After seeing John Wick 4, I started thinking about set pieces a lot. What makes a good set piece? What makes a bad set piece? What makes a great set piece! Set pieces are a big part of writing screenplays, especially if you’re writing big budget stuff. And they aren’t something you can wing on the spot. They’re their own unique skill.
Set pieces got their name from sequences that were so big, production needed to build an entire “set” for them. That’s why it’s called a “set” piece. But, as film has progressed, it’s ironically become more synonymous with big action scenes, which might take a sequence through many different areas, such as a car chase. So I’ll use “set piece” and “action scene” interchangeably.
My interest in set pieces was further bumped up by a recent script consultation I did for a superhero script where the writer’s primary request was to help him improve his action scenes. Having just seen John Wick 4, I felt like my head was in the right place for this. Even though I’ve written articles on set pieces before, it’s easy to forget some of this stuff. Being able to contrast some of the best action scenes in the business (John Wick) with an amateur screenplay, drives home for me the major differences between the two.
There is a caveat to this, though, which leads to the first mistake writers make when writing action scenes: Action scenes work better on screen than they do on the page. For example, John Wick 4 has this big flashy action sequence where John Wick fights an overweight boss guy in a nightclub. I have no doubt that, on the page, this scene reads boring. You’re basically writing, “He punches,” “He kicks,” “He dodges,” “He falls,” over and over again. But in the film? It’s a really fun scene. Mainly because the overweight boss guy is so fun.
But as I was saying, an inexperienced writer watches this John Wick scene and they don’t see much ingenuity there. Therefore, they don’t think they have to do anything special when they write their own action scene. Which results in them writing a boring action scene.
Therefore, the first rule of writing a great set piece is…
REQUIREMENT 1 – ORIGINALITY
You should be looking for a way to make your action scene unique somehow. The reason you don’t often see this is that it’s hard. You’re going up against millions of action scenes. It takes some real thought to come up with a fresh angle on one. But if you’re just going to give us another garden variety fight or garden variety car chase or garden variety heist, chances are you’re boring the reader.
Movie that represents this: Captain America: Civil War’s airport fight is a good example of how making one change in a major category, location, can create a totally unique scenario. We’d never seen a superhero fight before in this kind of location. They’re usually in the middle of New York or at the top of a building or in some lair or on some spaceship. With just a little more thought, you can come up with a place where we’ve never seen an action scene in that genre before.
REQUIREMENT 2 – AN EXTENSION OF YOUR UNIQUE CONCEPT
This is one I harp on the most on the site. No matter how much I do, though, it’s something I’m seeing less and less of every year. Which is a crime. Because it’s the thing that can really supercharge your set piece. And that is: give us an action scene that could only happen in your movie. Let’s say you’ve got a group of characters who are planning to rob a bank. Could that action scene happen in other movies? Yes! It can! Well then you are not writing an action scene that is a direct extension of your unique concept. The guy who’s been the master at this all these years has been Spielberg. He understands this law better than anyone and it’s not even close.
Movie that represents this: The opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Is that opening sequence appearing in any other movie? No. Because it was so specific to Raiders’ concept.
REQUIREMENT 3 – GOAL
Let’s move on to basics here. Having a strong character goal isn’t as sexy as an original action scene or an action scene that’s an extension of your concept. But action scenes are best when they have direction and purpose. That’s what a goal does. And the way to approach it is to think of your action sequence as a mini-movie. It needs to have a goal. That goal does not have to be fancy. It just has to be clear to the viewer. If your hero picks a fight with another character, we need to know the goal behind why he’s chosen to do so. Or else we’re going to be confused as to why the fight needs to happen. Also take note that it isn’t always the hero who has the goal. Sometimes it’s the villain who has it.
Movie that represents this: Spider Man: No Way Home – That flashy early scene where Spider-Man is on the bridge with all the stopped traffic and Dr. Octopus, who’s just emerged from another dimension, arrives and tries to kill him. Dr. Octopus’s goal is pretty clear in this scene: kill Spider-Man.
