Action Story Beats

According to John Truby's The Anatomy of Genres, the Action genre is for stories about taking action. While some genres emphasize punishing evil to succeed, like crime, or growing to a legend to succeed, like myth, action emphasizes fighting for one's success from those who would take it, plain and simple.

The life statement of an Action story is always something like:

"If you are to succeed, you must take action and fight."

Examples of stories that employ the Action genre's beats:

• Saving Private Ryan

• Halo

• Edge of Tomorrow

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

• Ghost of Tsushima

Spoiler warning for all of the above. Do not click the dropdowns for the later beats' examples if you wish to avoid spoilers.

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Action Story Recipe

Always read the ingredients before cooking any recipe. The best way to describe these ingredients is with its name, a brief description, and up to two examples (see examples by clicking the dropdown arrows).

To write an Action genre story, you will need:

Hero's Defining Crisis In an action story, the main character is introduced in a crisis moment that puts them in immediate danger. You know who someone is by what they do when threatened, so to introduce an action character, you should threaten them.

• Example 1: Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan is literally introduced in the beach assault of D-Day. There are few real-life examples of crises more visceral and iconic. Captain Miller's qualities (calm under fire, pragmatic, shaken by war, and protective of those around him) are all put on display from the very start of the film.

• Example 2: Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima is introduced in the battle of Komoda Beach, when Khotun Khan's mongol horde first arrives in Tsushima and begins their invasion with a clash of the island's gathered samurai clans. Jin's skill at arms and his unbreakable will and courage in the face of overwhelming odds are firmly established.

Story World: Enslavement from Physical Attack You have established the hero as a warrior of some kind. Someone who solves problems and survives by fighting and trickery. Therefore, the world around them needs to suit this role so they can be the main character. The world must be at risk, imperiled by a foe who can only be dealt with by defeating them. Otherwise, the story world (however large or small in scale) will be enslaved (destroyed, put in bondage, etc.)

• Example 1: In Twilight Princess, the world of light (specifically the Kingdom of Hyrule) are under threat from the forces of the Twilight Realm, led by Zant and Ganondorf. This is the kind of threat heroes like Link and Midna are perfect to face, since as a team they are a powerful, loyal, and brave fighting force.

• Example 2: The galactic conflict between humanity and the Covenant Hegemony is the perfect backdrop for a warrior hero like Master Chief to put his superhuman abilities and endless courage on display.

The Warrior's Moral Code: Courage and Will to Greatness Establish the protagonist's position on the fight/flight spectrum. Your character is a fighter, but do they bide their time and strike at the right moment, or do they take their foes head-on? How often does your protagonist retreat before standing their ground? Most of the time, and certainly in the end, they must always stand and fight, but there are a number of ways a hero can arrive at that moment.

• Example 1: Jin Sakai is one of the most interesting examples of this story beat, as it keeps coming up again and again. One of the central themes of Ghost of Tsushima is tradition vs. pragmatism. Jin is faced by an overwhelmingly more powerful foe, yet his samurai tradition demands he face them head-on. Over the story, Jin arrives at the moment of standing and fighting many times, but he gets there in increasingly underhanded and subvertive ways.

• Example 2: Captain Miller and his team are forced into several confrontations with the Nazi forces on their way to save Private Ryan. Over and over again, they cannot retreat, only advance further into enemy territory. Captain Miller's resolve is tested with objections like "why should we all risk our lives for one man?"

Desire: Success, Glory, and Personal Freedom As in every story, the desire line of the hero shapes the spine of the story. What the protagonist wants defines what happens next. Therefore, it is very important that you choose that desire carefully and that you establish it early on. In action stories, the main character's desire is some variation of success, glory, or personal freedom, for themselves and those they protect. The desire line evolves by the end of the story.

• Example 1: Link's desire line takes broader and broader shape in the early stages of Twilight Princess, but it is always about protecting people. Midna's is the same. The difference is that they are each only interested in protecting specific people. For Link, those people are Ordon Village, and for Midna, the Kingdom of Twilight. As the story continues, and they get to know one another and the world of Hyrule, they learn that they cannot protect only those they care about without protecting the whole world. Link expands from protecting the children of Ordon to protecting the Kingdom of Hyrule, and Midna expands from protecting the people of Twilight to the World of Light.

