does this action sequence p-o-p? or make sense?

I think I'm almost halfway done this sequence. I want it to be pretty hard-hitting and yet funny at the same time. Also I'm pretty tired and I'm not sure if it even makes sense.

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((Kiplo!!)) the Trandoshan all but yelled. He reached over the bar, grabbed a bottle at random, jammed one of his teeth into the cork, spit it out of the side of his mouth, and began chugging straight from the bottle. Han tried to half sit up but the Trandoshan just reached over and slugged him, knocking Solo flat on his back again. ((Kiplo!! I need more drinks-))

That was all he got out. From Han?s vantage point on the floor a big, blurry, and brown form shot past overhead, howling all the way, and slammed into the Trandoshan. The howl from the brown blur confirmed Han?s suspicions ? Chewbacca was to the rescue.

The impact of Chewie into the Trandoshan shattered the wood of the bar and Chewie kept pumping his legs, rushing like a crazed Bantha. The Wookie jammed Trandoshan up against the middle portion of the bar and bottles smashed to the ground, glass flying everywhere. The snarling fangs of the Wookie opened wide and went down to the Trandoshan?s neck, intending to tear a good chunk off of it.

The Trandoshan had other plans. He brought up his interlocked fists and punched hard against Chewie?s open mouth. Chewie?s jaws snapped shut and for a moment, he faltered. It was the opening the Trandoshan needed as he again drove his fists underneath Chewbacca?s jaw. Chewie staggered back, disoriented, and the Trandoshan quickly advanced on him. The Trandoshan curled inwards, almost like an athlete getting ready to throw a Null-Grav Discus, and then unleashed a vicious backhand putting all his weight into one devastating thrust.

The blow knocked the Wookie upwards and off his feet. Chewbacca sailed through the air in an almost graceful arc and landed directly in the middle of a nearby table, crushing it and sending its occupants scattering.

Unfortunately one of these occupants was Lando Callrissian and he mentally cursed his bad luck. He was still holding the Mistress, Commander and Queen of Air and Darkness cards in his hand. That could have been a Pure Sabacc. Too bad by this point the rest of his players were probably halfway to their parked starships by now. His gaze darted around, looking for any of his fallen winnings that might be lying on the floor.

The snarl from the Trandoshan echoing throughout the bar convinced everyone it would be a pretty good idea leave at this point. Hastily and simultaneously, beings of all kinds ran towards the doors. Unfortunately, this caused a bit of a logjam and some customers took offence to that. Threats were made, mothers were cursed, punches were thrown and, in just under 15 seconds since Chewbacca had slammed into the Trandoshan, a full fledged bar brawl had erupted.

Han staggered to his feet and tried to find Bejena in the mass of chaos. He didn?t see her anywhere, for all he knew she had darted for the doorway the second Chewbacca and the Trandoshan started thumping each other. Smart move on her part.

?Han!? Lando?s voice yelled. Han looked around and saw Lando crawling on the floor towards him with a pile of credits in his arms. Before Han could ask what he was doing on the floor he was spun around by a rather surly looking Gran. The Gran was shaking Solo violently and sputtering in some alien language he didn?t know.

?Look buddy, I?m not quite sure what you?re trying to tell me,? Han stammered, holding his hands up in supplication.

The only response was the Gran violently shaking him again. This time the Gran decided to spit a little to emphasize its point, whatever that point was.

?I can see you?re clearly, uh, perturbed?? Han drawled in what he hopped was a soothing voice. He was actually trying to buy some time as his hand probed at the edge of a nearby table.

Han thought he might have heard the Gran yell something about ?Flaming mynock droppings? but it was hard to tell.

His finge

 

I have this vague sense that threads requesting fic comments get locked or directed somewhere else, but what the heck.

1) You have some nice detail elements here--the Trandoshan shattering the wood of the bar, Chewie holding his unconscious body up like a trophy, etc.

2) The set-up is intriguing . . . is this set before Han joined the Rebellion and Lando became "respectable?" I've always thought that would be a fun time to write about.

3) I did get a bit confused in places--I think it would help to pick a single viewpoint character and show the fight from only his perpective. You lose your "wide angle lens" that way, but the action may be easier to follow. You also get the chance to add little asides of internalization that can punch up the tension, for example:

The Gran was shaking Solo violently and sputtering in some alien language he didn?t know.

?Look buddy, I?m not quite sure what you?re trying to tell me,? Han stammered, holding his hands up in supplication. He could only hope that was a polite gesture in whatever passed for culture among violent, bar-crawling Grans. If it wasn't, he was likely to get a vibroblade straight through his neck.

4) If you really want to keep the third-person omniscient point of view--which is the classic, "old school" SF POV after all--you could simplify things by cutting down the number of "jump cuts" from one character to another. Say the fight starts with Han and ends with Chewbacca. I'd divide the section between the two of them, with a very clear divider in between: "At that moment, on the other side of the room . . ." It would probably be best not to directly focus on Lando, since three "spotlight characters" seems like too many in a section this short. Han and Chewie may be peripherally aware of what he's doing, though. Also--authors generally include very little internalization in 3rd person omnicient stories. It just gets too confusing to hear everybody's innermost thoughts all smooshed together--unless you're writing a story about how much it sucks to be a telepath or something.

5) It would also probably help to gloss over some of the blow-by-blow account of the action. It's very tempting to describe every movement a character makes, especially if you can really see the scene in your head, but it can start to sound a bit like a laundry list to readers. I'm not saying you should get rid of all the specifics, just focus on the key ones that mark significant shifts in who's in the most danger at the moment. The rest can be things like: "Chewbacca and his opponent grappled for several seconds without either gaining an advantage."

