WRITING TENSE ACTION SCENES

by Jodie Renner, freelance fiction editor, @JodieRennerEd

Stacy recently asked me how editing thrillers is different from editing other genres. That’s a huge topic, too much for one blog post, and would include differences in plot, characterization, pacing, word choice, and writing style, among many other considerations. For today, I thought I’d just talk about writing effective action scenes, which can also appear in romantic suspense, mysteries, action adventures, fantasies, and any other genre.

When your characters are running for their lives, write tight and leave out a lot of description, especially little insignificant details about their surroundings. Of course, if the details would somehow help them, then definitely include them.

Characters on the run don’t have time to sightsee or have great long discussions. Their adrenaline is pumping and all they’re thinking of is survival.

A few quick tips for writing strong action scenes:

~ Show, don’t tell (of course!). See my blog post on this topic.

~ Stay in the scene with the characters – don’t intrude as the author to explain anything.

~ Avoid lengthy discussions among characters or long, involved thought processes.

~ Cut out any little unneeded words that are cluttering up sentences and slowing down the pace.

~ Use short sentences and paragraphs.

~ Use the most powerful verbs you can find.

~ Show your viewpoint character’s sensory impressions to suck readers in more.

~ Show your POV character’s emotional and physical reactions, starting with visceral responses.

~ Show other characters’ reactions through their words, tone of voice, actions, body language, and facial expressions.

SOME BEFORE AND AFTER EXAMPLES OF ACTION SCENES, WELL-DISGUISED FROM MY EDITING:

(My bold-face so you can find the changes easily.)

Before:

Fortunately for Jennifer, the attacker was far enough away that when he attempted to grab her she sidestepped him and delivered a sharp kick to the outside of his left knee.

He grunted and fell back against the stack of wooden crates. He then got up clumsily, rubbing his arm, showing his anger at how easily Jennifer had dodged and hit him.

After: 

The attacker lunged at Jennifer. She dodged to the side and delivered a sharp kick to his knee.

He grunted and fell against the stack of wooden crates. He scrambled up, rubbing his arm, eyes full of hate. [or sneering at her. Or ….]

Before:

His facial expression changed from one showing loathing to one communicating unrestrained joy. Jennifer realized at that moment that she had made a fatal mistake. She looked to her right. The door leading out of the warehouse was about fifty feet from where she was standing.

After:

His expression changed from loathing to unrestrained joy. Jennifer knew she had made a fatal mistake. She searched for the exit door. It was to her right, about fifty feet away.

Before:Jennifer took the opportunity to step around the closing door and get outside.

After: Jennifer grabbed her chance to run through the closing door and escape.

Before: An inline skater came careening around the corner and skated fast towards them, shouting loudly. Josh shot a look back at Amy as he grabbed her arm and pulled her bodily to the edge of the street out of the path of the oncoming skater.

After: An inline skater came careening around the corner and barreled towards them, yelling. Josh grabbed Amy’s arm and pulled her out of the path of the oncoming skater.

Before: Moments later, another skater was coming at them at breakneck pace. This time it was Amy’s turn to save her companion as she pushed Josh flat against the gray-colored stone wall of the adjacent building.

[At times of stress, sentences need to be shorter. And leave out minor details, as Josh isn’t thinking that the stones are gray-colored right now.]

After: Moments later, another skater came at them at a breakneck pace. Amy shoved Josh against the stone wall of the building beside them.  [or just: against the building.]

Before:

Kate and Lauren ran down the tunnel to an open doorway, then up some stone steps leading to a stone walkway. Kate hesitated for only a moment at the top in order to jam the hand gun she was holding into her waistband and give her time to figure out where to run.

In front of them was a huge stone courtyard, which was too open for them to safely cross before the smugglers would come looking for them. Kate knew she had to find a hiding place quickly. Then it came to her.

“Follow me,” Kate commanded, running off to her left.

“Where are we going?” Lauren asked, as she ran beside Kate.

“To the ancient pavilion. It’s halfway down the east wall of the courtyard. From there, we can access other parts of the ruins if we need to escape from the men who I know will soon be looking for us.”