REQUIREMENT 4 – STAKES
We know here at Scriptshadow that if there’s a goal, stakes aren’t far behind. “Stakes” just means: THE SCENE HAS TO MATTER. There has to be some real consequences involved if things go wrong. And there has to be some clear upside to things going right. If a set piece feels boring despite it being original and an extension of your concept, the problem is probably there are little-to-no stakes in the sequence. If your hero is planning to rob a bank for 10 million bucks yet he already has 100 million bucks back at his house, why would we care that he’s obtaining 10 million more? You must provide us with the highest level of stakes you can on that particular set piece.
Movie that represents this: For this one, I’m going to use a negative example: NOPE. The final sequence in NOPE has our heroes trying to get a UFO on film. But what was the exact benefit of this? What were the stakes? The stated reason is that they were hoping to sell it for a lot of money. But there was zero clarification on if they’d be able to. Then they were going to use that money to, I think, save the farm. Although that wasn’t set up well either. So you have this gigantic set piece climax that contains average stakes at best. That’s how much stakes can affect a set piece. If they’re even a little bit soft, we’re not going to care what happens.
REQUIREMENT 5 – URGENCY
This starting to sound familiar? Goal. Stakes. And now Urgency. The reason these are necessary in the same way that GSU is necessary for your movie is that action sequences are like little movies. So it makes sense that you’d build them the same way you would your larger story, with a beginning, middle, and end. This one is self explanatory and you see it all the time near the end of movies. In that big climax, time is always running out. Urgency adds so much tension to a sequence that you’d be silly not to include it.
Movie that represents this: One of the most famous examples of this is the Dark Knight scene where Batman is told that Rachel is across town about to be blown up. So he has to race there and save her. Complicating things is that the Joker gives him two locations. So he doesn’t even know if he’s racing to the right one.
REQUIREMENT 6 – SIMPLICITY
This is easily the most overlooked element of writing a good action scene and it’s one amateur writers, in particular, screw up. You want to create a SIMPLE ACTION SEQUENCE where the goal, the rules, AND THE GEOGRAPHY (!!!) are easy to understand. Cause if they’re not, we’re going to be lost. If you’ve ever watched the ending of one of the recent Marvel movies where a million different things are going on at once and you have no idea what the rules of the sequence are supposed to be, you know what I’m talking about. There’s a cave and aliens and zombies and a land war and a sea war and, at some point, our hero has to zipline between buildings. Do you honestly think readers are going to be able to follow that? Give me simplicity on an action sequence every day of the week and twice on Friday. Need I remind you that The Matrix, considered one of the best sci-fi moves ever, has its climax take place in a hallway where one man fights three other men. As simple as an action scene can get.
Movie that represents this: Shang-Chi. The fight on the out-of-control bus. Note how easy those two things are to understand as a reader. A runaway bus – we immediately get it. A fight on that bus – we immediately get it. Why do you think they built their entire marketing campaign around that scene and not around the climax which had weird dragons and a million things going on? Because the bus set piece was freaking clear and easy to understand!
And there you have it. The six ways to write a great action sequence, aka, “set piece.” I know I called these “requirements” but do you need to include every one of these every time you write an action sequence? No. But your goal should be to include as many as possible. Cause I can guarantee you, the less of these you’re using, the worse your set pieces are. I’ll go one step further. If you can integrate these six rules into your set pieces consistently, you will write better action sequences than 75% of professional writers working today. I know this because I’ve watched too many movies where the writers have NO IDEA how to write a compelling set piece. As a result, their action scenes are exceedingly forgettable. Now that you’ve read this article, you will never have that problem.
SCRIPT CONSULTATION DISCOUNT 100! – I’m giving out a couple of discounted screenplay consultations. If you’re interested, e-mail me with the subject line, “100,” and I’ll take $100 off my regular feature script or pilot script rate. If you’ve never had notes from a professional, take advantage of this! I can help you identify and fix things in your writing that would otherwise take you years to learn on your own. Not to mention, I’ll elevate your current script. So if you want to get a consult, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com. I do features, pilots, first acts, short films, loglines, whatever you need!
