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How do your characters move?

I know it sounds silly, because we usually leave these discussions to comic books, thrillers, and fight scenes in movies. But think about it. How would hero look if he dashed across a busy street? How would your main character look if she jogged on a treadmill? How would your villain look if he got in a fight?

If you can’t answer these simple questions about the physics of your characters, chances are you can’t imagine them very clearly—much less write a great action scene! SciFi Signal got me thinking about it today, as they debate how to translate the physical movements of the comic book Hulk into movies.

Start with cartoon-y, exaggerated movements, then think about your own characters. I always follow Tony D’Souza’s advice:

“So what's important about these action scenes is for the writer to get sharper, to make your eye sharper, to amplify the microscope of your eye and to stick those things that you seen in the scene in their close detail in the story. Because action has to move fast and to capture the whole of a scene you need quick specific details.”