The narrating strategy we call narrative action uses active verbs and modifying phrases and clauses to present action vividly. Narrative action is especially suited to representing the intense, fast-moving, physical actions of sports events. The following example by George Plimpton shows how well narrative actions work to show what happened during a practice scrimmage. Plimpton participated in the Detroit Lions football training camp while writing a book profiling professional football. This is what he experienced:
Since in the two preceding plays the concentration of the play had been elsewhere, I had felt alone with the flanker. Now, the whole heave of the play was toward me, flooding the zone not only with confused motion but noise—the quick stomp of feet, the creak of football gear, the strained grunts of effort, the faint ah-ah-ah of piston-stroke regularity, and the stiff calls of instruction, like exhalations. “Inside, inside! Take him inside!” someone shouted, tearing by me, his cleats thumping in the grass. A call—a parrot squawk—may have erupted from me. My feet splayed in hopeless confusion as Barr came directly toward me, feinting in one direction, and then stopping suddenly, drawing me toward him for the possibility of a buttonhook pass, and as I leaned almost off balance toward him, he turned and came on again, downfield, moving past me at high speed, leaving me poised on one leg, reaching for him, trying to grab at him despite the illegality, anything to keep him from getting by. But he was gone, and by the time I had turned to set out after him, he had ten yards on me, drawing away fast with his sprinter’s run, his legs pinwheeling, the row of cleats flicking up a faint wake of dust behind.
––GEORGE PLIMPTON, Paper Lion
Though Plimpton uses active verbs, he describes most of the action through modifying phrases and clauses.
By piling up narrative actions, Plimpton reconstructs for readers the texture and excitement of his experience on the football field. He uses the two most common kinds of modifiers that writers employ to present narrative action:
Participial phrases: tearing by me, stopping suddenly, moving past me at high speed
Absolute phrases: his cleats thumping in the grass, his legs pinwheeling, the row of cleats flicking up a faint wake of dust behind
Combined with vivid sensory description (the creak of football gear, the strained grunts of effort, the faint ah-ah-ah of piston-stroke regularity), these narrative actions re-create the sights and sounds of people in motion.
Turn to paragraph 2 of Amanda Coyne’s profile essay “The Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison” in Chapter 3, pp. 75–78. Underline any narrative actions you find in this brief paragraph. Then reflect on how they help the reader envision the scene in the prison’s visiting room.
Record several brief—two- or three-minute—televised segments of a fast-moving sports competition, such as a soccer or basketball game. Then review the recording, and choose one segment to narrate using narrative actions to describe in detail what you see.
If you cannot record a televised game, narrate a live-action event (for example, people playing touch football, a dog catching a Frisbee, or a skateboarder or inline skater practicing a trick). As you watch the action, take detailed notes of what you see. Then, based on your notes, write a few sentences using narrative actions to describe the action you witnessed firsthand.