• Example 2: Major Williams Cage from Edge of Tomorrow's desire line changes from being a coward to a protagonist, by forcing him to live the same day over and over again until he can defeat the enemy of humanity. This changing desire line at first compels Cage to run and hide, and then he fights for selfish reasons, and then he fights to save the world.

Collecting Allies The hero must collect allies over the course of the story in order to defeat the foe. Make these allies contrast the hero, but make them excel at what they do so the hero needs them to solve dynamic problems and defeat specialized enemies.

• Example 1: Jin Sakai's team includes many people, and here are two of them:

  • The master archer Ishikawa teaches Jin the bow and provides his own masterful archery to combat and operations. Ishikawa brings a wizened, gruff, and troubled personality to the table, and his apprentice Tomoe provides a minor adversary to force Jin to grow.

  • Lady Masako, sole survivor of Clan Adachi, provides front-line samurai combat expertise in crucial battles, as well as outfitting Jin with powerful armor to help him fight. Her all-consuming fury provides a contrast to Jin's more sensitive, reserved approach.

• Example 2: In some action stories, you can do this beat in reverse. Captain Miller starts with a full team of named characters, and they get picked off one by one on their way to save Private Ryan. These characters' contrasting personalities serve to highlight major characters like John Miller and Private Ryan, and their deaths, rather than their joining of the team, are moments that advance the plot.

Opponent: Hero's Nemesis In Action stories especially, the hero is only as awesome as the villain they overcome. Create at least one opponent who poses an enormous threat to the hero and the story world. There are many ways for an opponent to be powerful, from armies to personal strength to cunning and leverage. If you have multiple opponents, make sure they all challenge the hero in different ways.

• Example 1: Ganondorf and Zant are fearsome warlords who each force Midna and Link to rely on one another's arsenals. These villains harness power from both the light and twilight realms, so Link and Midna must harness from both as well. They threaten both realms, so Link and Midna must protect both realms.

• Example 2: Khotun Khan is a tactical, cruel, and personally imposing opponent for Jin Sakai. His overwhelming armies act as an extension of himself. His immense strength and numbers force Jin to fight in new and uncomfortable ways, to bend or to break.

Training In order for your protagonists to believably defeat the powerful opponents you've added, they will need to increase their skills, powers, connections etc., a beat altogether referred to as "training".

• Example 1: Link's series of training sequences with the Hero's Shade is an excellent example of spacing out a training beat over the story so it doesn't get dull. It gives him skills that directly aids his victory against Ganon in the final battle, and all along the way, so this training has both immediate and climactic payoff.

• Example 2: Major Cage enrolls himself in several training regimens over the course of the movie, showing a clever usage of the infinite time loop he's trapped inside of. He goes from a paper-pushing coward to a lethal user of multiple advanced combat technologies.

Game Plan Similar to training, the protagonists need a plan to defeat this overwhelmingly powerful opponent. Make the plan complicated enough to be interesting, and never let them pull it off without throwing several wrenches into it.

• Example 1: Captain Miller's plan to save Private Ryan is detailed and thorough, despite how little information he is given. Along the way, he changes this plan several times when complications arise (such as finding the wrong Private Ryan, or taking a prisoner, or losing a valuable team member). These changes in his plan make the moments when Miller sticks to his guns more impactful.

• Example 2: Jin Sakai forms an evolving plan to rescue his uncle, Lord Shimura, rally the remaining samurai on the island, call for help from the mainland, and eliminate key targets in Khotun Khan's army. It's another excellent example of a plan that changes all the time, especially near the end.

Revelation Leads to Decision A story is a sequence of revelations, followed by decisions and actions, followed by more revelations, and so on. Make sure your protagonists are hitting this beat multiple times over the course of the story.

• Example 1: First, Link and Midna learn that in order to cleanse the twilight from the World of Light, they need to collect the Fused Shadow. That done, they learn they need to collect the shards of the Mirror of Twilight in order to go to the Twilight Realm and defeat Zant. So on, and so forth.

