I like action scenes.
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| kungfu 1 by Sauerkraut |
They’re where we get to see the true colour of a character, where the real person inside comes out and can be a saint or a sinner. Will they save the day, or run in fear of their own mortality?
Also, lots of people die.
Despite these truths, writing action scenes needs a bit of creativity. And it turns out, being creative is hard when nature’s done all the cool shit before you. Seriously, that animal exists? I’m never going swimming again.
When I started out writing, I was pretty comfortable with my dialogue, but my action scenes were less … easy. I’ve done more of them now, and they’re coming faster and – I hope – a bit more coherently. It’s easier to “see” what’s going on in the scene when I read it back to myself.
This is good and bad. It’s good, because I’m (I hope) getting better at it. It’s bad, because there’s a bunch of earlier scenes that are going to need liberal editing. Them’s the breaks; I’ve got the time, and I want it to be right.
Today’s scene was a mix of m4d skillZ action and witty dialogue. Word goal: 2,500. Word achievement: 3,700. But it was 3,700 words of good, clean, fun. I figure if I finish the scene happy, that’s probably a win any way you cut it.
