I'm BORED with action scenes...

[Caged Maiden]

OMG DotA you're so speaking my language. I love torture scenes because of the intensity and intimacy. I love awkward relationships (especially romantic ones). I LOVE having characters who have to accomplish something together even though they don't like each other. all that stuff really gets my imagination going and my fingers soaring over keys. Maybe I can reduce it further. I like close contact between people, rather than movement from a distance, or tactics.

And as to the intimate scenes...I don't think it's porn if the scene has a point other than the sex. And all of mine do. I usually show the meaningful scenes, and then I summarize the subsequent ones if there are any. My favorite I ever wrote was this female mage who was leaving home for safety, and her grandfather hired mercenaries to take her and her brother to a ship. On the first night the character spends alone with her private guard, she's flustered and out of sorts. Separated from her brother and feeling alone. She's so nervous. He tries to set her at ease by being friendly and then she says something really awkward. Don't remember how I worded it, but something like, "Oh, thanks for being nice to me. I was really nervous. I've never been in the company of people who kill other people for money." and that pretty much ends the friendly conversation. HA! He's not upset, but she feels even more awkward. Later, when she's lying in bed, watching him sleep on the floor next to her, she finally gets brave enough to actually look at him. A lot is happening in her head, and she sort of leans over him and she thinks she might just kiss him without waking him...but then his eyes open and she's startled and falls out of bed onto him. And after that, a game begins. He taunts her, teasing her and all in good fun, he backs her up against the wall, asking her awkward questions until she finally admits she only wanted a kiss. He smiles and asks if she still wants it. And she says yes.

I went full bore after that because it was so beautiful in my mind, so wonderfully horribly awkward, and yet likely. The romp they have, as strangers who don't know each others' last names, was so much fun. And pretty graphic. But the point of it was that they did things that weren't timid. They were patient and kind to each other and gave their inner hearts, knowing they'd part in two days. And I loved it. But how could I get that across without being specific and a bit graphic? The lasting emotion of that scene carried the whole story. If they hadn't had that moment, the story would have lost all meaning (to me). Yeah, that's my favorite one.

Actually, I have another favorite, too. A young woman is married to a guy who speaks about secrets instead of love after their awkward wedding ceremony. He shows her to her own room, and there is no romantic relationship. They're married for weeks before they eventually connect at all. And when they finally do go to bed together, I pull down all the barriers between them and reduce them to their softest selves. Her husband who would never be caught in public without his shoes polished and a neatly tied cravat becomes unglued. And the humble sheep farmer's daughter shows she's got her own agenda and takes what she wants. Yeah, I like that one, too.

Yeah, I'm totally stuck on romantic relationships because they offer plenty of opportunity to fight with words and emotions are rawer in those situations.

 

[Caged Maiden]

ooh, and one of my favorite scenes ever...this older woman has hired a young man to help with a murder plot (anyways, bear with me), and during the course of their acquaintance, she puts him in a dangerous situation, and she loses control of the situation, and he's totally irate and threatens to leave her in the road to fend for herself. When they escape the situation, and get back to town, he's gone. He doesn't check in, he doesn't collect his letters from her, nothing. So, she has to find him before her partners discover he's abandoned their purpose, because she knows the partners will kill this guy. So, she goes and finds him, and they have an angry conversation. He's drunk and she finds him in a bar, and she breaks his friend's arm and tells him to come meet her outside. They fight in the street, and then she apologizes for using him like a tool and a pawn, and they go have an honest conversation where she reveals her inner conflict and her paranoia and fear. It's just SO fun. After that, the guy has a newfound respect for her and comes back to work. But later in the story, the woman sees something traumatic and the guy saves her life when she's attacked by a nut job. When they get home, she's freaking out and she puts a dagger to her neck and stares in the mirror. He grabs her hand and her waist and throws the dagger away, but she smashes the mirror with his and her fist, and then they're both bleeding and upset. She gets despondent, and he leaves...but he watches her from outside. She leaves the house and sneaks over the neighboring rooftops, and he knows she's going to do a suicide mission, so he follows her to remind her she has a reason to live.

OMG, I love characters who are troubled and need other characters to talk them off the ledge or to motivate them, or to help them differentiate right from wrong. That stuff really gets me excited about a story.

 

[skip.knox]

It's interesting, DotA, that you like writing torture scenes because those are scenes that also can become mostly about mechanics and layering the AWESOME, rather than being about tone and mood and character. Just like battle scenes.

You might consider approaching a fight scene as another format for a torture scene. Focus on the intimacy of it. I mentioned Tolstoy before. There is a scene that has always remained in my memory (lots of scenes, really) in which Andre is injured. We follow him in a charge. We get the noise and the chaos and the smoke. We feel his weird mix of elation and fear. And then, suddenly, he falls, shot. And then we are lying on our back staring up at the blue sky and white clouds, almost peaceful. It's one of the strongest moments of battle I've encountered.

