How to Write Realistic Action Sequences
24.5.2019 24.5.2019 by rebeckajager, posted in Blog, Characters, Writing Advice, Writing Tips, Yleinen
Whether you write thrillers or fantasy, you'll engage your Main Character in battles for life and limb. Nothing beats experience when it comes to describing a sequence of near combat. Take classes in Jiu Jutsu or Krav Maga if your hero uses his body to stand up for himself. You don't have to engage in a Mixed martial arts cage fight to know how it feels. The beginner's course in any martial art will help you sort out a few basic questions. I watch clips of Michelle Waterson or Ronda Rousey to learn. The MMA and WWE sports are different from Hollywood fight scenes. The fighters bind each other, and the straight punches which reach the opponent with a thud/smack belong mostly to the movies.
Rebane Nordstrom- my MC in Unholy Warrior, fights dirty and my book features some iconic Russian Systema moves to evade an overpowering assailant. I asked my Defendo instructor to attack me- the things we go through to write! Don't worry, he went easy on me, but I never forget to raise my hands to shield my chin after that. One hit to the jaw and: lights out. Only in Hollywood do people get hit in the head with a metal pipe and go on kicking. In real life, you'd earn a visit to the ER with a skull fracture and a brain injury.
There's nothing wrong with creative freedom. If you have dragons and magic in your book, what stops you from inventing new fighting skills? Forget realism but remember a few basic rules which help your readers relate to your MC: the danger is an inherent part of raising the stakes. You must allow your hero to be weaker than the opponent at times.
My MC loses a fight in the crowded, narrow cell. Here's an excerpt from Unholy Warrior:
"There's no need to pick up a fight, Miss Nordstrom. Stand down and spare yourself from a beating," Weisser said with a matter-of-fact voice.
Rebane ignored him and targeted the next man who stepped in: a stumpy, wide-shouldered guard who opened his telescope truncheon with a swift hit. He drew his arm back to smack her, but Rebane evaded with a simple Systema move: stepped aside and nudged him. As he folded on the bunk, she delivered a hook into his kidney and wrenched the truncheon from his grip.
The second guard leaped at her, and her baton slammed into his thigh above the knee incapacitating his leg. His attempt to punch her missed and he slumped on the floor. Guards number three and four bumped into each other in the narrow doorway. The duo hesitated when they saw the injured guards writhing on the floor. They exchanged glances before the bigger one rushed forward. The sequence seemed to amuse Weisser who leaned against the wall.
Rebane backed up until her shoulder blades met the cold cement and lodged herself between the washbasin and the bunk. She tried to leap over the bed and go around the attacker, but her pelvis hit the washbasin, and she crash-landed over the blankets. The bigger guy managed to grab her shirt. She extended her left hand, and the bony base of her palm cracked his nose. He fell on the floor as blood gushed into his cupped hands. The next man got kneed in the stomach. Rebane lost hold of the truncheon while she grabbed his neck and mashed her knee up repeatedly.
The master alarm went off and filled the corridor with a deafening noise. A swarm of men toppled her, but she managed to kick nuts, thighs, and shins. She scratched the faces which came near enough and bit into the flesh of a hairy forearm. Rebane didn't let go until a crowd of hands and knees pinned her to the floor and forced her jaws open. The first blow landed at her shoulder and watered her eyes. A jackboot stepped on her diaphragm. Tears forced out when she squirmed and battled for air. It took just seconds for her to lose the fight.
"Stop!" she screamed when the violent hands tore her clothing and fists pounded at her ribs.
A boar of a man sat on her stomach and growled into her ear. Rebane spat at him which only angered him more. Weisser's voice toppled the screams and the commotion. He grabbed the boar by his fatigue collar and tore him away from Rebane, but the next madman mounted her and banged her head against the cement floor.
Choose Your Weapons
A baton can do terrible damage at the hands of a skilled user, but when you get threatened with a knife, the stakes assume a different intensity.
