Do the Work Beforehand

In order to write an engaging action sequence that keeps readers hooked, the work begins prior to the scene actually taking place. One of the main things that separates a good battle sequence from one that readers will skim through is one that your readers truly care about. And in order to make the readers care, they’ll need to care about your characters and story. That involves putting a lot of leg work into fleshing out the characters and plot, making them creative and engaging, and then by the time readers arrive at the action sequence, you’ve got them right where you want them.

Focus on Emotion

Unlike action in film or television, the action itself isn’t what is going to keep your readers engaged. Unfortunately, action on the page just doesn’t translate the same way as it does on screen. In a film, you can begin with an action sequence that lasts ten minutes before you even meet any of the characters, and not a soul will complain. In a book, however, it can be boring to read an entire chapter of just mindless punching and kicking. Instead of the action itself, the scene should focus on the emotion behind the action. Is a character fighting their former best friend? Are they trying to save someone they care about? Are they trying to obtain an object of great emotional significance to them? Focus on what is emotionally at stake for the character and the action itself should be happening around that.

Pay-off

Additionally, you want an action sequence to feel like a pay-off for the reader. As stated previously, action in books can’t be the same mindless fun as it is in film. Instead, when deciding what action scenes are necessary in your manuscript, focus on including ones with the most pay-off. For example, if your protagonist has some snide interactions with a character throughout the book, all of a sudden finding themselves faced with fighting them. Or the final showdown with the villain of your series or maybe a fight with a character who had a hand at killing your protagonist’s parents.

Having your protagonist spend ten minutes fighting one random guard is just going to result in your readers skipping around. If, however, their fight has the potential for a pay-off for them or for their character arc, the readers will remain engaged.

Stakes

Similar to the pay-off, high stakes are another way to keep your readers engaged during an action sequence. Perhaps your protagonist has to scale the side of a building to break in. Or maybe they get into a bar fight with a group of their friends, glass bottles being broken and stepped on all over the place. Perhaps they run into a very deadly and unearthly creature that they once believed was a myth. And their conflict results in the breaking of a priceless artifact. Having something at stake within the fight, something that both the characters and readers care about, will allow readers to remain enthralled.

Language

In addition to all of the story components that add to an action sequence, your writing style and the language you use must adapt as well. When writing other scenes, the language can be flowery with lots of adverbs and time spent on minute details. In action sequences, the opposite should occur. Your sentences should be choppy and short as it creates more of a sense of urgency for the reader. You should also limit your use of adverbs and try to keep minute descriptions to a minimum unless they relate to the action of the scene.

The post How to Write Action Scenes appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

As you sit down to write your manuscript, you picture the gold shining vision of the final manuscript you want to create. You just want to hurry up and get to that version, the version you’ve dreamt of, but every amazing manuscript has a messy first draft.

Do: Focus on structure

Every story should have a beginning, middle, and ending. The beginning of your story should include the ‘inciting incident’ or the event that spurs on the events of the story. The middle should consist of conflicts that challenge your protagonist and raise the story’s stakes. Finally, the ending should include the climax and whether or not your protagonist gets the object of their desire (IE what their goal is to achieve throughout the story).

Instead of focusing too much on every single plot point, focus on hitting these beats and getting the story from Point A (the beginning) to Point B (the ending). In order to help one achieve this, it can help to create a brief events list. This simply involves breaking the story into that three-act structure and writing down (in one to two sentences) what happens in each section. For example, in a fantasy story maybe the ‘beginning’ involves a character finding out they have been chosen for a quest, which they accept. Then, next to that statement, write the events that lead to that conclusion for your protagonist. Who tells them about this quest? How do they take it? What makes them accept the task?

Do: Get to know the tone and characters

Rather than mastering your tone and characters on your first attempt, your goal should be to get to know both of these elements over the course of the first draft. Think of your first draft as your opportunity to figure out the tone and characters in your story rather than for either of them to feel perfectly crafted on the first try. When it comes to tone, on your first draft it will likely change drastically from beginning to end or even just scene by scene. It’s not uncommon for a writer to go into a novel with a light funny tone only to discover that the story works much better with a sardonic darker tone. Use your first draft to play around with your narrator’s voice and POV. It may give you more editing work to do later, but it will also allow you to figure out what works best.

Additionally, in terms of your characters, writing up an informative character sheet won’t allow you to get to know your characters nearly as much as actual scene work. On your character sheet, your protagonist could come across as very dry but their actual voice (once you start writing them) could sound completely different than you pictured. Furthermore, a character could end up making completely different decisions than you had thought they would make. If this is the case, let your character take the lead and see where it goes. Sometimes this won’t work and other times it can lead to the best character writing.

Don’t: Focus on language and details

Your first draft is the time to experiment with your language and details, not to meticulously focus on them and make sure they’re super consistent. One of the quickest ways to encounter writer’s block on your first draft is to get too bogged down with your language and making sure everything sounds nice. Even your favorite author has first drafts that are horrendous and sloppy… that’s kind of the point of them. Don’t be afraid to skip over areas where you’re struggling and just add a note in letting future you know what needs to happen there. Or if you’re in the writing groove and then lose your rhythm, don’t force yourself to try to mimic what you had previously been doing. Focus mainly on the story structure and leave the details for second and third draft you to handle.

Don’t: Worry about character development and plot holes

Since you’re still getting to know your characters in this draft, try not to focus too much on character development outside of the basics. You theoretically know the arc you’d like each character to have, but this initial draft is there to see if the characters will fit what you were thinking. They may make decisions that contradict the arc you had originally planned for them so just get to know them, see the choices they make, and then reorganize them into an arc on a later draft.

Plotholes are going to be plentiful on your first draft, that is just the nature of the beast. Perhaps you reach a point in the story where your protagonist is cornered and you’re not sure how to write them out of the situation. But wait, you think of a device that you could add to the story to aid the characters at this moment, but that would leave the audience scratching their heads wondering how this device appeared out of nowhere. Don’t worry about this now, you can always go back and add the device in an earlier chapter to make the moment more satisfying. Focus instead on getting your characters where they need to be, you can fix plot holes and inconsistencies later.

The post Do’s and Don’t’s of Your First Draft appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.