# Good Advice For Great Action Scenes



## Addison (Jun 30, 2017)

While reading my newest book on writing I've found an interesting and helpful section on writing action sequences. The author, Deborah Chester, assigned the class to write two different scenes. One intended to excite and keep the attention, the other to bore and boo. When the time was up and students read their scenes, almost every single reading turned out the same. 

The scene they wrote to excite BORED the class, while the scene to get Booed held their ATTENTION. Yeah, I read that twice. But the reason why was founded. 

In their efforts to make the scenes exciting the students threw a lot of action, next to zero description and no details to engage the audience's mind. While when writing the "boring" scene they slowed down, took the time to make the details, describe character and setting. 

I guess that's why in an article I found the first tip to revising a first draft was "Slow Down". Take a breath and look over the scene for the details. Even if you're writing a bloody sword fight, details are important.


----------



## Queshire (Jun 30, 2017)

Huh.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.....

Have to reckon that's a problem with my writing.


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jun 30, 2017)

Does the book have an example of each? I'd be curious to see what these students were doing, specifcally. I'm sure on some level it's true.


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jun 30, 2017)

Funny thing, I decided to check out Chester's writing, and popped open the intro to two books and:

Line 1: clouds scudded

Other book, 

Line 2: clouds scudding

I found that oddly amusing. NOW! What would make this extra special is if in her book on writing she recommends against weather openings, heh heh.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 30, 2017)

Addison said:


> While reading my newest book on writing I've found an interesting and helpful section on writing action sequences. The author, Deborah Chester, assigned the class to write two different scenes. One intended to excite and keep the attention, the other to bore and boo. When the time was up and students read their scenes, almost every single reading turned out the same.
> 
> The scene they wrote to excite BORED the class, while the scene to get Booed held their ATTENTION. Yeah, I read that twice. But the reason why was founded.
> 
> ...



Huh. 

I don't dispute the conclusion, necessarily, but I do dispute the experiment and the reasoning that led to it. 

A single scene is really different than a full story. In a full story, there are big spaces between the action where character, setting, etc. is developed. Where readers find out about the characters, where the stakes are laid, where the setting is developed. Not saying these things CAN'T happen in an action scene (they definitely can, and in fact, should.) But a story is longer. The things the readers care about are built up for a long time. Then, in an action scene, readers are tense, waiting to see what happens to the characters they love. 

In a single scene, there's not time to develop the characters, the stakes, or anything. The readers would have to get to know the characters and care about them just through that one glimpse. In a lean, trimmed, sparsely detailed scene...readers would have nothing. All the focus is on the action, so we don't really know who the characters are, what they are doing, why they are doing it, or why to give a damn. In a fuller, more richly detailed scene, readers would learn more about the characters, and understand and know them better, and have more reason to care. 

Nothing bores me faster than an opening full of flashy action but no character development. I just don't care if there's no one i know well enough to care about. 

So it makes sense that the 'boring' scene was more interesting to the students than the 'exciting' scene. But I'm unconvinced that this translates to novel (or even short story) writing. I mean, in a novel, you can have the characters, their goals, the stakes, etc...already established before you plunge into an action scene. Extra detail filled in during the action mightn't be necessary. 

Or maybe I'm saying all this because I like my action scenes fast paced, partly because I prefer to write those quieter scenes I was talking about where characters interact and converse and are developed that way, and kinda want to get the action over with. 

Or maybe my opinion about how action scenes should be fast paced, is causing my dislike of writing action scenes...

Huh. Maybe there's something to this, then.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 1, 2017)

@DOTA:

You seem to be saying that the novel has the luxury of time to build up character, milieu, stakes, unlike a single scene with no other context, and this means that a novel permits a spare action scene with little description and detail.

Thus, the result of that experiment was skewed. _Of course_ the scenes with more detail were viewed as exciting—the details could provide glimpses of character, milieu, stakes—and the scenes without that detail were viewed as boring.

There's probably some truth in that. However, for me it's not a 0 vs 100 dichotomy. The context provided by a novel might make a spare action scene more exciting for a reader than these experimental, spare scenes in isolation, but that same scene in the novel might be made even better with more detail.

But as they say, the devil's in the details. The types of details given, and how they are given, make the difference.

