writing woes

[rivendellrose]

Someday? I really need to learn to properly write good action scenes. Somehow I always end up writing scenes with battles or what-have-you, and... I really pretty much just suck at them. It's kind of painful.

Under deadline and a little braindead today. Keep getting distracted trying to research, or trying to get the right word for something, or just plain (as right now) trying desperately to figure out how to write what's going on. I can see it in my head... it's just hard to find the right words for an actual battle, especially when my characters, bless them, are pretty much just looking on in horror.

For now.



Screw this shit. I may very well at this moment officially hate every word of this bloated, nearly 20,000 word piece of tripe. I am so very sorry to the friend who foolishly promised to edit it.

Comments

[toastedtea.livejournal.com]

When writing action scenes, it helps to keep descriptions short and sharp. Remember, the operative word is action. You have to convey that with your prose, and that's more easily done by keeping sentences short, fast and to the point.

Also? Lemme know if you need/want a beta reader. 8)

[nekokoban]

I can't really offer much help or advice with actions sequences (because I suck at those too, unless they're already kind of weird and choppy--kind of like the porn I write!), but I gotta say that it is pretty much exactly why I got a twitter: so I could liveblog my frustrations with things and not clutter my actual LJ about it. :|a

ALSO I got the link you sent, but I only got home like ten minutes ago, so I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. \o/ I WILL SOON!

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

Short sentences. Sparse description. Pay very close attention only to those things that people actually pay attention to when they are immersed in action (and that's different for different people; some tunnel vision, others will adopt a radar-like mentality because they need to see everything that's going on around them to evaluate it, but it's short and sparse and real time. No time to lollygag. Threat or not a threat? Handle it or move on.

For example, during action, your character isn't paying attention to a lot of things. He's probably no noticing the pretty your Corsican girl with spiral hair on the corner with the intricately styled corset with a pattern of the home nation of the Blahblabian race that descended from Atlantis a thousand years ago.

He ran past her, his feet leaving dust clouds on the street, as he did a dance for traction in his turn. It was only as he passed the pretty girl, and moved beyond her, that he heard the click of a gun and recognized the position of the pretty girl in the corset, and wondered when he was going to get around to realizing that not all enemies wore tidy uniforms for him to recognize, and...

(Purposely overdone for the sake of example :P)

Instead.

A woman stood on the corner. A quick glance. No uniform. No threat. He ran past her and skidded on to Market Street.

Then he heard the click of a gun.

Fuck.

...

Or something like that. Obviously, POV and the type of action will alter that :)

[irishninja.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in reading good fight scenes, I recommend RA Salvatore. The Drizzt books, particularly the second trilogy, have pretty awesome fight scenes.

Otherwise, it looks like everyone has given you pretty good suggestions of how to deal with action scenes. :)