One cut can bleed your hero out, or sever a tendon (which means your arm or leg becomes useless). Blocking someone wielding a blade isn't simple. Books and videos offer help to a writer. I like to refer to Combat Knives and Knife Combat by Dietmar Pohl & Jim Wagner, but you can find great resources on Youtube as well. If you want to get the hang of sword fights, join a Kendo club or try some Medieval martial arts the European way.
At Arm's Length
One trick I like to use when I write a battle is grabbing anything at arm's length in the setting and throwing it at the opponent. This is an essential skill in writing action: you cannot omit the environment even if you don't want to utilize foreign objects.
Consider these elements:
Are your opponents facing each other on an open field or in a tight space?
What dangers are present besides the assailant(s)? Can traffic or avalanche kill the hero?
What can the MC use to his advantage?
The season: darts of wind-hurled snow can stop you from seeing, and the wind will raise clouds of sand. It's hard to escape in knee-deep snow, and a sweaty combatant is difficult to grab.
The time of day: will darkness provide cover or the sun blind you? The atmosphere of the fight is vital!
Escape is always an option: can the MC run without being hit in the back by a bullet or an arrow? Remember to zig-zag, which makes the bad guy miss.
Can the heroine speak her way out of a threatening situation? Both escape and avoiding the battle altogether are the wisest options if you listen to my Defendo instructor.
Use the element of surprise: a trained soldier will see the punch coming if you draw your arm back before you strike.
Every kick and punch must be backed up with the rotation of the torso and the weight of your body. There is the correct and the wrong way to do this.
Examples From Hollywood
Charlize Theron, Atomic Blonde, The Stairway Fight Scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XarGS1AeEcE
Charlize uses everything she can grab, and the sequence has guns, knives, hot plates, and whatnot. She also fights multiple assailants that are stronger than her.
If you need a fast tempo, watch Matt Damon as Jason Bourne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFnmq5PPScA
Or Daniel Craig as 007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7kFoR4m1Y0
Both clips have high energy, and I love the moment when Daniel Craig watches how the attacker dies.
The last clip is from the Kurt Russell movie Breakdown. A car chase evolves into a duel between a semi-trailer and pickup truck. The fighters wield multiple weapons and the use of the deadly bridge, in the end, is a stroke of genius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ovVlk6jCBY
Don't Overdo The Details and Mind The Players
Know the capabilities and weaknesses of your hero/heroine before you tap your fight scene. My MCs (so far) are women who get attacked by opponents with a larger mass. Evasive movements allow them to strike back and to go for the opponent's sensitive parts. When it comes to the laws of physics, a force has both magnitude and direction. If your knight is a big guy, he'll use his mass as a blunt force weapon. Wearing armor and yielding the long sword is hard work, especially if you're trying to stay on top of a galloping horse at the same time.
In the receiving end of the blows, anatomy, and physiology come into play. If your book takes place in the Middle Ages, knowing the common battlefield injuries helps you understand the weapons of the era. Find out what a beating causes to the human body. The method isn't used as torture for nothing! The physiological side becomes increasingly important if you write murder mysteries and the key leads come from the killer's ammo and the ME's autopsy report.
Letting the reader glimpse a hidden world is a standard trick in the thriller and mystery genres. For example, the usual "slitting of the throat" in Hollywood style isn't the way to go if you're a commando sneaking upon a German guard in WWII. I was quite proud of myself when I wrote the "correct" way. However, my training as a Radiographer caused me to overdo the anatomy lesson. No one wants to know if your MC cuts the external or internal carotid artery of the victim with her knife! When your knowledge broadens, the temptation to write detailed descriptions (which get in the way of action) increases.
Don't Teach The Bird To Fly Or The Fish To Swim
If something comes naturally to your character, use it. Remember Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (1976)? The movie shows him running from the start and in the climax, he outruns the Nazi's henchman. The film is a classic thriller for a reason. I never looked at dentists the same way after Laurence Olivier's excellent performance as the Villain Dr. Christian Szell. Dustin Hoffman excels as well, and the film has terrific control of tension build-ups and releases all the way through.
Image: Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (1976) by Paramount Pictures.
