Could the inciting incident for Action genre be his first dip into danger?

Accepting the journey is what launches the middle build. While there are many different genres of fiction, all fiction novels share some standard characteristics.

At some point, a character must point out how the antagonist appears unbeatable. The victim is much less powerful than the hero or the villain.

If the war started a year before, it could work, but is there some battle he hears about or someone he knows or someone famous that is injured that could push him over the edge as need to act?

[57], An action subgenre featuring adventurous and heroic characters known as swashbucklers. And both can involve juxtaposing everyday events and subject matter with the terrifying, absurd, cliche, or all three. [7] It contains a number of large-scale action scenes with elaborate stunts, including a car chase through a shanty town, Chan being dragged along by a double-decker bus, and a climactic fight scene in a shopping mall featuring many breaking glass panes, the latter ending with a dangerous stunt where Chan slides down a pole covered with dangling lights from several stories up, which is considered one of the greatest stunts in the history of action cinema.[18]. [52], Sharing many of the conventions of a science fiction film, science fiction action films emphasize gun-play, space battles, invented weaponry, and other sci-fi elements weaved into action film premises. Readers will never see this statement. This is the film Casino Royal and here is it's bad guy or villain. These characteristics made his Bond outings fun and joyful. The Bond films also used fast cutting, car chases, fist fights, a variety of weapons and gadgets, and elaborate action sequences. Part of Wallflower Press’s “Short Cuts” series, O’Brien’s book covers the historical development and aesthetics of the genre, although the main focus of the book is on political and cultural themes involving conflict, social opposition, individuality, the role of the body, and redemption and restoration. Thanks for contacting me. The Empire Strikes Back: Much of the middle build is Luke training with Yoda.

Action films involve one or more heroes thrust into a series of challenges requiring physical feats, extended fights, extensive stunts and frenetic chases. Editor Tip: Creating a powerful inciting incident (and subsequent conflict) involves a universal threat all audiences can understand, condemn, and view as worth fighting.

This has been particularly true since the early 2000s, as the “pure action film” has been largely displaced by an increasing focus on action-oriented science fiction narratives and adaptations of comic books featuring superhero protagonists.

Demonstrate the protagonist’s want. Away from Hollywood, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai(1954) is possibly the most influential movie of all time, spawning some key action and narrative practices all in a single film; such as the slow-motion battle sequence, the reluctant hero, and recruiting heroes to accomplish a goal. [2], Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies Action Film as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters’ taxonomy, claiming that all feature length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. I’d say Harry Potter is an Action/Epic/Savior story since the antagonist and all his minions are intent on social destruction and a rise in power. Your goal is not to create ceaseless action, but to develop chains of cause and effect in events of varying length and intensity.

Grab your audience’s attention with a life-threatening inciting incident (causal or coincidental) that launches the global story as soon as possible. The important thing is that you have a guide for your story. For instance, in “Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone” the life threatening attack on Harry happened just prior to the start of the book. [21] The film set a pattern for a host of imitators, like Under Siege (1992) and Sudden Death, which used the same formula in a different setting. An internal conflict can be a character’s battle with forgiving someone who wronged him or discovering an unpleasant personality trait in himself.

Editor Tip: Organizing the narrative structure doesn’t require a linear story, though that works well for the Action Genre. With Action as your secondary genre, you can push it around to meet the needs of your primary genre. Even in fantasy stories, create a recognizable world with a consistent history. Allow your fresh ideas and bold thinking to take your writing where other writers are hesitant to go.

Welsh, James M. “Action Films: The Serious, the Ironic, the Postmodern.” In Film Genre 2000. The long-running success of the James Bond films or series (which dominated the action films of the 1960s) introduced a staple of the modern-day action film: the resourceful hero.
Very strong and confident, on a mission to save the "damsel in distress".This is very typical of an action film and follows film conventions of this genre.

The amount of actual violence is usually limited as the bad guys are thrown aside or knocked by the hilt of the swords and not really killed, except for the lead antagonist. The plot is the story, the reason for writing the novel. The protagonist can also play the role of the victim (. The wise-cracking, yet vulnerable, characters featured in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour (1998).

