Many people enjoy starting a book written en media res, or in the middle of things. Most authors strive to put as much action into their prose as possible. Which is a good thing. However, there are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind when writing those action scenes.
The first one is to make sure that if you begin with action, you pay off the promise. What I mean by that, is that if you start your book off with the promise of action, you need to actually get to the action. And, I suggest doing so sooner rather than later. I get annoyed when I read a book that has an action-packed prologue, and then I end up having to slog through 400+ pages before I get back to the action again. You will lose your audience if you do this. You can set up the problem, and make the reader care, all by chapter three. Any more than that, and your action-oriented reader will put down the book and not read anything you’ve written ever again.
Writing Action Scenes
Choreograph
You don’t have to choreograph the fight. Or the war, or the killing, or whatever it is that it bringing on the action. Unless it’s a screenplay, the reader does not need to know everyone’s exact location at every single moment in time. It will be confusing for the reader.
Head-hopping
Do not head-hop while you are in an action sequence. Choose a viewpoint and stick with it, whichever person has the most impact during that moment, or alternatively, who loses the most? Whichever person that is, that is whom you stick with during the entire action sequence. There is no reason to go from your protagonist to your antagonist in the middle of the fight. Even if the antagonist is having some fascinating thoughts. In fact, if you think that your antagonist is more interesting during the sequence. Then, maybe you stick with their viewpoint, if they are a viewpoint character.
It helps to think of the scene as if you had a camera. You can choose to focus on just a few key moments. You zoom in and catch close details, and then zoom out again. But, you can only do this a few times, and you need to pick the times that will best serve your story.
For example: if someone swings a sword and misses, but also causes the protagonist to lose their balance. At the exact moment that the antagonist is also swinging their sword. It hits the protagonist a blow that injures them badly. You will want to focus on a part of that moment, but which part?
Do you focus on the pain of the injury, the feeling of the sword going in, the blood pouring out? The inability to use a limb afterwards. Or, you could take a depth of field approach, and look at everything. The girl behind the protagonist, how she’s holding a shield and growling. Ready to move forward and kill the antagonist. Just after the protagonist goes down, she rushes forward. At the same time as the other person with the protagonist goes to help him in his moment of need.
Playing with Options
You can always play with different ways of writing action scenes, but the important part is to use a couple of moments of action to focus in on what you want your reader to see. Is the blood important, or the fact that the protagonist learns a lesson about teamwork, and doesn’t try to go forward alone? Or are the antagonist’s reactions more important? Is the fact that the protagonist missed the most important part? Getting to the important part of the moment is the best way to figure out what to focus on, and then after that, you will figure out how to write your scene. Once you know what to focus on, you’ll know your view point character, which details are the best ones to emphasize and which ones to leave out or gloss over quickly.
Summary
To sum up, you need to keep your promises, so if you give them action in the beginning, you need to continue to give action. There is no need to give a choreographed blow-by-blow action scene. Stay in one head. And, finally, figure out what is most important to the scene, and then write about that central piece, whatever it is that the protagonist is going to gain or lose needs to be the main focus, and then go from there.
Thank you for reading this post on writing action scenes, let me know if this is helpful, and if you would like to see more of this same thing, or something different!
