How do you define "Action?"

They may have been taking about using more dialogue...as it moves the story along nicely. Just a thought...

Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but in my literature classes in college (it wasn't long ago, so don't give me that look), I was taught "action" is progression of the plot. It doesn't mean, necessarily, a physical action, but something happens to move the plot forward.

I think of it as:

Option A: describing the weather, the city, and the geneology of the characters involved.

Option B: starting with a character arriving home to see the neighbors fighting across the street and wondering what's happening.

It doesn't have to be such a dramatic change, or actually "action," like running through a hotel as the cops show up, but it's starting with the characters doing something or experiencing something right off the bat. Instead of, "For all the inhabitants of Lincolnshire county, they would recall the evening of August the fourth as one of the hottest ones of the new year" for nine pages.

When I hear action, I think of the character doing something, not just sitting around thinking. For example, say your character has had a fight with her mother. You wouldn't start the story with her thinking about the fight. You would start with the actual fight. I'm not really sure that's correct, exactly, but that's what I think of.

People doing interesting things.

People sitting around watching birds eat bread crumbs is action -- boring action.

People sitting around watching birds eating eyeballs from people falling over dead -- interesting action.

People sitting around the kitchen drinking tea and telling how they get stuck in traffic while coming home -- boring action.

People sitting around the kitchen drinking tea and telling how they almost got decapitated in the elevator and they were going to seek revenge by planning a terrorist attack -- interesting action.

Action is movement. Interesting action involves conflicts and tension.

Maestrowork's post is quite good. I agree with it completely.

I'd add:

Action is like the cell. It's the building blocks of the plot.

The fallout to that action -- characters discussing it, pondering it, etc. -- is the tethers and tendons and connective stuff that holds a narrative together.

To me, action is character and character is story. That is, what the characters do, not what they say, defines who they are, and who they are defines the story. Plot is not story, how your characters behave within the parameters of the plot is the story.

Description isn't action. Description is a necessary evil to help readers follow the story, but it isn't story in and of itself.

Addressing the OP, action is something that moves the story forward. As others have said, it doesn't have to be physical, derring-do and explosions action, but it has to be something that activates the characters and thereby drives them to move the story forward. A conversation, traveling, a fight, walking down the street, looking at a painting, sneezing in a dusty tomb; anything you can use to illustrate and reinforce character drives the story.

Action is character, and characters drive the story.

I think this plays into Show vs. Tell, as well. The more action you have, the less telling you do.

-Jason

It's something you do.

Make sure to use verbs.

Action? If you don't have a chase, murder, or other such physical action, then provide some sort of conflict. Provide some type of conflict in every scene and I doubt your reader will get bored. The conflict could be as "action"-less as the MC deciding what is the best course to take to achieve his goal. Make the stakes as high (relative to the story) as possible and the conflict draws in the reader.

Now how do you provide constant, believable conflict without tiring the reader? I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

I'm not exactly a literary scholar, nor am I a door-busting bestseller, but if I ever write a book on writing, I will discuss action as two types: interaction and reaction.

If a character/some characters are interacting with their environment, with other characters, with a document or artifact, then that is action.

If they are reacting to a bit of bad news or a sudden enemy attack, then that is action.

A robber jumping out from the trees forces a character to react. That is action.

Two characters having a conversation, or an investigator pouring over some incriminating photographs, that is interaction.

An elderly lady sitting on a park bench contemplating her twilight years is not action. She is not interacting with or reacting to a concrete object or direct action. She is musing philosophically. Not a bad thing: not action.

Description of a town, the weather, a character's physical appearance is not action. Again, no interacting or reacting involve.

So from where I stand, if either of the two is going on, then you are writing an action scene.

It's confusing yes, but by God I know what the Hell I'm speaking of.

Action also may create reactions, and has consequences. The action-response-consequence drives the plot. And characters drive the action.

If you just have characters sitting around contemplating life, there's no action, and no response, and thus no consequences. The plot only moves with action-response-consequence get into motion, so to speak.

Talk is cheap. Make your character do something.

I think it' shandy to think of the story's main arc as a game of chess between protagonist and antagonist (or antagonistic forces).

"Action" is whenever a piece moves, or when two pieces clash, or when the game itself begins (inciting incident).