Demonstrate how they are learning (possibly changing) and setting new goals. Make the desire blatantly clear. 3) The environment the antagonist forces the protagonist into could/should have dangers of its own. The term ‘action movie’ is a rather broad umbrella which applies to a wide range of films, as evidenced by the variety of sub genres described below. , with action and excitement throughout the story. It is an arch-plot (single protagonist) or mini-plot (multiple characters) external genre that turns on the values of life and death.

You make them want to learn more. According to Shawn Coyne, the Action story is our most primal tale. Total Recall (1990) explores identity and freedom under the guise of simulation, while The Matrix (1999) has Neo being able to bend the laws of physics in his battle for freedom. At the midpoint of the story, the protagonist shifts from avoiding the problem (by relying on old patterns of behavior and thinking) to actively attacking the problem (with a new way of viewing the challenge). Genres have Conventions and Obligatory Scenes, Story Beats: Understanding Units of Story, Secrets of the Love Genre: How to Write a Great Romance, Toolbox Episode: How to Write Sales Copy for Your Book.
Action films tend to feature a resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life-threatening situations, a villain or a pursuit which usually concludes in victory for the hero (though a small number of films in this genre have ended in the victory for the villain instead). [48] The Die Hard subgenre, in which the story takes place in limited location; a single building, plane, or vessel - which is seized or under threat by enemy agents, but are opposed by a single hero who fights an extended battle within the location using stealth and cunning to attempt to defeat them,[49], Having elements of thriller and sometimes science fiction films, the main conflict of this genre is some sort of natural or artificial disaster, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, pandemics, etc. The action comedy sub-genre was re-vitalized with the popularity of the Lethal Weapon series of movies in the 1980s and 1990s. In Japanese cinema, the 1950s saw the emergence of jidaigeki action films, particularly samurai cinema, popularized by filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Contemporary Action Cinema.

The themes and conventions of the genre spill out right across cinema into many sub-genres. He also played the role of Mas Oyama in Champion of Death, Karate Bearfighter, and Karate for Life (1975–1977). [53], In which the hero is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of a rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. In any event, at the end of the book there is always a resolution of some sort. However, the action film did not become a dominant form in Hollywood until the 1980s and 1990s, when it was popularized by actors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. The narrative structure of an Action story follows an ordered cause and effect trajectory. Often reluctant to take that ‘one last job’, it’s when those closest to them are targeted that the springboard for our hero to make a decision becomes primed…. It seems to me that often the primary antagonist sets off the action, but in the middle build the protagonists flounder around, overcoming various obstacles that were not put in place by the primary antagonist. She graduated from a publishing course through the Institute of Children's Literature in 2007. The middle build belongs to the antagonist, who is continually putting obstacles in the way of the protagonist. Mystery, historical, romance, fantasy, western, science fiction, action/adventure, humor, medical, tragedy, erotic, thriller, horror and espionage are some of the main categories of fiction novels. The protagonist confronts their fear or flaw and rises to the challenge. These are celebrated by Artemis Women In Action Film Festival which honours women who work as actors, stuntwomen, and directors in action films. ", "The Kung Fu Craze: Hong Kong Cinema's First American Reception", "New Hunks Move Over, Arnold. Not only revolutionising narrative storytelling as we know it but initiating long since imitated tropes such as firing a gun into the camera. I don’t have a strong, exciting Global Inciting Incident for the ACTION genre. A hybrid genre that fuses the moral landscape of the western and the urban settings of film noir and police procedurals, the action film as we know it today is a relatively new genre, having taken shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s and become a fully recognized and immensely popular cinematic form in the 1980s. The action movie does tend to have an unfair reputation as ‘mindless entertainment’ – merely tapping into primal needs of survival and protection of loved ones with a “Yippee Kay Yay” or an “I’ll be back” just to remind us all the killing is all in good fun. Since stringing together a bunch of confrontations and fight scenes won’t likely build a story, you need some basic guidelines.

In many ways, his need to earn a living and his livelihood could be the danger but I don’t think that works for your story since it seemed the dad would support him. A comedy implies jokes and romance hints …, Murder, armed robbery, conspiracy, betrayal; the crime genre has brought us some of cinema’s most ruthless villains and enigmatic heroes. - RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK", "Police Story Movie Review & Film Summary (1985)", "How Die Hard set the stage for 25 years of action films", "Die Hard (1988) | Decent Films - SDG Reviews", "Analysis: Why Action Franchises Really Do 'Die Hard, "What's the next technology that will change the way you watch movies?