Get Dynamic
What I find to be ironic about very active sequences is that the process of writing them is so much slower and more deliberate than just writing about two people having a conversation. The physical logistics alone take me days. "What does that guy do while this guy's running up the stairs? How about the girl over there? What's happening in the rest of the room? How soon would the people on the second floor get sick of all the racket and come down to holler at someone? Would Soandso just stand there while all this is going on?"
Because in an action sequence a lot of things happen at once, and while you can show that in a medium like film (in fact, the more things that happen at once in an action-movie sequence, the better, apparently), in written fiction you can't do that unless you keep going back in narrative time over and over and explain what everyone's up to. A lot of writers, of whom I will probably be one, employ the time-honored phrase "Everything seemed to happen at once" to indicate to the reader that these things are, in fact, all happening at once; other writers, generally known among the intelligentsia as "better," just tell you the important things and use style to create the required sense of urgency or chaos.
The heavy logistics also prevent me from dictating scenes like this, since I so often have to refer back to one or more of the other things that are happening at once, so all else aside, I work at half speed just from having to type it all. It's very discouraging.
And where the heck is fall, exactly? Surely by this time of year we should be getting at least a couple of days under 70 degrees? I've got to get hold of whoever's in charge.
Word Count: 28,311 (+843)
Because in an action sequence a lot of things happen at once, and while you can show that in a medium like film (in fact, the more things that happen at once in an action-movie sequence, the better, apparently), in written fiction you can't do that unless you keep going back in narrative time over and over and explain what everyone's up to. A lot of writers, of whom I will probably be one, employ the time-honored phrase "Everything seemed to happen at once" to indicate to the reader that these things are, in fact, all happening at once; other writers, generally known among the intelligentsia as "better," just tell you the important things and use style to create the required sense of urgency or chaos.
The heavy logistics also prevent me from dictating scenes like this, since I so often have to refer back to one or more of the other things that are happening at once, so all else aside, I work at half speed just from having to type it all. It's very discouraging.
And where the heck is fall, exactly? Surely by this time of year we should be getting at least a couple of days under 70 degrees? I've got to get hold of whoever's in charge.
Word Count: 28,311 (+843)
posted by kathy monahan at 11:47 AM
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