I think the issue is really about vividness and immersion. I wouldn't sell details short; in fact, I think this is one area where beginning and mediocre authors fall short themselves, heh.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> In a single scene, there's not time to develop the characters, the stakes, or anything.



So...Yes and no. I think we can establish a connection to what's happening in a scene if we choose the right details even if the bigger picture (heh, the character's life history, the whole world milieu, the primary stakes in the whole plot/story) is not given. I recently watched an _America's Got Talent_ performance that blew me away, of a 12-year-old boy named Merrick Hanna doing a 90-sec dance that told a story in a very compelling, emotionally charged way. Before the dance, I knew little about the kid, about the characters of the story, the song he used; but, in 90 seconds, a strong connection to the story was built. (Link.) Naturally, my reaction might not be everyone's reaction, heh. But I think that with the right details, the right triggers/tropes/whatever, an engaged interest with whatever's happening can be built.

Also, I often find that some new/mediocre writers depend far too much on that magical cloud of "engagement with the character." For me this is a bit like that issue with lures vs hooks that has cropped up in another thread: 

In the same way some writers might offer up an exciting, unusual opening line as a putative "hook" but then think, hook now out of the way, the reader will automatically stay engaged for the next however many pages, some writers assume that establishment of interest in a character will automatically make any action scene involving that character interesting.

Well, it might. I wouldn't sell short emotional engagement with a character, either.  But I don't think the job stops there.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 1, 2017)

Follow-up to this ^.

Comparing storytelling in visual media and written media is interesting to me.

One might say that the visual and musical cues in that dance I linked made the difference. But for me, this signals the importance of details and description in written fiction. Similarly, a movie's action scene will have lots of visual cues, musical cues, camera work; we see the struggle in the actor's face, maybe his suffering, his scanning of the environment to find an advantage, and so forth. These cues tell us something about the stakes of that fight—the stakes of any given decision or action also!—and the character's emotional, mental, and physical condition.

Without the magic of the camera, what would be left? The riposte might be: Yeah, but I see BIG EXPLOSIONS and CGI all the time in very boring action scenes in movies. Yep. But the problem in that case is the way the cues are being used, or not used well to immerse the viewer.

But the advantage that written prose has is the way a reader will automatically fill in blanks, build a picture in his own imagination as he's reading—and a direct line to a character's thoughts blow-by-blow, feint and parry, wound and mistake.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 1, 2017)

Addison said:


> While when writing the "boring" scene they slowed down, took the time to make the details, describe character and setting.



This reminded me of this Writing Excuses podcast: Writing Excuses 9.6: The Experience of Time | Writing Excuses

Long story short: In moments of high tension, stress, high stakes, time will often seem to slow down, lots of details might be seen in a matter of real-time moments.

I've read action scenes that had lots of detail but didn't seem to slow down the pace or lose a sense of tension and still seemed to happen in a short time frame.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 1, 2017)

One technique I use is the same one recommended for writing descriptions. Don't just describe the setting, describe what your MC would notice about the setting.

Same goes for combat. I try to think what this particular character would see (people get tunnel vision in stress situations), what they would feel, smell, hear. 

Veterans around here may be getting tired of hearing me say this, but read Tolstoy's account of the Battle of Borodino. We do see large-scale framing narrative, even from Napoleon's POV, but the compelling bits for me were Prince Andrey falling on the battlefield, and poor Pierre at the cannons.


----------



## Rkcapps (Jul 3, 2017)

@ Fifthview, you might say authors are the directors of their work


----------



## FifthView (Jul 3, 2017)

Rkcapps said:


> @ Fifthview, you might say authors are the directors of their work



Heh, and maybe cinematographer also.

I've been contemplating a separate thread relating to this and other recent topics. The basic idea is to keep the reader in mind, write for the reader. I'm thinking that's first and foremost what we should have in mind, although this may only be my own peculiar way of looking at things. 

So for instance, in action scenes we could add elements that the character would see, hear, taste, feel, but in truth we are adding elements for the reader to experience. A character in theory could be focused on the sword coming at him; or, instead, while being aware of the sword he could hear the children whimpering behind him where they are huddling next to the wagon. He could taste the dust that's coating his mouth. Hear a hawk's screech overhead. Basically, as director and cinematographer, we get to decide the details we'll put into the scene, according to the effect we want.