As another example, I have a general in the big battle and yeah I talk about positioning troops and such, but mostly I have him complain because he feels sidelined by the Emperor. And he has this tic. He doesn't even realize it about himself, but he itches. He blames the heat and idleness. He blames the Emperor and even his own staff, but in truth it's his own inner demons. So he scratches and squirms. And, as the goblins sweep around him because of his own failure to guard the flank, just before one takes off his head, the itching stops. He feels pretty good.

To put it another way, there is the movement of troops, the ebb and flow of the battle, but within that, conditioned by it, are a thousand small stories that can break your heart.

 

[FifthView]

It's very difficult for me to disentangle character from context. If I have loved any character's journey, growth, and victory (or defeat), I have experienced all those things in the midst of that context. While I was reading the character's journey, I was reading all those things as well.

One important factor for me: Characters themselves have difficulty disentangling themselves from context. This may be experienced by the character in multiple ways, but ultimately this comes down to character reaction to externals.

When there is Awesome in the story, the characters may see it and react to it and feel as much awe as the reader feels. My go-to example is Peter Jackson's direction of the LOTR movies, because he was genius when doing this. The fellowship passes under those giant statues, and they look up in awe. Gandalf says, "Let me risk a little more light," and suddenly the fellowship (and viewers) are awestruck: "Behold: the great realm and dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf!" When Mt. Doom explodes, we get a cutaway to the reactions on the faces of those members of the fellowship not in Mt. Doom; and we know what they are thinking. Jackson does this consistently. He knows it's not just about adding Awesome to try dazzling the audience. If it's truly awesome, how can the characters not be awestruck?

Of course, a jaded character might not feel awe.

And awe is subjective to some degree. Usually, there's a sense of newness or oddity, and a character may have grown beyond a sense of awe if something has become familiar. Characters can also feel awe when confronted by common things that are nonetheless new for them: Like, maybe, the sensation of a pike being forced through their belly. Or seeing that happen to a loved one.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I love that, Skip. What a clever and utterly human way to portray the character. see, that's the stuff I get excited about. Tics, flaws, mannerisms. Maybe because I'm hypersensitive about those things? I see them when other people might not? And I'm painfully aware of my own. I always attributed it to being bipolar because I always have to be vigilant of what i am doing...for fear of offending people. I've done it so many times, where I'm trying to be friendly and funny, (especially when getting to know people) and I forget folks don't already know my quirks...and then I have to apologize after I blurt something that makes people uncomfortable, or say something that has the opposite meaning of how I intended it. OMG, so I'm super aware of my own mannerisms and quirks..and in turn I think that makes me assign similar things to my characters. I love how you included that as a plot point and a resolution, too.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

OMG DotA you're so speaking my language. I love torture scenes because of the intensity and intimacy. I love awkward relationships (especially romantic ones). I LOVE having characters who have to accomplish something together even though they don't like each other. all that stuff really gets my imagination going and my fingers soaring over keys. Maybe I can reduce it further. I like close contact between people, rather than movement from a distance, or tactics.

And as to the intimate scenes...I don't think it's porn if the scene has a point other than the sex. And all of mine do. I usually show the meaningful scenes, and then I summarize the subsequent ones if there are any. My favorite I ever wrote was this female mage who was leaving home for safety, and her grandfather hired mercenaries to take her and her brother to a ship. On the first night the character spends alone with her private guard, she's flustered and out of sorts. Separated from her brother and feeling alone. She's so nervous. He tries to set her at ease by being friendly and then she says something really awkward. Don't remember how I worded it, but something like, "Oh, thanks for being nice to me. I was really nervous. I've never been in the company of people who kill other people for money." and that pretty much ends the friendly conversation. HA! He's not upset, but she feels even more awkward. Later, when she's lying in bed, watching him sleep on the floor next to her, she finally gets brave enough to actually look at him. A lot is happening in her head, and she sort of leans over him and she thinks she might just kiss him without waking him...but then his eyes open and she's startled and falls out of bed onto him. And after that, a game begins. He taunts her, teasing her and all in good fun, he backs her up against the wall, asking her awkward questions until she finally admits she only wanted a kiss. He smiles and asks if she still wants it. And she says yes.

I went full bore after that because it was so beautiful in my mind, so wonderfully horribly awkward, and yet likely. The romp they have, as strangers who don't know each others' last names, was so much fun. And pretty graphic. But the point of it was that they did things that weren't timid. They were patient and kind to each other and gave their inner hearts, knowing they'd part in two days. And I loved it. But how could I get that across without being specific and a bit graphic? The lasting emotion of that scene carried the whole story. If they hadn't had that moment, the story would have lost all meaning (to me). Yeah, that's my favorite one.

Actually, I have another favorite, too. A young woman is married to a guy who speaks about secrets instead of love after their awkward wedding ceremony. He shows her to her own room, and there is no romantic relationship. They're married for weeks before they eventually connect at all. And when they finally do go to bed together, I pull down all the barriers between them and reduce them to their softest selves. Her husband who would never be caught in public without his shoes polished and a neatly tied cravat becomes unglued. And the humble sheep farmer's daughter shows she's got her own agenda and takes what she wants. Yeah, I like that one, too.

