Action Scenes as Poetry

[Svrtnsse]

Without context:
What's your spontaneous reaction to presenting an action scene as a poem?

With context:
I sort of did this when I wrote Emma's Story. For the most part the story is fairly straight on. It swaps between two different narrative voices, but both of those voices go with a pretty "regular" style of prose. That is, until the big action scene near the end.
In this scene, the voice turns up the poeticity(?) to eleven and it's all rather dramatic. I personally feel that it works really well and I'm tempted to try it again.

The idea is new to me, but I'm sure it's been done before. Have you encountered something like this in your reading, and how did you feel about it? Have you tried writing it yourself?

For reference, I'm including the full scene here. It may be a bit of a stretch to claim that it's a poem, but I'd say it's a fair bit more poetic than what's common in narrative prose. Also, if someone wants to read the full chapter, it's available here: Emma?s Story ? Draft 1 ? Chapter 11 ? s v r t n s s e
[SPOILER="Action" scene]The carrot does nothing. A young woman feels no change. Two horses drag a sled through heavy snow. Step by tired step. A lantern on a pole has lost its use. All she sees is falling snow. An endless swarm of frozen flies.

She must trust they find their way, for she knows not where they are, and she will not turn back.

Will never turn back.

A road is a river in the night. A sled an island in the dark. Snowflakes dance like butterflies, and a lantern’s glow is ever weaker.

A young woman no longer sees where she is going. No longer sees the ground. She cowers in her father’s coat, pulls her hat down, and wants to cry. The carrot does nothing, and the butterflies eat the light.

The darkness eats her horses. The darkness eats her sled. It tugs at her coat. It pulls at her hair. She sees nothing. She is nowhere. Flies of ice and butterflies of frost.

She must trust they find their way, for she will not turn back.

Will never turn back.

A young woman closes her eyes against the darkness.

She sees her horses, red and orange, racing through the night. She sees their glowing hearts, pumping gold through veins of glass, and their eyes burn like the suns of summer.

Their heat warms her face. Melts her frozen eyebrows. Fills her tired lungs with life.

A young woman can be still no more. She stands. She stretches. She arches her back and she cranes her neck. She tears her coat open, and throws her hat away. The wind whips her face, and the snow pulls her hair, and the darkness takes her sight away.

She defies everything.

She raises her arms and opens her mouth and sings to the night. She opens her heart and sings to the sky. She opens herself and sings to the world. And the world sings with her.

Racing through the darkness, drawn by steeds of summer, a young woman is the turning of the seasons. She is the last storm of winter and the first flower of spring. She is the rain of autumn.

But most of all she is a daughter of summer and she will never turn back.[/SPOILER]

 

[Heliotrope]

^^^^ yep. I love that shit. This would have a special place in my special bookcase where only my favourite books go behind glass.

 

[Devor]

I had the idea of a story where certain characters had special abilities like the ability to push down trees with their hands, and those abilities meant they had to die in a "poetic death." Eventually, the idea was to write short chapters (less than 3 pages) as poems describing how they used their power to do something epic at their deaths, like push down a sacred tree where they were hanging human sacrifices.

I decided it was all too much for me to handle and chickened out of writing it.

But I definitely think we can do more with poems as a way of telling action. Absolutely.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I love this. Huge fan of poetic prose, of the figurative and flowery and of what some would call purple. I think it works well for that scene. The poetic writing elevates the emotion in the scene.

I'll keep this in mind when I write.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm thinking I'll be giving it another go in the near future then.

This kind of thing seems to come easier to me than blow-by-blow action so hopefully I can turn that into an advantage somehow.

 

[Rkcapps]

Clever, sing-song and beautiful.

