How to Make Gunfights Exciting - Part Four: The Lone Draw

Steampunk World presents Clint Eastwood in the Lone Draw....

A Spaghetti Western by Scribblar!

Okay, not quite. But if you have ever seen a western, chances are you've seen a lone draw. And they're not just restricted to Western's... the pivotal part of the Lone Draw is the face-off, and this is a pivotal part of many types of fight scenes. If you read fantasy, and the hero and villain face each, trade insults, then draw swords - you've just read a face-off.

If it's Martial Arts you're into, the hero walks along, stops suddenly. A man in black (seriously, black = evil[?] wtf?) steps out and they have a face-off. Hell, the innocent, inexperienced yet survives-to-the-end heroine of any horror movie usually has a face-off with the monster. It even happens to Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Aliens, Alien blah...

So, what is the face-off, how do you write one, how do you make it exciting, and etcetera.




The Face-Off

The face-off is the intrinsic part of the Lone Draw. It is the money scene. In the Lone Draw there is very little exchange of bullets, there is very little action. The action is not that important, it's what we learn about the character (the introspection) that is important.



In the example on the left, we can clearly see Ripley's fear. This will raise the stakes by reminding us she is human. She is such a bad-ass in the movie, it is easy to forget she is not a super-human. Or even a bad-ass normal (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal). She's just normal, just you or me, doing what she needs to do to survive.

The Introspection

Watch a Western. The good guy and the bad guy (if he isn't the one in black, he's the one with the black moustache) line up. Cue the close-ups.

Movies can't show us what each character thinks. They focus on expressions. See the eyes, that's the introspection. The line of the mouth. The angle of the shot. These are things the movies have to use, because they lack the narrative element of novels.




The gun points down the way, the camera "looks" up at Dirty Harry. This gives him an impression of power; the grim line of his mouth and serious set of his eyes show his character. Here is a man who is pissed-off, and has a job to do.

You can show that through narration. You can enter your character's head, and tell us what he thinks. Is he scared? Is he doing what he has to do because it must be done, whilst being terrified that he is going to die? Is he having fun? Is he the 1880's version of a modern adrenaline junkie, getting into gunfights because he loves the high? If he was alive today (and wasn't 150 years old) would he be bungie jumping?

You have to tell us, and now is the best time. Get us inside his head, let us know what he thinks when the going gets tough. This is when your character is his truest self; it's when we will love him or loathe him the most.

The Audience

If you write omniscient (which most people who give writing advice say don't do, but I don't agree with that) you can show us the thoughts and feelings of the people who are watching. What does the banker think of the gunfight? What does the prostitute think? The sheriff? The bartender?

If you don't write omniscient, don't forget that your POV character needn't be the one fighting. For instance, if he sees his father/brother/wife in a gunfight, this could be a life-altering moment for him. It would be a great time to see inside his head.

The Gun

For goodness sake, don't get the technical details wrong. You cannot underestimate the importance of getting it right. If you get it wrong, you will lose all credibility with your readers. You might think that a piece of information is so far out of the normal and everyday that not a single one of your readers will know of it. More than likely, you'd be wrong.

For more information on guns in the Steampunk Era, follow this link. http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/space1889/1920.html This is from Space 1889, which seems to be a role-playing steampunk system (one I'm not familiar with), but the details on the guns all seem to be chronologically accurate.

The Bullet

It all ends with the bullet. The introspection, the emphasis of the scene, everything. Bang! It's all gone.

This post has inspired me to write one's about bad-ass characters, about the onmiscient viewpoint, and about suspension of disbelief versus research and realism.

They're coming soon...

Making gunfights more exciting - Part Two - Snipers

The Sniper Scenario


For this example I will be using the idea of a man lying prone on a hill watching the baddies loading a train with stuff. The head bad guy has our hero's girlfriend, and is pointing a gun at her head.

How do we build the tension here?


The Art of Crafting Sentences

Okay, there are ways to make sentences read slow or fast, and fast sentences are better for action scenes. But in a sniper scene I recommend going slow – the period before the shot should be a time of calm, of concentration, of reflection. Supposedly, the best sniper's shoot between heartbeats – certainly, I learned to shoot halfway through a breath. The character must be calm, and so should the reader.


The Calm Sentence

The calm sentence is a soft sentence. It has words of medium length, maybe a few long words. These sentences are between seven and fifteen words in length, usually. Yes, the length can be measured that exactly. Exceptions happen, so don't force the length. The most important thing is that the sentences be organic.

The sentences above are 7-11-11-8-7-10 words long. See, it can be done.

