Action - Reaction - Discussion

I was going to call this post "the rule of three", but then writing and life in general seems to be full of rules of three. And it's not exactly a rule. Anyhow, please be aware that spoilers follow for Alien. If you've never seen Alien, stop now and watch it, because it is one of the best films ever made.

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One of the problems facing writers of a lot of genre stories is how to demonstrate what the characters are like without slowing the story down too much. I've always felt that an action plot shouldn't include much except action and characters planning more action. That's fine, but it doesn't give much opportunity to learn about what the characters are really like. They may all be deadly killers, but is there anything more to them than that (there should be) and, if so, how do we show it to the reader?

One way of doing this is in the action-reaction-discussion cycle. It works like this: an event happens, the characters discuss the event, and then the characters either talk more generally, so that we learn more about them as people. Then we repeat.

In Alien, for instance, Science Officer Ash is disabled by Ripley, Lambert and Parker. That's the "action". Then comes the reaction: they talk about the fact that Ash is a robot. That's the discussion of the event. Then, the characters talk about what to do next (with Ash's questionable help). In that discussion, we see the characters acting in the way that characterises them the most. Ripley is tough and smart, Parker is tough and aggressive, and Lambert is smart and weak.

A lot of fiction involves things becoming steadily worse or more extreme for the characters until they either succeed against terrible odds or die trying. Each new problem creates an opportunity for the action-reaction-discussion cycle to begin again.

Now, there are plenty of stories where this doesn't happen, and I don't suggest that you try to use it to construct a novel. It's more a tool to be wielded retrospectively, in analysing something that's already there. But it is useful to note, because it keeps in both the action and the characterisation, meaning that not only do the characters have to face risks, but the stakes rise through the author showing what the characters are like, and encouraging us to root for them.