Writing Action and Description

There's a world of difference between the two. You're using the same voice: maybe that of your narrator, your character – or your own voice, the voice of the writer.

But the words will vary. With action, you'll want to mimic fast movement. So your words will be short. And so will your sentences. In some cases, you'll wish to allot a paragraph to each sentence – even if it's only a single word.

Your aim is to focus the reader's attention on each and every action.

The last thing you want to do is to bore your reader!

An example of action

Action can be anything from a battle between rival fleets of starships to somebody losing a contact lens in a washbasin. What both have in common is that they must be short, sharp and to the point.

The following occurs in an early chapter of my new novel, The Faustian Gambit. Portia, the heroine, is on the Cooley Peninsula, together with Myles, her fiancé. They're heading for a house owned by his uncle. It's big: about 20 times bigger than Anaverna!

It's night. They've just driven through a snow storm. A mysterious woman ran across their path, causing Myles to swerve the car. It skidded and ended up in a snowdrift. They're shaken but unhurt.

The novel is written in the first person singular: Portia's point of view.

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"You're upset."

He took my hands in his. They were trembling.

"It was nothing."

But I was already opening my door.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to take a look."

"Portia!"

"If you want to help then get the torch. It's in the glove compartment."

He caught up with me before I'd gone more than two or three metres, my boots breaking the crust of the crisp snow like a fork in meringue.

My knees were cold; I regretted not having put on thicker tights and a warmer skirt.

Myles played the torch's beam from left to right, right to left.

Nothing.

The trees were a black wall against which nothing moved.

The moon came out then, very briefly, but showed no more than the hand-held light had done.

The flashlight's beam moved erratically. It lanced into the treetops – and went out.

I turned quickly.

"Myles!"

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That's all you need for an action sequence: the action. And short, sharp dialogue. Of course you'll need to include some description, but it must be pared to a minimum. As long as you've set the scene earlier, your reader will know where your characters are, the setting they find themselves in.

Describing the scene,
setting the tone

A descriptive passage, on the other hand, should move at a very leisurely pace. If action is an athlete doing the 100-metre dash then description is your granddad out for a Sunday stroll.

Your emphasis here will be on atmosphere. Think of it as the opening sequence to a scary movie, when the camera is looking slowly about a room, pausing in dark corners, zooming in on a spooky portrait on the wall – that sort of thing.

Your sentence structure will reflect this. Your words can be interesting (without being purple). Your sentences will be a lot longer than those describing action. You want to slow your reader down.

An example of description

The sequence below is taken from the same chapter of The Faustian Gambit. Myles and Portia have resumed their journey to Whitethorn Hall, home of Myles's uncle.

They've recovered from the incident in the woods. Peace has returned. Now Portia has more time to look about her, to study her surroundings.

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Breaking out into the moonlight again, we caught our first sight of the house.

It was massive, bigger than I'd expected. I didn't know much about such things but thought it foreign: English or French perhaps, for it seemed not to belong here. It was built entirely of brick. I could only guess at the colour but it was pale. I wondered how it would look in full sunlight.

The moon seemed brighter now, almost a silver simulation of the sun. Dimly I recalled something written by the poet Robert Graves; it concerned a neolithic site in Britain – Stonehenge I believe – a place where the sun and moon seemed closer to the earth than any other vantage point on the planet. I didn't understand it at the time, thought he was being, well, poetic. But some years later it occurred to me: he must have been referring to the winter solstice; oddly enough, it's in and around this time of year when we get perihelion in the Northern Hemisphere – and that's just the time when the sun is indeed closest to the earth. He might as well, I concluded, have been writing about Whitethorn Hall.

But I digress. The house was having a wondrous effect on me – and I could tell Myles felt it too. I'll try to describe it as best I can. It was perfectly symmetrical, in the way such big country houses are. There was a grouping of square towers on either flank; all were castellated and they sloped off progressively. Directly behind the entrance rose an even higher tower. In the moonlight my impression was that of a hulking bird of prey, an eagle perhaps, crouched with partly furled wings.

There was an entrance porch, complete with an arch and a raised coat of arms. The windows – and there were many of them – were trellised and strangely eyelike. I was put in mind of an ancient church, or even a monastery. I glimpsed what appeared to be a small dome atop one of the highest towers, to the right of the entrance, before it fell away out of sight as we neared the building.

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You'll have noticed that we're inside Portia's head. The excitement has died down, and she has time to think. She remembers stuff, compares what she sees with old experiences. She's a poet as well, hence her poetic language.

So that's War and Peace contained within a single chapter :0)

Wit and Humour

"I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor." ~ James Humes

... and that about sums it up. When you're writing a serious story, jokes are the last thing you need. If you feel the urge to write jokes then go ahead and write comedy.

Wit is different. Wit is what pulls your readers up sharp and makes them smile. They'll love you for it.