Yeah, I'm totally stuck on romantic relationships because they offer plenty of opportunity to fight with words and emotions are rawer in those situations.

that's good to hear

And yes, we are on the same page with a lot of things about what excites us in writing. The human side of things, how relationships shift and interact, the interplay of emotions within and between people. It's fascinating, humanity, and lots of my themes and topics I explore reflect my fascination.

In this story, I have a lot to work with, but I haven't yet figured out how to allow it to emerge fully. I have my MC's painful backstory, of falling in love and then blaming herself for her boyfriend's death. I have all the new people i'm forcing her to interact with and at first she hates them but then she kind of surprises herself in realizing she actually cares about them. I also have her observing the relationships of other characters (often familial, often very broken) and struggling to relate. I think she really does want love and to be loved, but it's just so strange and uncomfortable to her. She's a hard, ruthless young woman who has learned hard lessons about caring about people. She had to hide her vulnerability to survive but it's there and she's afraid of it.

I think "get to the next plot point" has been smothering all of the above. For me, the emotional connections, the relationships, are always the core. So of course things are falling in on themselves...

I actually rarely include romantic relationships in my stories! I think YA has given me a sour taste in my mouth about them. In my WIP the only romantic thing is my MC's past with the tragically killed boyfriend. But I do enjoy them, so... I love other relationships as much or more, though. Sibling relationships have to be my favorite. In the WIP I laid aside, my MC's are brother and sister and I wrote a scene near the beginning where the sister has just taken a vicious beating for a crime her brother committed and she comes upstairs, bloody, and she's really pissed off at him even though she took his punishment, and insists she's okay but he insists on patching her up so as he's tending to her wounds they're arguing and hurling insults at each other, and the sarcasm is palpable, I swear. Sooo much sarcasm. it's one of my favorite ever scenes.

You have a lot of favorites, lol I mean yeah, I'm not fond of graphic sex scenes, i wouldn't like writing them, and I'd only read them if the author seriously knew what they were doing. But hey, to each their own...And I totally understand the fascination with the emotional dynamics between characters of a scene.

 

[skip.knox]

>I see them when other people might not?

There is a difference, an important difference, imo, between noticing and seeing. Actually, we don't really have verbs for this that are sufficiently distinguished. What a writer does is, to notice some tic or mannerism or turn of phrase--which is something anyone can do--then does two things further. Make that three things. First, the writer remembers. Most folks notice and then the observation flies by. Second, the writer finds a place for that tic, with a specific character in a specific situation. Third, most of the time anyway, the writer exaggerates. Certainly beyond how it manifested in the original observation.

If I had merely said that Lupicinus (that Roman general) scratched his hand, or scratched his neck, that would not be sufficient. It's the repetition, plus the irritation he exhibits, that turns it into something that resonates within the scene (er, yours truly hopes that's the case!). A writer is willing to go to extremes, to go beyond the quotidian (your word for the day!) in order to make it memorable.

That's what sets you apart, CM. You notice things--about yourself, about others. But you go the writer's mile. You remember. You use. You exaggerate.

You write!

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

It's interesting, DotA, that you like writing torture scenes because those are scenes that also can become mostly about mechanics and layering the AWESOME, rather than being about tone and mood and character. Just like battle scenes.

You might consider approaching a fight scene as another format for a torture scene. Focus on the intimacy of it. I mentioned Tolstoy before. There is a scene that has always remained in my memory (lots of scenes, really) in which Andre is injured. We follow him in a charge. We get the noise and the chaos and the smoke. We feel his weird mix of elation and fear. And then, suddenly, he falls, shot. And then we are lying on our back staring up at the blue sky and white clouds, almost peaceful. It's one of the strongest moments of battle I've encountered.

As another example, I have a general in the big battle and yeah I talk about positioning troops and such, but mostly I have him complain because he feels sidelined by the Emperor. And he has this tic. He doesn't even realize it about himself, but he itches. He blames the heat and idleness. He blames the Emperor and even his own staff, but in truth it's his own inner demons. So he scratches and squirms. And, as the goblins sweep around him because of his own failure to guard the flank, just before one takes off his head, the itching stops. He feels pretty good.

To put it another way, there is the movement of troops, the ebb and flow of the battle, but within that, conditioned by it, are a thousand small stories that can break your heart.

they can, but they can also be about tone and mood and character, which is how I like to write them. They're more slowed-down than fast-paced but at the same time are very intense.

And that's basically how I do fight scenes, when I do enjoy them. I really hate a cinematic approach to action. It has to be very personal, focusing on the emotions, the senses, the thoughts shooting through the character's mind. In fact, calling them action scenes is kind of meh because it's the action part that bores me. The action itself is boring. The action as it affects the characters in it? Less boring.