 Action/Adventure: December 19, 2007 Issue [#2128] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Edited by: larryp
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When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.
~~Dale Carnagie
How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.
~~Claude Debussy
There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.
~~Carl Jung
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Recently, my wife and I watched the 2007 MGM/UA movie Rescue Dawn. Though the movie was slow-moving and short on action at times, it showed the emotional trauma of men attempting to escape a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp. The movie is based on the true-life story of Dieter Dengler, a US Navy pilot, the only American to ever break out of a POW camp in the dense Laotian jungles. The movie shows the planning for the escape and the trauma of setbacks. At night, the men are shackled together in very cramped quarters. They suffer harsh treatment by the guards, have terrible living conditions, and, on top of this, a fellow-prisoner threatens to reveal the escape plot.
The Shawshank Redemption(Tim Robbins), The Great Escape(Steve McQueen), and Escape from Alcatraz (Clint Eastwood) are other action/adventure movies that have shown the prison-escapes of men under trauma and emotional duress. Even the 2000 cartoon movie Chicken Run revealed this emotional trauma as the chickens, under the leadership of the blundering rooster, Rocky, tried to escape being included in the recipe for chicken pot pies. Escape movies, novels, and short stories are excellent vehicles for the action/adventure writer, yet they are ineffective if the writer doesn't appeal to the emotions of the reader.
Appeal to your readers emotions. We all identify with loss, sorrow, disappointment, frustration—make sure that emotions are powerful elements in your story.
http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/articles/index.pl?noframes;read=1485
To appeal to the emotions of the reader, the writer needs to be emotionally involved in the story and show these strong inner-feelings in the characters as they react and respond. Doing this often requires that the writer delve into the his own emotional experiences and memories. This doesn't mean you have experienced prison, but that you have experienced the emotions revealed in the characters. It requires 'showing' these emotions rather than 'telling' the reader about them.
Authors can avoid sentimentality without losing emotion needed to reach readers. The writer simply has to deal with the emotion in an original and complex manner by trying to avoid abstract words and ideas. This is accomplished by staying with concrete descriptions. As Bell stated, the author must experience the emotion and describe it with the five senses, write it as he “feels” it. Abstract words and ideas can be interpreted by others in different ways, relying on the readers’ definition. Details are required to make the emotion live.
How can writers avoid “sentimentality”? One exercise is to list common reactions to an emotion. Then the author examines those physical reactions that emotions produce, and simple and overused descriptions are physical reactions to emotion. However the idea is to find other ways to explain those reactions so that the reader isn’t left unmoved. “The trick,” Dorisi-Winget says, “is tapping into your ‘emotion memory.’ Get beyond the pounding heart and clenched fist.”
If describing fear, the “sick stomach” might become the tilting like the time seasickness caused lunch to want to escape. The details tell the tale; if used creatively and well, the details “show” the tale.
~~Vivion Gilbert Zabel, Vivian  , Create Emotion, Not Sentimentality, in Fiction
http://ezinearticles.com/?Create-Emotion,-Not-Sentimentality,-in-Fiction&id=1601...
Though there are many other venues for stories of escape, I have dealt primarliy with escape from prisons. Prisoners face much duress and emotional trauma, especially when they are planning an escape. In the movie Escape from Alcatraz, the inmates dug out passageways for escape in the walls of their cells. More than once, cell-searches by the guards almost exposed their plans. In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, the main character was attacked sexually by fellow inmates and harassed by the warden, his escape plan was carried out methodically over a period of many years. In the movie Rescue Dawn, the prisoners faced horrible living conditions, violent guards, and beyond the walls of the prison was an impassable jungle. These were emotional obstacles shown through the actions of the characters. As writers, we need to show these emotions or the reader will left disappointed.
Just as important as the impact of emotions is the ending in the escape story.
Surprise your readers. Add a little twist at the end of your story that leaves them wondering about your protagonist long after the story ends. Avoid the overtly predictable ending and make publishers remember your style.
~~Lee Masterson, Writing a Great Short Story
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/short.html
A Satisfying Ending
The best endings are unexpected, yet somehow inevitable. It is handy if you can leave the reader thinking “Ah… Of course!” Predictable endings can leave the reader disappointed or feeling let down but unbelievable or contrived endings can leave then feeling cheated. It is rare you will get them sampling any more of your stories after that. Having your main character wake up to find the whole incident was a dream is a good example of a very weak and unsatisfying ending.
Basically, by the end of the story, the reader should feel that the central character has been through some ordeal and emerged from the situation having grown or at least being in a better position to face the future.
http://www.dragish.com/
Finally, do your research! This will help make the story's setting, the emotions, and the ending believable to those familiar the topic of your story. It is said that you cannot know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. Through research, we learn the obstacles faced by men and women behind bars. Know your topic; as Kevin Costner said in the movie The Perfect World, another prison-escape movie, “Don't try to kid a kidder!”
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Stories of escape from around Writing.com
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Vivian
Good newsletter, Larry. I understand how easy it is to overload one's self. Too bad the contest has to go, but ... ~ Viv
Thank you for your encouragement Viv.
Larry
ImagineTryingToLearnToBeSingle 
Thank you kansaspoet, I have been having a huge problem with my settings, actualy the beginning as the rest seems to follow along quite well, I think.
I have so much information to place that I keep my readers away from the characters in the beginning, this may assist me a great deal in re-thinking my settings.
Hi Imagine,
I hope the newsletter can be of some help to you in this area.
Larry
StephBee 
Larry, two thumbs up about setting. It's so important to set the story. As I reader I find that if I can picture the story in my head as I read, that helps me to be right there with the action. Thanks for covering this. Steph
Thank you Steph for your comments. Thanks also for the Merit Badge.
Sweet Musings
great newsletter will start paying more attention to my settings and how they may be used as part of the story. Sweet Musings
Thank you Sweet Musings. Hope the information provided is helpful.
Larry
AngelFire
This was a great article. It had valuable advice
and was interesting.
Thank you AngelFire
Larry
Henry 
this letter is presented in great details withthe convincing examples. I wish the writer could have more examples like that so the readers could learn well how to descreibe with a purpose.
Thank you Henry.
I do need to focus on giving more examples.
Larry
Guest editor: larryp
Next week's Action/Adventure editor: trose |
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