• Example 2: As the Arbiter learns more and more about the Halo rings and the Flood and the history of the Covenant, his plans and his loyalties change. When faced with revelation, the Arbiter is willing to change any plan, no matter how drastically.

Drive: Cat and Mouse/Improvisation While the protagonist is undergoing all this training, planning, and revelating, they must clash with the opponent(s). Since the protagonist is at a steep disadvantage at the start of the story, they must either improvise, evade, or die at every encounter. Over the course of the story, this beat becomes less cat-and-mouse as the playing field evens out.

• Example 1: Major Cage fails over and over and over again in his attempts to stop the alien invasion. He is reminded that he is severely outmatched by this opponent, and he indeed improvises, evades, or dies in every reset.

• Example 2: Jin Sakai spends much of the story of Ghost of Tsushima evading rather than confronting the overwhelming armies occupying his island. Whenever he strikes, it is with a new technique, ally, or plan.

Moral Argument: The Great vs. The Good Defeating someone much stronger than you requires unconventional means. Establish what moral costs the protagonist must pay to defeat the opponent. If the protagonist does not pay these costs, how do they avoid/rise above them? Are they great, or are they good?

• Example 1: The Ghost of Tsushima is perhaps one of the best action stories ever told in the medium of video games, because of how well it executes this beat. Jin Sakai must constantly battle with the pragmatic temptation to go against his warrior code and use underhanded, dishonorable tactics to win. What makes Jin's moral cost transcendent is how heavily tied it is to his culture; you could not copy and paste this price tag onto most protagonists.

• Example 2: Captain Miller battles constantly with the main theme of Saving Private Ryan: how many lives should you sacrifice just to save one? In the end, Miller passes this question on to that one life he saves: Ryan's.

Vortex Point and Violent Final Battle This is it, the final battle every Action story needs to end properly. If you've been executing every beat leading up to this, your vortex point will present itself to both you and your audience.

• Example 1: Having defeated Zant and every corrupted creature he placed in Link and Midna's way, all that remains is to defeat Ganon himself before he conquers Hyrule.

• Example 2: After finally reaching Private Ryan, Captain Miller and his forces are pinned down by a German armor unit and must stretch all their remaining strength and munitions to succeed.

Self-Revelation You must include a moment where the protagonist realizes the cost they have paid to succeed. They either swell with pride or recoil in horror at what they have become to defeat the opponent.

• Example 1: Along with his trusted crew, Captain Miller pays the ultimate price to save Private Ryan. Private Ryan is left to face the fact that he is only alive because of the sacrifices of so many men like him.

• Example 2: Jin Sakai accepts that he has become the Ghost of Tsushima. He can no longer be his uncle's nephew. In saving his homeland, he has abandoned the ways of the Samurai.

Farewell or Communion The protagonist either lays down their weapons and skills and re-enters society, or departs for good. This choice often depends on the price paid to succeed, and whether it leaves the protagonist in a state compatible with the world they have just saved.

• Example 1: Edge of Tomorrow exemplifies the communion option. Once the Omega alien is defeated, and the time loop is broken, Major Cage goes and finds the best relationship he made over all those time loops, Rita. Although she does not remember him at all, the ending of the movie makes clear that Cage intends to re-enter society and live the rest of his life with her.

• Example 2: Twilight Princess exemplifies the departure option. Although Midna has grown very close to Link and has gained a deep respect for the people of the world of light, her first act as monarch of the Twilight Realm is to shatter the Mirror of Twilight, permanently severing the two worlds. She will never see the friends she made in the world of light again, but she has ensured that neither world is ever able to invade the other.

Notes

Remember that most good stories are a mix of the beats from multiple genres. The beats of Action stories are frequently mixed with those of Myth and Crime stories.

Often action stories get around more complex motivations for fighting by having pure evil opponents or opponents whose opinions we don't care much about (such as in Edge of Tomorrow and Inception)

You can see how this would be a popular genre for video games, where the audience controls a character and you don't want to lose control of the narrative, so you keep it simple and make the player team good guy (such as Halo or Zelda or Tsushima.) Your enemies in these stories are not morally complex, and your character's reaction to them (fighting) is the only one they can choose.

Every protagonist defines freedom differently, usually a unique cross between protection and banishment, defense and offense.