The fight-or-flight response is automated because it helped animals survive the challenges of evolution. The symptoms, which even the most battle-hardened hero experiences, offer a writer many ways to put the reader into the skin of the character:
Acceleration of heart and lung action; you breath faster and your heart gallops
Paling or flushing, or alternating between both
Digestion slows down or stops- long-term stress causes harm
General effect on the sphincters of the body (urinary tract and bowel)
Constriction of blood vessels
The liberation of metabolic energy for muscular action
Dilation of blood vessels for muscles- the blood gets directed to the places which you need for resistance or escape.
Inhibition of the lacrimal gland (responsible for tear production) and salivation- your mouth becomes dry, and you cannot release tears
Dilation of the pupil
Relaxation of the bladder- you need to pee, or you wet yourself
Loss of hearing- you don't remember everything afterward!
Tunnel vision (loss of peripheral vision)- anyone who has experienced this knows what I'm talking about
Overactive or overresponsive reflexes. Adrenaline or noradrenaline facilitate preparation for violent muscular action.
Uncontrollable shaking or shivering
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response
The subjective experience of danger is unique. Don't forget to describe the character's emotions. Remember, the fight-flight reaction impairs some senses and enhances others. The emotional response is delayed in most cases. Allow your heroine to deal with a traumatic memory afterward as she heals from her wounds. The rule of action-reaction, remember?
The natural capabilities of the MC help him deal with a surprise attack. You can train your hero until basic moves flow from his muscle memory—this method is used by law enforcement and the military. But anyone who has experienced a traumatic situation knows the phenomenon of freezing. The same person can fight successfully on one occasion and freeze on the next.
"Fight flight freeze is a description of our responses to threat. In recent years, the fawn response has been added. To fight is to confront the threat aggressively. Flight means you run from the danger. When you freeze, you find yourself unable to move or act against the threat. With fight and flight both unavailable to you, you may find yourself hiding from the danger. Fawn is the response of complying with the attacker to save yourself."
Source: https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/trauma/
The aftermath of freeze or fawn makes coming to terms with what happened harder, which could be a starting point for your MC's internal conflict.
Further resources on how to write the pace of action and build tension:
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/writing-action-story-good-pacing/
https://thewritelife.com/writing-action-scenes/
https://writeitsideways.com/7-tension-building-tips-for-writing-action-scenes/
Continue reading "How to Write Realistic Action Sequences" →
Tagged action, action books, adventure, author, battle, books, featured, realistic, supense, thriller, write action, writer, writing action facts, writing advice, writing tips
The Art of Descriptive Writing
10.5.2019 10.5.2019 by rebeckajager, posted in Characters, Writing Advice, Yleinen
The invocation of literary magic lies in mastering the basic elements of storytelling. I'm sure one of these must be your forte:
Emotionally attaching the reader to the main character and creating plausible character arcs
Vivid descriptions of the setting, which derives from worldbuilding
Being the wizard/witch of atmosphere and mood
Creating high stakes and mastering the build-up and release of tension
Writing dialogue which grabs the reader by the collar and pulls him into your story never letting go until he reads the last line.
Each of the above-mentioned demand descriptions which release only the necessary information. I respect the northern nature because I hunted with my father. My loving memories of him tone my chapters on untamed fells and sacred ponds. I went overboard in my first draft—nothing wrong with the passages per se, except they dragged on with excruciating detail. The reader wants to get on with the plot. You'll bleed when you delete carefully crafted passages, as I did, but Kill Your Darlings applies to descriptive writing. If you write fantasy, your text feeds on worldbuilding, and the art of choosing becomes a matter of literary life or death. The same applies to historical fiction. As you researched expertise grows, you risk boring the reader with excessive facts.
The greatest classics of mankind can't be used as a reference on how much to describe. The literary competition has changed since the times of George Orwell and Vladimir Nabokov. Different genres have separate rules on the desired length, and I write thrillers, so you don't have to agree with me but let me introduce a few interesting theses.
