Act it Out!

How to describe actions accurately

I once watched a documentary about a Walt Disney cartoonist who said she always performed her characters’ actions before drawing them to be certain she got them right.

I thought that might be useful advice for writers too. At the beginning of ‘The Child on Platform One’ I have a scene where Eva, my protagonist, is having a piano lesson. At one point her teacher, the exacting Professor Novotny, asks her to give up her seat at the keyboard so that he can demonstrate the way he wants her to play a particular musical sequence. I thought it was obvious what was happening here but my editor said I needed to spell it out more clearly.

This was my original version:

She stood up as her teacher gestured at her to relinquish her place at the keyboard.

And here is the amended one:

She stood up as her teacher gestured for her to relinquish her place at the keyboard and positioned herself to the side of the piano, ready to watch Professor Novotny play.

Although it was completely clear in my head what was happening in the first version, I hadn’t necessarily conveyed that to a reader. The second version is much clearer. Perhaps if I had acted the scene out I might have spotted the lack of clarity for myself.

In my current work in progress I have several scenes involving complicated movements. As ever, they are completely clear in my head, but I’ve learned my lesson – I now act them out, sometimes pressing others to get involved, in order to gain an accurate sense of the actions. Hopefully my descriptions are stronger for it. And some scenes can even be quite fun ;-) !