Tag Archives: action and reaction

January 27, 2025 · 6:00 am

Action and consequences #writing

The word of the day is consequence.

It’s a large word with many meanings and usages, but the one we’re concerned with today is its synonym, repercussion. Frankly, a story of actions without consequences is not much of a story.

Every choice our characters make should have repercussions, changing their lives for good or bad.

Once again, we will go to J.R.R. Tolkien and look at Bilbo’s choices and his path to becoming the eccentric eleventy-one-year-old hobbit who vanishes, literally, leaving everything he owned to his cousin, Frodo.

At the outset, Gandalf does the unforgivable. He scratches symbols into Bilbo’s pristine front door. To ruin a beautiful door like that? The fiend!

Worse, those symbols invite himself and twelve rough-looking strangers to be overnight guests in Bilbo’s home—and Bilbo is unaware of all this until the first guests appear at his door, expecting to be fed.

I don’t know about you, but I would be hard-pressed to scrape together the food to feed thirteen guests without a little advance notice.

In the morning, after the unexpected (and unwanted) guests leave him to his empty larder, he has two choices, to stay in the safety of Bag End, or hare off on a journey into the unknown. Bilbo chooses to run after the dwarves, and this is where the real story begins.

The Hobbit or There and Back Again is the story of how an honest and respectable middle-aged hobbit became a burglar. In the process, he became a hero who was forever changed by his experiences.

The consequences of his decision will alter his view of life forever afterward. Where he was once a staid country squire, having inherited a comfortable income and existence, Bilbo is now expected to steal an important treasure from a dragon.

At the outset, the role of burglar doesn’t seem real. He is beset by problems, one of which is his general unfitness for the task. He’s always been well-fed, never had to exert himself much, and no one cares about his opinions. For someone who is used to being an important voice in the community, that disregard is painful.

Bilbo’s hidden sense of adventure emerges early when the company encounters a group of trolls. He is posing as a thief, so he is ordered to investigate a strange fire in the forest. Reluctantly, he agrees. Upon reaching the blaze, he observes that it is a cookfire for a group of trolls.

Bilbo has reached a fork in the path of life and must make a choice. He’s not stupid, and the smart thing would be to turn around at that point and warn the dwarves.

However, his ego feels the need to do something to prove his worth. “He was very much alarmed as well as disgusted; he wished himself a hundred miles away—yet somehow he could not go straight back to Thorin and Company empty-handed.” [1] Bilbo feels the need to impress the Dwarves, which drives him to make decisions he comes to regret.

In the process of nearly getting everyone eaten and having to be rescued by Gandalf, he discovers several historically important weapons. One of them is Sting, a blade that fits Bilbo perfectly as a sword. Gandalf and the dwarf Thorin also find their respective swords, Glamdring and Orcrist.

Bilbo’s blade does not acquire its name until later in the adventure, when Bilbo becomes lost in the forest of Mirkwood. He uses it to kill a giant spider, rescuing the Dwarves. These actions gain him some esteem from a few of the dwarves, the ones who aren’t as arrogant as Thorin.

Although Bilbo’s weapon is only a dagger for a human or dwarf, it is the perfect sword for a warrior the size of our hobbit. It turns out that, like the swords of Gandalf and Thorin, this dagger was forged by the elves of Gondolin in the First Age and possesses a magical property—it shines with a blue glow when orcs are close.

As the journey progresses, Bilbo develops a clearer perspective of his companions, caring about them despite their flaws. With each event, he becomes more introspective and aware, and his courageous side begins to emerge.

All along the way, every decision forces an action, which has consequences that force his character arc to grow. His experiences reshape him physically and emotionally. Bilbo no longer thinks like the naïve, slightly prejudiced member of the sedentary gentry that he was at the outset.

As the Dwarves continue to get into trouble, Bilbo makes plans for their rescue, and does so successfully, receiving only grudging gratitude from Thorin.

Bilbo is now a warrior, strong and capable of defending his friends from whatever they have dropped themselves into. However, if you asked him, he would say he was just an ordinary person.

