Diagnosis:
When the
editor or agent complains that the action scenes are “great but hard to read”
or “full of good stuff but I skim them,” one reason I immediately suspect and
look for is the failure to keep the point of view (and thus the implied
reader) constantly clearly located in space and time.
Constant
clear location and time is what the great action sequences in classic movies used to do, as
was pointed out in the video essay that started the chaos cinema controversy.
Chaos cinema often does work on the screen, because the mind of the movie viewer has to
assemble an idea of what is happening from what it has had so far and primarily
from what is in front of it now. With no convenient option of skipping ahead,
and since looking back would require taking attention away from the action on
the screen, the viewer’s mind is frustrated into grokking the action in a
chaotic way that never quite assembles, which can very effectively express that
these moments are swift, apparently meaningless, uncertain, and only
comprehensible after they have passed.
But our
brains are pattern-making organs, and “chaos text” will cause the reader’s mind
to start trying to sort out the chaos. Text will not frustrate that impulse the
way film can; soon the reader is looking up and down the page, trying to
assemble a coherent picture of the action, and is thinking “there’s great stuff
in here, but I’ve had to read it three times, I’ll just skim to the end of this
scene and see how it all comes out.” And at that point you’ve reneged on the
sympathetic contract and have lost the reader at exactly the place that should
have been gripping.
Prescription:
Fixing the problem of “chaos
action” is an almost mechanical job, but it’s very rewarding; you’ll almost
always like what comes out of it*. I’ve taught half a dozen authors do this,
done it for a couple who didn’t want to learn, and routinely do it in the
second draft of all my own action scenes.
As we go
through the steps, I’ll apply this method to treat an
invented-so-as-not-embarrass anyone example.
I had one
client manuscript where every action paragraph began with something like
Then
Freddie left Jim unconscious after knocking him to the floor. He closed the
door softly behind himself. He had hit Jim with a table leg, which he had
snatched up from the broken table after their fight began over a once-friendly
card game. They had been friends since boyhood, but Jim had accused him of
cheating, so to hell with the son of a bitch. Nobody calls me that.
Freddie walked away without thinking of Jim again.**
Step
1. Copy and paste the scene to a new document or file and replace periods and
semicolons, and any commas or conjunctions that mark a clause break or a verb
phrase break, with a line break. (or if you must work on paper, separate all
the clauses, dependent and independent, with page breaks, and print to separate
sheets of paper or index cards). Modify as needed, usually replacing pronouns
with nouns or changing verb forms, so that you can easily read each clause or
verb phrase separately. You need all the clauses/verb phrases to be
freestanding lines or cards.
The lines
and cards for our example will look like this:
Freddie
left Jim unconscious
Freddie
knocked Jim to the floor
Freddie
closed the door softly behind himself
Freddie
hit Jim with a table leg
Freddie snatched up a leg from the broken table
Freddie
and Jim’s fight began
Freddie
and Jim began a friendly card game
Freddie
and Jim were friends since boyhood
Jim
accused Freddie of cheating
Freddie
thought, to hell with the son of a bitch.
Freddie
thought, Nobody calls me that.
Freddie
walked away
Freddie
did not think of Jim again.
Step
2. In a list/pile labeled, Momentary, order the lines/cards by the order in which
they happen. Where actions are simultaneous, join the lines with some mark you
don’t use for anything else, or clip the cards together. If a line/card
actually takes place throughout some large part of the scene, or could occur at
a wide variety of times, separate it out into a Continuous list/pile.
Surprisingly,
some writers write action scenes without actually thinking about the order in
which things happen (This may explain why they end up in the hands of book
doctors). The client who had the most severe case I’ve ever seen admitted to
always skimming through action scenes herself, and not paying much attention to
them in her own reading.* People being unconscious before they were hit, or
mysteriously materializing (and possibly time-traveling) table legs, just
didn’t seem to have anything wrong with them, to her. If they don’t seem to
have anything wrong with them to you, then work on being bothered by them, the
same way you are when perfessional writers ‘n’ editors make obvius misteaks.
Putting
it into chronological order gets us to this:
Momentary
Freddie
and Jim were friends since boyhood
Freddie
and Jim began a friendly card game
Jim
accused Freddie of cheating
Freddie
and Jim’s fight began
Freddie
snatched up a leg from the broken table
Freddie
hit Jim with a table leg
Freddie
knocked Jim to the floor
Freddie
left Jim unconscious
Freddie
closed the door softly behind himself
Freddie
walked away
Freddie
did not think of Jim again.