[First paragraph has too much minor, unnecessary detail. In the last paragraph, her language is too correct and formal, especially for someone out of breath and running for her life! And all that detail isn’t necessary, as she’ll be leading the way, anyway.]

After:

Kate and Lauren sprinted down the tunnel, then up some stone steps to a walkway. At the top, Kate stopped to jam the gun into her waistband and figure out where to run.

In front of them was a wide open stone courtyard. They’d never get across without the smugglers spotting them. Kate knew she had to find a hiding place quickly. Then it came to her.

“Follow me,” Kate said, dashing off to her left.

“Where are we going?” Lauren asked as she raced to keep up.

“To the pavilion. We can hide in the ruins behind it.”

Now it’s your turn – you be the editor.

Here are a few for you, readers and writers. How would you make these two unrelated sentences tighter, tenser and more powerful? Give us your suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

~ He looked quickly down the narrow street in the direction they had come.

~ As soon as Chris started to rise, Nathan saw it as an indication he was going to follow, and started off back in the direction of the elevator, this time worrying less about his silence and more about haste.

Thanks so much, Jodie! Her newest e-book, Styles That Sizzle, is on sale for only $0.99 for a limited time. And remember, you don’t need to own a Kindle to buy Kindle e-books. You can download them to your computer or tablet and read them that way!

* * *

Jodie Renner is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries, and other crime fiction. Please check out Jodie’s website and blog, as well as her group blog, Crime Fiction Collective.

Jodie’s craft of fiction articles are published regularly on various blogs, and she has published two e-books on writing compelling fiction, with more to follow. Jodie’s two e-books, both in the series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction, are Writing a Killer Thriller and Style that Sizzles and Pacing for Power.

When Nicole first asked me to write this guest post, I jumped at the chance. With my Thriller Thursday feature, of course I could tell everyone the difference between the two genres.

Right. Defining the two turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. Suspense and thrillers are so interchangeable that pinpointing a true separation is tricky, but the subtleties are there, if you look closely.

“Suspense is the state of waiting for something to happen.” –Alfred Hitchcock.

When I think of suspense, I picture dark shadows, peaking around corners, heart pounding, body sweating, stomach-churning waiting. Readers often sit on the edge of their seats with the nagging feeling that everything is adding up to the moment the main character is going to be in mortal danger. Suspense novels are akin to puzzles: lots of little pieces come together for a shocking, “oh my goodness, that’s the bad guy” moment. Sometimes the most benign circumstance can turn out to be the clue that binds the entire story together.

Suspense is subtle, building with the story. It’s slower paced (not boring, but the action scenes are more calculated and the pacing is different). Readers might be inside the bad guy’s head in some suspense novels (Allison Brennan), but they don’t always know his true identity. In most suspense novels, the main character starts out with very little sense of danger and is simply thrown into a situation.

For example, in Greg Iles’s excellent novel Turning Angel, prosecutor Penn Cage has remained in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi to raise his young daughter in a safe world. But then the nude body of a prep school student shows up, and Penn’s best friend is a suspect in her murder. Penn agrees to help and gets caught up in the world of blackmail and deadly violence. As the book progresses, Penn finds himself in increasing danger, and of course, the bad guy is never who we think it is. Getting to the heart of the plot and the building sense of foreboding keeps readers turning the pages in suspense novels.

So how do you write great suspense?

1)    Strong, relatable characters. Penn Cage is a small town doctor and a widower just trying to do what’s best for his young daughter. He’s middle-aged and handsome but has no idea how to get back into the dating game, nor does he care. He wants to do what’s right, but he can’t turn his back on his friend.

2)    Setting is key. The mood of a story can be set and changed with each scene description. Vivid descriptions and pacing can be used to set the tone so the reader knows something heart stopping is just around the next page.

3)    Conflict. Like any novel, conflict needs to be in every scene, and your main character must continue to limp forward despite her setbacks.

4)    Antagonist must be riveting and as three dimensional as possible. In suspense, he’s usually a step ahead of the protagonist, and the clues are constantly building as to who the bad guy is and what his motivations are.

5)    Keep it visceral. One of the main elements of suspense is the nerve-wracking wait for the next shoe to drop. Show your main character terrified, confused, upset. Make the reader feel what your protagonist is feeling. Margie Lawson’s Empowering Character’s Emotions is a fantastic guide for getting a reader deep into your character’s head.

