Is it just me, or is writing action scenes hard?
I’ve been writing a ton of them lately. While I do not find them hard to actually create, it’s the “actually writing them down” that has proven difficult. I’ve found when writing my action scenes, I tend to write faster and write ahead of myself. It’s as if the action is literally caught up in my fingers and having a duel with the keyboard.
The novel I’m writing, for the most part, is pretty action packed in the last third of the novel. In fact, every scene until the last two have some sort of intense action scene planned in it.
I wrote three different scenes today and all three were filled with a ton of action. While writing them however, I found that I was skipping words in sentences or actions all together! (Ie. Instead of “The man ran an punched a guy in the face,” I’d write, “The man punched him.”) I was so rilled up to get to the next action moment I’d just skip over details! It was both ridiculous and hilarious!
That being said, once I caught on, I did my best to pace myself properly.
Ah, the problems with writing.
Action scenes are very tough to write. There’s so much movement to describe precisely, and it takes a lot of work that can bog the story down. There’s no magic bullet on how to do it. Trial and error, really.
Hey, Sean!
You’re right. It’s funny to see how tough they are to write. You watch TV shows and movies – some action scenes only last mere moments. Writing it all out, however, is quite the challenge. Especially trying to find the right words to describe what’s happening and how peoples bodies are moving.