Adam Fenner's Blog, page 36

Private goals

Daily writing promptWhat public figure do you disagree with the most?View all responses

Public figures, use public discourse
Personal megaphone, Private goals

Agree or disagree, message spreads
Little difference, furthers their goals

Independent thinking, terrify thought
Public figures working for private goals

Photo by Leo Wieling on Unsplash

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Rat race myself

Daily writing promptWhat is your career plan?View all responses

Work hard, harder than yesterday
Get smart, smarter for tomorrow

Solve problems, always add value
Build solutions, today look forward

Race yourself, ignore other’s pace
Elevate others, build a better team

Photo by Matteo Vistocco on Unsplash

He was too short

Daily writing promptWhat was the last live performance you saw?View all responses

Natural performers
Impatient audience

Handlers guidance
Enter Stage left

Excited grandmas
Giggling mothers

Packed cafeteria
Stands for videos

“Can you see him”
“No, He is too short”

Out of tune choir
Irreverent verses

“Thank you parents”
“Drive home safe”

Photo by Maryna Bohucharska on Unsplash

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Involved enough

Daily writing promptWhat do you do to be involved in the community?View all responses

Community action
Involved citizenry

Shop local superstore
Eat chain restaurants

Ignore local elections
Social Media politics

Neighbors unknown
Wave to strangers

Prompt tax payment
Good enough citizen

Photo by Meera Parat on Unsplash

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A Farmer

Daily writing promptWhat’s a job you would like to do for just one day?View all responses

I’m short on coffee, couldn’t frame anything that was really deserving of the answer I wanted to have.

Instead I’m going to share the original audio and transcript from Paul Harvey’s “God Made a Farmer” which says this better than I could.

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker”

— so God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board”

— so God made a Farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it”

— so God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt,  and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps; who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, and then pain’n from tractor back, put in another seventy-two hours”

— so God made a Farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds, and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place

— so God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark.”

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does”

— so God made a Farmer.

Originally sourced from American Rhetoric Here.

You may also find the audio here on Youtube.

Photo by Jake Gard on Unsplash

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Brand rejection

Daily writing promptWhat are your favorite brands and why?View all responses

Tribal affiliations
Brand association

Absent Leaders
Parasitic goals

Consumer interest
Pitiable purchases

Sense of belonging
Discarded packaging

Digested community
Wasted membership

Commercial rejection
Social participation

Photo by yang wewe on Unsplash

I’m hiding this down here intentionally, content first, always.
Then all the promotion work.
I’m on Facebook, there I’ll be able to communicate with people more directly, and also have more writing updates, beyond daily musings and light bits of poetry.

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Everyone teaches

Daily writing promptList the people you admire and look to for advice…View all responses

Everyone offers advice freely
Available to open eyes, ears

Spoken words, of little value
Attention paid, details given

Actions, consequences teach
Lessons clearly, invaluable

Photo by Hiroko Yoshii on Unsplash

I’m hiding this down here intentionally, content first, always.
Then all the promotion work.
I’m on Facebook, there I’ll be able to communicate with people more directly, and also have more writing updates, beyond daily musings and light bits of poetry.

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Pastoral retreat

Daily writing promptDo you vote in political elections?View all responses

Politics is for politicians and pundits
Pleasant escape to pastoral poetry

Bumbling bees, bless begonias
Whipping wind, waving willows

Delightfully dancing dizzy deer
Backyard beer brewed bubbly

Photo by Rebecca Niver on Unsplash

I’m hiding this down here intentionally, content first, always.
Then all the promotion work.
I’m on Facebook, there I’ll be able to communicate with people more directly, and also have more writing updates, beyond daily musings and light bits of poetry.

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An arrow

Daily writing promptWhat gives you direction in life?View all responses

Time shot arrow forward
Sisyphean rolling stone
Struggle against what?

Gravity’s downward pull
Friction’s grinding force
All those, ‘good enoughs’

Life is forward movement
Moss gathers, resting rocks
Time is short, plenty to do

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

I’m hiding this down here intentionally, content first, always.
Then all the promotion work.
I’m on Facebook, there I’ll be able to communicate with people more directly, and also have more writing updates, beyond daily musings and light bits of poetry.

Follow me on Facebook here.

10 Actions for Writing Better Action Scenes

Readers like action, in all forms. Sometimes it is short confrontations. Maybe it's a hero standing up to a bully. They never exchange a punch but there is a rush of emotion that translates into some physiological reaction. It is action, but nothing can ruin a good story like bad action. Don't forget that action isn't bound to violent encounters. It could be a car chase, a sex scene, or any other scene designed to get your readers' hearts beating. Here are ten hopefully helpful hints to support your next action sequence.

1. Give your action scene a purpose.

Action for the sake of action is the difference between store-bought pie, and your grandmother's secret recipe. Fundamentally they may share similar elements, but they just aren't the same. A fight should move the story forward, but more importantly it should propel the characters forward, reveal something about themselves to themselves or to the reader. You have to give your reader a reason to care about the outcome of the action sequence, to want to turn the next page.

You can do this in a variety of ways. You can put the hero (gender neutral) into a new or unfamiliar situation and test his mettle. Or even more revealing is one that the hero recognizes something that will draw some piece of his past out, force him to face his fears and either fail or triumph. Variety is the key, however. Easy ways to accomplish this are multiple opponents, or by adding another element, a trap, or a new environmental threat.

2. Plan ahead.

Whatever you do, you are the author, the master of your story. Walk in with a plan, be it a simple punch to the nose of a rude guy at the bar or a massive battle with many intricately moving parts. Have a plan, and stick to it. Don't completely let your characters run the show. Let them guide you along the path you have given them. But you are the boss.

