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[JoshuaFH]

I'd really like to get around to writing things, because I'd like to leave an indent on the world behind me. It's painfully agonizing to think that I could be a good writer, but it's my own self-persecution and obsessively holding myself to an unreasonable standard, that prevents me.

I want to spend some time writing, just a bit, every day. Not right now though, it's dreadfully late.

I would like to pose a question to the art loving peoples though, something that bothers me to no end is that I'm not sure if I can write 'action scenes', as I've convinced myself that the medium just doesn't allow for them. There's alot going on in a fight, and brushing over it briskly risks making the scene insubstantial, but trying to choreograph it for the reader, and the scene becomes far too wordy and page consuming for what it's trying to express.

Is it possible?

[Max White]

Now I know that somebody will argue with me here, so know that this is just personal opinion from somebody that doesn't read many actiony books.

No.
Well yes, you can do action scenes, but not in the same way that the movies can. They are different mediums, and the big screen is a lot better at portraying action scenes in the traditional sense. But that doesn't mean they don't have their own variety of action scenes.
One of the core strengths of written text is that it is a lot easier to express the protagonists thoughts and feelings, while this can be very hard to do with a camera. I mean seriously, go watch some action scenes on movie and tell me what emotions are being shown, and you will find most come down to 'You die now, asshole!' or 'AWWWWWSHIIIIT!!!!!!'. With a book, you need to play to it's strengths and know that if you do that well, the reader will fill in the rest for themselves, so instead of you having to write down all those detailed explosions and shot, the reader has that covered.

It is sort of an art...

[Digital Hellhound]

For action scenes, try to keep the pace quick and staccato. Short sentences and descriptions. That's pretty obvious, I guess, but oh well. I actually rather enjoy writing action scenes, though I can't really objectively say anything about their quality.

[Grakelin]

Stephen King has been successfully writing intense, bloody action scenes for his entire career.

[Capntastic]

Stephen King also prefaces each one with about 400 pages of inconsequential nonsense.  (I have strong feelings about King!!!)

As for gearing up for writing, you need to be prepared to read a huge amount, and, further, change how and what you read.  Read things you hate, read things you don't care about, read good things and bad things.  And think about all of it.  It'll get all of those neurons in your brain working and further understanding what works for you.

As for action scenes in particular, quick staccato blasts and sentence fragments aren't always the way to go.  You can have 'action' be viscerally described in a completely detached manner, and you can have intense things happening at a slow tempo.  It's all about what precise tone you hope to achieve.

I would suggest, as artists tend to do, to work in realism before you attempt to create a 'style'.  That is, do some exercises about normal everyday things, in third and first person, both made up and real, and see how your brain works at trying to pull the right words together.  Edit them, have your friends read them, and see how well you hit your goals of 'does this make sense, read well, achieve the feel I was going for' etc. 

What sort of stuff do you read and what sort of stuff do you intend to write?

[Digital Hellhound]

As for action scenes in particular, quick staccato blasts and sentence fragments aren't always the way to go.  You can have 'action' be viscerally described in a completely detached manner, and you can have intense things happening at a slow tempo.  It's all about what precise tone you hope to achieve.

Well, yes, but I think it's generally better to save the detached style for POVs not directly involved in the action itself, or that have a justified 'detached' view on it, like being in shock or an emotionless psychopath. As said, it depends on the tone and feel you want to create.

[Supermikhail]

I find that... to word it as well as I can... the best thing about action in books is emotions. By that I'm trying to mean that... well, I read (actually, listened to) some Song of Ice and Fire book and there was an action scene that really had me going. But... Not because it was like a Jackie Chan flick, but because of the way it was presented as a good guy giving it to the bad guy. And it was set up so that it was a really bad idea for the good guy to do it, but at the same time it was really cool. So in that case emotional involvement played an important role, as opposed to move sampling characteristic of action movies.