The best form of wit—I find anyway—is when you can share a joke with your readers. You write something that shows them that you're (literally) on the same page.

Here's an example. On Saturday we looked at describing a character. Somebody suggested a teacher. It's a good place to start. Teachers come in all shapes and sizes of course and some are quite eccentric. They're the most interesting ones!

Since you (and your reader) will be familiar with at least one eccentric teacher, you can write something witty about a teacher. Your reader will recognize certain traits, habits, mode of dress, conduct, voice, and lots of other things.

Use this shared knowledge to create a wacky character. Something like this:

Miss McCann was five minutes late, as usual. In fact, we'd have been surprised if she'd appeared on time. She didn't keep us waiting deliberately. It was simply because she carried with her at all times a schoolbag that looked big enough to transport the contents of a small house.

We never knew exactly what she had in the bag. But she'd unpack most of it at the start of every lesson. There were books, jotters, notebooks, magazines, a framed picture of her dog (run over by a careless taxidriver many years before), her knitting, a bag of sweets, pens, pencils, erasers, glue, a scarf (even in summer), a desk diary, and lastly an old, moth-eaten teddy bear.

All this would go on her desk. Not only that, but everything had to be in its proper place. Meanwhile we'd be waiting patiently, not daring to interrupt. Not that you'd want to. It was fun to watch Miss McCann go through her routine.

That routine never varied. The bag would be produced at the start of the class and at the end, when she'd carefully clear her desk and return everything to the bag. By the time her next class was due to start, she'd still be packing her precious belongings into that bag.

But we loved her for it. It brightened up an otherwise dull day.

You get the idea. Miss McCann is "larger than life". She couldn't possibly exist, yet there are recognizable elements in her behaviour. When you poke fun at Miss McCann, your readers will share in the joke.

Aliens ate my hamster :0(

Creating your own alien universe

It sounds so easy. You're free to invent your own universe or galaxy. You can do whatever you want. You make the rules.

In reality, though, it's a tough call. Sure, it's not too hard to dream up a solar system, complete with planets not unlike our own. An "alternative" Earth. How much of it consists of oceans and seas, dry land, mountains, rivers and valleys?

What are the flora and fauna like? Are there trees as we know them? Are the plants green?

The animals. Are there fishes in the sea, birds in the air, beasts on land? Insects, parasites?

You can give them any shapes and sizes you like. Is your planet as "peaceful" as ours or is it a far more dangerous place to live?

Your alien super-race

This is your biggest challenge. To create the dominant species on your planet. They could resemble us in many ways. They could have two eyes, one mouth, one nose, two ears. But those ears could be pointed as was the case with the movie Avatar.

The skin could be blue, again like Avatar. Or any other colour you wish. The super-race could be bigger than humans, or smaller. Making them smaller means of course that they're more vulnerable, a prey to predators.

But all this is window-dressing. Your real objective is to make your aliens likeable. Your reader has to identify with them. This is your real challenge.

It's Romeo and Juliet, but not as we know them, Jim.

Your characters. As we saw before, they are the most important elements of your story.

The universe that you create is vast, perhaps vaster than our own. Your galaxy is slightly less vast but huge nevertheless. A spacecraft would need many generations to fly from one extremity of your galaxy to another.

Your planet is big too. Maybe bigger than Earth. You've given it a name, perhaps called it after a Roman or Greek god. Plenty of names to choose from here on this page.

But nothing plays a bigger role in your story than your main characters. They drive it. Your readers must feel their pain, share in their joy, support them in their every endeavour and adventure.

In the same way as you made your human characters as lifelike as possible, so too much your aliens appear real. They must have emotions. They love, they hate, they feel compassion, loss—all human emotions in fact.

No matter how weird you make them in appearance. No matter if they live in trees and have tails, are covered in ginger hair from head to toe, have teeth as long as knives, they are an extension of you.

Give them problems to solve. Is their planet threatened by another race of aliens? If their sun dying? Are they at war with one another?

Of course the best stories are those that involve romance. Romeo and Juliet, the star-crossed lovers, are universal.

Even if their skin is blue and their ears are pointy.

Passion!

How to write with it, and about it

The title of Trey Songz's latest album sums up what the best writing should be full of: passion, pain and pleasure.

"Passion" has several meanings, from Christ's Passion—what he suffered before the Crucifixion—to great love, great feeling or emotion, right down to the insane love of a favourite chocolate treat. "He had a passion for TimeOuts that could not be satisfied." :0)

But generally speaking passion goes beyond the ordinary. We talk about a TD making an "impassioned speech" to the Dáil, i.e. a speech full of fire and great feeling. Or a barrister making a "passionate plea" on behalf of his client, to save her from going to prison.

In each case the speaker believes in what he or she is saying. And the speech moves the audience.