Continuous
Freddie
thought, to hell with the son of a bitch.
Freddie
thought, Nobody calls me that.
Step
3. Choose lines/cards from the Momentary list where the action should begin (point
of attack)
or end (resolution). Allocate any lines/cards before the point of attack to a
separate “cover before” list/pile, and any lines/cards after the resolution to
a separate “cover after” list/pile.
“Should”
is an artistic decision. In some future entry or entries, I’ll talk about
choice of point of attack and choice of resolution, but any advice will be
provisional, and it all boils down to this: if you are aiming at readers who
are reading for excitement, choose a late point of attack; if they’re reading
for emotional significance, choose the latest resolution that has an open-ended
feel.
Here’s
what we have after Step 3:
Momentary
Jim
accused Freddie of cheating (point of attack)
Freddie
and Jim’s fight began
Freddie
snatched up a leg from the broken table
Freddie
hit Jim with a table leg
Freddie
knocked Jim to the floor
Freddie
left Jim unconscious
Freddie
closed the door softly behind himself (resolution)
Continuous
Freddie
thought, to hell with the son of a bitch.
Freddie
thought, Nobody calls me that.
Cover
before
Freddie
and Jim were friends since boyhood
Freddie
and Jim began a friendly card game
Cover
after
Freddie
walked away
Freddie
did not think of Jim again.
Once
again, this is more taste than science. Another good rule might be that the
Momentary list should include only that which can be covered in scene, and that
even a single sentence of narrative summary is to be avoided if possible in an
action scene.
Step
4: Add necessary lines/cards to the Momentary list (and discard as needed or
desired). As required by the added events, you may need to add lines/cards to
the other lists.
Sometimes
“necessary” means physically; if your heroine has to be shot on one side of the
street early in the scene and bite a man in half on the other side of the
street later in the scene (assuming she is, for example, a sentient
tyrannosaur), then you may need to add something to get her across the
street—maybe she spots the sniper over there, bounds through traffic, and
shoves her head through the second floor window. (That would be three
lines/cards to add). Other times “necessary” means psychologically; you
suddenly realize a line/card is unmotivated or out of character, and it needs
to happen, so you add that detail.
Let us
suppose that Freddie would normally never have hit Jim, and certainly wouldn’t
walk away from him when he was badly hurt. (By the way, if you don’t think
“knocked unconscious” is badly hurt, there’s a missing spot in your research).
So … why did he? I’m going to give Freddie three excuses here; when I was
working on a client book this would be one of the places where I’d get them
brainstorming on the phone, but in my own work it’s mostly the time to get up
and do some katas or drink coffee. And my three excuses are that
1)
everyone involved was very drunk, so there was a lot of bad judgment,
2)
Freddie was trying to brain someone else rather than Jim, and
3)
Freddie is wanted by the authorities so he can’t stick around to tend to his
injured friend.
Point 1
goes into Continuous, Point 3 into Cover Before, and Point 2 gives us a need
for another character. Let’s call him Snavely (because Grima Wormtongue, Simon
Legree, Guy of Gisborne, and Severus Snape were already taken). His existence
and his relationship to the other two will have to be put into Cover Before.
Here’s
what I came up with—your fixes might vary a great deal, again, because this is
a matter of art and taste, not just algebra. I didn’t fix the mixed
tenses because I’m still analyzing and coordinating rather than writing the
scene.
Momentary
Snavely
encourages Jim to drink more and bet higher to win back his losses (new
point of attack)
Freddie
tries to intervene
Jim
tells Freddie to mind his own business
Snavely
backs Jim up
Jim
loses a big hand
Jim
accused Freddie of cheating
Freddie
stands up to leave the game peacefully
Snavely
says something to provoke a fight
Freddie
and Jim’s fight began
Table
was overturned and broken
Everyone
was hitting everyone else& general melee
Snavely
hit Freddie from behind hard
Freddie
snatched up a leg from the broken table
Freddie
swung without looking
Snavely
ducked
Jim
didn’t
Freddie
hit Jim with a table leg
Freddie
knocked Jim to the floor
Jim
lay still
Freddie
saw that he was still alive
Freddie heard the cops coming
Freddie
left Jim unconscious
Freddie
closed the door softly behind himself (resolution)
Continuous
Freddie
thought, to hell with the son of a bitch.