So, for example, I'd say opening action could be:

• German tanks rumble into town - Antagonist opening move for Protag vs invaders.
• Hot chick moves in dowstairs - inciting incident for Protag vs his own inepitude with girls.
• Poet realises futility of his life - opening move for Protag vs Artistic Angst
• Gunfight between good guys and bad guys - opening clash for generic Western.

maestrowork said:

People sitting around watching birds eating eyeballs from people falling over dead -- interesting action.

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I propose that this could be the greatest beginning to a story ever written.

zornhau said:

[*]Poet realises futility of his life - opening move for Protag vs Artistic Angst

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I would argue that "realizes" alone is not quite an action make. Close, but not quite. He has to actually do something about it, or something has to happen for him to "realize" that. Especially when we're talking about the beginning of a book.

seun said:

I propose that this could be the greatest beginning to a story ever written.

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You're very welcome to use this. I grant you the right.

Action

Action is largely in the eye of the beholder. Many readers hate literary fiction because they think nothing happens, there is no action. Others see something happening, action, on every page.

I don't think there is one thing you can call action. Or at least proper action. Car chases and explosions can bore a reader to death, and quiet dialogue can thrill. It's all in the type of story being told, and in the skill of the writer.

And very often the most exciting part of any story is not action per se, but the anticipation of action. The thrill is in the wait, the suspense, and when actual action does come, it can almost be an anti climax.

Action is movement.

That movement may be physical, it may be mental, it may be emotional, it may be moral ... but ... it's moving.

maestrowork said:

I would argue that "realizes" alone is not quite an action make. Close, but not quite. He has to actually do something about it, or something has to happen for him to "realize" that. Especially when we're talking about the beginning of a book.

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Agreed. It should have read: "Futility of life hits Poet." It's just the opening move belonging to his Personified Angst. Presumably, he makes some sort of countermove:

Or refusal of action:

Angst: Your life is futile!
Poet: Screw you.

It's also a legit reaction, and may lead to consequences. Again, action is movement. If you find there's no movement of character or plot, then the scene is static.

underthecity said:

Thanks, everyone. I've learned a lot from this thread.

So, straight narrative description is not action. But, can narrative also be action, say description of an event like, "Steve drove his car down the street and narrowly missed a telephone pole."

Also, a character sitting in a chair thinking about plot-related things is not action. But if the character is thinking about those things, or if the third-person narrator is "doing the thinking" for him while he walks around his house looking at things and/or cleaning, is that action? Or just boring action?

allen

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The first is most definitely action.

The second is what I call "fallout" in my classes. This is the space between action, or the tendons that hold the muscles of the book together.

Pacing. If the pacing is right, it creates the urgency for the reader and everything else that relates to action is academic.

Rob B said:

Pacing. If the pacing is right, it creates the urgency for the reader and everything else that relates to action is academic.

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Yep.

I think it all depends on how you move from sequence to sequence, action to action.

IrishScribbler said:

Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but in my literature classes in college (it wasn't long ago, so don't give me that look), I was taught "action" is progression of the plot. It doesn't mean, necessarily, a physical action, but something happens to move the plot forward.

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I have to agree with IrishScribbler on this one. I think of action as something that will advance the plotline. It can be physical action, dialogue, or even the poetic lacing of words together in a description. If descriptions are too long and too bland it will turn a reader off. Likewise, if the story progresses too far without dialogue it will kill the mood and the reader will stop due to a loss of connection with the characters. If the plot stays stagnant for too long it will destroy a reader's concentration, so be sure not to stay on one topic for too long.

Writers run the gambot on the amount of description, dialogue, physical action they use in their writings and the writers that I find most interesting are the ones who minimalize their descriptions (concise and to the point/possibly poetic), have a medium to somewhat large quantity of dialogue, and keep the plot moving at a medium to fast pace. Slow paced plots, very little dialogue, too much description (Tolkien) turn me off from the work and I can't finish it. Contrarily, too much of a good thing can also be a turn off. Don't make the work entirely dialogue, so fast-paced that the reader can't keep up, or so flowery (poetic) that it fries the reader's mind. It all comes down to a balance of pace, dialogue, physical action, and description. If one of those things is too weak or too strong it will through things out of balance.

Considering the birds-eating-the-eyes-of-dead-people thingie:

maestrowork said:

You're very welcome to use this. I grant you the right.

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Is this blanket permission to everybody at AW?