6) So basically, you have a nice shrub here. All you have to do is prune it to give it shape.

 

First of all,
"...and then he unleashed a vicious backhand putting all his weight into one devastating thrust."
- Day-am! Chewie got pimp slapped!


I'm gonna agree with the first guy about the editing. I don't think that you necessarily have to solve it by bringing it down to 3rd person limited though. What you definitely need to do is define the space beforehand. Let us know what and where people and things are, so when they get mentioned during the chaotic parts we don't get as confused. For instance, one thing I noticed was that you don't tell us how big or well-lit the bar is. That's important for later when the bar fight starts, because you might find yourself rethinking exactly how long it takes these people to get angry. Another important detail is telling us where and what Lando's doing prior to the fight. Right now, even though its understood that he's with the other characters, it still feels like he "just happens" to be there.

Moving on, The scene where chewie body-slams the Tran - you stop the action in order to explain what such an act is like. It feels like the purpose behind this is to give a sense of scale. In other words, showing us just how powerful this body-slam is. If I'm right about that, then what you need to do is give us first a description of what happens when a normal human bodyslams someone into a droid. THEN tell us what happens when Chewie does it. You could even escalate it. A human, a gran, another trandoshan, etc...Chewie. that would give a nice sense of just how frikkin strong this wookie really is. And, consequently, how frikkin resilient his opponent is.

Lastly..."ill-gotten gains." I don't know if Lando would say this. Maybe. But you have to remember, even a stereotypical sleaze will never acknowledge that what he does is wrong. He may have cheated, but damn it, he earned it.


With that said, overall I think you have a solid flow going on here. You knew exactly what you wanted out of this fight, and it comes across.

 

Shameless self promotion is bad. Asking for input on a particular scene is okay, within reason. If you're posting for input on every scene in your story, THEN you might get a talking to.

Get on to the Beta Reader's Index, Kang, and see if you can get someone to vet your story as you go along. Beta readers are super useful!

 

yah, sorry I know there's an "action sequence" thread but I posted this last night around 4:40 AM and I was really really tired. Anyhoo to whit les responses:

ophelia
1) You have some nice detail elements here--the Trandoshan shattering the wood of the bar, Chewie holding his unconscious body up like a trophy, etc.

Thank ye, I tried to get some crazy action details in there. We don't see very many fist fights in SW, and since Trandshans and Wookies are supposed to flat out hate each other, I wanted a real brutal feel to it.

2) The set-up is intriguing . . . is this set before Han joined the Rebellion and Lando became "respectable?" I've always thought that would be a fun time to write about.

Yah, its pretty cool. I'm surprised more ppl aren't writing in that time period. check out "Boys Night Out" in my sig @ the bottom for the first 2 chapters. This is chapter 3 I'm workin on. Give it some love, wilya?

3) I did get a bit confused in places--I think it would help to pick a single viewpoint character and show the fight from only his perpective. You lose your "wide angle lens" that way, but the action may be easier to follow. You also get the chance to add little asides of internalization that can punch up the tension, for example:
?Look buddy, I?m not quite sure what you?re trying to tell me,? Han stammered, holding his hands up in supplication. He could only hope that was a polite gesture in whatever passed for culture among violent, bar-crawling Grans. If it wasn't, he was likely to get a vibroblade straight through his neck.

Yah, I was trying to keep it as chaotic as possible. Think "jump cutting" in a move between various scequences in a room (usually a fight). But don't want to throw the reader off, I should streamline some details a bit.

I love that little tag you added onto the end of that paragraph I'm gonna flat-out steal it, ok? Cool with that? Cool.

4. If you really want to keep the third-person omniscient point of view--which is the classic, "old school" SF POV after all--you could simplify things by cutting down the number of "jump cuts" from one character to another. Say the fight starts with Han and ends with Chewbacca. I'd divide the section between the two of them, with a very clear divider in between: "At that moment, on the other side of the room . . ." It would probably be best not to directly focus on Lando, since three "spotlight characters" seems like too many in a section this short. Han and Chewie may be peripherally aware of what he's doing, though.

Yah, it should have a more definitive divide between the sequences with little "across the bar" bits to tell who is doing what. I think its kind of in-character for Lando huddling under the table & while everything is going to hell the most he's concerned about is "Dangit, I was winning too!" I wanna cram that in there somehow. Maybe I'll just have Han think that's what Lando is thinkin.

It would also probably help to gloss over some of the blow-by-blow account of the action. It's very tempting to describe every movement a character makes, especially if you can really see the scene in your head, but it can start to sound a bit like a laundry list to readers.

I've been making it a point to get more into detail on this story. I'm usually just dialouge dialouge dialouge dialouge. (or internal dialouge internal dialouge internal dialouge as it were). So I wanna try to really get the actions down pat.

1Yodimus_Prime
First of all,
"...and then he unleashed a vicious backhand putting all his weight into one devastating thrust."
- Day-am! Chewie got pimp slapped!

hahahha, yah, that's what I'm trying to go for in this sequence - bizare action craziness. Violent yet absurd at the same time. Think a PG-13 SW version of some of the fights in Kill Bill. (aim high, that's what I always say)

What you definitely need to do is define the space beforehand. Let us know what and where people and things are, so when they get mentioned

 

On a semi-related note I'm listening to some old school Deftones right now (Bored) and its putting me in the mood to write more crazy action. RARRR!!

Inspiration is cool.

 

I'm gonna flat-out steal it, ok? Cool with that? Cool.

Go for it.