Start With The POV
All fictional descriptions start with the selection of the Point of View. Remember to filter the setting and background through the eyes of your character. Describe what your character would notice, otherwise, you break the spell and cast the reader out of your magical world.
The third person is the weapon of choice for most modern authors, and you can choose between omniscient and limited 3rd. Omniscient 3rd: the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story. Limited 3rd: the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented only externally.
An example of the third person:
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
Notice how Orwell binds the setting to the movement of the MC? He uses verbs to describe. And he wrote dystopian—a genre which demands compelling worldbuilding.
More information: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/third-person-omniscient-point-of-view-1277125
Although the first person has become unpopular in literary fiction, it's the right glove if you need to punch the reader with what the MC goes through. The 1st person limits what the main character observes through your descriptive ammo. Be careful and remember to invoke emotions.
An example of the first person:
Opposite the fireplace and beside me, the telephone. To the right, the sitting-room door, and the passage. At the end of the passage, the front door. He might come straight here and ring at the front door. "Who's there?" "Me." Or he might phone from a transit center as soon as he got here. "I'm back — I'm at the Lutetia to go through the formalities." There wouldn't be any warning. He'd phone. He'd arrive. Such things are possible. He's coming back, anyway. He's not a special case. There's no particular reason why he shouldn't come back. There's no reason why he should. But it's possible. He'd ring. "Who's there?" "Me." Lots of other things like this do happen. In the end they broke through at Avranches and in the end the Germans withdrew. In the end I survived till the end of the war. I must be careful; it wouldn't be so very extraordinary if he did come back — it would be normal. I must be careful not to turn it into something extraordinary. The extraordinary is unexpected. I must be sensible: I'm waiting for Robert L., expecting him, and he's coming back.
The phone rings. "Hello? Any news?" I must remind myself the phone's used for that sort of thing, too. I mustn't hang up, I must answer. Mustn't yell at them to leave me alone. "No, no news." "Nothing? Not a sign?" "Nothing." "You know Belsen's been liberated? Yes, yesterday afternoon…" "I know." Silence. "You mustn't get disheartened, you must hold on, you're not the only one, alas — I know a mother with four children…" "I know, I'm sorry, I haven't moved from where I was. It's wrong to move too much, a waste of energy, you have to save all your strength to suffer.
Marguerite Duras, The War: A Memoir. Translated from French by Barbara Bray.
Duras' short, repetitive sentences convey her traumatic stress. The setting comes through as the objects she touches and the doorway a portal where her imprisoned husband might appear. The text centers on the heroine's mental state—and that's the beauty of the 1st person.
The Framework of Sensory Perception
The human species relies on visual perception and that's why writers tend to concentrate on what the MC sees. A tiger might listen and the dog would rather smell if you wrote their POV. When your character turns into a werewolf, remember to incorporate the canine way of taking in the world.
Our senses fail the objectivity test because the brain translates perceptions to fit the overall world view. If you write historical fiction, the cosmology of the era might define if the MC believes his own eyes or not. If a modern doctor stepped into the scene of exorcizing a demon and gave the patient a cocktail of antipsychotic medicines, how would the people of a Middle Age village react? I'm pretty sure none would explain the miracle with the function of neurotransmitters.
The use of due historical language can make your text hard to wade through. Even if you use modern English for the most part, remember that religious communities didn't allow cursing out loud. The 21st-century heroine can scream ou F**ck and what not but people were God-abiding folks before the scientific/industrial revolution, and everyone attended the Sunday Mass. The reaction to sensory perception minds time and place.
If you write flashbacks, remember that remembering obeys emotion. The smell is a powerful conveyor of memories across decades, and people tend to weapon-focus during torture and battle. The framework guides you which sensory details to choose into your descriptions.
I've addressed the five basic senses before in my blog but here's a list:
Remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs which I quoted in my blog post about worldbuilding? If not, check it out:
https://rebeckajager.com/2018/11/22/give-your-characters-hell-a-crash-course-in-world-building/
Nothing stops you from making up senses of your own (Spiderman). If you write within the fantasy or supernatural genre, your MC exercises a variety of abilities like levitation (what would he see from the bird's POV?) and foreboding (find a unique way to write the MC's sensory experience during the premonition.)