Thrillers have all these elements, too, but they also have something more.

“It “thrills” as one reads it. The plots are scary, the characters are at great risk and the novels are constructed in a manner that makes the reader really want to turn the page.” –Thriller Press

Thrillers are more like a terrifying, nine-hundred turn roller coaster. Fast, slow, fast, dip, circle, quick pause, and then start all over again. And don’t forget the gigantic ticking clock in the background. That’s a must in a thriller, but it doesn’t always have to be a high concept, end of the world or bust deal. The stakes can be local (saving the next women from becoming a victim in Tess Gerritsen’s brilliant medical thriller The Surgeon) or global, as in War of The Worlds.

And there are any number of thrillers: spy thrillers, techno thrillers (From Russia With Love), legal thriller (John Grisham), medical thriller (Robin Cook), true crime, action/adventure, and my personal favorite, the psychological suspense (The Silence of The Lambs, Shutter Island.)

Seriously, if you want a lesson in how to get into the minds of your readers and scary them silly, study Silence of the Lambs. Thomas Harris makes us feel Clarice’s every emotion: fear, pride, anguish, anger. When Hannibal calls her at the end of the novel, even though the main story line is all tied up and Buffalo Bill is dead, our hearts our still pounding at what the good doctor might say. That’s the essence of a thriller – the ride doesn’t stop until the very end.

So what do you need for a great thriller?

1)    Start off with a bang. An action scene is a great way to kick-start a thriller – think of any James Bond movie. They always start when Bond’s in a precarious situation and has to fight his way out of a jam.

2)    Larger than life hero/heroine. Your main character has to be someone who defeat whatever evil he’s facing. Clarice Starling is a quiet, reserved FBI recruit with the heart and determination of a lion. It’s her sheer will and stubbornness that defeats Buffalo Bill and saves the senator’s daughter.

3)    Your villain had better be all-powerful, too. In Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, Robert Langdon is up against the powerful and secretive Illuminati as he tries to thwart the group’s efforts to destroy the Catholic Church. These guys are willing to sacrifice themselves – and each other – for their cause.

4)    What about the stakes? Whether they’re local or global, they’ve got to be high. Saving a president from assassination, biological warfare, or stopping a serial killer – it’s about life and death from the beginning in a thriller. And the main character knows it. That’s the key difference. Robert Langdon knows he’s trying to save a life (his own neck) in The Da Vinci Code as soon as he’s suspected in the priest’s murder. And in Angels and Demons, the threat is global, as the anti-matter being stolen from CERN is the inciting incident.

5)    Hero’s plans – he’s got to be out to stop the villain from committing a further crime, not just trying to solve a previous one. Clarice is trying to save the senator’s daughter, Robert Landgon the Catholic Church – you get the point.

So what do you write? Thrillers or suspense? Or both? Are current thrillers more interchangeable with suspense than the classics? Has this post helped you understand the difference and the similarities?

Since I’m leaving for vacation for 10 days tomorrow (yay!), I won’t be posting a new Thriller Thursday until June 28. Will be checking in on Facebook and Twitter when I can.  

Thanks to the Writer’s Unboxed Facebook group and Catie Rhodes for their help with this post.

Today is the final Thriller Thursday post of 2011, and we’re doing something different. Thousands of unsolved murders have been shelved in the cold case file for years, if not decades. Thanks to tenacious investigators and loyal family members, a handful of cold cases are solved every year, but closing the case doesn’t always provide the families with closure.

Diane Maxwell Jackson

On December 14, 1969, young single mother Diane Maxwell Jackson was murdered in the company lot at Southwestern Bell in Houston, Texas. After parking her car, she was forced into a nearby shack and raped, strangled, and stabbed to death. Houston police investigated, but no suspects were identified. Latent prints taken from the crime scene were filed, and the case went cold.

A latent print is an impression (usually invisible to the naked eye) produced by the ridged skin on human fingers, palms or soles of the feet. In 1969, the ability to identify latent prints were limited. Now, several techniques such as chemicals, powders, lasers, and alternate light sources are used to identify the prints.

