. This adds excitement, as your reader wonders if
the character is really going to make it. It also gives a sense of time –
instead of just a bland recitation of who’s punching where and what, the
readers know that there is only a limited amount of punch to give. SUSPENSE!

Tricks: have your character start a fight when they’re
already exhausted. Or, have your character quickly burn all their energy and
then have to conserve it for the rest of the fight. Has your character had to
run for a long time and is now forced to defend themselves while out of breath?
Is the character’s opponent keeping their distance, forcing the character to
expend more energy?

Weight

Fighting, jumping, running, etc. all involve throwing your
weight around. Think about where your character’s feet are at all times.
Footwork is vital! It’s how people establish their balance – and a good fight
scene will often have characters going off balance or using their weight
against someone.

Tricks: Make your character overbalance their opponent –
this is set up really well with a dodge, or tricking the opponent into
overextending themselves. Have your own character lose their balance and have
to find it again as they scramble to regain their center of gravity.

Setting

Is there a lot of room? Are they outside? Inside? Things
they can trip over? Throw at each other? Stuff they have to maneuver around?

Tricks: Have your characters fight in an enclosed space. Give
someone the high ground. Back people up against a wall.

Gimmicks

What is your character good at? Play to your character’s
skill set. How tall are they? Are they fit? Also, consider whether or not the
character has any injuries or sore spots that they have to work around. This
adds variety to the scene.

Tricks: Fuck your characters up as they fight! Pile on the
injuries. It helps you pace things and again helps the reader feel like an
action scene has progress and momentum rather than just being a list of items.

sarahtaylorgibson:

audacityinblack:

sarahtaylorgibson:

Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”

You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.

Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.

First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.

Example:

Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.

Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.

There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.

There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.

There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as
punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good
upon.

Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside
world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for
sustenance and shelter.

Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.

Mages who only wanted to see the sun.

This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.

Damn I made relatable reblog- bait post and writer Tumblr went hard with it. This is legitimately very good advice.