slow typing?

I've never noticed myself writing slowly but I occasionally get into the process of telling the story so deeply that I have no idea what I've written and have to read back to figure out what I was doing. I suppose you could say it is sort of like a black out induced by adrenaline because I am such an enthusiastic writer that my mind fastforwards and my senses are having trouble catching up.

As for battle scenes, I have always been a big time action fan and have watched and read as much about action as I can. I have also read quite a bit about many, many martial arts, both real and fictional. Also, if you pay attention to movies and fiction and how a scene is described, you can begin to see how everything can become a weapon and get a general sense of how to fight in that surrounding.

Something I do to get ideas on how to write a fight scene is to look around myself and imagine how I would use the most basic things in my room to attack someone. Another very useful tip is to learn more and more about the human body. Learn how a body can and cannot move, learn how vivid the various senses can be and how they can be strengthened, research actual disorders/genetic defect/diseases that would give a character an ability you desire in order to learn how the ability would affect their daily life.

Also, I mentioned it before but watch as many fights as you can in various fighting styles. The best place for this is youtube but I also go to a forum called www.Fighttips.com where the entire community revolves around fighting and giving tips on how to improve your body and mind for fighting. They also have many videos put out, though they are just links back to youtube, that descibe many things one needs to know about fighting and body building, dieting, and just about anything a fighter would need to know.

I mostly write literary fiction, so I've only written a few action scenes in my life, but when I do, I definitely like to play with time. I can't say that I actually type slower, but how you handle time during scenes in which a lot happens at once is key to how the tension unfolds. How quickly your prose moves, both in terms of how much you describe per instant and the actual rhythm and structure of your sentences, can dramatically change how the action is read and comes off to the reader. In particular, I find juxtaposition extremely useful in this regard. As annoying and cliche as the effect might have become in film by now, concepts like "bullet time" and the contrast with real time can be incredibly effective in writing. For example, take the time to describe in loving detail, in every intricate feature, a single potent image, a single dramatic instant, in lavish, drawn-out prose, and contrast it moments later by rubber-banding it back into short, concise, punchy sentences that convey the chaos of everything happening at once.

But then, like I said, I mostly write literary fiction, so maybe that doesn't work at all in genre fic.

Lenny Jennison said:

As i was writing an action scene that would have played in super fast motion (if it was a movie), i found myself writing slower than i have ever written. Each word slowly came onto the screen as if i was trying to slow down the action from happening in the story world.

I found myself literally typing in slow motion as my mind showed the action happening in slo-mo!

Has this ever happened to you? Have you caught yourself doming something similar.

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Can't say I have -- but it doesn't sound like a good thing. Try sketching, in few words, what you want to happen in the scene. Make a mini-outline of it, with as many or as few details as you want. Then write the scene following this, don't use the slow-mo images in your head (which are suitable for movies maybe, but not for writing).

Lenny Jennison said:

Oh, on a different note. Can anyone recommend a good book that demonstrates sound action scenes? Sort of like the bourne series?

I am writing action scenes that have large battles and i am wondering what the appropriate amount of description is needed.

I don't want to write so much the reader gets bored with each battle scene. I don't want to write too little, so they fail to invest themselves.

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I'm not sure there's a "how-to" that will lay out the well-kept secrets of writing battle scenes. I'd refer to novels that feature same. My personal references would be the Sharpe series (usually a battle against the French in each novel), any of David Gemmell's fantasy novels, and Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40K novels featuring the Tanith First-and-Only regiment. The appropriate amount of description depends entirely upon what you wish to convey to the reader.

-Derek

dpaterso said:

Then write the scene following this, don't use the slow-mo images in your head (which are suitable for movies maybe, but not for writing).

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Pardon me, but I'm curious why you say this. I realize I don't read or write too many action scenes, so I could be totally wrong on how most genre readers would react, but I feel like they'd be more appropriate for writing, where it seems to me like they could easily be far more effective than they can be in movies, not less.

Typing more slowly? Yeah, sure, but not for action scenes per se. Just whenever I'm struggling to decide which words need to come next. When I'm on a roll, my pace is somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 WPM. The type of scene I'm writing doesn't seem to make a difference.

kuwisdelu said:

Pardon me, but I'm curious why you say this. I realize I don't read or write too many action scenes, so I could be totally wrong, but I feel like they'd be more appropriate for writing, where it seems to me like they could easily be far more effective than they can be in movies, not less.

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I guess where I'm coming from is, action doesn't happen in slow motion, it happens in real time. I appreciate as how a character, perhaps dazed by a blow to the head or similar happenstance, might have his perception of events warped and find it hard to focus. But that's just a case of saying this, in as many words. Beyond this exception, Newtonian laws apply!

-Derek

dpaterso said:

I guess where I'm coming from is, action doesn't happen in slow motion, it happens in real time. I appreciate as how a character, perhaps dazed by a blow to the head or similar happenstance, might have his perception of events warped and find it hard to focus. But that's just a case of saying this, in as many words. Beyond this exception, Newtonian laws apply!