Action and its consequences force our characters to grow emotionally. It changes their worldview. Sometimes the decisions our characters make as we are writing them surprise us. But if those decisions make the story too easy, they should be discarded.

We, as their creator, must take over, cut or rewrite those scenes, and force the story back on track.

After all, consequences make the story interesting.

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Quote from The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, by J.R.R. Tolkien, published 1937 by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

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August 5, 2024 · 6:00 am

Action and Reaction #writing

Arcs of action drive plots. Every reader knows this, and every writer tries to incorporate that knowledge into their work. Unfortunately, when I’m tired, random, disconnected events that have no value will seem like good ideas. Action inserted for shock value can derail what might have been a good plot.

action_and_reactionMy writing projects begin with an idea, a flash of “What if….” Sometimes, that “what if” is inspired by an idea for a character or perhaps a setting. Maybe it was the idea for the plot that had my wheels turning.

Nowadays, I avoid forcing my brain to work when it’s on its last legs. I no longer commit myself to a manuscript rife with random events inserted out of desperation. I brainstorm my ideas in a separate document and choose the ones that work best. So, in that regard, my writing style in the first stages is more like creating an extensive and detailed outline. This method allows me to be as creative as I want while I build an overall logic into the evolving story.

At the story’s outset, we meet our protagonist and see them in their familiar surroundings. The inciting incident occurs once we have met them, whether they are ready for it or not. At that point, we must take them to the next stumbling block. But what is that impediment, and how do we overcome it?

Answering that question isn’t always easy. The place where writing becomes work is a hurdle the majority of people who “always wanted to be an author” can’t leap. Their talents lie elsewhere.

IBM_Selectric (1)I’m writing a fantasy, and I know what must happen next in the novel because the core of this particular story is romance with a side order of mystery. I see how this tale ends, so I am brainstorming the characters’ motivations that lead to the desired ending.

Sometimes, it helps to write the last chapter first – in other words, start with the ending. That is how my first NaNoWriMo novel in 2010 began. I was able to pound out 68,000 words in 30 days because I had great characters, and I was desperate to uncover how they got to that place in their lives.

So, where are we in the story arc when the first lull in creativity occurs? Many times, it is in the first ten pages.

An imbalance of power drives plots. The dark corners of the story are illuminated by the characters who have critical knowledge.  This is called asymmetric information, and the enemy should have more of that commodity than our protagonist.

The enemy puts their plan in motion, and we have action. The protagonists are moved to react. The characters must work with a limited understanding of the situation because asymmetric information creates tension. A lack of knowledge creates a crisis.

plottingLIRF07122020Plots are comprised of action and reaction. I must place events in their path so the plot keeps moving forward. These events will be turning points, places where the characters must re-examine their motives and goals.

At several points in this process, I will stop and think about the characters. What do they want? How motivated are they to get it? If they aren’t motivated, why are they there?

Answering a few questions about your characters can kick the plot back into motion. Start with the antagonist because his actions force our characters to react:

  1. Why does the enemy have the upper hand?
    • How does the protagonist react to pressure from the antagonist?
    • How does the struggle affect the relationships between the protagonist and their cohorts/romantic interests?
    • What complications arise from a lack of information?
    • How will the characters acquire that necessary information?

e.m. forster plot memeOur characters are unreliable witnesses. The way they tell us the story will gloss over their failings. The story happens when they are forced to rise above their weaknesses and face what they fear.

I lay down the skeleton of the tale, fleshing out what I can as I go. However, there are significant gaps in this early draft of the narrative.

So, once the first draft is finished, I flesh out the story with visuals and action. Those are things I can’t focus on in the first draft, but I do insert notes to myself, such as:

  • Fend off the attack here.
  • Shouldn’t they plan some sort of assault here? Or are they just going to defend forever? Make them do something!
  • Contrast tranquil scenery with turbulent emotions here.

My first drafts are always rough, more like a series of events and conversations than a novel. I will stitch it all together in the second draft and fill in the plot holes.

