What happened? What's happening? What will happen?
It had better be something, otherwise you've got a story about a group of hopefully interesting characters all sitting around doing nothing. Even if you make them watch paint dry it would be better; you could relate the tale of how the wet paint got to be there, why these people were watching it dry instead of doing something useful, and maybe an anecdote about them wagering on when it would be dry. Perhaps a philosophical debate on what constitutes 'dry' in terms of paint.
You see, even if the 'action' is dull you have to make it sound interesting. The opposite effect of this is palavering on about how nice this morning's orange juice was - an activity that's not actually essential to the plot (unless there's some suspicion that the juice may be poisoned).
There are essentially three kinds of action: the Small, the Motivational, and the Climactic. The small are those trivial movements that seem workaday but get included because they give a clue to something more important - as in the orange juice proposal above wherein it may turn out that it actually was poisoned. The motivational are those actions which need to be related so that the reader understands why the character(s) is (are) now here instead of there. It may seem dull, but any such journey may again hold important information about the plot, such as the murderer hastening off from breakfast - in order to take a quick dose of the antidote. The climactic almost needs no explanation; it's that scene where the murderer is revealed, the estranged lovers reunited, or the war declared over.
I suppose we could say there's a fourth kind of activity, and that would be the End; essentially a series of anti-climactic small and motivational events which tie up the loose strings of the story - and possibly set the scene for a sequel.
The End - or is it?
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