Four Reasons Your Action-Based Scene is Failing (And How to Avoid It)

We’ve all heard the writing advice that our stories must hook readers from the start, and that pacing our scenes so readers stick around is equally important. It’s all too easy to take that advice and assume we must infuse our scenes with all the makings of a blockbuster movie. Speed, chases, weapons, explosions, scary monsters, you name it. But what this advice fails to remember is that readers largely come to story for character. Specifically, they come to your story for your character, who they want to care for, worry about, and subsequently cheer for in those high-action scenes. If we don’t keep that truth at the heart of our scenes, all the trimmings of an action-packed story won’t matter. Let’s talk about four reasons readers unbuckle their seatbelts and climb out of that fast-moving vehicle of your story so we can understand how to keep them until your ride has come to a complete stop.

It’s Too Soon for High Action

Just about every set of “rules” for writing a riveting set of first pages leads you to believe you have to jump right into action. This is partially right and partially wrong. Inserting readers immediately into action is powerful, but inserting them into high-action too soon can fall flat. Car chases, battles, being pursued by a nefarious actor, or even meeting the protagonist participating in an intense sport don’t yield the reader’s interest in the way we expect. Why? Because the reader hasn’t had time to care about your character, much less their external circumstances. They don’t understand what’s at stake if your character can’t catch the bad guy, or if that zombie gets hold of them, or if they fail to make that winning touchdown.

The outcome of a physical-stakes-based scene scarcely matters without the underpinnings of care for the characters who are involved in it. We are banking on the notion that readers are going to be intrigued enough to know how the scene turns out. But we’ve failed to remember why readers come to story: the character’s journey.

Yes, we want to start our stories as early as possible with scene work. Nothing invites the reader into your book as a co-creator quite like loaded dialogue and interesting, revealing movement. These craft elements let the reader start making a movie in their minds. The more we can sink readers into what’s occurring in the sensory world of our characters, the better. But beware the urge to go for the big blockbuster opening scene as your first scene since the reader hasn’t had time to get their bearings and to care about the characters involved in its outcome.

The Scene Is Making Us Dizzy

A common pitfall of writing action scenes is that we, the writer, tend to see what every character is doing, moment by dull moment, as the scene plays out in our minds. But writing is all about handcrafting and hand-carving these scenes to reflect your protagonist’s experience (or only the most crucial players) most of all. If we’re asking the reader to notice every movement by every character, it can be dizzying. They’re trying to keep every character’s location and most recent movement, all while new character’s movements and locations are coming at them. Worse, readers start to lose track of who represents them in the scene, and what deep internal value is at stake for the primary player(s). It starts to feel like reading a bunch of stage direction instead of an edge-of-our-seats event.

Consider keeping the narrative “camera” as close to your protagonist as much as you possibly can. Everything happening should be filtered through them because they should have the most on the line for internal stakes in that scene. Anything you include that doesn’t stick close to the protagonist should only be included because it impacts the protagonist in a direct, powerful way (e.g., Their loved one is on the brink of disaster across the room and it’s presenting some sort of choice to your protagonist in that very moment.). If you do feel you have to include a few players’ experiences in the midst of one action scene, consider the way writers of shows like Game of Thrones direct their scenes. Oftentimes, the camera is with one player for a sustained period, and what we’re shown is almost like its own “Act.” Then, we rotate to another player for a sustained period and they have their own “Act.” As we rotate back to any given player, their story within the scene is oftentimes presented like its own 3-Act structure, but we aren’t dizzy because we’ve been in any given act for any given character for longer periods.

The Details Have Become the Haystack, And We Can’t Find the Needle

Even if you do stick close to your protagonist, resist the urge to stage direct their movements or what’s being done near them. Sometimes, we see every movement our character makes and we feel compelled to include it so the reader sees it, too. But as we overly burden the narrative with orchestrated movements, a problem emerges: Readers find it hard to pin down what matters most in the haystack of detail.

With my editing clients, I love to use an example from the film It’s a Wonderful Life. Director Frank Capra zooms in on George Bailey stashing his daughter’s flower petals into his pocket, and in drawing our attention to it, we hold onto that moment. Capra’s choice to zoom in guides us with confidence and certainty. The payoff is that George later uses those petals as a way of verifying he’s been given a second chance at life. How might you apply this in your action scenes? If you’ve given readers too much detail, it’s hard for them to judge what matters most. And when they lose their sense of what’s important to notice, they oftentimes start to skim because they can’t possibly hold onto all the details.

We Already Know the Outcome

As much as we want to think high-action scenes inherently pull their weight, the truth is that oftentimes, they don’t. We tell ourselves, what can be bigger than whether the character lives or dies? But readers know we’re not likely to kill off the characters that matter—especially if that character is your protagonist. Whenever we hinge everything on the character reaching safety or staying alive or coming out of a scene unscathed, readers experience the dreaded urge to skim. They know the outcome before they’ve read, so all that physical movement in the scene scarcely matters. It’s just stalling the story until the next scene. What really matters is why your character needs to win that scene in tangible, goal-driven terms.

Ensure that each fight/battle/high-action scene your character goes through has something at stake that’s deeper and more meaningful than their physical safety. What does losing a particular battle or not coming out on top in an action scene cost them? Why must they win beyond retaining their physical safety? What does that scene’s outcome represent that then allows the character to advance the next scene toward a larger goal?

What are some other features of high-action scenes that tend to drive you away as a reader? Are their particular techniques you use in your writing to avoid the pitfalls of too much attention on the action itself? Chime in!

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