Lights, camera…part IV

So after rambling on for three posts, I’m finally getting down to the nuts and bolts of writing action scenes.  One of the first pieces of action-writing advice you find is usually “Use short sentences and sentence fragments,” because they pick up the pace, and an action scene

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Lights, camera…Part III

I thought I was going to get to the nitty-gritty of technique today, but it seems I have a bit more to say about the nitty-gritty of planning. What you need to know up front (unless you are a total “surprise me” writer, who can’t know anything

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Lights, camera…Part II

So how do you build an action scene? There are a lot of things to consider. Some of them will be dictated by decisions the writer has made earlier in the story, and the first and most important of these is viewpoint, which frequently implies level. Action can

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Lights, camera…what?

Action scenes are the bread-and-butter of whole genres of fiction. As such, they’re pretty important, and I was rather stunned to realize that I’ve said very little about writing them. I was even more stunned when I went to the bookcase that’s full of how-to-write books –

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