Introduction

Stories have characters, and characters do things—they take action

Here’s a snippet from Miles Morales that is all action.

Shorty Puff-Chest and Mucus Man instantly flanked Ganke, grabbing him by the arms. But before Benji could even sucker-punch Miles’s best friend, or reach for the shoes, or do whatever he was going to do, Miles had already stepped in front of him.

But there are a lot of different types of character action—not just physical but also mental and emotional.

We’ll look at these types of action, and explore how story actions make sense and feel meaningful.