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The Devil You Don't Know
CONVENTIONS OF SPYING
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Taking Aim: Anatomy Of The Action Scene.
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1) Out of my 3 informal categories, which do you prefer. Which one would you say the spy/military/geopolitical thrillers in your bookshelf kindle lean towards?
2) What can be classified as a "bad" action scene? Something that bores? Something which seems to be illogically constructed?
3) What would you say is the secret behind thriller novel action scenes that one could say were successful in holding the readers interest?
Might put in more questions but as always, love to hear your thoughts.
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I am a hardcore down to the earth, realistic action writer. I admire writers whose write action scenes are in science fiction, paranormal, vampires, whatever.
I like the Mann ones. Less cinematic perhaps but most conflicts take less than 3 minutes for full assault and less than a minute one on one. Now stretching this out in a thriller is an artform and therefore requires good suspenseful buildup before-hand, and perhaps afterwards in a tension-filled escape.
J.T. wrote: "I like the Mann ones. Less cinematic perhaps but most conflicts take less than 3 minutes for full assault and less than a minute one on one. Now stretching this out in a thriller is an artform and ..."The primary way I expand action scenes is the principle of "the enemy always gets a vote." And Murphy is also the enemy. Something always goes wrong, or not according to plan.
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Hence there's 6 Brad Taylor novels, three from Brad Thor, Four from Vince Flynn, 5 from Tom Wood and one from Ben Coes.
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It was BLACKHAT, a spy/political technothriller which had a jailed hacktivist, the PLA second and third directorates (Military intel and SIGINT), the HKPF and the NSA going up against a South East Asia based cyber criminal and his team of highly competent private military contractors.
Beautifully shot, well researched to the standard of Mann's previous films and the primary action scenes like this one, I think, are some of the best in Mann's career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82biX...
How did it go wrong? Partly due to the casting (Chris Hemsworth does not make a good everyman protagonist) and also because the marketing department managed to misrepresent what it basically a thinking man's action thriller into one about a romance between two of the main characters. Hence it came off as too highbrow when it turned out that the film was more about the intricacies of cyberwarfare, and the viewers/critics got bored.
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I liked the writing, the way Mann shot the whole film but the two things that won it for me were Tom Cruise magnificently playing against the type as a pure, undistilled sociopath rather than as pretty boy Ethan Hunt, and the combat/tactical training that Mann brought to the party.
Andy Mcnab served as the technical advisor and I'm not sure whether it was he or Mann who managed to train Tom Cruise to pull off one of the fastest Mozambique drills ever filmed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiqwF...
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2) I think a bad action scene is one that is illogically constructed and one which bores. Like JT says, the Mann type of action scene isn't as cinematic as its counterparts, for better or worse. This is because all the meticulous detail can constrain a scene and leave little room for some creativity in the proceedings due to said detail locking how a scene plays out down somewhat.
Hence as he says, the trick is to find a way to increase it in scale.
3) the secret of a good action scene? In my opinion, it would be getting the pacing and scale right.
The pace needs to be right in order to prevent it from being overdrawn and being long enough to satisfy the reader when the 'quiet/dramatic' moments begin.
The scale needs to be right in order to prevent the action scene from going over the top and tipping into self parody/absurdity, namely like having a Tom Wood style fist fight in a novel that is supposed to be like Jason Matthew's "Red Sparrow".
I'm sure most of the members in this group would agree with me that in spy/military/geopolitical fiction, we want the bullets flying, the bones breaking, the bombs setting the sky ablaze, the knives cutting through the right vein. In short, we want, action!
I grade action scenes into three categories.
John Woo, Jason Bourne and Michael Mann.
Here's how they work:
John Woo: Kicks any pretense of reality in the teeth and unloads dual Beretta automatics into its still quivering corpse. Action scenes along this line are big, brash and so over the top that 'plausibility" withers away like a flower being hit by a Siberian winter.
In this category the two authors who have turned this into an art form are the Australian Matthew Reilly and the American Ben Coes.
The action in Coes' books in particular are defined by this. Shooters using fully automatic weapons one handed while driving expensive sports cars, dual wielding Kalashnikov rifles and that's just the tip of the ice berg.
Jason Bourne (Film): Strikes a middle ground. Slightly more elaborate than the "Michael Mann" side of action but also infuses a healthy dose of tactical detail, research and accuracy into how the scene is played out. It allows the action to be more exhilarating than usual but leaves the plausibility level intact. The king of this category is Tom Wood of "Victor The Assassin" fame. This is the author who once managed to JUSTIFY and give a good reason for dual wielding handguns
(context: Victor was cornered by a chap armed with an MP5K PDW and needed massed suppressing fire to give himself breathing room and all he had were two pistols)
and also has written many brutal and authentic gunfights and fistfights infused with impressive details on actual combat tactics and martial arts.
Another author I would cite is Mr Peter Nealen, who started off his very impressive fourth book with a mass drive by shooting. Slightly over the top but not the methods and tactics which the main characters use to destroy the ambushers.
Michael Mann: These sorts of action scenes are characterized by meticulous realism and attention to detail. Normally short, swift and brutal. A bit more down to earth compared to the Jason Bourne grade type action scene.
Authors in this category are Brad Thor, Tom Clancy when he wasn't doing epic war scenes, Vince Flynn and Brad Taylor.
Flynn is a particular example. Much of the action in his book is very quick, primarily due to Mitch Rapp utilizing the element of surprise to kill his enemies before they can even draw their weapons.