Lights, camera...action?

Day 7
Today's word count: 2,701
Overall word count: 12,692

Another pretty productive day. I had a ton to write, and I got most of it onto the page. I wrote 500+ words on my phone, in the car, while my lovely and patient wife drove us to her doctor appointment. Thumbs, baby.

I've tried to format my Google Doc more or less like a paperback book, which is supposedly 250-300 words per page. (Times New Roman, 18 pt.) By that count, I'm on page 52. That's a good feeling.

Yesterday and today, I've written several "action" scenes. Mostly fights. Also a few faster-moving scenes of people running about and doing urgent shit. I'm not as confident in them. I feel good about my more slow-paced exposition. I think I'm doing a good job of working in description and back story in a smooth and interesting manner. I think the dialogue, so far, is good. It feels to me like real people talking.

But the fast-paced action stuff...I don't know. It isn't that my scenes feel bad to me, it's just that I'm not sure that it isn't bad. I've read so goddamn many books, especially in the science fiction and fantasy genres, where the author could not write an action sequence to save his life. Sometimes it's so bad that I don't realize until several paragraphs in that there's actually a fight happening. Or I can tell there is action going on, but I cannot for the life of me picture in my head what is happening.

And I'm talking about well-known, well-respected authors. I'm talking about writers like Larry Niven. I read all four Ringworld books a few years ago, and as cool as his world was, anytime there was a fight scene, I felt as though I was watching a fight in a Looney Tunes cartoon: a big puff of dust, with fists and feet flying, and no idea what was going on until it cut to the next scene. It was horrible, and this was a guy who had been living off nothing but his writing for decades.

So I don't know for sure if the action scenes I'm writing are any good. I'm not too worried about it now. I'm just going to get it down in current form, as I come up with it, and I'll continue editing and honing it as I go.

Speaking of which, I want to talk about the pattern or writing, rewriting, and editing that I seem to be falling into, but that will be a topic for tomorrow or another day.