How does this translate into your writing? For a start, you the writer must put yourself in your character's situation. You must feel their joy, pain, fear—whatever great emotion is gripping them. You must experience their emotions as if they're your own.

Here's how Dan Brown, in Angels and Demons, describes the predicament his hero has landed in. He's trapped.

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Like a recurring theme in some demonic symphony, the suffocating darkness had returned.

No light. No air. No exit.

Langdon lay trapped beneath the overturned sarcophagus and felt his mind careening dangerously close to the brink. Trying to drive his thoughts in any direction other than the crushing space around him, Langdon urged his mind towards some logical process . . . mathematics, music, anything. But there was no room for calming thoughts. I can't move! I can't breathe!

The pinched sleeve of his jacket had thankfully come free when the casket fell, leaving Langdon now with two mobile arms. Even so, as he pressed upward on the ceiling of his tiny cell, he found it immovable. Oddly, he wished his sleeve were still caught. At least it might create a crack for some air.

Langdon probed the blackness for any other sign of light, but the casket rim was flush against the floor. Goddamn Italian perfectionists, he cursed, now imperilled by the same artistic excellence he taught his students to revere . . . impeccable edges, faultless parallels, and of course, use only of the most seamless and resilient Carrara marble.

Precision can be suffocating.

"Lift the damn thing," he said aloud, pressing harder through the tangle of bones. The box shifted slightly. Setting his jaw, he heaved again. The box felt like a boulder, but this time it raised a quarter of an inch. A fleeting glimmer of light surrounded him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He tried to use his legs to lift as he had before, but now that the sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room even to straighten his knees.

As the claustrophobic panic closed in, Langdon was overcome by images of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical shred of intellect he had.

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Notice the short paragraphs when Brown wants to get across his character's thoughts. Those one-line paragraphs really pull the reader up short. They focus on the passionate feelings.

Your choice of words is very important too. If you're writing about fear, you'll want to use words like "nail-biting"

... or frightful, horrible, grim, awful, dire; horrifying, alarming, shocking, distressing, appalling, harrowing; ghastly, fearful, horrendous...

You'll also want to describe how your character is responding to the situation. Is he trembling, sweating, shaking with fear? Is his heart thumping, his mouth dry? Be vivid. Remember the most terrifying situation you were in and use those emotions you felt.

BTW, I had to shorten this post. Reason? The server wasn't responding. I don't know what's wrong. For instance, it wouldn't let me do italics or colours on the page, which is annoying.

I'll come back to it because it's a very important part of writing. Watch this space!

People and Places

Putting your reader in the picture

As a writer you must think in three dimensions. Or four if we include time! It's sometimes called spatial awareness, which says it all. You have to be aware of space.

Here's Stephenie Meyer writing in Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the Twilight series. Bella is visiting Jason Jenks, attorney and forger, who has his office in a run-down district. Take a look at how Stephenie sets the scene without going into too much detail.

To say that it wasn’t a nice neighbourhood would be an understatement. The most nondescript of all the Cullens’ cars was still outrageous on this street. My old Chevy would have looked healthy here. During my human years, I would have locked the doors and driven away as fast as I dared. As it was, I was a little fascinated. I tried to imagine Alice in this place for any reason, and failed.

The buildings—all three stories, all narrow, all leaning slightly as if bowed by the pounding rain—were mostly old houses divided up into multiple apartments. It was hard to tell what colour the peeling paint was supposed to be. Everything had faded to shades of grey. A few of the buildings had businesses on the first floor: a dirty bar with the windows painted black, a psychic’s supply store with neon hands and tarot cards glowing fitfully on the door, a tattoo parlour, and a daycare with duct tape holding the broken front window together. There were no lamps on inside any of the rooms, though it was grim enough outside that the humans should have needed the light. I could hear the low mumbling of voices in the distance; it sounded like TV.

There were a few people about, two shuffling through the rain in opposite directions and one sitting on the shallow porch of a boarded-up cut-rate law office, reading a wet newspaper and whistling. The sound was much too cheerful for the setting.

We get the picture. We also get the sounds, which are important in this case. Smells are useful too. Your character walks along an old harbour and smells rotten fish, thereby adding to the sense of decay. Your character picks up a baby and it smells sweet, reminding her of her first child's infancy. Sounds and smells can draw your reader right into the scene.

Here's a short excerpt from my new novel, partly set in medieval Holland:

Coster shook his head as though the tall man were a simpleton. He gave no immediate answer but instead went to the window, freed the latches, and threw it open.

A gallimaufry of sounds swept in: the whinny of a horse, a fiery argument between two uneducated men, the grumble of a load being deposited in a nearby yard, three dogs barking from three different quarters, the distant thump of a cannon sounding the hour, a girl singing out of tune in French, the bawling of an infant in need of suckling.

