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Even comic book writers know the importance of action and mythic heroes.
This is the second of a multi-part series of articles on how to write screenplays that catch the eye and interest of Hollywood readers. These readers can include anyone from secretaries, PAs, and professional "readers" to high-powered producers.
Every five to ten minutes (or pages) of your script must be animated by one of the following:
- Action
- Sex and Romance
- Suspense
- Humor
- Human Drama
So now we begin with the role of action in your script. Including action and adventure are good ways to involve your audience mainly because this is the most basic of all "good story" elements. The most enduring myths and legends contain mostly adventures. A good action sequence can be understood by audiences all over the world with little or no translation. Well-written action scenes can grip and involve others in a story like no other kind.
Action and adventure are the stuff that great legends and heroes (as well as heroines) are made of. The strongest action, whether in the action genre or in other stories, centers around, confronts, and emerges from the main character or hero. A strong, heroic main character is your best weapon against boredom and mediocrity in your story writing. To get even better results, give your hero mythic or legendary qualities. Remember that good action is more than just filmic window-dressing. The action and adventures surrounding your main character make up the spine of your hero's journey. These events create your hero and ultimately reveal the admirable qualities that he or she inevitibly must possess.
At its heart, creating an action scene involves placing your main characters in jeopardy. Their adventures require them to face this risk. Their courage sees them through. Their heroism triumphs over the forces that would harm or kill them. The jeopardy can be as simple as a car chase or a complex psychological test. The hero may only have to save his or her own skin or save others as well, a city, a country, or even the world. Resolving the action may involve only winning a fight, or the hero may have to solve a complex mystery, even face a difficult moral dilmemma. The principle is the same, but the variations are endless
Bad action scenes, like most bad writing, follow from a failure in imagination. So many movies follow the obvious path: when the story sags, throw in a car chase or explosion. Yes, this is jeopardy, but after so many of these scenes, the mind begins to numb. You forget the story as soon as the film is over, or worse, in the middle of it. I saw a film recently that so desensitized me to explosions, one could have gone off next to me, and I would have only yawned. Make your action scenes wild, interesting, exotic, amazing, even bizarre. Psychological adventure is often the most powerful. In Ingmar Bergman's famous film The Seventh Seal, a huge amount of risk and danger follows from a simple game of chess. Also, letting the hero outwit the pursuer is much more satisfying than just shooting him.
In sum, try to think up imaginative and unstereotyped action scenes that follow logically from your plot and characters. Don't just sprinkle them in like salt and pepper. The more involved that you become in thinking up and creating your action scene, the more it will involve your audience. Follow this rule, and you will have a winner every time.
Next: Using sex and romance to generate interest. Easy, right? No way!
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