 

[Mythopoet]

I am honestly ALL FOR this. It's SOOOOO much better than blow-by-blow accounts that drive me to tears of boredom. With one important caveat: it has to make sense. I have to actually understand what happened. I've found a lot of the time when authors get really lyrical they also get really vague. And that annoys me even more. If you write a long poetic passage for an action scene you have to make sure your reader understands what actually, physically happened during it as well.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I am honestly ALL FOR this. It's SOOOOO much better than blow-by-blow accounts that drive me to tears of boredom. With one important caveat: it has to make sense. I have to actually understand what happened. I've found a lot of the time when authors get really lyrical they also get really vague. And that annoys me even more. If you write a long poetic passage for an action scene you have to make sure your reader understands what actually, physically happened during it as well.

This is true too. You have to make sure you're being clear so as not to confuse your readers.

 

[elemtilas]

Without context:
What's your spontaneous reaction to presenting an action scene as a poem?

Spontaneous reaction: well, obviously!

English is a naturally poetic & rhythmic language. It's why blank verse works so well.

So, yeah, I like the use of a more poetic mode here!

What I found confusing, though, was the insistence on the indefinite article: "a young woman..." "a lantern..." "a sled..." etc.
For me at least, that kind of separates or disconnects the things and people from the action being described. Indefinite after indefinite leaves me wondering if you're speaking in generalities or referencing something specific to the story.

 

[Vaporo]

Well, I'm afraid that I have to be the contrary one here. I can't say that I cared for it much. I'm not much of a poetry guy to begin with. I like my words to say what they mean and not make me work through intentionally flawed grammar and vague phrasing just to pick apart what's going on. What you've done here isn't as bad as some, though. I could mostly understand it and follow along without too much effort. Still, if I were reading along and saw something flowery like this just shoved in there, it wouldn't score the author any brownie points with me.

That being said, I have no context in the story from which to work off of. Here, I'm just reading this out of nowhere. You seem to be setting this up as a major emotional climax of your story. If I saw this in context, with the scene properly built up, then I might say that yes, it works well.

I'll say that word again: context. I went ahead and read the chapter that you linked, and I can say that I enjoyed it more than I did with no context. However, there are still a lot of loose ends. What was that with the gold and glass horses? Was it some sort of metaphor, of some kind of literal, magical effect? Is she literally embodying the seasons, or is that just a metaphor too? You can never tell in a fantasy story (Half the time I can't tell in normal poetry either). Although, I'm speaking from reading only one chapter here.

Throughout the chapter, you wax in and out of this flowery prose. You do use it to set up the scene and to lead up to the climax at the end, which I like. However, I barely understand what happened in that climax (WHAT IS WITH THESE GLASS HORSES!?), which kind of just downgrades if to pretentious filler to me. Very good pretentious filler, but still just filler. Again, though, one chapter. If I read the whole thing I may say that it all makes total sense and that you've totally earned the flowery bits.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Spontaneous reaction: well, obviously!

English is a naturally poetic & rhythmic language. It's why blank verse works so well.

So, yeah, I like the use of a more poetic mode here!

What I found confusing, though, was the insistence on the indefinite article: "a young woman..." "a lantern..." "a sled..." etc.
For me at least, that kind of separates or disconnects the things and people from the action being described. Indefinite after indefinite leaves me wondering if you're speaking in generalities or referencing something specific to the story.

Oddly enough I liked that. Especially how the perspective would change. I'm not sure why, it just gave the scene the right feel. As if i was being told this story and watching this girl leave alone and it was making her seem smaller against the snow and darkness...Kinda a detachment from her that emphasized the alone-ness. maybe.

 

[Svrtnsse]

What I found confusing, though, was the insistence on the indefinite article: "a young woman..." "a lantern..." "a sled..." etc.
For me at least, that kind of separates or disconnects the things and people from the action being described. Indefinite after indefinite leaves me wondering if you're speaking in generalities or referencing something specific to the story.

This is what I meant when I said that the story swaps between two different narrative voices - that is one of them, although it's usually not quite this flowery. What I've gathered from test readers is that it seems to be a love it or hate it kind of thing. Some people really enjoy it, while someone else felt it was condescending.
It's something that's happening throughout the entire story, and if someone's gone this far into it they're probably comfortable with it. I hope so at least, or they'd have had a terrible time reading.