Freddie
thought, Nobody calls me that.
Heavy
drinking all through the card game
Cover
before
Freddie
and Jim were friends since boyhood
Freddie
and Jim began a friendly card game
Snavely
befriends Jim
Snavely
is clearly a bad influence on Jim
Jim
has a major drinking problem
Freddie
is wanted by the local authorities
Cover
after
Freddie
walked away
Freddie
did not think of Jim again.
Step
5: Edit the Momentary list for point of view and order of perception.
If we’re
seeing this all from a given character’s point of view, what is the p.o.v.
character able to see, and when are they able to see it? Change entries in the
Momentary list in light of any problems with this.
In this
example, assuming Freddie is the p.o.v. character and we’re in strict p.o.v.,
he can’t see that it’s Snavely behind him or that it’s Jim he’s hitting until
after both things have happened.
So in
Step 5 we fix it up to this:
Momentary
Snavely
encourages Jim to drink more and bet higher to win back his losses (point of
attack)
Freddie
tries to intervene
Jim
tells Freddie to mind his own business
Snavely
backs Jim up
Jim
loses a big hand
Jim
accused Freddie of cheating
Freddie
stands up to leave the game peacefully
Snavely
says something to provoke a fight
Freddie
and Jim’s fight began
Table
was overturned and broken
Everyone
was hitting everyone else & general melee
Something
hit Freddie from behind hard
Freddie
snatched up a leg from the broken table
Freddie
turned, swinging the table leg head high with all his force
Freddie’s
table leg connected with an arm-jarring thud
Freddie
saw Snavely, crouched low, clutching the bottle he’d hit Freddie with, below
where he’d just swung
Freddie
heard a shout
Freddie
turned to see Jimm lying still on the floor
Freddie
knelt, felt for a pulse, found one
Freddie
heard the cops coming
Freddie
realized
Freddie
rose
Freddie
walked quickly and quietly to the door as everyone pushed past him to get to
Jim
Freddie
slipped through the door
Freddie
closed the door softly behind himself (resolution)
Continuous
Freddie
thought, to hell with the son of a bitch.
Freddie
thought, Nobody calls me that.
Heavy
drinking all through the card game
Cover
before
Freddie
and Jim were friends since boyhood
Freddie
and Jim began a friendly card game
Snavely
befriends Jim
Snavely
is clearly a bad influence on Jim
Jim
has a major drinking problem
Freddie
is wanted by the local authorities
Cover
after
Freddie
walked away
Freddie
did not think of Jim again.
Step
6: Write the scene from the Momentary list, working in material from the
Continuous list where it makes sense.
Okay,
here’s what proof there may be in the pudding: the revised scene:
“Three-handed
Tegwar is a game of fortune, not luck or skill,” Snavely told Jim, “and wine is
sacred to Philia, the goddess of fortune. Drink a big cup to her health, and
then with your better fortune, and the goddess’s love, bet big enough to win it
all back from this conniver.”
By
Jim’s violently bobbing head, Freddie could see that his old friend was already
far-gone drunk, and it is a game of skill, no matter what this nasty
man says, Jim isn’t very good at it even sober, and we’re playing for small
change anyway.
“Jim, let’s call it a night, we were supposed to be playing for fun
stakes, and it’s getting out of hand, so let me just give you your money back,
I don’t want to make my fortune off a friend.”
Jim
looked at Snavely, not at Freddie, and drained his refilled cup. “Freddie, just
deal; I’m gonna prove it’s me that Philia loves.”
“Unless
by ‘fun stakes’ you mean ‘cowards’ stakes,’” Snavely added. “Deal.”
When
Jim hunched and looked down like that, Freddie knew, he was immovable. “Well,
then, Anvils rank, Maples sink, matches up.” Jim’s miserable lack of skill at
Three-Handed Tegwar would at least not prevent him from seeing duos or
trios, and if necessary Freddie could spoil his own hand with a discard.
When
Freddie looked at the cards he had dealt himself, his heart sank; the three
highest Anvils in sequence, and a matching high Lance. He discarded his middle
Anvil, only to draw the top Guitar; now he was unbeatable, and having worked a
discard, he could not fold. Snavely folded with low Guitars and Maples; Jim
made his final bet for far more than he could cover, and turned up a pair of
Lances and a pair of Maples.
Reluctantly,
Freddie laid his cards down.
