Tips for Writing Fast-Paced Scenes

Short sentences/paragraphs will read faster than longer ones. Don't stop to descibe things. Make the descriptions part of the action.

Short snappy sentences.

Eschew all forms of the verb "to be". It's a passive verb that slows action:

He was watching her run across the bridge...

versus

He watched her run across the bridge...

Same goes for description:

His hair was light brown and his eyes were blue.

versus

His light brown hair flopped into his blue eyes.

Forget writing what you know. Write what you imagine.

Sit for an hour or so doing nothing but going over your scene in your mind. By the time you're ready to burst, give yourself a limited time (I give myself about 20 minutes) to get it typed. When the buzzer goes off, you're done - no buts. You'll automatically cut the BS and write in an urgent, action-packed tone.

When editing time rolls around, make sure you only clarify your sentences without adding too much extra fluff on to bog it down.

Practice: Watch an action scene in a movie and give yourself a time limit to transcribe it.

Come Nano with me over at my blog!

Technically neither of the examples you gave were passive: 'he was watching' is just past tense, continuous aspect. 'hair was light brown' and 'eyes were blue' are just simple past tense in the copular valency pattern. All active.

/nitpicking.

That said, I tend to agree. Plenty of colourful verbs, short sentences, a few fragments here and there. Don't rush the action, just edit the hell out of it.

2007: 28,513 words
2005: 50,916 words
2003: 12,078 words

Here's something I picked up from an editor's blog. She mentioned that in Suzanne Collins's book The Hunger Games (madly suspenseful and uber fast-paced post-apocalyptic novel), the sentences were structured so that the important information nearly always came at the end. This has the effect of always pushing the reader forward.

I don't have the book in front of me, but if I recall, Collins uses a nice mix of long, medium, and short sentences -- as compared to some suspense writers where

Everything.

Is.

Its.

Own.

Paragraph.

You can only get away with so much of that before it gets tiresome.

But with putting the info that the reader REALLY WANTS at the end of the sentence, Collins creates a fast, frenetic pace throughout the novel.

I'm going to experiment with this technique when I'm writing some big action scenes in my novel.

NaNo '09 - The Understated Unraveling of Mercedes Moreno (rewrite) - YA magic realism

"It'll be smashing this time, I think." -- Elaine Stritch

www.twitter.com/harperkarcz - John Green follows me, and you should too.

Something I find myself doing a lot is throwing a whole bunch of actions into one string, and my style gets very choppy. In fact, what I'm writing write now isn't really an action scene, but a frantic one nonetheless:

Also, I second the idea of putting what the reader wants to know at the end of the sentence or paragraph. Show the character's reaction first, and then the reader will keep reading to find out what caused that reaction.

~Romans 5: 1-5~

This thread is really useful to me.

To quote Elmore Leonard:
"Cut out the boring parts."

But seriously...
-Use active and forceful verbs.
-Write short sentences.
-Include Minimal setting details, maybe two to four details per scene
-Go easy on descriptions of physical actions
-Each scene should either do characterization or move the plot forward.

2008 (won): The Kimchi Conspiracy
http://www.happenchance.net --> Useful stuff for creative people

Write short. Write Choppy. Write dynamic. Don't stay on one thing. Move quickly through the scene.

I know it's different from novel-writing style, but when Shakespeare wanted his characters to speak with urgency, panic, or great excitement, he used lots of punctuation to chop up the lines. His actors knew (and modern actors still know, if they have studied the history of his writing) that they should take a breath at every punctuation point.

For example, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Hermia is awakened by a nightmare in the woods, she starts out of sleep like this:
"Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear..."

It's pretty easy for an actress to convey terror and panic when she is gasping for breath by breathing at every punctuation mark in there.

I think that's why writing short, quick lines, especially with back and forth dialogue, seems to help move a scene forward in a novel.

I know it's different from novel-writing style, but when Shakespeare wanted his characters to speak with urgency, panic, or great excitement, he used lots of punctuation to chop up the lines. His actors knew (and modern actors still know, if they have studied the history of his writing) that they should take a breath at every punctuation point.

For example, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Hermia is awakened by a nightmare in the woods, she starts out of sleep like this:
"Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear..."

It's pretty easy for an actress to convey terror and panic when she is gasping for breath by breathing at every punctuation mark in there.

I think that's why writing short, quick lines, especially with back and forth dialogue, seems to help move a scene forward in a novel.

I know it's different from novel-writing style, but when Shakespeare wanted his characters to speak with urgency, panic, or great excitement, he used lots of punctuation to chop up the lines. His actors knew (and modern actors still know, if they have studied the history of his writing) that they should take a breath at every punctuation point.

For example, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Hermia is awakened by a nightmare in the woods, she starts out of sleep like this:
"Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear..."

It's pretty easy for an actress to convey terror and panic when she is gasping for breath by breathing at every punctuation mark in there.

I think that's why writing short, quick lines, especially with back and forth dialogue, seems to help move a scene forward in a novel.