 

[Svrtnsse]

[...] With one important caveat: it has to make sense. [...]

While this may seem obvious I'm glads you pointed it out. It's so very easy to forget that not everything is as obvious to the readers as it is to me as a writer. Some things are figurative and some are literal, and there's no real indication which is which.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Well, I'm afraid that I have to be the contrary one here. I can't say that I cared for it much. I'm not much of a poetry guy to begin with. I like my words to say what they mean and not make me work through intentionally flawed grammar and vague phrasing just to pick apart what's going on. What you've done here isn't as bad as some, though. I could mostly understand it and follow along without too much effort. Still, if I were reading along and saw something flowery like this just shoved in there, it wouldn't score the author any brownie points with me.
[...]

It's fine if this isn't your kind of thing. Like I mentioned in another post about the narrative style it's the kind of thing that will work for some people, but not for others. I'm happy to hear you took the time to read the entire chapter though, and that the scene made more sense after that. I take that as something positive.

As you say, context is everything. The more a reader knows about the world and about the characters, the more they're able to get out of the scene.

I'll take a stab at a few things, because it's my setting and I enjoy telling others about it.
Some of this is being mentioned elsewhere in the story, so a reader will have had the chance to pick up on it, but there's still some room for guessing and interpretation.

The most important thing is probably the Lady's Carrots. In this case, the Lady is a reference to Anna, the goddess of the anfylk (the race my characters here belong to). The carrots were buried under a holy tree for a year and infused with the goddess power. When Emma and her horses consume the carrots they take part of the power of the goddess. That's why they manage to keep going through the night despite having run all day already.
This also ties in with the glass horses. Partly, it's just purple prose, and partly it's because Emma is able to see through them and see the force of life flowing through them (or she might be hallucinating, it's up to you (she's not, but I know that's not made clear)).

The thing with the seasons ties back to the anfylk creation story. When Anna created the anfylk she took a year to do it, and the four main tribes/breeds are named after the four seasons (Emma, the main character, is of Summer). This ties in with how she partakes of Anna's power when eating the carrots and how the goddess comes to her aid.

I guess as an explanation this is kind of vague too.
One of the things I'm hoping to achieve is to tickle the reader's imagination in a way that gets their mind going. Hopefully they'll have enough context to make the connection between the imagery and the setting. That's a big hopefully though, and I can see how it's easy to go too far with the fluffiness.

It's also clear it's not everyone's cup of tea this kind of style. But I'm thinking this is one of those cases where I'd go with not being able to please everyone. It's great to hear input from those that wouldn't normally enjoy it though. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

 

[elemtilas]

Oddly enough I liked that. Especially how the perspective would change. I'm not sure why, it just gave the scene the right feel. As if i was being told this story and watching this girl leave alone and it was making her seem smaller against the snow and darkness...Kinda a detachment from her that emphasized the alone-ness. maybe.

I didn't get that feeling at all. Just goes to show how different people can read the same thing very differently.

To be honest, & poetry aside, if some fellow had to read much more of a particular stylistic choice, someone might just go batty!

 

[elemtilas]

This is what I meant when I said that the story swaps between two different narrative voices - that is one of them, although it's usually not quite this flowery. What I've gathered from test readers is that it seems to be a love it or hate it kind of thing. Some people really enjoy it, while someone else felt it was condescending.
It's something that's happening throughout the entire story, and if someone's gone this far into it they're probably comfortable with it. I hope so at least, or they'd have had a terrible time reading.

Could be a love it / hate it thing. Like I said, I rather liked the idea of using a more poetic voice, so I guess I'm in the "love it" camp there! For me it was just the continual indefinites.

Hm. I didn't find it condescending at all, for what it worths. But I tend to like flowery and a little higher register. I also don't mind the insertion of poetry (within reason!) --- I don't think I would like a switch from prose to epic balladry half way through a novel for instance!

Also thanks for the explanations --- they do help!