Obviously, with a limited POV, either third or first, we do have some basic constraints. But for me, it's never so much about deciding the details on the basis of what the character would see as it is a decision about what we want to put into the scene for an effect. This can be done through the lens of the character's POV, once we've decided on those elements. So reader engagement, interest, experience of tension, and the like are not so much a result of tunnel vision through the character's senses but is a reaction to the whole scene that we've built.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

Lot's of different ways to skin a cat, I suppose.

In my opinion, you'll get more bang for your buck in writing action scenes if you focus less on what happens in the scene and more on the emotional toll the action takes on characters.

Action without impact means nothing to me as a reader (or viewer for that matter), but if you can show what the action is doing to a character (beyond just the physical), well now you've got something that pulls me in deep. 

In, short...
Less choreography. More feels.


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jul 3, 2017)

Such a fine balance, to really get an action scene to play well. A technical fight scene can be interesting, but they grow old fast.

In movies, banter carries this torch: imagine the Princess Bride fight scenes without the jibber jabber, LOL. But there is a place for relatively pure action segments, too. But kept balanced



T.Allen.Smith said:


> Lot's of different ways to skin a cat, I suppose.
> 
> In my opinion, you'll get more bang for your buck in writing action scenes if you focus less on what happens in the scene and more on the emotional toll the action takes on characters.
> 
> ...


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> ...there is a place for relatively pure action segments, too.


I've yet to read one that keeps my interest.


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jul 3, 2017)

A paragraph?



T.Allen.Smith said:


> I've yet to read one that keeps my interest.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> A paragraph?



I thought we were discussing action _scenes_.

But, sure, a paragraph of pure action is probably even _necessary_ at times. When it comes to scenes though, there needs to be so much more, and usually what I find lacking is the emotional connection. Emotion gives meaning.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 3, 2017)

The only bad action scenes I can remember reading were bad for reasons only somewhat related to a lack of detail.

The first: action scenes where what is happening, who is doing what, etc., becomes unclear. This is pretty much my biggest pet peeve when it comes to action scenes.

The second: the Mary Sue variety, where the heroes come in and quickly dispatch the foe. It's basically already a f_ait accompli_, and for me it feels like going through the motions.

The first does suffer from a lack of detail, but that's clarifying detail, not what we've been talking about. (I think?)

The second suffers from a lack of detail insofar as having a real fight would require more words, heh, and I'm sure more details would accidentally, if not purposely, need to be added.

There are a great number of action scenes that are merely serviceable, don't fall into either of those two categories, that I'm usually fine with if I like the rest of the book and story. But many of these could have been better. But what can't be made better, heh?

Edit: I suppose I should clarify that I'm talking about fights of one sort or another. I seem to have a bias in thinking of "action scenes" as being "fight/battle scenes."  Maybe I need to give a little more thought to other types of action scene. Also, I'm betting that my memory is off, since bad or boring action scenes I've read might have easily slipped into the void of forgetting.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

FifthView said:


> I suppose I should clarify that I'm talking about fights of one sort or another. I seem to have a bias in thinking of "action scenes" as being "fight/battle scenes."  Maybe I need to give a little more thought to other types of action scene.


A love scene, or maybe I should say a sex scene, can be an action scene.

If you think about it that way, what's important to the character? If it's no more than the pure physical sensation and "moves" (for the lack of a better word), then it's just porn. However, if there's _emotion_ involved (and that emotion doesn't have to be the high school puppy love variety. There are many emotions that might be experienced in a sex scene, depending on character and context) then the sex may actually _mean_ something. 

That to me is far more interesting than a relaying of what happened.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 3, 2017)

That's a great example.

Just before you'd posted that, I was reading over the Paul Atreides vs Jamis duel in _Dune._ It's a great example of what I like in a fight scene. Unfortunately, it's too long to post here. The book's in omniscient, head-hopping, so as the fight's about to begin, we have Paul analyzing what to expect. (He's not Fremen, is used to the body shield, etc.) But then much of the fight moves into his mother's perspective while she watches what happens. A lot of her thoughts and fears for her son. There's also the great cultural divide: This is a fight to the death, Paul's never killed before. Jessica realizes this. After drawing first blood, Paul asks if Jamis will yield, prompting Stilgar to call a pause while he tells Paul that it's a fight to the death, no yielding. There are angry murmurs from the crowd also as things progress. They think Paul's toying with Jamis, whereas Paul is hesitant to kill. Stilgar says as much. Etc. Lots going on besides the mere movements of the two combatants. 