At least, that is my intention, but it usually takes five or six drafts to make a coherent story with a complete plot arc and interesting characters with logical actions and reactions.

Margaret Atwood on writing LIRF07252022

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May 1, 2019 · 6:00 am

Introspection and Dialogue #amwriting

Scenes that involve violence are difficult to write as they require serious choreography. However, no matter how well we write them, they won’t accomplish their task if we don’t allow time for introspection. Action without a frame of reference is confusing. Also, if we don’t allow our characters a chance to consider what just happened and how they want to proceed, we can end up with undeveloped, two-dimensional characters.

How does the action affect our protagonist? Action, aftermath, action, aftermath—a rhythm that is often compared to the way a skater crosses the ice: push, glide, push, glide.

These moments in the aftermath of violence are opportunities. We want to avoid info dumps, but we also have to provide some information to explain events. These moments of respite are opportunities for us to dole out information that might be needed to answer questions and yet keep the reader engaged. Doling out the backstory only as it is needed keeps the reader reading.

So, we only need to discuss in conversation or internal dialogue things that pertain to

  1. What just happened or
  2. What is about to happen.

Action is important because it is interesting and provides drama. Even when we are “gliding” we want to keep the story moving forward. So, we allow the reader to process things at the same time the protagonist does, or we run the risk of losing the story in the confusion.

The story is the hero’s journey, and it must be as much a personal journey as a physical one.

We’re all familiar with the term ‘flat-lined’ as a medical expression indicating the patient has died.

When the story arc is imbalanced, it can flat-line in two ways:

  • The action becomes random, an onslaught of meaningless events that make no sense.
  • The pauses become halts, long passages of random internal monologues that have little to do with the action.

Readers only connect with a protagonist’s story if they can sympathize with them. They want a relationship with the people who inhabit the books they read. The way we build relationships between our readers and the characters in our stories is through the characters’ conversations and introspections.

The trick is balancing the introspection and chaos, ensuring that contemplation and dialogue don’t devolve into info dumps where your character ponders everything at length.

Some stories are more literary and are meant to be more introspective than active. My favorite literary classics are all about the character’s thoughts rather than their actions.

But if you are writing genre fiction, you must ensure you have properly balanced your action and introspection.

A good way to avoid a flatlined story arc is through character interaction. Your characters briefly discuss what is on their minds. With the conversation over, they move forward to the next event. This offers an opportunity for new information important to the story to emerge.

Introspection opens a window for the reader to see who the characters secretly are, how they react and illuminates their fears and strengths. It shows that they are self-aware.

In an action-based narrative, introspection is brief but important. Internal monologues are minimal and serve to illuminate a character’s motives at a particular moment in time.

Internal monologues should not make our characters seem too clever by introducing convenient knowledge. We like characters who are somewhat clueless about their situation as well as about their own flaws and strengths.

When characters are having a discussion, our point-of-view character will be in the most danger of being too smart. We have to ensure the dialogue is not too exact when the protagonist and her cronies are making predictions because it ruins the mystery of the piece.

The same follows for inner monologues, perhaps even more so.

Throughout the course of the story, each of the characters’ faults and flaws diminish (or in the case of the antagonist they become clearer) because the characters grow and change as people, as human beings. The protagonist is pushed down the path to wisdom. Self-awareness should gradually blossom toward the “resurrection” that occurs near the end of the hero’s journey.

Introspection is important for the protagonist because surviving the journey to self-knowledge is as important as living through the physical journey.

The antagonist should also have moments of introspection as they take greater chances, risk more, apply more effort to winning at any cost.

My characters begin in an unfinished state, like a pencil sketch. My goal is for them to emerge from the events of their journey in full color, fully realized in a multi-dimensional form that readers will remember and think about after the last page has been read.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Imogen – Herbert Gustave Schmalz.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Imogen_-_Herbert_Gustave_Schmalz.jpg&oldid=342359236 (accessed May 1, 2019).

