This week’s video uses an example from Jim Butcher’s fantasy Academ’s Fury to illustrate how to avoid unneeded action scenes.
Video Transcript:
Action is given a lot of emphasis these days. It can manifest differently according to the needs of the genre in general and the story in particular, but the necessity for it never changes. However, within all this emphasis put upon showing action instead of telling it, we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that there are moments when our stories will actually be better off for not including or showing the action.
And so you ask, “What are these moments?” To be honest, they’re a little hard to pin down, since they’re really going to depend on the rhythm and the requirements of the individual story. But what we’re talking about here are scenes in which action is actually going to end up being tedious instead of thrilling, simply because readers want to be somewhere else. They know something good is coming up, and they’d much rather focus on it rather than the lengthy action required for the characters to battle through the courtyard to finally get to that showdown with the evil king.
As an example, consider Jim Butcher’s fantasy Academ’s Fury, in which he demonstrates a keen sensibility for when to show the action and when not to. In general, this is an extremely action-packed book. But there’s a notable exception late in the second act. Here we find the hero breaking into a prison to free a friend, so they can both get back to the main conflict. Butcher shows the action, the conflict, and the tension as the character is breaking into the prison. But when it comes time to sneak back out, Butcher obviously realized readers aren’t going to be nearly as interested in retreading the same action—perilous and exciting though it may be. What readers want is to get back to the relational conflict back at the base. And that is exactly what Butcher offers. It’s an example we can all learn from.
Photo Credit
Thumbnail – Screen Capture From Video
Originally published on Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors
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