I know it's different from novel-writing style, but when Shakespeare wanted his characters to speak with urgency, panic, or great excitement, he used lots of punctuation to chop up the lines. His actors knew (and modern actors still know, if they have studied the history of his writing) that they should take a breath at every punctuation point.

For example, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Hermia is awakened by a nightmare in the woods, she starts out of sleep like this:
"Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear..."

It's pretty easy for an actress to convey terror and panic when she is gasping for breath by breathing at every punctuation mark in there.

I think that's why writing short, quick lines, especially with back and forth dialogue, seems to help move a scene forward in a novel.

Crap it! Sorry for posting four times! Dratted computer.

That's really cool! Thanks for that tip. Do you have an example of how you could structure a sentence that way? I feel I kind of know what you mean but am trying to make it more concrete in my mind.

Just write the scene, using as much description as you need. Editing is where you'll amp up the pace by reading the thing and deciding which things need to be changed and which words, lines or paragrpahs to cut out.

"The job of good science fiction is to combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic."
- Robert J. Sawyer, author

"Never surrender dreams."
- J. Michael Straczynski

And now to nitpick the nitpicker:

Franthephoenix -

You're confusing passive voice with passive, (not active) verbs.

Passive voice is object verb subject (the killer was arrested by the police)

Active voice is subject object verb - the thing doing the action comes first (the police arrested the killer)

The original comment was that conjugated forms of "To be" remain relatively inert and do little. Compare 'to sit' and 'to kill,' there's a lot more action involved in 'to kill' than 'to sit.' That's what munchkyn meant.

/nitpick

There's something called E-prime style of writing where you never use forms of "to be."

That Worlds of Wonder guy does it sometimes--Dave Eddings?

JanNoWriMo07 - Still Waters Run Deep - >70,000 won (didn't know there was a group!)
AugNoWriMo07 - The Wreck of the Day ->50,000 won (over on Proboards)
NaNoWriMo07 - Fever ->65,670 won.
NaNoWriMo08 - Abracadabra - >72,663 won

This could be even more immediate if you just wrote "she ran across the bridge," unless there's a reason to focus on the guy doing the watching rather than on her.

I don't know if this helps, but i am doing a scene where the character is in a maze, and he has five minutes to get out. At the beginning of each paragraph, i announce how much time he has left, counting down from five minutes. First five, then four, three, two, one, thirty seconds. I felt that it gave the sense of urgency and action i wanted. The paragraphs between them described running and many random questions the character was asking himself. I tried to convey a sense of confusion and urgency as best as i possibly could. I hope this helps

Firstly, this thread is really, really useful...

Secondly, I'll give some suggestions for things that work for me. I think it works best when writing in 1st person, but it could work for 3rd person as well. 1st person gives it a larger effect, I think.

When I write a slower scene I'd say something like: "I watched Julian turn his head and look off into the distance."

In a more fast paced scene, I'd write, "Julian whipped his head around, and scoured the horizon."

Which is basically doing everything that's been explained previously. Use better verbs and high-impact words. If you search, or if you scour? Do you shout, or scream? Are you frantic, or worried? For me, it all depends on word choice.

Also, if you're character amuses the reader with their cryptic, cynical, and sarcastic thoughts *cut them out*. No matter how clever, cute, or downright hilarious it is, you want the reader to sprint through your passage, not sit and laugh about how funny Steve happens to be. This is also true with 3rd person limited, and some styles of 3rd person omniscient, depending on whether you go into the individual characters' thoughts.

(And, for the lurking nitpickers, leave my over usage of my comma alone. I realize I use it too many times. I just luffles it so much...)

That's really interesting. I just finished reading the sequel to that book and noticed that she does have a knack for the action scenes, I just didn't notice why.
Great tip, I will definitely try it out in my novel!

signature removed, exceeds guidelines

I just love nitpicking grammarians!! Were were you when Microsoft designed or coded "grammar check," on "Word?"

P.S: Why are you still using Ink? Or is that moniker just to throw us off the scent? Note I call myself Writer! Ha Ha!!

Well, at least I'm quite honest, so let me stop my "time spending," and get to work!

"Don't let what you can't do stop you from doing what you can do."

Debut Novel Bestseller!!!

That's a really good tip. I'll definitely be using it Thanks!

My Live Journal Account http://brandy-bean.livejournal.com/
Feel free to friend me!

2008: Mosaic - Won
2009: Familiar Footsteps - In progress

Similar to what has been said earlier, I find it best to put what the reader wants at the end of a sentence. Also, if you want a full scene to be quickly, while keeping it exciting, put some final info at the end of the paragraph, but bring reference to it at the beginning.

For example, in my story I have a character killed just as he is discovering the first body. I start the scene with him pulling out a 'large, heavy object,' but neither he nor the character sees what the object is until he is bludgeoned and falls to the floor, facing the body.

You shouldn't be here, you should be NaNoing!

Main Characters killed: 8
Main Characters surviving:0
Times I've changed major plot:3
Extras killed:4
Damage dealt to lodge:Avalanche, fire, bomb, broken walls, power outage, and elevator collapse.

A friend of mine singled out a sentence during a particularly suspenseful scene in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Let me see if I can find it...