I have utilized PowerPoint slides to track each phase of the battle, going so far as to plan out the deaths of over eighty characters step by step. Because when my heroes stepped over a dead body, I wanted to know whose body that was. I used one slide to represent the entire scene at a particular moment and annotated who was dead and whose POV it was in. I also would show the visual limits of that POV. It was a lot of work, but for a final battle it was worth it, and it really helped as a reference to support myself as an author and the readers by giving them a clear picture of the battle taking place.

Role-playing is also key. I have been known to punch, kick, and tumble (attempt to flip) in my living room or wherever I am writing, trying to get every detail of movement just right. This may seem basic, but if you want to do something like a wrestling match and really get the fine details of the movement of the two individuals, it is essential.

3. Research techniques, tactics, and procedures.

If you want your reader to not only read the action but also experience it, you have to know what you are writing about. To do that, you will need to do research. My military background has exposed me to a wide range of information, but it has also given me enough information to know what I don't know and where to find out more: Google.

If you are using a weapon, understand it. If your readers are veterans, police, or military, if you are writing about any part of their job and are wrong, it will pull them out of the story. If you are right, it will fully immerse the reader in the experience. Don't just learn that cops like Glocks and they usually use either a .45 or a .4 cal. Learn how they step into a hostile room, how they holster the weapon, and what the type of brush they clean the weapon with. Those finer details of how gear may sit on their shoulders or hips, or perhaps what foot they enter the door with, could change your story from a traditional tale into something significantly more.

Grenades don't shoot massive fireballs into the sky, 9mms don't punch baseball-sized holes through a grown man's chest, and a broad sword is too heavy to carry with one hand... generally. Learn your weapons systems: how to use them and what they do.

One of my accidentally useful experiences as a writer has been my time spent as an Army Medic. As a writer, this has given me very useful knowledge of the effects of various types of trauma on the human body. I know what a blade will do when it penetrates the abdomen, or how gruesome a slice across the belly will be. These facts can making writing an action scene a lot of fun because nothing is more satisfying than dismantling your enemies—for both the reader and the writer.

4. Engage the five senses.

In a fight, all five senses are cranked up. Or maybe they aren't. During large explosions, the ears can block out all sounds, creating a partial deaf experience. Don't just engage your readers' eyes. Give them a full sensory experience, whether it be the cool rain water falling on muscles burning from a heated battle, the taste of blood, the smell of charred flesh, or the clang of metal on metal. Put the reader in the middle of your action sequence.

5. Warriors get hurt. Make injury a part of your fight.

Only an idiot walks into a fight thinking that he won't get hit. Getting hit is a part of the plan. Have your hero get hit and overcome the pain or injury. Or have him fail. Even Batman had his spine broken.

6. Write in shorter, easier-to-read sentences.

If your action scene is doing its job, the reader's heart will pump faster, and if you know what that does to the human body it will start to make everything move faster. I do my best to avoid long paragraphs or sentences. I like the structure of my writing to reflect the intensity of the action experience. Here is an example that shows very quick flow while engaging multiple senses.

The following is taken from "He Chose Wynter" (unpublished):

* * * * *

He pulled back and swung hard.

Dum.

The shield shook. The ground on which he stood vibrated faintly. He swung again.
Dummm.

Dust rose from the ground. His bones tingled and ached from the near deafening sound. He kicked his foot back and swung again.

Dummmmmm.

He stayed low, the shockwave nearly knocking him off his feet. The dust filled his nose and mouth. He tightened his grip and struck.

Dummmmmmmmm. Crunch.

A burst of energy knocked him off his feet and onto the vibrating ground. He gritted his teeth, stood and swung hard again.

Dummmmmmmmmmmmmm. CRACK!

* * * * *

7. Control the POV.

Action should be a flurry of movement, but it is your responsibility as an author to control that. Knowing your POV can be a big part of that. In my final action sequence for my first fantasy novel, I took advantage of my multiple POVs to show the expansiveness of the battlefield. The catch 22 to that is that you must limit what the reader is reading about to that POV. You can't be hearing or seeing something that is out of that character's experience.

Using more of a third person omniscient style removes that limitation but reduces the intimacy of the experience for the reader. I want my readers to feel what my characters are feeling. Whatever you decide, make sure that it can support the reader's experience, and understand the limitations.

8. Structurally action it goes back and forth. Write it that way.

What I have found to be incredibly useful is the technique of using paragraph breaks for action the same way that I do for dialogue. If "he said" then "she said" are in sequential paragraphs, why can't his sword slice, follow her block? This allows for quick paragraph breaks and shorter sentences while still communicating to the reader who is doing what.

9. Read the work of others. It puts tools in your toolbox.

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."

Stephen King said that. If you aren't reading, you aren't putting tools in your toolbox. Ask a carpenter how hard it is to build a cabinet without the proper tools.

When you are reading, look at how the author structures a scene, displays something of importance, or moves between key points. You can learn a lot by reading.

10. Have fun.

If you don't enjoy your scene, that will permeate through your writing, and your reader will feel it. Enjoy what you are doing.

Action isn't all serious. Your characters should have fun occasionally and make jokes, and so should you as the author.

I once put my fantasy characters on the island of an insane sorceress who had covered her island with desserts. And after my former-slave-turned-warrior had indulged himself in enough chocolate to give him a stomachache, I put him against chocolate goblins. Too bad he was throwing up during the entire battle. I had a blast writing the scene, and when I finally finish editing the book, I hope my readers enjoy it as well.

The other important thing to note is that the highs can make the lows feel lower and can help to bond characters with one another and endear them to the reader. So, when or if you do kill someone off, the pain of that loss will be felt that much more because there will have been those good times to remember.

Regardless of what kind of action you are writing. Keep these points in mind and have a great time. The more fun you have with your writing the better it will be.