Edit: But I'm very cautious in thinking "What's important to the character" is the most important question. What's important to the reader is a better question. What the characters feel and think may be important to the reader, heh. But these details we give are for the reader, to help build the whole scene for the reader. This may seem like a fine line, and I suppose that writing from the perspective of "What is important to the character," "What does the character see, hear, feel," and so forth will often naturally lead to the inclusion of details that will also interest the reader, gain the reader's attention.



T.Allen.Smith said:


> A love scene, or maybe I should say a sex scene, can be an action scene.
> 
> If you think about it that way, what's important to the character? If it's no more than the pure physical sensation and "moves" (for the lack of a better word), then it's just erotica. However, if there's _emotion_ involved (and that emotion doesn't have to be the high school puppy love variety. There are many emotions that might be experienced in a sex scene, depending on character and context) then the sex may actually _mean_ something.
> 
> That to me is far more interesting than a relaying of what happened.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

FifthView said:


> That's a great example.
> 
> Just before you'd posted that, I was reading over the Paul Atreides vs Jamis duel in _Dune._ It's a great example of what I like in a fight scene. Unfortunately, it's too long to post here. The book's in omniscient, head-hopping, so as the fight's about to begin, we have Paul analyzing what to expect. (He's not Fremen, is used to the body shield, etc.) But then much of the fight moves into his mother's perspective while she watches what happens. A lot of her thoughts and fears for her son. There's also the great cultural divide: This is a fight to the death, Paul's never killed before. Jessica realizes this. After drawing first blood, Paul asks if Jamis will yield, prompting Stilgar to call a pause while he tells Paul that it's a fight to the death, no yielding. There are angry murmurs from the crowd also as things progress. They think Paul's toying with Jamis, whereas Paul is hesitant to kill. Stilgar says as much. Etc. Lots going on besides the mere movements of the two combatants.



Yes, exactly. You provide a fine example. 

I remember that scene from reading it long ago. It stuck with me, and writing like that is one of the reason's that Herbert's story has stood the test of time, even written in an uncommon (for modern standards) POV choice like omniscient. 

Why?

Because it invoked emotion.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

FifthView said:


> ...I'm very cautious in thinking "What's important to the character" is the most important question. What's important to the reader is a better question. What the characters feel and think may be important to the reader, heh. But these details we give are for the reader, to help build the whole scene for the reader. This may seem like a fine line, and I suppose that writing from the perspective of "What is important to the character," "What does the character see, hear, feel," and so forth will often naturally lead to the inclusion of details that will also interest the reader, gain the reader's attention.



What's important to the character should be important to the reader (especially if we're talking about a POV  or MC). If it's not, then the writer isn't doing their job.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 3, 2017)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> What's important to the character should be important to the reader (especially if we're talking about a POV  or MC). If it's not, then the writer isn't doing their job.



Yes, but the reader may need more details than a character needs.

What lies behind this thought is the sort of tunnel-vision, white room effect that sometimes happens when only considering the scene through the character's POV when writing it. 

If instead we consider the scene through a vision of what we think will best engage the reader, and then use the POV character as a lens for those details, the results will be better. This doesn't mean ignoring what's important to the character; what's important to the character is one of those details we are providing to the reader, heh, a part of what we think will best engage the reader.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 3, 2017)

FifthView said:


> Yes, but the reader may need more details than a character needs.
> 
> What lies behind this thought is the sort of tunnel-vision, white room effect that sometimes happens when only considering the scene through the character's POV when writing it.
> 
> If instead we consider the scene through a vision of what we think will best engage the reader, and then use the POV character as a lens for those details, the results will be better. This doesn't mean ignoring what's important to the character; what's important to the character is one of those details we are providing to the reader, heh, a part of what we think will best engage the reader.



Not sure I follow, but I'll say this...

Clarity is king. Without clarity, you have nothing. 

Beyond that, it's what important to the character in my writing.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 4, 2017)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Not sure I follow,



Ah, that's all right, heh. 