“Dirty
deal.” Jim was glaring. “Ever since we were kids. Dirty deals from you. I’ll
have to owe you—“
Freddie
stood up. “You don’t owe me anything. I’m doing the thing I wanted to do before
this hand, here’s your money back—“
“I
guess it’s easier for a cheat to just buy out of a fight than try to defend his
cheating,” Snavely said.
“Nobody
calls me that,” Freddie said.
“Because
they’re afraid of you. I am. I know Jim is, that’s what you told me.”
“I’m
not afraid of you,” Jim bellowed, grabbing Freddie’s tunic. The card table
flipped and Jim stepped closer, a leg snapping off from the force of his hip;
in the crowded mass of tables, glasses spilled, coins being counted slipped
away, bowls tumbled, rough men were jostled unexpectedly.People stood up and
swung without knowing why, and the brawl was on.
At
least this’ll take Jim’s mind off things, Freddie thought, pushing people
away to clear a space, looking around for an exit. A tavern brawl is just
what he—
On the
left side of his back, just above his belt, something slammed into Freddie. He
stumbled forward, grabbing for balance at the leg of the overturned table; it
came away in his hand as he was hit again, even harder, in the same place.
Freddie found his feet, and with a shout, he whirled and swung the table leg
head high to clear the space behind him. It hit something with an arm-jarring
thud, arresting Freddie’s spin.
Snavely
was squatting low, still holding the wine bottle he’d hit Freddie with; the
return blow must have passed over his head. He jabbed the bottle’s bottom into
Freddie’s crotch, not quite connecting with his intended target, made an
obscene gesture, and dove into the legs of the crowd.
Freddie
heard a shout, then terrible silence. He turned to see Jim lying still on the
floor, the red welt made by the table leg slanting up his cheek and across his
bald head. Freddie knelt, felt his friend’s throat—thank you, Philia, a pulse—and
pulled gently at an eyelid to check the pupils. In the dimness it was hard to
see—
A
bugle. The City Watch. Close.
Freddie
rose and walked quickly and quietly to the door as everyone pushed past him,
swarming around Jim, shouting for someone to get a healer-witch. He worked the
latch behind his back,watching the room; no sign of Snavely, at least a dozen
men surrounding Jim, no one looking at him. When the latch came free, Freddie
glanced back, slipped through the door, and pulled it closed after himself. He
tugged the hood of his tunic down around his face, staggered a little as if
drunk, and passed the onrushing City Watch in the alley, keeping his face
turned toward the shadows as he made his way to the Night Market, where he
could hope to disappear into the crowd. Or altogether, that would be all
right too, he thought to Philia.
§
Now, note
that the above is a rough draft, and it contains a number of wince points. But
at least the action is now expressed in Constant clear location and time, which is the main point of the
exercise. Rewrites for style and taste in the next draft are badly needed, but
at least it’s a readable action scene. Note also that the embellishments it
invites– I just let them emerge as I worked – have made the story as a whole
considerably livelier.***
Step
7: make notes to yourself to revise other parts of the work according to Cover
Before and Cover After.
I was
able to slip in most of the Cover Before points anyway, but the back-story of
how the two men found Snavely, and how Snavely got a hold on Jim, would be in
the Cover Before list. Also, frankly, no reader will forgive you if Snavely doesn’t
get back into the story somehow, so I’d add “Something happens to finish off
Snavely’s story” to Cover After. Both lists then go into your general list of
to-dos for the next draft. Or if you’re as afraid of your own
disorganization and forgetfulness as I am, you might also go make the needed
changes and additions right away—again, that’s a matter of taste.
Other
indications and a cautionary note:
Unlike
this rudimentary one, some badly over-written action scenes become much shorter
by this process, chiefly because it turns out that not much goes into the
Momentary list, and therefore there’s not much room for anything to be imported
from Continuous.
This
procedure will sometimes work on a sex scene, too, but only if you want to
write a really detailed, intense sex scene, the kind that many readers will
think of as pornographic, and almost certainly at least some readers will begin
to laugh, because doing sex in that much detail is usually funny to someone,
and because the prose you write will reveal some of your quirks, which will be
either funny or horrifying or both to some people who don't share them.
§
*see heart and plot fighting for focus, about which I’ll write another
time.
**Deliberate
parody for illustration; there weren’t any individual paragraphs quite that
bad, but there were some multiparagraph scenes that were even more confusing.
***Though
I’m beginning to wonder what all these guys with Grandpa-names are doing in a
faux-medieval fantasy setting.
