Writing: The In-depth Approach

Chapter 7: Pace & Action Scenes

When you write a story, it is important to consider the pace of your narrative. During the writing process, writers alter the pace of their stories to build up tension and to add emphasis to certain scenes in the story. Some scenes run at a slower pace, while some scenes run at a faster pace. You should consider how fast or slow your scenes read on the page, especially when you are writing action scenes and highly detailed scenes with dense exposition. In this chapter, I will focus on writing action scenes.

Putting the Punch Back into Action Scenes

Unlike slowly paced scenes with extensive dialogue and description, action scenes should be punchy and direct. The writing should be clear, easy to read and easy to imagine. Have you ever read a story where the protagonist is in a deadly one-on-one fight with the bad guy, and you've been unable to follow it? Have you read the action scene and stopped to wonder 'what happened again?' Or have you had to reread the scene because someone got shot, and you can't tell who shot who? When an action scene is unclear and hard to imagine, the readers quickly become lost in the scene.

Action scenes focus less on description and dialogue, and rely more heavily on action. So when dealing with high paced scenes, limit the amount of dialogue, description and exposition you use. These tend to slow down the narrative significantly. You need a good balance of action and description, so the reader knows where they are and what's happening, without slowing down the scene.

Now let's take a fight scene for instance. Writing a fight scene is sort of like working out the choreography for a dance. In this case, a very violent, brutal dance. Think of a quick, active dance, say the quick step. The quick step is a fast paced dance. Every step is quick, swift and tuned to a fast beat. Now if you paced the dance any slower, it wouldn't be much of a quick step anymore, would it?

Like the dance, action scenes should be fast paced. If an action scene is too slow, it might not have the same sort of impact, or the same sense of speed most action scenes have. If it's too slow, it might not read too much like an action scene either. So how can we make action scenes fast-paced? How can we imply speed in action scenes? Let's start with an example. In this example, we have two vampire hunters (Amy and Mick) fighting two vampires (Ben an Rachel) in a dark lounge room.

'...The vampires charged. Rifles went off, flashing in bursts in the darkness. Ben dodged the first shot, taking a second in the arm, charging for Mick, his fingers curled like claws. Rachel took a bullet to the throat, blood spurting, the flow reducing to a dirty wash streaming down her neck. She sunk to her knees, collapsing heavily, her eyes bugging and her gasps thinning to a phlegmy gurgle. She lay sprawled on the floor, blood pooling around her.

Ben snarled. Blinded by the flashing of rifle fire, Amy didn't see him coming. He tackled her hard and she staggered back under his weight, hitting the floor, the rifle knocking loose from her hands. Her head rocked back, slamming hard on the floorboards and in the darkness everything blurred, her vision swimming in and out of focus. Ben lunged, teeth champing, snapping. He pinned her to the floor, pressing his fingers tight on her shoulders. Fighting the dazed disorientation, her head reeling, she slapped him back.

Above her, Mick seized Ben, knocking the vampire's head hard with the butt of his rifle. Ben hissed, flinching. In the heat of the moment, she reached for her belt, swiping a heavy duty knife from the sheath, stabbing the vampire, sinking the blade deep in his stomach. Ben snarled, locking his jaw tight, blood oozing free from the wound, streaming down the length of the blade. He stiffened, his eyes widening and he huffed, his breathing off beat, shaky. Above her, Mick snatched Ben by the shoulders, pulling him off. The vampire slumped heavily beside her, gasping and wheezing...

This is a rough action scene. It could use some work. For one, the sentences trail one to each other. The length of the sentences are a bit too long, and the reader takes a bit more time to read it. It's already an adequate action scene, but we could pick up the pace a bit. To do this, we can change the length of the sentences. One way of controlling the pace of the action scene is by shortening sentences, making them shorter and sharper. When sentences are shorter and sharper, they have more of a punch and readers have a tendency of reading the words faster. When we can read the words faster, we get the allusion of speed in the scene. Let's try shorten the sentences a bit.

'...The vampires charged. Rifles went off, flashing in bursts in the darkness. Ben dodged the first shot, taking a second in the arm. He charged for Mick, fingers curled like claws. Rachel took a bullet to the throat. Blood spurted, the flow reducing to a dirty wash streaming down her neck. She sunk to her knees, collapsing heavily. Her eyes bugged, her gasps thinning to a phlegmy gurgle. She lay sprawled on the floor, blood pooling around her.

Ben snarled. Blinded by the flashing of rifle fire, Amy didn't see him coming. He tackled her hard. She staggered back under his weight. She hit the floor, the rifle knocking loose from her hands. Her head rocked back, slamming hard on the floorboards. In the darkness everything blurred, her vision swimming in and out of focus. Ben lunged, teeth champing, snapping. He pinned her to the floor, pressing his fingers tight on her shoulders. Fighting the dazed disorientation, her head reeling, she slapped him back.

Above her, Mick seized Ben, knocking the vampire's head hard with the butt of his rifle. Ben hissed, flinching. In the heat of the moment, she reached for her belt, swiping a heavy duty knife from the sheath. She stabbed the vampire, sinking the blade deep in his stomach. Ben snarled, locking his jaw tight. Blood oozed free from the wound, streaming down the length of the blade. He stiffened, his eyes widening. He huffed, his breathing off beat, shaky. Above her, Mick snatched Ben by the shoulders, pulling him off. The vampire slumped heavily beside her, gasping and wheezing...'

When we break up the sentences a bit, the words have more impact and it's a bit more punchy. It changes the pace of the passage, and makes the reader read the words faster. So when you are writing a scene like this, make your sentences short, sharp and punchy.

To conclude the chapter, I'd like to note one last thing. Most stories have a variation of differently paced scenes. And you should vary the pace of the scenes in your story. Some stories might run at too slow of a pace and might require a few faster paced scenes. Other stories might race along too quickly and might require a few slower scenes to bring it back to a reasonable speed. A story with highs and lows of action will be more interesting to read in the long run.