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Well I supposed you're right, but I figure one of the strengths of prose is that time can be a lot more fluid than in any visual medium. It seems silly to me not to take advantage of that. Events happen in real time, but description needn't.

I found myself literally typing in slow motion as my mind showed the action happening in slo-mo!

Has this ever happened to you? Have you caught yourself doming something similar.

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- No, actually, I probably speed up so I get down all the details which are popping into my brain as I imagine the action sequences - I even resort to shorthand point-form typing, to make sure I get everything before it vanishes back into the void...

I fly through action scenes because I love them... it's slo-mo for me when I get to romance because I'm terrible at it.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Typing more slowly? Yeah, sure, but not for action scenes per se. Just whenever I'm struggling to decide which words need to come next.

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This, lol. I grew up on a computer and am a fast typist (the last time I was clocked was by a teacher in a computer class when I was thirteen, at 91wpm - I'm sure when I'm typing free-form I'm well over 100) but when I'm writing, I probably average around 40wpm. And sometimes I'll actually just have to stop and sit there and stare at the Word document. Sometimes it'll take me 5 minutes to get a paragraph written and I'll think "Gee, this is slow going." x____x

dpaterso said:

I guess where I'm coming from is, action doesn't happen in slow motion, it happens in real time. I appreciate as how a character, perhaps dazed by a blow to the head or similar happenstance, might have his perception of events warped and find it hard to focus. But that's just a case of saying this, in as many words. Beyond this exception, Newtonian laws apply!

-Derek

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If anything, it happens faster. I've been in a few situations like that and know several people who either box professionally or do mma on the amateur or pro level, and they all confirm my experiences. Time tends to move a lot more quickly in a life-or-death situation. That's why staying calm and collected is so essential, because it's easy to freeze up and just let everything happen.

Interestingly, when I was hit by a car while running across the street, everything slowed down. I was flying through the air in slow motion with enough time to have maybe five or six complete thoughts on the situation.

I have always typed on the slow side. I'd prefer writing it out by hand at times BUT it will be completely illegible due to the fact I am left handed. (my handwriting is of doctor prescription quality :/ )

I slow down with intensity. When the emotion is thick, no matter the mood or action level, I take time and choose my words with great care.

The one possible exception is when I'm writing dialog of arguments. Then my finger fly fast and furious and I have to take frequent breaks to go back and clean it up to something I'll be able to follow and edit later.

RPecha said:

I have always typed on the slow side. I'd prefer writing it out by hand at times BUT it will be completely illegible due to the fact I am left handed. (my handwriting is of doctor prescription quality :/ )

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X2. except I'm right handed.

If I typed any slower, I'd have to use a chisel and stone tablet.

I would consider anything I got typed as a positive step forward, no matter the speed.

~t

No, I have never written slowly to my knowledge.

Actually my typing rate tends to change depending on the complexity of the scene. My normal rate is somewhere around 65-70wpm, but if the scene is a complex one that requires more intricate details, I might slow down a bit to say maybe 35-40wpm.

As far as action scenes, I tend to be a very minimalist writer, leaving quite a bit to the imagination of the reader, so the actual action scene is usually typed at a faster rate.

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about how fast or slow you type during a particular interval of writing. You're writing something down, which is more than many people do.

just a thought.

Laura

Lenny Jennison said:

Oh, on a different note. Can anyone recommend a good book that demonstrates sound action scenes? Sort of like the bourne series?

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There's a couple of books on writing action that might be worth checking out. One is Write the Fight Right, and the other is Violence: A Writer's Guide. Both discuss things like how the different genders are in a fight.

Linda Adams said:

There's a couple of books on writing action that might be worth checking out. One is Write the Fight Right, and the other is Violence: A Writer's Guide. Both discuss things like how the different genders are in a fight.

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Thank you OP and thank you Linda Adams, I've been looking for references for fight scenes and violence. I think these will do nicely.

It depends on the day. I know that's a cop-out answer. But, some action scenes I have burned through like a madwoman and other action scenes I write very slowly, very deliberately. For me, action scenes are very difficult and they take multiple attempts followed by heavy editing and revising. I'd be interested in starting an "action scene" thread somewhere unless there's one already out there. Something along the lines of, "the anatomy of a good action scene."

I'd love to pick that apart. I've been reading screenplays lately and I'm fascinated by how screenwriters pull off a good action scene. I know they differ depending on genre, but it's eye-opening.

I find that when I do write an action scene, I sit down with Joe Abercrombie (who I feel writes amazing fantasy action scenes) and a few other authors and study them, look at how much time they spend in action, in scene. There's a scene from George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones" where Arya and her dancing master are interrupted and an action/fight scene ensues. It's so tight, so well done, not because it's blood spattering across the "lens" of the book, but because you are given motive and internalization at just the right amount, you care for the people in the action scene. It's not just zoom and bang and oof, steel on steel, or rubber on road.