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October 17, 2018 · 6:00 am

Layers of a scene: Action #amwriting

Scenes are often comprised of people talking, a little action, and then more talking. Sometimes the action is minor, taking the characters from one place to another. Two characters talking in a coffee shop would have minimal action, but a lot of dialogue.

Other times the dialogue is minimal, and the action is violence. It can be sudden, as in a car wreck, or planned as in a battle.

At the outset of any story, our characters are in a comfortable place. An incident/event occurs, throwing them out of what they know and into disarray, beginning the real story.

Once they recover from the first obstacle, they realize they must do or find something important. Only a certain object or person will resolve the situation. To acquire what they need, the protagonist and their companions must enter unfamiliar circumstances.

They must struggle and make mistakes until they become accustomed to their new situation. This is where the action comes into the story.

I have read books were the author was so involved in setting traps and roadblocks for the protagonist and their nemesis that the story line wandered off and got lost. The author failed to entertain me.

Action scenes must fulfil several requirements:

  • They must entertain the reader.
  • They must create new circumstances.
  • They must force the character to grow and change.

The events the protagonist experiences must push the plot forward. In the process, the action should force the characters involved in it to become greater than they were, to find something within themselves they didn’t know existed.

I’m just going to get this out into the open: long, drawn-out fight scenes bore me to tears.

So many authors get hung up on the technical side of the fight—how the combatants were dressed, who hacked, who slashed, and so on. Scenes involving fighting should be written as controlled chaos. They must be logical and real and must give the impression of a chaotic event. Just as if the physical dispute were a dance, we choreograph it.

We all know the common fundamentals of the fight scene:

  1. Physical violence/weapons
  2. Shouting/screaming/other loud noises
  3. Damage to the immediate environment
  4. Injuries/death

Those are part of the elements that comprise the “push” of the action—the chaos. It takes time, but over the course of several hours, you can put the skeleton of your fight scene on paper. What is physically possible and what is not?

But what of a non-violent action scene? Perhaps the characters are sneaking into a room or attempting to board a crowded train. What furnishings does the immediate environment contain, and how does that affect their movements? What hinders the characters moving within their space? What aids them?

For much of the morning they rode in silence. The path climbed more steeply than Alf had imagined a fully laden cart or wagon could manage. The vertical wall of the Escarpment on the left side of the trail and a waist-high stone barrier with a terrible drop on the right made him jittery. It occurred to him that the low wall was little more than a robust fence, knee high to his horse.

The next step, after the action is laid down, is fine tuning it, so the reactions and responses of your characters are natural and real. If the scene is about dialogue, insert the action so it is minimal. It can be a slight buzz in the background that serves as a speech tag:

He forced himself to loosen his grip on the reins. “I suspect the little barrier is there mainly to keep the wagons from sliding over the edge in the winter. It does provide some comfort to know that, while I would be launched amazingly far, my horse would likely be saved.”

Dex looked at him sharply. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights. This is nothing compared to what we’ll deal with when we leave Hemsteck.”

After the push, comes the “glide” where the characters assess what just happened, tend to their injuries, and decide what to do next. They must catch their breath and figure out where they went wrong.

Every now and then a manuscript comes to me that is impossible to navigate because the author is afraid to let their characters rest and regroup, and it basically becomes a nonstop beating for the protagonist. The author may fear that the reader will find it boring if he pauses the action for any reason. That continual pressure on the protagonist is exhausting to me as a reader.

If you don’t allow your characters to process the violence they just experienced, the story gets lost in the chaos. Once the reader can no longer suspend their disbelief, you have lost them.

Most of us understand verbal disputes and how they are constructed. But if physical violence is involved and you are not a martial arts aficionado or a weapons specialist, you may wish to consult someone who is and have them look at your scene. They will tell you what is physically possible and what is not.

Once I have a fight scene choreographed, I run it past my writing friends, Dave and Lee, both of whom will point out the areas where it is no longer believable.

To wind this post up, a constant assault of random action, scene after scene, makes no sense unless you allow the reader to put the events into perspective. Scenes inserted for shock value and with no pause for rest and reflection don’t allow the protagonist to demonstrate personal growth.

