: Re: Writing Action In A fictional Journal I have written a story in the form of a journal. It's about a man who is going through a separation/divorce, living alone in an unfurnished apartment;

@Pierce369

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Maybe something you could do is to keep in mind that while you’re writing from the perspective of the person reading it, the journal itself is written from the perspective of the person in-universe writing it. And because it’s a journal, everything in it probably recently happened to him, so it’s not like he needs to remind himself. You can use this to create some mystery as to what actually happens.

Example: let’s say his apartment gets broken into, and he comes home and catches the robber red-handed. The journal-writer knows what happened, but not the reader. So maybe you have the writer mentioning things like injuries sustained in the resulting fight, the damage done to his stuff, and the like, but not what actually happened. The lack of information is compelling, and makes the reader want to keep reading. This is just a little example, probably spanning only a few pages, but you can expand upon it with other, bigger events. Also, if it’s something that the writer has negative emotions regarding, if he’s ashamed or afraid of it, then that’s a good reason why he wouldn’t explicitly mention whatever-it-was by name, and just keep alluding to it.

That might not be explicitly action, as of the “biff, bam, pow” sort, but if you’re just looking for a way to keep the reader involved until Act Two, then this should help do that.

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