It might appear that I'm not of high opinion of kung-fu movies, but I think I used to enjoy some of them. I think the main thing about them is the gimmicky nature of fights, that is not just the protagonist beating baddies but the protagonist beating baddies in weird new ways. I must admit I haven't read prose going about fights in similar fashion. Usually they appear pretty mundane, if I may, like a hit to the windpipe and the guy is down. Incidentally, in books I read, fights appear to be much more visceral than in movies and fighters can't take 100 blows to the abdomen, so they finish much quicker. It occurs to me that it may be because it takes more time to describe an action in writing than to show it on film, so a long fight full of gimmicky moves would threaten to turn into a twenty page descriptive passage. But I think I've read a number of short (by movies standards) action sequences described at length, of course unfalteringly foreworded by "You must keep in mind that it took only a moment to do it." And "It was as if my fist had a will of its own." Yes, it's going to be wordy, but with appropriate set-up, that is, emotion, I believe the reader just wouldn't notice it.

What I personally don't like when it comes to action scenes in books is when the writer describes a confrontation in terms of some martial art. To be fair, I didn't like it when Larry Niven described anatomically as Louis Woo incapacitated and killed invaders in his home, even though Niven didn't name the stance Louis Woo assumed. Maybe it's just because I don't know any martial art. If so, it must be valid to expect that the majority of world's population that doesn't know any martial art feels the same. Anybody able to corroborate?

Well, I guess it's appropriate to finish by saying that I recently wrote an action scene of my own. It spans several pages and is generously interspersed with internal monologue and external dialogue, and similarly to Digital Hellhound, I can't recommend this approach for its effectiveness because it hasn't proven itself effective yet.

@Capntastic: but King's "On Writing" is a monster of a good and inspirational read, wouldn't you agree? (I'm presuming you've read it, based on, well, your strong feelings about King, and also because you bring up things he talks about, like "read bad things", although I don't mean to presume it couldn't be your personal opinion) Just finished it recently and it's what got me into my current foray into writing... Although I don't read King's fiction, because I'm too much of a pussy.

By the way, about reading bad books. Well, I don't, and I'd like to defend this attitude by saying that there's too many good books out there I haven't read yet... Well, I'll give myself one more year to finally finish writing something, and if it doesn't happen I guess I'll turn to the "Time's list of books you shouldn't touch with a 10 feet pole" if there is something like that.

[Biag]

The Song of Ice and Fire series is a really good example of well-written action, as well as being an amazing series in general. If you haven't yet I would highly suggest you check it out.

With regards to writing action: you really need to distance yourself from the concept of a filmed fight. In written media, an action scene isn't really different from any other scene, and just like any other scene it should have significance to the rest of the story.

For example, reading a factual description of a Star Wars lightsaber duel isn't particularly interesting. "Yoda spun in the air and struck hard at Palpatine, but Palpatine blocked and returned with a series of quick parries." However, years ago I read a novelization of Revenge of the Sith that made that very scene stick out in my mind so well that to this day I still remember word-for-word the climactic sentence. Rather than attempting to excite me with pure deadly combat, the writer purposefully used the scene to illustrate and develop the character of Yoda and his personal theme of "when your best just isn't good enough."

My point is basically this: an action sequence is no different from a dialogue sequence or a chase or exposition or what-have-you. Write it like any other scene, and don't worry about making it viscerally "cool."

[JoshuaFH]

Ok, the actiony scenes can wait for the time being. I have a more significant hurdle to overcome: Startling fear of failure and pessimistic outlook on life.

Before I can thrust my story ideas, things that I love, I think I'll need to write something less significant. I want it to be small, something that'll help me overcome my biggest challenge, my fear of telling people things about myself. That's a weird thing to say, but I can't tell you how afraid I am of writing something, that it offers some window into how my mind works and what's inside it. Through this small window, I'm afraid that people would have the ground to judge me as a person, and I can tell everyone straight up that I already think I'm a terrible person, and my self-esteem doesn't need further beating.