As a reader, I will put that book down, unfinished.

Credits and Attributions:

Death is Violent and Fast: Quarrel in a Pub, painting by Joos van Craesbeeck, ca. 1630 – 1635 PD|100 via Wikimedia Commons.

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May 25, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: advancing the plot

e.m. forster plot memeIn the previous post, I discussed the story arc, and how it relates to what E.M. Forster said about the plot: that plot is the cause-and-effect relationship between events in a story. The story arc is a visual description of where events should occur in a story. For me, knowing where they should happen is good, but it doesn’t tell me what those events are.

Planning what events your protagonist will face is called plotting, and I make an outline for that.

“Pantsing it,” or writing using stream-of consciousness, can produce some amazing work. That works well when we’re inspired, as ideas seem to flow from us. But for me, that sort of creativity is short-lived.

Participating in nanowrimo has really helped me grow in that ability, and one nanowrimo joke-solution often bandied about at write-ins is, “When your’re stuck, it’s time for someone to die.” But we all know that in reality, assassinating beloved characters whenever we run out of ideas is not a feasible option because soon we will run out of characters.

As devotees of Game of Thrones will agree, readers (or TV viewers) get to know characters, and bond with them. When cherished characters are too regularly killed off, the story loses good people, and we have to introduce new characters to fill the void. The reader may decide not to waste his time getting invested in a new character, feeling that you will only break their heart again.

The death of a character should be reserved to create a pivotal event that alters the lives of every member of the cast, and is best reserved for either the inciting incident at the first plot point or as the terrible event of the third quarter of the book. So instead of assassination, we should resort to creativity.

This is where the outline can provide some structure, and keep you moving forward.  I will know what should happen in the first quarter, the middle, and the third quarter of the story. Also, because I know how it should end, I can more easily write to those plot points by filling in the blanks between, and the story will have cohesion.

Think about what launches a great story:

The protagonist has a problem.

You have placed them in a setting, within a given moment, and shown the environment in which they live.

You have unveiled the inciting incident.

Now you need to decide what hinders the protagonist and prevents them from resolving the problem. While you are laying the groundwork for this keep in mind that we want to evoke three things:

  1. Empathy/identification with the protagonist
  2. Believability
  3. Tension

We want the protagonist to be a sympathetic character whom the reader can identify with; one who the reader can immerse themselves in, living the story through his/her adventures.

Also, we want the hindrances and barriers the protagonist faces to feel real to the reader. They must be believable so that the reader says, “Yeah, that could happen.” Within every scene, you must develop setups for the central events of that moment in their lives and show the payoffs (either negative or positive) to advance the story: action and reaction.

Each scene propels the characters further along, each act closing at a higher point on the story arc, which is where the next one launches from.

Some authors resort to “idle conversation writing” when they are temporarily out of ideas.  Resist the temptation—it’s fatal to an otherwise good story. Save all your random think-writing off-stage in a background file, if giving your characters a few haphazard, pointless exchanges helps jar an idea loose.

imagesDon’t introduce random things into a scene unless they are important. What if you had a walk-on character who was looking for her/his cat just before or just after the inciting incident? If the loss of the cat is to demonstrate the dangers in a particular area, make it clear that it is window dressing or remove it.

If the cat has no purpose it needs to be cut from the scene. To show the reader something  is to foreshadow it, and the reader will wonder why the cat and the person looking for it were so important that they had to be foreshadowed.

Every memorable element in a fictional story must be necessary and irreplaceable.  In  creative writing, this concept is referred to as “Chekhov’s Gun,” as it is a principal formally attributed to the great Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov.

Finally, we want to keep the goal just out of reach, to maintain the tension, and keep the reader reading to find out what will happen next. Readers are fickle, and always want what they can’t have. The chase is everything, so don’t give them the final reward until the end of the story.

But do have the story end with most threads and subplots wrapped up, along with the central story-line. Nothing aggravates readers more than going to all the trouble of reading a book to the end, only to be given no reward for their investment of time.

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