"There lies Haarlem," Coster said unnecessarily. "The finest city of the Lowlands. Men come from every corner of Christendom to sing her praises."

Note my use of "antique" English: simpleton, gallimaufry, suckling, etc. They're not hard to understand but help to create the medieval atmosphere that's needed.

Stealing from the movies

No, I don't mean downloading films from the internet for free. I'm talking about using stills from movies to help with your writing. I do it very often and find it very useful.

Say you've set your story in Italy—as Méabh has. If you've never visited then you'll have no more than a vague idea of what a typical Italian interior or street looks like.

Google "movies set in Florence" for example. Or Genoa or Venice. There are a great many but you'll probably want recent ones. Once you've found one that fits your story, you can rent or borrow it. You can go through it and freeze the action whenever you see a good interior/exterior, and describe what you see.

An even easier way is to do a Google image search. Try this one: "Italian interiors". Within seconds it led me to this great image. But you can get bigger ones of course.

Atmosphere means a lot in your writing. It helps your reader to truly experience a scene.

Choice

That is the question!

It's a question that has vexed people since the beginning of time. Every day, every hour—and sometimes every minute—we have to make choices.

Trivial choices. The alarm clock goes off. Should I get up right now, or should I give myself an extra few minutes in bed? Breakfast: cereal or toast? Or both? Which outfit will I wear today, it being Saturday or Sunday. Should I shower or bathe now—or later. Decisions, decisions.

Then there are the tough choices. Somebody bullies me or insults me. Do I respond in kind, or let it go? My parents want me to go on to study law or economics; I want to go into show business or do media studies. Decisions, big decisions.

If you're unlucky, you may one day have to make a major choice, one that involves life and death. Your own life or that of someone close to you. You're torn. Your mind is in a ferment. Each choice has consequences so it's vital that you make the right one.

This is an unenviable position to be in. But it happens to more people than you think. If you're writing fiction then you wish to place your protagonist—your main character—in that unenviable position.

And it's no coincidence that the word protagonist contains, very nearly, the word "agony". Your character, when faced with a tough choice, will have to agonize over what he or she should do. Fight or flee; tell the truth or keep silent; offer help or walk on.

Place your character between a rock and a hard place

My friends at phrases.org.uk tell me that this expression originated in 1917 in Arizona, when copper miners were faced with a stark choice. Their lives and the lives of their families depended on their making the right decision.

Whatever the situation you place your protagonists in, there's one golden rule. Make them suffer! Don't make it easy for them. You have to build up the tension, otherwise your story will be weak.

Your reader should have an emotional bond with your characters. Your reader should identify with them, feel their pain, suffer along with them. That way, you'll be mirroring real life.

Put yourself in your character's place

Your character is you. He or she will have your doubts, fears and other emotions. All good fiction contains lots of emotion. You have to aim for your reader's heart, not his/her head. When your fiction "tugs at the heart-strings" it will be successful and memorable. Your readers will come away from your story with the feeling that your work has touched them in a special way.

Anybody can write an adventure story. It's simply a matter of creating exciting situations. There are novels that describe famous events, battles, voyages of discovery, great catastrophes. But if those novels did not contain characters the reader can empathize with, they'd be as dry as a history book. We needed Robin Hood to bring medieval England alive for us. Jane Eyre did the same for Regency England.

The moment of choice

You've set the scene. Danger is about to strike. Your hero or heroine is unprepared—and so is your reader. You're about to take them both by surprise.

Boom!

(I chose that word carefully. It's short, it's explosive. It's right there on its own. Keep it short; that's the best way to introduce your surprise to your character and your reader. You're going for the dramatic effect.)

Next you have to describe how your character responds. Take your time. Even though you're describing what may be a split second in real time, you have to stretch it to breaking point. You can do this in a number of ways. For example, you describe the physical changes in your character.

I froze.
I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
I stopped dead, my heart thumping.
I felt the blood drain from my face.

Or you tell us what's going on in your character's head.

I was suddenly afraid.
I felt as though I'd seen a ghost.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
I thought: This isn't happening; it's a dream, a nightmare.
I was never so scared in all my life.

You won't have failed to notice the number of clichés I've used in the above. It's okay; there's nothing wrong with a cliché. It's a cliché because it's a phrase that has stood the test of time.

But your writing will make more impact on your reader if you use original language. See if you can take a couple of those clichés and put your own spin on them.

The choice is made, for better or worse

Your character weighs up the choices available. Maybe there are two, maybe more. But she chooses only one, that which appears to be the right choice. Of course it isn't. It only makes matters worse—and your story better, more tense.

The unfortunate choice propels your character into an even direr situation. And she has to face yet another choice. And another. Once again your reader will be in your character's shoes. Feeling her pain and her dread.

Be sure to save the biggest choice of all to just before the end of your story.

Boom!