I'm trying to look at writing as something done for the reader, but of course this is obviously the case, heh. I wonder if this is sometimes forgotten with the focus on viewing a scene through a character's eyes. The omniscient approach Herbert used allowed the provision of multiple details to that duel scene that quite easily might have been overlooked if the whole scene had been written from a single intimate POV, Paul's or his mother's. The contrast intrigues me. I've often been enamored of Robin Hobb's first-person approach which seems to include much more detail/description than other first-person approaches; so, I think broader description and detail can be achieved through limited POVs than what I sometimes find in the first-person style others use.

Anyway, this is possibly a topic for another thread.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 4, 2017)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> A love scene, or maybe I should say a sex scene, can be an action scene.
> 
> If you think about it that way, what's important to the character? If it's no more than the pure physical sensation and "moves" (for the lack of a better word), then it's just porn. However, if there's _emotion_ involved (and that emotion doesn't have to be the high school puppy love variety. There are many emotions that might be experienced in a sex scene, depending on character and context) then the sex may actually _mean_ something.
> 
> That to me is far more interesting than a relaying of what happened.



Wait, this is a really interesting way to think about it. Of course we'd have to include detail about the character's emotions...what they are thinking and feeling...

Shouldn't we define "detail?" How much detail, and where? Detail about what? The character's thoughts/feelings? The setting? The events that are occurring?


----------



## FifthView (Jul 4, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Shouldn't we define "detail?" How much detail, and where? Detail about what? The character's thoughts/feelings? The setting? The events that are occurring?



Probably, this depends on the particular scene and what the author wants to communicate.

I will say, however, that emotions/thoughts alone don't do it for me. I'd tie this back to that idea of MRUs mentioned elsewhere—even though those three letters seem to perturb some, heh. Basically, the character's not in a void, a white room, lacking context. So I'd say that if you want to show a character's internal thoughts and emotions, the best way is to first provide a stimulus, an objective reality, and then have _that_ provoke the emotional or mental response. In a love scene, this could be the lover's hand sliding down the side of the beloved. Or maybe it could be the sounds of footsteps, voices, and a school bell ringing on the other side of the janitorial closet's door, heh. It could be the frown that suddenly clouds the beloved's face. Basically, depending on what you want to communicate in this scene—to the reader—the stimulus will change because the reaction you want to show will be different than any other of the 1000000 potential reactions you might give to a character.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 4, 2017)

FifthView said:


> ...emotions/thoughts alone don't do it for me... So I'd say that if you want to show a character's internal thoughts and emotions, the best way is to first provide a stimulus, an objective reality, and then have _that_ provoke the emotional or mental response.


Yes. None of this works in a vacuum. 

I just find that emotion, in conjunction with action, is usually what is _missing_. Emotion should, more often than not, be the _focus_.


----------



## Steerpike (Jul 5, 2017)

With respect to level of detail, you can hurt an action scene as much by having too much detail as by having too little. In most cases, an author probably isn't looking to slow the pace of a story with an action scene. Quite the opposite, in fact. Important details given throughout the scene are likely to be more effective than weighing the scene down with an abundance of detail. There are exceptions, of course. If you're describing a fencing duel between master duelists you may very well describe every movement, every tell, and keep the scene moving at a measured pace as befits the action that is taking place. When critiquing, however, I've seen more action scenes hurt by an overabundance of detail--blow by blow recitation, as though describing a few rounds of D&D combat--than by the opposite.

As for which details should be shown as a consequence of POV, if you've been in a very tight third-person POV the entire story then I'd be hesitant to move out of it in an action scene in order to show details the character can't know. Yes, this can be done effectively, but I think it is more likely to look like a POV screwup on the part of the author. If you're writing an omniscient POV to begin with, then of course the whole field of battle is open to you. 

When people write in omniscient POV, they seem more likely to sacrifice the emotion that T.Allen.Smith is talking about. In critique group, I see a lot of work where there is little to no emotional connection to the character, and quite often it is associated with a distant POV. A skilled author can write a distant POV and still maintain that emotional connection, but on the whole I think moving in for a closer, tighter POV makes it much easier to achieve that connection. Personally, I don't think you lose much by limiting detail to what the POV character perceives. If your work is one that relies on a more broad POV, then it seems to me you have to be even more judicious in terms of what detail to provide, because there is so much more detail available, and you want to make sure that whatever emotional impact you're going for isn't lost in the more distant narrative.