Some of the above sentences aren't soft – for instance “Exceptions happen, so don't force the length” is a hard sentence, mainly because “Don't” is a hard word.

One more thing, go easy on the punctuation. Very simple sentences.

So, medium length soft sentences are calming, are they?

The rifle in his hands was heavy, heavier than a weapon should be. It wasn't just the weight of the metal. There was another weight upon him, one he couldn't see or hear or touch or feel. The gun was heavy with guilt.

13-8-16-6.

Yes, the second last sentence is a word two long, the last one a word too short. Remember, the most important thing is that they flow organically. The last sentence isn't a soft sentence at all – both gun and guilt are hard words, and I deliberately didn't refer to the rifle as a gun until this point. Using a hard sentence at the end of a soft paragraph can be an effective counter point. I think of it like casting an anchor.

So, in our sniper scenario we are using soft words, medium length sentences, lightly punctuated. In other words, calming sentences.

Until he pulls the trigger – then we have our action sentences. The pace speeds up, everything happens at the same time. Sentences are short, snappy. If you can get them down to just a noun and verb, do it.

He spat.

She died.

These are good sentences. Cut out all extraneous words. Cut out all punctuation except fullstops. Please, please do not use exclamation marks! Keep them for dialogue! And only if you must!
I recommend going light even on the description, though some may be required.

He took a deep breath, blew half of it all and held the rest. His heartbeat was slow, steady. He was as calm as he was going to be. Donald was in his sights. Bryan found his inner peace, and pulled the trigger.

He saw blood spray from Donald's head. He heard the thunder-loud gunshot right inside his ear. It nearly drove him deaf. All he could hear was ringing. He focused through the sights. The enemy were in a panic, running for cover. He could have picked them off, one by one. He didn't. Let them panic for now. Let them feel the fear his family and friends had felt, before they were butchered. First would come the fear. Then the relief, the belief they were safe. Then he would strike again.

The pace of the sentences in the second paragraph is much faster than the ones in the first. The most notable way to test this is to read it out loud. Reading it out loud is a skill with more in common with acting than reading – a lot of people aren't very good at it. Provided you follow the natural rhythm of the piece, pausing where there's punctuation, it isn't too hard. I might do a post on reading out loud at some point.

But back to sniping.

Okay, the old adage about writing what you know holds true here. Don't take that as licence to shoot someone, though, would you not? I see it as meaning “if you don't know, don't make it up,” because you can guarantee your readers will know. And then you'll look like an ass.

So, what are important factors to consider when sniping?

• Wind
• crowd
• angle
• number of obstacles between yourself and the target
• noise levels
• the temperaure of the surroudings (target may appear further up or down than it actually is if temperature is not considered)
• gravity (the bullet will fall the further it travels)
• your current position. High or low? Prone, crouched, or standing (not recommended)?
• Elevation in mean sea level
• Range
• day or night
• weather
• the condition of your gun

Work some of these into your piece (too many and it will be over-crowded, like saying “Look at me! I did research. See my research.”

I recommend three.

Next we'll do gun battles.

Making gunfights more exciting - Part One

This post might got long. I've had to split it.

Have you ever read a fantasy novel with a five or ten page sword fight? Or a superhero novel with a chapter long punch up. These things can be exciting (sure, not when they are a list of blows, but when done right).

Guns are fast weapons. Gunfights tend to be over quite quickly. You can lose a lot of the excitement you are trying to build because the scene ends early. Don't worry, there are ways to keep the story exciting.


1) Variety

Vary the types of gun battles you have. In one scene you might have a character trying to take a sniper shot with a rifle, knowing he'll only get time to fire one shot or the villain will kill someone important to him. In another, your character might be hiding behind cover, fighting several opponents at once. In a third scene, there might be no cover, just one of those Old West style Draws. Each of these scenes have their own way of building tensions, their own style of writing.


2) Get inside your character's head

The best tension comes from being inside your character's head. Let his tensions become the readers. Give them insight into his fears, worries, hopes and dreams. Okay, your MC is the fastest draw in the West. That's boring, though. Where is the excitement when no one can defeat him?

Of course, you don't want him to be defeated, so how can you build the tension? Mentally. Perhaps the character has given up on violence, but is drawn into it again. Now here he stands, in a Draw, about to kill someone. He knows he can, he has before, and he knows he is fast enough... but will he be able to live with himself afterwards? Maybe it would be better just to die.


3) Go omniscient

In 3rd person omniscient POV you can drift from one spectator to the next. What does the whore, the banker, the sheriff, the barman think of the upcoming Draw? That is best done in a Draw situation.