PREVIEW:
ACTION
The first question
is: how do you write an action picture that is unique. Many writers
make the mistake of thinking that an action movie is just a movie with
a lot of action scenes. In fact, an action movie is a unique form;
that is, it has a unique story pattern, in much the same way that a
detective or love story has a unique story pattern.
One key feature of the action story pattern is the set up of the opposition.
Unlike the detective story which hides the opponent, the action story
exposes the opponent to both the audience and the hero relatively early
on. That may appear to make your job as writer easier. In fact it deprives
you of a number of plot tools, since plot comes from successive uncovering
of the opponent. This is why many action films seem to hit only one
beat.
To make the plot work the hero has to come up with a number of tricks
to defeat an opponent who, while a known entity, is also deceptive and
far more powerful than the hero.
That means, first
of all, that you have to give your hero the capacity, not so much for
physical action - though that is important - as for deception.
It also means you
have to make your hero creative, in the sense of being able to use the
objects and spaces at hand in a unique way to both move and strike.
In many ways, the success of an action picture is based on the hero's
ability to improvise.
Another point: in your rush to create a great action hero, don't neglect
the opponent. In the best action stories, the opponent is almost as
good a warrior as the hero. A good action picture is like a great heavyweight
fight: two titans giving and taking tremendous shots, with the outcome
decided in the last ten seconds of the fifteenth round.
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