{"id":98221,"date":"2016-06-05T12:21:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T12:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/06\/05\/writing-action-good-newsbad-news\/"},"modified":"2016-06-05T12:21:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T12:21:17","slug":"writing-action-good-newsbad-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/06\/05\/writing-action-good-newsbad-news\/","title":{"rendered":"writing action: good news\/bad news"},"content":{"rendered":"

fuckyeahisawthat<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

With examples from Fury Road<\/i>, natch.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of things that go into creating a compelling action scene. One of the most basic principles is something that doesn\u2019t really have an agreed-upon name, but I\u2019m going to borrow a term from one of my writing teachers and call it Good News\/Bad News<\/b>. It\u2019s a shorthand term for the reversals of fortune that make an action sequence exciting, the alternating moments of\u00a0\u201cFUCK YEAH!!\u201d and \u201cOH SHIT!!\u201d that take us on an emotional rollercoaster during a fight or a chase or a battle.<\/p>\n

I could use any of the action sequences in Fury Road<\/i> to demonstrate how this works, but the fight between Max and Furiosa is a nice clean and simple (for this movie) example.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Let\u2019s say we\u2019re rooting for Furiosa in this fight. It starts with Bad News: strange dude rolls up threatening them with a shotgun.<\/p>\n

Furiosa decides to attack, tackles him and gets the gun away from him in one move. Good news!<\/p>\n

But the gun doesn\u2019t fire. Bad news!<\/p>\n

But she can still use it as a club. Good news!<\/p>\n

But Max gets his shit together, grabs her throat and flips them, trying to pin her. Bad news!<\/p>\n

But Angharad pulls Max away using the chain. Good news!<\/p>\n

But he takes the gun with him. Bad news!<\/p>\n

But Dag\u2019s on point with the bolt-cutters. Good news!<\/p>\n

And so on and so on; you get the idea by this point.<\/p>\n

Most action sequences rely on this dynamic to some extent. The rhythm might be more \u201cgood news-bad news-bad news<\/b><\/i>–BAD NEWS!!!\u201d\u00a0<\/b>if our protagonists are in a jam, but the reversals of fortune are what keep things interesting.<\/p>\n

Tweaking the ratio of good news to bad news creates different effects. Too much good news can make your hero seem invulnerable or like the fight is too easy for them, but a streak of good news after a long run of bad news can create a powerful breath of relief and euphoria at things finally working out for our protagonist. (Think of the War Rig\u2019s engine revving up again at a particularly bleak moment in the final chase.)<\/p>\n

Create a really long string of mostly bad news and you have a horror movie<\/a>. But a scene or sequence that\u2019s nothing but bad news can have diminished returns, or make it feel like your protagonist is passive or doesn\u2019t have any agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(I could write a whole other post about how to create a sense of agency for a character who\u2019s in a situation where they can\u2019t physically fight back. For now I\u2019ll just say that someone struggling to turn the situation to their advantage in whatever way they can, even if they end up losing, feels a lot different for the audience than someone just suffering an endless string of blows from their opponent.)<\/p>\n

One of the things that makes the action in Fury Road<\/i> so fantastic is the truly blistering<\/i> pace of reversals of fortune the movie achieves. In the fight between Max and Furiosa, almost every move is a reversal of who\u2019s on top\u2013metaphorically and often literally. The fight is only two minutes long from start to finish, but it feels like a major set piece because almost every move in the fight is a new beat in the emotional story the action is telling us.<\/p>\n

The unrelenting speed with which all the action sequences in Fury Road<\/i> flip between good news and bad news is part of what makes them feel so exciting, and also so genuinely dangerous, because we\u2019re made to feel like we\u2019re one move away from disaster at all times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once again, all good action sequences do this to some extent. Fury Road<\/i> just does it really, really, really well.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fuckyeahisawthat: With examples from Fury Road, natch. There are a lot of things that go into creating a compelling action scene. One of the most basic principles is something that doesn\u2019t really have an agreed-upon name, but I\u2019m going to borrow a term from one of my writing teachers and call it Good News\/Bad News. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “writing action: good news\/bad news”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[8799,1512,4,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}