Just something small. I want to write it. I can't procrastinate on this, it's not something I can put by the wayside. Everyday I feel I'm just wasting my life, and I think about my own mortality, and the days go by, and a terrifying, lonely death looms ever closer.

[Capntastic]

Writing won't cure that sort of thought.  I mean, have you ever seen a writer?

[Max White]

Capn raises a good point.
Have you thought about the implications of regular doses of alcohol?

[lordnincompoop]

I'd really like to get around to writing things, because I'd like to leave an indent on the world behind me. It's painfully agonizing to think that I could be a good writer, but it's my own self-persecution and obsessively holding myself to an unreasonable standard, that prevents me.

I want to spend some time writing, just a bit, every day. Not right now though, it's dreadfully late.

I would like to pose a question to the art loving peoples though, something that bothers me to no end is that I'm not sure if I can write 'action scenes', as I've convinced myself that the medium just doesn't allow for them. There's alot going on in a fight, and brushing over it briskly risks making the scene insubstantial, but trying to choreograph it for the reader, and the scene becomes far too wordy and page consuming for what it's trying to express.

Is it possible?

It's possible, but how you do it is entirely up to you and your own writing style. Instead of worrying over feasibilities and skirting imagined boundaries, why not simply try writing several action scenes and just seeing where they end up?

Ok, the actiony scenes can wait for the time being. I have a more significant hurdle to overcome: Startling fear of failure and pessimistic outlook on life.

Before I can thrust my story ideas, things that I love, I think I'll need to write something less significant. I want it to be small, something that'll help me overcome my biggest challenge, my fear of telling people things about myself. That's a weird thing to say, but I can't tell you how afraid I am of writing something, that it offers some window into how my mind works and what's inside it. Through this small window, I'm afraid that people would have the ground to judge me as a person, and I can tell everyone straight up that I already think I'm a terrible person, and my self-esteem doesn't need further beating.

Just something small. I want to write it. I can't procrastinate on this, it's not something I can put by the wayside. Everyday I feel I'm just wasting my life, and I think about my own mortality, and the days go by, and a terrifying, lonely death looms ever closer.

The best advice I can give you regarding this is: Stop being silly and start writing, you fool.

If you want good, informed advice for this, go see your local psychologist. The random snowed-in blokes at B12 are not good for that.

[Willfor]

Ok, the actiony scenes can wait for the time being. I have a more significant hurdle to overcome: Startling fear of failure and pessimistic outlook on life.

Before I can thrust my story ideas, things that I love, I think I'll need to write something less significant. I want it to be small, something that'll help me overcome my biggest challenge, my fear of telling people things about myself. That's a weird thing to say, but I can't tell you how afraid I am of writing something, that it offers some window into how my mind works and what's inside it. Through this small window, I'm afraid that people would have the ground to judge me as a person, and I can tell everyone straight up that I already think I'm a terrible person, and my self-esteem doesn't need further beating.

Just something small. I want to write it. I can't procrastinate on this, it's not something I can put by the wayside. Everyday I feel I'm just wasting my life, and I think about my own mortality, and the days go by, and a terrifying, lonely death looms ever closer.

Alright, you have the psychology of a writer. Be free my son. Be free in your writing.

I've been dealing with "what will people think if I show them this" for several years, and the best way I know how to cure it is to actually write regardless of it. It's a hard road, but it has its own rewards.

Also: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/05/25/writing-excuses-episode-16-butt-in-chair-hands-on-keyboard/

[JoshuaFH]

I actually had the majority of my time taken up today by a Christmas Party. I started something, but I'll wait till tomorrow to finish it since it's getting late.

It's just something silly, for starters.

Thanks for the amazing little site by the way Willfor.

[Capntastic]

One of the core dudes on Writing Excuses is Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy genre guy.  While I might not have high opinions of him, he is undeniably super prolific.