In a post on Writers Helping Writers, Marissa Graff suggests why your action scene is falling apart. Writers are often told that we need to grab our readers from the start with great action, but if you don’t pace your scenes for the long run, your readers may opt out. “Let’s talk about four reasons readers unbuckle their seatbelts and climb out of that fast-moving vehicle of your story so we can understand how to keep them until your ride has come to a complete stop,” Graff writes.
- It’s Too Soon. “Inserting readers immediately into action is powerful, but inserting them into high-action too soon can fall flat,” Graff says. “Why? Because the reader hasn’t had time to care about your character, much less their external circumstances.”
- The Scene Is Making Us Dizzy. When the writer knows what every character is doing, we can be tempted to put it all on the page, which can be confusing. If you ask readers to keep track of every character’s movement, they might get lost in the scene or miss the internal value you’re trying to convey. “It starts to feel like reading a bunch of stage direction instead of an edge-of-our-seats event,” Graff writes. She suggests keeping close to your protagonist and filter your scene through their eyes, showing the details that most directly impact the hero.
- The Details Have Become the Haystack, And We Can’t Find the Needle. Similarly, you shouldn’t over-describe what’s happening to your protagonist. “Sometimes, we see every movement our character makes and we feel compelled to include it so the reader sees it, too,” Graff notes. “But as we overly burden the narrative with orchestrated movements, a problem emerges: Readers find it hard to pin down what matters most in the haystack of detail.”
- We Already Know the Outcome. If you rely on threats to your main character’s life to build tension in your scene, you risk losing your reader, who knows that you are unlikely to kill your hero too early in your novel, if at all. “What really matters is why your character needs to win that scene in tangible, goal-driven terms,” Graff says. “Ensure that each fight/battle/high-action scene your character goes through has something at stake that’s deeper and more meaningful than their physical safety. What does losing a particular battle or not coming out on top in an action scene cost them? Why must they win beyond retaining their physical safety? What does that scene’s outcome represent that then allows the character to advance the next scene toward a larger goal?”