"Allowing our characters to use their senses will take our writing to the next level. We hear it all the time: show—don't tell. This is when we make our words come alive as we invite our readers to experience our story—not just read about it."
Source: https://thewriteediting.blogspot.com/2016/03/using-sensory-perception-in-your-writing.html
List of Other Senses
Pressure: if someone grabs you, you can feel it.
Itch: everyone knows this one.
Thermoception: the ability to sense heat and cold. Follow this sense into writing physical reactions.
Sound: sound doesn't mean only hearing, but detecting vibrations.
Proprioception: This sense gives you the ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts.
Tension Sensors: muscle tension. This one is important if your character experienced a beating or battle.
Nociception: In a word, pain. There are multiple types of agony and don't forget the psychological dimension.
Equilibrioception: The sense that allows you to keep your balance and sense body movement in terms of acceleration and directional changes. This sense also allows for perceiving gravity.
Stretch Receptors: These are found in such places as the lungs, bladder, stomach, and the gastrointestinal tract. A type of stretch receptor, that senses dilation of blood vessels, is also often involved in headaches. Welcome migraine!
Chemoreceptors: These trigger an area of the medulla in the brain that is involved in detecting blood born hormones and drugs. When your character vomits, this automated sense is firing.
Magnetoception: the ability to detect magnetic fields.
Time: and this one is beneficial for a writer!
Source: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/07/humans-have-a-lot-more-than-five-senses/
Make Description an Active Part of The Story
Descriptions that just sit there are generally known as "narrative lumps." The medicine for them is show, don't tell, but remember that you can go overboard with showing. You need traditional narration to move your plot forward, to foreshadow events and to give the readers a sense of character. Avoid info dumps and sprinkle the description evenly. Remember to bind the descriptive parts into action.
Ways to make the description part of the action:
Choose the best descriptors and delete the rest
Describe what your characters would notice while they do something else, move or speak
Use strong, concrete words to describe—active verbs are your allies.
Choose which senses fit the scene. What if your character gets blindfolded?
Start from basics while you write the first draft and refine through revisions. Make a note to check the use of other senses beyond seeing.
Use Character POVs For a New Angle
Your writing might become repetitive as the plot progresses past page 250. Use the introduction of new characters to change the way you describe. Strong secondary characters have their separate opinions and help you introduce a new side of the MC. Write a scene where the significant other or sidekick disagrees with the MC on which way they should turn. How does the antagonist perceive the events? It takes skill to rotate POV but check out other writers who master the skill. Also, if your world is extremely violent and cruel (like mine), the reader might attach to a person similar to herself.
Foil and Mirror Characters
Foil characters share few or no values or traits. Maybe one character is lazy and boring, and his best friend is energetic and a go-getter. These are foil characters. Put them together, and they'll highlight each other's strengths and weaknesses. The most common foil characters are the heroes and villains, who stand for different values and want to achieve separate goals.
Mirror characters are used for a similar purpose. They tend to share several qualities and are used to complement and highlight each other's traits. Common mirror characters embark on parallel plots, sometimes to achieve a single goal, which tests them and highlights their traits in different ways.
Source: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/literary-devices/
Mirror Characters and Compassion
Using clearly stated comparisons allow readers to see what the protagonist sees and better understand the inner conflict and, therefore, theme.
Presenting at least two mirror characters will give the protagonist more opportunities to learn and will strengthen his/her evolution with the theme at hand.
Remember that the chief role of mirror characters is to show how they're thematic opposites.
A character arc succeeds when readers see how a protagonist's behaviors and thinking patterns have changed.
Source: https://diymfa.com/reading/how-mirror-characters-can-illustrate-literary-themes
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Tagged Blog, book, books, Descriptive Writing, featured, narration, researching history for your book, show don't tell, word-building, writing advice, Writing advice on nature and animals, writing tips