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china_shopAcknowledgements
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sageness for beta, to Miriam for her substantial input to this, and to both of them for hundreds of betas over the years, which have taught me heaps.
So what do you mean by “action scene”, anyway?
When we talk about action scenes, we’re looking at anything from hand-to-hand fights and shoot outs, to car chases. And Due South canonically has a lot of them, so if you want to evoke the flavour and feel of canon, consider adding one or two into your story.
I chose to discuss action scenes because they’re not my forte: watching movies, I often zone out when the dialogue stops, and only tune back in when the main character says, “Phew! We made it!” (And then I have to figure out who died and whether I care.) I’ve been known to write [insert action scene here] in my first drafts, and then I either come up with something in the rewrite -- making it as quirky as possible -- or get help from my betas.
And there’ve been several action scenes where I’ve had to rewrite them half a dozen times, changing the setting on each rewrite because logistically they just don’t work. But when I nail an action scene, when it does work? It’s satisfying, it adds depth and scale to the story, it emphasizes that I’m writing about cops, and that they live in a big complex world that encompasses more than Kowalski’s apartment, his couch and his bed. ;-) And I always feel like I learned something.
( So, what makes action scenes tick? )
Thanks to
sageness for beta, to Miriam for her substantial input to this, and to both of them for hundreds of betas over the years, which have taught me heaps.So what do you mean by “action scene”, anyway?
When we talk about action scenes, we’re looking at anything from hand-to-hand fights and shoot outs, to car chases. And Due South canonically has a lot of them, so if you want to evoke the flavour and feel of canon, consider adding one or two into your story.
I chose to discuss action scenes because they’re not my forte: watching movies, I often zone out when the dialogue stops, and only tune back in when the main character says, “Phew! We made it!” (And then I have to figure out who died and whether I care.) I’ve been known to write [insert action scene here] in my first drafts, and then I either come up with something in the rewrite -- making it as quirky as possible -- or get help from my betas.
And there’ve been several action scenes where I’ve had to rewrite them half a dozen times, changing the setting on each rewrite because logistically they just don’t work. But when I nail an action scene, when it does work? It’s satisfying, it adds depth and scale to the story, it emphasizes that I’m writing about cops, and that they live in a big complex world that encompasses more than Kowalski’s apartment, his couch and his bed. ;-) And I always feel like I learned something.
( So, what makes action scenes tick? )