What drew her to this sentence was that it starts off with long punctuation, then the punctuation gets shorter before disappearing altogether. It mimicks the speed of Jane's heartbeat. That seems to me a good way to write an action scene. Short sentences are good, too, but if you have a longer sentence, play with the words and punctuation until the rhythm speeds up. I've seen it in a number of books and it's quite effective.

06 - Painted Wings and Giants' Rings - FAIL
07 - Sing Me a Riddle - FAIL
08 - Laugh, Kookaburra, Laugh - WON! 50,019
09 - May Day - WON! 51,011

I notice that if I give myself exactly the time that the scene is supposedly supposed to be happening in, the scene gets long and drawn out. I cut the time in real life typing the scene into about a quarter of the time the scene actually takes in the book. Things get really short and clipped really fast. Fleshing out sentences so that they make sense comes later.

I do the "everything has its own paragraph/sentence" thing sometimes, unfortunately. I know it annoys people, but most of my action scenes are dreams and nightmares and memories and stuff. (how descriptive.)

A sample of how I do it:

"Daddy’s gun and tools and wirey-stuffs are at his worktable in the old shed. Why didn’t he pack them?
The gun is heavy. It’s really old.
There’s paint under the table. Black. Did Daddy forget to come here?
Banging. Laughing. Talking. Gunshots.
Hiding. Head hurts. Can’t breathe. Scarf.
Dizzy. Can’t see. Cold. Head is wet. With what?
Passing out. Darkness. Screaming. Waking up.
It hurt. It hurt so much…"

(The word 'scarf' probably seems more than random...)

This hasn't been edited, so a couple of sentences are too descriptive, but the general idea is there. This would make a professional go bonkers and they would probably snarl at me and fling it in my face if I showed them, but hey. It works.

Notice that I didn't describe the character picking up the gun. Yet he has to have, as the observation that the gun is heavy is included in the next paragraph. Also, he had to have sat or at least moved to have gone from seeing the top of the desk to underneath it.

Eliminating everyday action - sitting, picking things up, standing, walking, etc, helps speed up the action if you use it sparingly. If you don't include it at all, though, you just kind of lose your reader. The scene above was supposed to be confusing, and the reader was meant to be almost completely lost as to what was going on. I'd suggest being a bit more coherent if your character isn't either drugged, having a nightmare/dream, or remembering a fuzzy faraway and traumatizing memory.

In the first sentence, I eliminate commas so the list of things on the desk looks like this:

"gun and tools and wirey-stuffs"

Rather than like this:

"gun, tools, and wirey-stuffs"

Part of this has to do with the fact that the scene is from the perspective of a child, but have you ever noticed how a person who is panicked or crying or scared either starts going "and this and this and this and this and this and this..." or "or this could happen or maybe that or that but they all suck!"

Yeah? That's what I applied there. When you're scared, you don't stop for punctuation. A reader will rarely stop at the commas in an action scene. They want to get to the next sentence; the next word, even. They barely even see the commas. And/or has a nice ranting ring to it, so while you are giving the reader the next word that they want, there is still coherency so that they aren't reading it "gun tools and wirey-stuffs", which sounds horrible to you as the writer, who probably does not want it read that way.

Oops. I didn't mean to type that much...

Very good advice so far!

When I'm writing action, I try to streamline. Stick with one character and play through to the end. If it's important to play another character through the same scene, I create a new scene and follow through that character. One of the ways I write battle is to put on some of the battle scenes out of the Lord of the Rings movies. They seem very true to what I would imagine being in battle would be. Well, minus the fantasy creatures, obviously... but the idea is the same. I like having the sounds of war going on in the background, so I cue the scene and start writing. When I need visual, it's behind Ywriter and I bring it up. Otherwise I minimize it and let it play while I write. Setting the mood with music or sounds from a movie really help.

There's an old folk saying that goes: Whenever you delete a sentence in your NaNoWriMo novel, a NaNoWriMo angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground.

I use simpler language, and shorter sentences. It also helps to cut their thoughts off a lot:
He could see it now...
But it was too late...
What was he doing?
etc.
That's always fun to write.

I'm in a play being put on by my Drama department, and I noticed a lot of things you all have brought up are in that play.
Near the beginning as the characters are being fleshed out there are a lot of long lines--practically soliloquies. Then in the middle of the play there is the action. There are a lot of single-word lines, with most of the characters yelling "no" then breaking off. (People are dying, in case you were wondering.) What follows is very simple. A character says half a line but is interrupted by one word.
"Everything was so clear, so--"
"Silent"
Breaking the train of thought draws attention to the single word and the action-y scene.
*shrugs*
It works for me, anyway. It's a powerful scene on stage and similar techniques could be used in your story. If you naturally write "flowy" and wordy, write short, choppy sentences.
Hmm...
I wonder if the opposite would work as well? If you naturally write choppy sentences, suddenly and highly descriptive paragraph would seem like action. Sort of like when a disaster is occurring and everything seems to slow way down around you. Everything is really sharp and clear.
Couldn't hurt to try! Sorry if I babbled, just thought it was an interesting idea that needed posting.