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Grammar Girl here. I'm Manion Fugherty, your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.

Today, I have an interview with Joshua S.O., a fiction editor and author of the new book,

S.O.'s Guide to Writing, action sequences.

We talked about both how to write action sequences and how Joshua got his first editing gig,

which has led to more than 10 years making a living as a freelance editor. I think you'll enjoy it.

Joshua S.O., thank you so much for being here with me today.

Oh, absolutely. Thanks for inviting me.

Yeah. Well, I am excited to tell people about your book, because I think it just puts

a lot of useful information out there in the world for writers. So,

today, we're just going to talk about the first half, which is about how to write great action

sequences. So, and I loved at the beginning of the book, you talked about how your wife always

skips action sequences in books if they feel too long, and I do the same thing. I'm just like her.

So, I see an action sequence when I'm just flipping forward through the pages. So,

you are going to help writers make better books. So, she and I don't have to do that anymore.

So, I think I wanted to talk first about the emotional aspect of fight scenes, because it's not

all just who punched who win and stuff like that, and I appreciate your insights into why the

emotion matters. So, if you can sort of explain how writers can do that, I think it would be especially

helpful. Yeah. The physical back and forth is important, obviously, because that's what they're

doing. And I think that most action scenes that I see that I edit really focus on that, and that

can lead to some really exciting action scenes, it's true. But I think it leaves a huge portion of

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