----------



## Heliotrope (Jul 5, 2017)

FifthView said:


> Yes, but the reader may need more details than a character needs.
> 
> What lies behind this thought is the sort of tunnel-vision, white room effect that sometimes happens when only considering the scene through the character's POV when writing it.
> 
> If instead we consider the scene through a vision of what we think will best engage the reader, and then use the POV character as a lens for those details, the results will be better. This doesn't mean ignoring what's important to the character; what's important to the character is one of those details we are providing to the reader, heh, a part of what we think will best engage the reader.



I totally get this. I have the advantage of being able to orally tell stories to my son. This is crazy different than simply writing them from my own head, and has a separate set of challenges (no going back to edit lol. Often not super gorgeous prose). But where it is light years ahead of writing stories is in the action scenes. Why? Because as I'm telling him the action scene I can watch his little face. I can see when I'm starting to lose him, when his little eyes light up, when he pulls the blankets over his head in fear. Most often, when he pulls his blankets over his head in fear is not when the monster is revealed, or when a particularly bad sword slices the MC's arm a little too deeply... no, it's when I add a story twist, or remind him of the stakes. It's when things "start to get real" for the character and I throw in a memory of poor old mum, sitting at home nervously waiting for him to come home. It's when I throw in that emotional moment and my little boy's heart starts to hurt. That's when I know I have him. 

So I think there is something to this. You are writing for the reader. These emotional details, re-iterating the stakes, are what make action scenes interesting. 

But also, Donald Maas gave a great example in 21st Century Fiction:

_ Action doesn't generate tension? Not by itself. This misapprehension was brought home to me one day when I taught a workshop for Chi Libris.... A participant offered a paragraph from a work-in-progress in which a cougar carried a toddler across a stream (in it's mouth, in case you were wondering), pursued by the stories protagonist. 

The passage was well written, visually clear - and not particularly scary. When I asked, "What do you think will happen next?" hardly anyone cared. I then asked, "How can we add tension?" Initially the suggestions focused on making the cougar more menacing, raising the stakes (the toddler is a senators child!), changing the protagonist's actions, etc. Still no one cared. 

Then cam a suggestion that held the key to increasing tension: Heighten the emotions of the point of view character. Even better, create conflicting emotions. Bingo. Suddenly the moment sprang to life. Both the interest level and uncertainly of the outcome spiralled up. 

Well, expect for a group of male authors clustered in the back row. "But what if the cougar reared up his hind legs?" "Cougars have viscous fangs, what if it's lips curled back?" The guys didn't want to let go of the idea that tension comes from claws. 

Finally, I improvised a version of the passage that went something like this: 

The cougar splashed across the stream, the toddler limp in its jaws. Jim splashed after it, snapping off a branch. No way was he backing down. Forget it. It was man against nature. And this time man was going to win. 

Simple as that was, interest increased. Someone noticed that the hero's determination was undercut by the words "this time". Another participant wondered "What happened last time?" Exactly. It's the contrast between Jim's bravado and his fear (both implied, please notice) that makes the outcome uncertain, thus forcing the reader to go to the next paragraph. _[/I]


----------



## FifthView (Jul 5, 2017)

Steerpike said:


> When people write in omniscient POV, they seem more likely to sacrifice the emotion that T.Allen.Smith is talking about. In critique group, I see a lot of work where there is little to no emotional connection to the character, and quite often it is associated with a distant POV. A skilled author can write a distant POV and still maintain that emotional connection, but on the whole I think moving in for a closer, tighter POV makes it much easier to achieve that connection.



One of the reasons Frank Herbert's head-hopping omniscient works so well is that he moves in very close, intimate, whenever he hops into a head. A reader who knew nothing about _Dune_ and randomly opened the book to a few paragraphs might think the whole book's in 3rd limited–depending on which paragraphs he happens to read.



> Personally, I don't think you lose much by limiting detail to what the POV character perceives.



For me, the question of what the POV character perceives is the big question when dealing with a limited POV. When writing, we have the opportunity to decide what falls within that perception. I think that a character's perception can become focused, with conscious attention on some detail, but that a character naturally perceives things peripherally also. No matter what I'm studying, my own peripheral sight takes in much more of the world; that world can be lost on the reader if this peripheral matter is entirely ignored. Plus, during stressful moments, quite a number of thoughts might enter a character's head, beyond simply thoughts about the immediate focus. So we have some leeway in deciding which details to include.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 5, 2017)

@Helio:

The thing I like about providing objective detail along with emotional and mental reactions of the character is that this allows the reader to assess the situation also.

