Skills: Action

Inventing Characters Read! Journal Word Notebook

Choosing Titles The Fab Four Golden Rules Generating Ideas Stealing Ideas From an Idea to a Plan Planning from a Picture Stories Based on a Passage Stories Based on a Sentence An Example of Good Planning

Describing a Location Longer descriptions Describing a character's appearance Dialogue Distinctive Voices Show, Don't Tell Characterisation: Shown Feelings More Characterisation Techniques Playing with Sentences Playscripts Action Suspense

What is story structure? 1 Exciting opening line 2 Set the scene 3 Talking and describing character 4 Characterisation 5 Suspense 6 Action 7 Cliffhanger Standing Out: How can you stand out from the crowd? Clever Clogs: Non-Linear Clever-clogs: Two perspectives Clever-clogs: Narrative voice Practice 11+ exam titles

Checking your story in an exam Redrafting = improving your story What if I run out of time in an exam? The Grumpy Examiner's Pet Hates

Year 2 into 3 Lemony Snicket After Harry Potter Must-Read Authors Spy Novels Horror Stories Classics Animal Stories Adventure Historical Fiction Myths & Legends Fantasy Family Stories & Comedies

One satisfying way to bring your story to a head is to end with a scene of action. An action scene might be a fight, a chase or a crash.

Ever noticed in films when it clearly isn’t Daniel Craig running and jumping off the edge of a burning rooftop, or Johnny Depp seems to have been replaced with someone a little taller for a sword fight? An action scene is the point in a movie where the star actor is sent back to the hotel, and a stunt man comes in to do the dangerous scenes.

Just as with suspense, there are certain tricks you can use to create an exciting fight:

Powerful Verbs
Impact Sentences (really short sentences)
Dashes
Showing how much it hurts!
Having your characters cry out!

Which of Bald Worm’s action techniques have been used in the following fight scene?

Let’s look at powerful verbs in a little more detail. As you know, a verb is a doing word. The great secret to writing an exciting fight or chase is to use powerful verbs:

WARNING: You must be careful when writing action scenes! If you get over-excited your action scene will become a list. Don’t forget to include lots of shown feelings.

Note William’s use of our suspense and action techniques in the passage below. Bernard, an archaeologist at Cambridge University, is walking back home from a scientific dig:

Last updated on August 13, 2007