I don't know how to make those feelings stop, so I just keep writing and eventually they go away for awhile. Unfortunately, they always come back.

Brainstorming an action scene. I've got my people into danger, and I know where I want them to be at the end, but I'm stuck on what should happen in between. It's very long-winded--sorry.

The players:

J - Resourceful young corporal who led an escape of ~40 POWs who are now trying to find what's left of their side's army to get back in the fight

S - Widow of a soldier in J's company, currently J's lover but has decided he's not the route to the peaceful, settled life she hopes to regain

A - Fugitive general on same side of war as J and the soldiers

W - Callow youth. A's traveling companion. He and A saved each other's lives a few chapters ago, but W saw all his family and friends killed before his eyes at that point, so A feels like he has to take care of W because he's all young and alone and helpless. W badly wants to fight so he can avenge his family. And, incidental but important to how the scene plays out, he's nursing an almost-healed ankle sprain.

L - A colonel on the other side of the war

The time: ~200 years ago. Think flintlocks, bayonets, and swords.

The scenario: J and his soldiers have been marching by night, hiding/sleeping by day in their efforts to evade pursuit. When our scene begins, they're camped on a wooded hill near a small crossroads village. Some of the soldiers, J included, have managed to acquire civilian clothes, and J, S, and ~10 soldiers go into the village to buy food, posing as ordinary travelers. While there, they happen across A and W. They hear gunfire erupt from the direction the rest of the soldiers are camped. J and the soldiers hurry to the rescue, with A accompanying them after hastily convincing them who he really is.

A encourages W to come along too so he can get in on some of this fighting and avenging he's been daily expressing his desire for. However, W discovers that the mere sound of gunfire brings back the trauma of his family's all-too-recent death, and he can't make himself run toward the shooting. So he deliberately missteps to re-injure his bad ankle--witnessed by S. She has compassion for him, given how weary *she* is of death and violence, and helps him into the oxcart she's driving (one the soldiers stole at the time of their escape). She says they'll rejoin the others as soon as the shooting stops.

Now I start to draw a blank. J, A, and the others will rescue the rest of the soldiers upon discovering that they're being attacked by a small enemy force of about 80 soldiers. I want them outnumbered, but not hugely so, so their victory will seem impressive but not implausible, given that the 30 soldiers who stayed behind hold a good defensive position--the enemy company isn't expecting any other resistance, so the flank attack J, A, etc. mount is enough to panic them a bit. The enemy commander, L, has to decide that he needs reinforcements, and he and A have to see each other, because this is the second time they've met across a battlefield, and it will happen at least once more.

So. What I'm not sure of is how to get J, A, and the soldiers off that hill without the enemy harrying them the entire way, AND to have them meet up with S and W again. (Or it would be OK if they're harried, as long as I can somehow get S & W back to them and get them all to someplace safeish by nightfall.) Originally I was going to have the enemy force be smaller and have my guys kill them all to prevent anyone from being able to report back to enemy HQ, leading to lots of "Am I a butcher?" angst for J. But I decided for several reasons that was a bad idea, mostly because I needed L in the scene, and he has to live. Plus, I'd rather have J angst over whether he's a competent commander. However, now that they're not killing everyone, I'm having a lot harder time thinking how to get them safely to their next scene, which will necessarily involve a lot of talking and plan-making.

Argh. Action scenes are hard.

Why not make the forces about equal? If the right side has the defensive position, it would make sense for the other side to fall back after a bit of a skirmish.

Susan, I do not have any advice about your current scene, but I do think you would like to read this: [link]

Here are a couple of excerpts for your appreciation:

I learned way more history from those historical romances than I did in any of my history classes, including college. ...

Let me just say for the record that if you haven't read historical romances you shouldn't be too quick to sneer at calling them history lessons. You might be surprised at how much research the good writers put into their books. They take their craft very seriously.

I am doing editing of a long story. Unfortunately, a long, dull story. The style is intentionally old-fashioned and mannered, and if I weren't editing it, I wouldn't have continued this far. However, I have a job to do, so I shall soldier on.

I now have great sympathy for editors, who don't always get to read for pleasure.

Connie, if it's dull, is there a way to make it not dull? Does it need long passages cut? Do you need to do something else?

Would you rather discuss this in email? I just posted this here out of existential angst.

I've always wanted to use that in a sentence. Existential angst.

I'm hip, Connie. One of my volunteer jobs involves some of the worst disability writing on the earth. But I can't say that.

Hey Connie, I probably should have dropped you a line. I answered your e-mail.

Erika, yeah, reading slush has given me a great deal of appreciation for your work.

Sorry about the back channel chatter everyone.

It turned out my action scene wasn't as much of a problem as I thought once I actually got to the writing of it. But now I have another dilemma.

I have a character who, for various reasons, has in my readers' minds a sign reading "Big Damn Hero" above his head wherever he goes. And he really is a BDH. Or he will be by the story's end. But when the story opens, he's thrust into a situation where everything that's a source or pride and identity to him is stripped away. (Picture a 9/11-type situation, only in many ways more drastic, AND he's forced to become a fugitive, so he doesn't even have his name or any kind of stability to cling to. And for the first few chapters he doesn't even have anyone to confide in other than a none-too-clever young man who's lost even more of his world than our BDH did.) He's smart, brave, and resourceful and I want all that to come through...but he's also thrown completely off balance and therefore is a lot more uncertain and cautious than normal. On some levels he's frantic and terrified, but he'd never admit that, even to himself. He'd never even admit to the uncertain and cautious, because he, like my readers, thinks of himself as a Big Damn Hero by nature.

So, I've been trying to show his uncertainty and fear in subtle ways. I have a woman who's by no means old enough to be his mother treat him in ways that reminds him of his childhood nanny. Rather than being annoyed, he's comforted and allows himself to be fed warm bread and butter and bustled off to bed because he's that tired out, poor dear. When he sees himself in the mirror disguised in workman's clothes (he's quite the rich gentleman when he's his real self) he shudders at the sight. Etc.

But it's not working for my CPs. ANY of my CPs, even the ones who normally can almost read my mind. So I'm forced to conclude the problem is with my writing. Any ideas on how else I can show that a Big Damn Hero is in a vulnerable place without him admitting it, but without going so far that his uncertainty amounts to a My Pet Goat moment?