This is an opinion plus "Why?"-type question. When you write action lines, do you try and detail every line thing or do you generalize.

That's probably not 100% clear, so I'll give an example.

Gunfights. Do you make a point to mention every shot fired and what the result of each bullet is? "Mike fires a shot from his gold-plated desert eagle which shatters a beer bottle into a million pieces." Or, do you write a more generalized version? "John and Chris return fire on each other."

I spent much of today reading action scenes in spec scripts and shooting scripts and I noticed that most are the general kind, produced or not, and I thought it was interesting that one of the best gunfights in film (my opinion) was one of the most general of them all.

Let me know what you guys think. Should be fun.

I don't know the answer to this myself but I will say that I've written several action scenes myself in which basically every action is choreographed. I try to avoid details like glass shattering or anything like that and just keep it focused on the characters but regardless, this seems to be very grating on people so I would suggest avoiding too much detail. I don't think you can sum up an extended fight sequence for an action movie in just 2-3 paragraphs though. Either that or you can and I just have no idea how to do it.

Whichever makes the most sense for the scene.

If it's an important (or cool) detail, throw it in there.  If it needs to be known, in terms of how many shots were fired, where the shot hits, etc, throw it in there.

But if it's simply a bunch of guys firing a bunch of shots, keep it simple.

There are fight coordinators that will break it down frame-for frame.  You simply right a paced summary of the fight that gives a generally feel for what happens.

Think about how long a script would be if fight scenes were written in great detail.


Phil

Less is more principal always applies.

I was wondering the same thing about kung fu scenes...My heroine gets attacked an' puts a kung fu whoopin' on a couple of guys..

.At the moment, I just have it written as "Insert Fight Sequence Here" which is probably not the correct way to do it...

I don't think writing it out like a Sly Stallone blow by blow would be proper either...

Me neither. That's why I usually just stick to dialogue-based stories. I can't write an action line to save my life, yet that's exactly what I'm writing for the damn 7WC. As for why... I don't know.

Insert action here

Insert fight here

Insert dialogue here

Insert scenery here

Insert sex scene here

Insert chase scene here

THE END

I have the same problem, and those fight/chase scenes tend to be huge blocks of text  one after another.