A description of claws, a deep sword slice to the arm, whatever, without some included emotional or mental reaction from the character, might allow this; but on the other hand, a response from the character clarifies things for the reader. A simple thought experiment: 

One character might get a slice to the arm and not think much of it; he's been sliced before in combat.

Another character might get a slice to the arm and suddenly realize that this other man, his opponent, is his equal–or even, a better swordsman.

Without those reactions, the reader doesn't know which is the case, heh, and evaluating the objective reality becomes hard. Heck, the objective reality might actually be vague, impossible to evaluate.

Alternatively, simply describing a character's mental and emotional state _without_ including the objective details that provoke those responses could leave a reader feeling that it's much ado about nothing.


----------



## Heliotrope (Jul 5, 2017)

Exactly. So it lets the reader gauge the severity of the situation as well, like putting a common object in a photograph to show the scale. 

You mentioned MRU's and I think that is a good example of how going back and focussing on something like MRU's can force you to add in that stuff. The typical MRU pattern is 

Motivation
Reaction
Thought
Speech 

Just recently, after we discussed them in a other thread, I spent some time focusing on the pattern in a short I'm working on. 

_The dance we do on the steps of Work House 14-B makes me weep. 

Her face is as grey and withered and cracked as the steps we stand on. She trembles, not from fear or cold, but in the way all the aged tremble, like a dying leaf clinging on when there is nothing left to cling to. 

She holds the purple gummy bears toward me in a withered hand. 

“For the children.” She says. My heart pounds. I divert my eyes. I haven’t seen candy in years. 

“I don’t have children.” 

Her hand holds steady, though her face falls. 

“Fin.” She whispers. “Isla.” 

“I’m sorry.” I’ve said it a thousand times. Always on the same dingy step. Always desperate to get inside. Hungry. Tired. Clutching the bag of vitamins they give us so we don’t develop iron deficiency from the  pre-packaged stringy meat and unidentifiable manufactured mineral mush.

Today she is different. Today she looks desperate. Cataracts have taken over the blue in her eyes. They are cloudy and liquid, like milk. Another thing I haven’t seen in years. Women used to make milk. I read it a medical book I found in the Pharma where I work. Before our time women had the capacity to make milk and they would ‘nurse’ their young, like an animal. Like a dairy cow, or a goat. Breasts huge and leaking like great hard udders. There are no dairy cows any more. Or goats. Or even children. Well, there must be children though I can’t remember the last time I saw one. 

Tears leak from her eyes the way milk would have leaked from those breasts. Dripping. Salty and warm. My mouth waters. I want to lick it. Taste it. Remember what something real must have tasted like. 
_

Thinking about MRU's forced me to add physical detail in places I wouldn't have, but also to take the time to put thoughts in places I wouldn't have. It is a good exercise.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 5, 2017)

Springing from our previous discussion about MRU's....I think that providing the objective stimulus first not only sets a reader's mind to questioning the significance of the provided detail, but can lead to some interesting effects once the character's reaction is given. The character's reaction can be what the reader anticipated from reading the objective detail; their responses, reader and character, can be simpatico. But the reaction can be unanticipated also, a character reacting differently than the reader expects. This can either move a reader to reevaluate his initial impressions, move more in line with the character, or it can set the character off as someone needing to be studied further, heh, or even someone with whom a reader disagrees. Any of these can be useful, depending on the story.

I'm just spit-balling that ^. Been on my mind since that other thread.

But to bring things a little back to the topic at hand...The way MRU's may work, or simply providing the objective detail along with the character response, aligns fairly well with the OODA Loop, an idea that has been used in some military theory, first conceived by an air force pilot who used it to describe the kind of decision making processes combat pilots used during combat. 

Not to go into much detail just now, but OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It is a cycle; actions can change the world, or the world itself changes during the process, necessitating a re-observation, re-orientation, and so on.

These are quite similar to the process of MRU.



Heliotrope said:


> Exactly. So it lets the reader gauge the severity of the situation as well, like putting a common object in a photograph to show the scale.
> 
> You mentioned MRU's and I think that is a good example of how going back and focussing on something like MRU's can force you to add in that stuff. The typical MRU pattern is
> 
> ...


----------

