Timothy Miller Novels Notions Natterings: Action stacking action

... or what I learned from William Goldman.

I'm not much on the trend of casting your narrative in first person present tense. It's too much like theatre in the round. I like the distance availed by the proscenium, which gives the audience a wide-angle view--at the expense of immediacy, some will say. But a film that's all close-ups is claustrophobic as well as tedious. (Sorry about the mixed mediums.)

So when do I use close-ups, that is to say, when do I switch from past to present tense? (Which tense-switching you will always be told by the powers that beis a no-no, and you'll probably get your hands rapped for it by someone who knows the rules and guards them with their life.)

There's a technique in screenwriting called action stacking. It's more a trick of typography than writing, but useful to explore.

It consists of short action sentences literally stacked one on top of another on the page. In practice, it looks something like this:

INT. ELEVATOR -- NIGHT

      Ariadne DROPS inside the ROCKETING ELEVATOR, and as it SMASHES
      INTO THE TOP OF THE SHAFT Ariadne SMASHES INTO-

   INT./EXT. VAN INTO RIVER -- DAY

      -THE WATER, THE VAN CRUNCHING WITH THE IMPACT- WATER CRASHING
      THROUGH THE BROKEN WINDOWS FLOODING THE INTERIOR...

      Fischer's EYES OPEN, PANICKING- he UNBUCKLES HIMSELF, pushes
      out of the broken window- STOPS, goes back to UNBUCKLE
      Browning and DRAG him out-

   EXT. RIVER -- CONTINUOUS

      Fischer breaks the surface with Browning, who COUGHS and
      GASPS.  He starts PULLING for the near bank, struggling
      through the rain-impacted water-

   INT. VAN, UNDERWATER -- CONTINUOUS

      Ariadne, Arthur and Yusuf wait calmly underwater.  They are
      sharing TWO REGULATORS pulled from beneath the front seat.
      Arthur he turns to Saito.  There is blood in the water around
      Saito's belly- his eyes are LIFELESS-  Arthur feels for a
      pulse... turns to Cobb, whose eyes are lifeless... Ariadne
      GRABS Arthur's elbow, pulling him away...

   EXT. RIVERBANK -- MOMENTS LATER                              
      Fischer turns Browning/Eames over.  They lie there, exhausted.

--from Inception, screenplay by Christopher Nolan

(Producers are wild about this technique because it creates a lot of white space on the page and fewer words. Producers hate to read.)

But William Goldman does something interesting with this technique, interesting even to novelists.

Who's William Goldman? A god to screenwriters, and he's earned his godhood. Writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, Princess Bride (both novel and movie), Misery, Absolute Power, and many others, Goldman's name is golden in Hollywood.

What sets Goldman's action stacking apart is his use of what I'll call foreshortened present continuous.

If you need a refresher, The present continuous tense is used to describe an ongoing action in the present. It usually take the form of a "to be" verb plus a present participle as in:

You are working on my last nerve.

I am only yanking your chain.

It's used to describe an action that is happening at that exact moment. In other words, it's as immediate as it can get.

What do I mean by "foreshortened? Goldman dispenses with both the subject and the "to be" verb, stripping the sentence down to its action, like this:

Working on my last nerve.

Yanking your chain.

Or, put more elegantly and more immediately, like this:

    INT. BROWNSTONE - McCARTY - DAY

       raising his rifle.

    INT. UNMARKED VAN - DAY

       Collin, raising his.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO BUILDING - DAY

       The three workmen, raising the glass panel.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO - DAY

       Kate.  Watching her father come closer.

       Luther.  It’s hard to suppress a smile as he walks
       towards his daughter.

       Kate, still watching.

       Luther, almost there.  Speaks softly.

                               LUTHER
                 I did not kill that woman, Kate.

    INT. BROWNSTONE - DAY

       McCarty, flipping off the safety.

    INT. UNMARKED VAN - DAY

       Collin, doing the same.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO - DAY

       Luther and Kate, and he starts to sit --

    INT. LOBBY - DAY

       Seth, right hand raised -- he’s about to start it all in
       motion.

    INT. BROWNSTONE - DAY

       McCarty, his finger floating to the trigger.

    INT. UNMARKED VAN - DAY

       Collin, doing the same.

EXT. CAFE ALONZO - DAY

       Luther, seated now and as at last, he reaches out for his
       daughter’s hand --

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO BUILDING - DAY

       -- The three workmen, and for a moment the glass panel
       slips and tilts and as it catches the afternoon sun --

    INT. BROWNSTONE - DAY

       -- McCarty, blinded as the red reflection hits his eyes
       but he FIRES.

from Absolute Power, screenplay by William Goldman

Notice how he creates tension by rapidly switching between continuous and simple present tense.

So what does all this have to do with writing novels? You, too, can get in on the action stacking craze!--modified, of course, to fit your narrator's voice. (The screenplay has no narrator but the camera.) To prove it, here's an example of how I used the technique in my second Sherlock Holmes novel The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter (which except for a few action scenes is written in past tense):

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter cover

“I’m calling to Vernet, who stands like a statue, his eyes two marble ovals; I can’t even hear myself over the violence of hooves. Here is the cab, one wheel sparking a stone and shooting away on its own journey, the cab toppling upon us, the driver thrown into the air, still lashed to the reins. The horse, in a fury of terror, blacking out the night sky, and I too am flying, hurling myself across the alley, slamming Vernet’s body to the ground, hooves spraying stones against my scalp, the carriage plowing through bins, smashing against the wall of the building, the driver’s battered body juddering across the cobblestones, Vernet unconscious in my arms as I listen to the hoofbeats recede in the distance."

You can also adapt the technique to past action by using the past continuous tense (for slightly less bang for the buck in immediacy). From the same novel:

“There I was, turning, slow as a sundial, the blood roaring in my ears, the knife leaping from my hand, rotating through space, blossoming in his chest, the surprise in his bright feral eyes as he dropped to the ground, the overwhelming feeling of terrible purpose pounding in my brain, as if every moment since I had arrived in Paris had led me to the Gare du Nord at midnight only to kill this horrid little man, this assassin, and consign him to hell.”

So that's my pitch for Goldmanian action stacking. Needless to say, this technique loses its vitality almost entirely if your novel is set in present tense. But in all cases do what feels right for you. A writer needs to trust him/her self. As Jean-Pierre Jeunet (writer/director of Amelie) put it:

"You work for yourself. If you are a chef, you are the first taster. ”Um, I love that. Do you want to share?’ But, you have to love before. You are the first spectator of your film. If you think about the other people, you’re dead, you know."