In 2003, driven by the determination of the Diane’s brother, her case was reopened and ultimately solved thanks to advanced technology and the identification of the latent print. David Maxwell, Diane’s brother, joined the Texas State Highway Patrol and later the Texas Rangers. In 1989, he started reviewing his sister’s file. The prints were studied once more, but no progress was made. In 2003, a latent print technician at the Texas Department of Public Safety tried again, and a suspect finally emerged: James Ray Davis.

Investigators knew they needed a confession, and using the fingerprint evidence as well as  crime scene photographs, they got it. On November 24, 2003, James Ray Davis was sentenced to life for the rape and murder of Diane Maxwell Jackson.

Alie Berrelez

Every parent’s nightmare: five-year-old Alie Berrelez was kidnapped from the parking lot of her apartment building (where she was with other children) in Englewood, Colorado, on May 18, 2003. Her body was found four days later in a canvas back fourteen miles from her home.

In September, Englewood police were able to confirm what they had always suspected: the DNA of neigbor Nick Stofer, was found on the girl’s underwear. Stofer died in 2001 a free man, but Alie’s family was finally given closure.

“It’s been a long 18 years. But Alie’s not a victim, I don’t want people to think of her as a victim. She’s a hero, and she’s been a hero for the past 18 years.” —Richard Berrelez, grandfather of Alie Berrelez.

Stofer had always been the prime suspect but lack of evidence prevented police from pursuing a case against him. Alie’s younger brother talked about a man matching Stofer’s description talking with her, but his testimony was circumstantial. Blood and hair samples were taken from Stofer and filed away.

Advancements in DNA technology finally allowed detectives to close the case, but the ending is bittersweet for the family. With Stofer’s death, the how and more importantly, the why, of little Alie’s murder will never be answered.

Connie Hevener and Carolyn Perry

On April 11, 1967, Carolyn Hevener, 19, and her sister-in-law, Carolyn Perry, 20, were shot in the head with a .25 caliber handgun while closing up at High’s Ice Cream in Staunton, Virginia.

$140 (about $900 in today’s money) was missing. Police assumed the girls were caught up in a robbery and focused on Gus Thomas, 24. Unemployed and seedy-looking, Thomas lived near the store and was called “crazy” by some witnesses. He was indicted for the murder of Hevener but found not guilty due to lack of evidence. Prosecutors chose not to indict for the murder of Perry in the hopes better evidence would eventually surface.

Many in the small town felt the investigation was strange, and the original report on the crimes lacked the confidence of a professional investigator. It wasn’t until 2006, when original investigating officer Davie Bocock died, that things started moving forward in the double murder case again.

Joyce Bradshaw, now an elderly woman, admitted that ten days before the murders, another employee of High’s, Diane Crawford, showed her a .25 caliber pistol. She told Bradshow she had a bullet “reserved” for victim Connie Hevener. She then told investigators she’d given this information to Bocock the day after the murders, and that the police sergeant responded that Crawford was a “crack shot.” Bradshaw took the words as a warning.

Roy Hartless, an ex-Staunton police officer and private investigator, tracked the now sixty-year-old Diane Crawford down at a nursing home in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Crawford was dying of heart and kidney disease.

Hartless discovered his suspect spent time in a mental health facility after the murders before moving to Durham, North Carolina. She eventually moved back to Virginia and had a long-term relationship with another woman. After several conversations, Crawford finally admitted she went to the store that night and told Hevener should couldn’t work the next night.

“She got upset and started saying things, and one thing led to another. I was just pushed so far, so I shot them and that was it.”

Crawford claimed she was angry with Hevener and Perry for teasing her about being a lesbian. She said the murders weren’t premeditated but had no reason for taking the gun to the store that night.

The final twist? Crawford gave the murder weapon to sergeant Davie Bocock, who buried it on his property.

Crawford died before she could be prosecuted and never fully explained Bocock’s coverup, saying only they were friendly. Authorities have yet to recover the gun on Bocock’s former land. No one will ever know his reasons, and the families of Hevener and Perry will always have unanswered questions.

Do you think Bocock really buried the gun? Was the Staunton police department involved in the coverup? And as a parent, how do you reconcile the murderer of your child died a free man, as in little Alie’s case?