[Lucanus]

My work is full of them and while they are all 100% there to drive the story, I sometimes feel like I get bogged down. I think it's because of a couple reasons. First, I really want to convey a sense of reality and grittiness. Fighting close enough to someone to see the fear in their eyes as you plunge a sharp piece of metal through them is a hellish experience that I think is too often glamorized. Fighting for one's life involves risks and injuries even for the winner.

Second, I have actually trained with a sword and in martial arts for years. I've been injured badly in real life in the context of competition. Someone was trying to physically overpower me and won to the point that I got a free ambulance ride. It hurts.:D (No sword involved. This was pre-sword training.) That experience also gives me functional knowledge of how bodies work in a fight and how a trained person can quickly subdue someone just winging it.

I tend to enjoy the fights of Joe Abercrombie, David Gemmell, Stephen Lawhead in the King Raven books and even Isabel Allende in her retelling of Zorro to name a limited few that I've read through in the past year. They tend to capture a sense of brutality without going too far.

At this point I'm looking for thoughts, advice or examples of fights that you have written or have really enjoyed. I can obviously pick out and name writers that do this well but reading a passage that's good and talking about how to attempt to emulate it are two different things. The physical conflict in my writing is as important as the internal and interpersonal fights that I've created. It isn't just cool swordplay but since I have a couple characters with above normal physical capabilities, I do get flashy at times. In my mind, I just can't seem to strike the appropriate balance between too much technical action stemming from personal experience and not enough so that the reader would left yawning and skimming. I want it to be fun and at the same time real. Thoughts?

[Taramoc]

Hey Lucanus,
I did this exercise on this board four years ago, and I got great answers.

Here's the thread: http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14679

Maybe sommething in there will help you, even if I don't have real life experience in combat.

Taramoc

[tmso]

Hey Lucanus,

I, too, train in martial arts and the criticisms I get back regarding my fight scenes is that they are too well described and/or that a particular move is too simple and wouldn't work. :rolleyes:

So, though there are some great writers who do fight and write those fight scenes well, there are also a lot of great writers that haven't fought but write those scenes well enough that readers fill in the blank. I think, most folks want to fill in the blanks themselves with their own personal experience and/or imagination.

So, I guess, less is more with fight scenes. :)

[kmtolan]

For me, a serious fight is going to be a short one. A fighter has a limited reserve of strength to call on, so they will go for the quickest solution. Often, it is because there is more fighting to do, and they can not afford to be exhausted after just one encounter. Unlike with a movie, I think a reader can only maintain so much interest as the pacing would slow with repetitious blows.

For example:

Hatred oozed out from behind the edges of the Datha’s stone face. “No Servant will ever rule us!” He launched himself at her.

And you expect me to sidestep into some eloquent combat stance, don’t you? She obliged him, favoring her left foot only for the instant it took to see him adjust accordingly. Mikial switched balance and flung herself bodily into his face. The crude maneuver threw him on his back with her splayed across him. Twisting around, Mikial seized his head with drawn claws and discharged a fatal jolt of electricity through her palms. She rolled off his shuddering body and glared down at it, her lips curling back. “I wasn’t in the top rank…I was First!”

Short and to the point - allowing my heroine to keep the pacing at a fast clip as she moves on to the next problem (escaping).

Kerry

[Sterling13]

I recommend not stringing more than two 'ka-pows' together in a single sentence, and, instead, focusing on a steady stream of 'biffs', 'zonks', and 'splats'.


Erm.


Less is usually more. I don't need to know that he 'bent his knees at a hundred and thirty five degree angle and placed his left hand behind him on the ground - with his fingers spread for support - to avoid the blow.' Instead 'He dropped to his back...' (or something similar) does the trick for me (as the reader)... I'll fill in the rest in my head.

[Daddy Darth]

I'm in the less is more camp. Unless you can translate your knowledge/experience to me so that I as a coach potatoe understand what you are saying I get confused and lost. I get lost in general when authors try to overly describe some physical action or motion. I think if you have real skill what you are able to give me more realistically is the impact and outcome that makes sense if there is a sword fight.

thats my 2 cents worth.

[Lucanus]

Thanks. Those are interesting thoughts. I see what you all mean by less is more. My concern is that I don't want the quality of story telling or character description to take a dive every time people start pulling out their weapons. I feel like not offering enough is simply mailing it in for that scene. I have been focusing on the sense of the situation as much as the technical stuff while trying to be vague enough to allow for readers to insert a mental picture of their own. I'll stay the course.

Taramoc, thanks for the link.

tmso, I know what you mean. I simple elbow to the face or punch to the throat is usually sufficient. A wide, sweeping crescent kick is usually an invitation to be tackled.

kmtolan, I agree. When I was doing Judo competitively in college the goal was to get a full point as fast as possible and end the fight. Grappling for four minutes and then having a sudden death over time after that was easily worse than running a 5K especially if there was a lot of ground fighting. Winning (or losing :( )quickly was key or it would be a long day.

Sterling, I'm with you. Too many biffs and zonks in a row makes the 1960s batman tv show unbearable. :)

Darth, it sounds like you appreciate when a fight is meaningful and I agree. I always got tired of hack and slash rounds of D&D when I was in high school and ever since, violence for the sake of violence is pretty boring to me. Give me something to fight for or something of value at stake and a good fight can really take the story up a level in tension.

[Jon Sprunk]

Sounds like you're getting some good replies here. I'll only add that just because you've come to a fight scene, it doesn't mean that artistry takes a back seat. Be mindful of all the same things you use during other, less martial scenes: pacing, fluidity, tone, and rhythm.

Some things to try:

Short sentences can give an impression of quickness, like the swift back and forth of a fight. But a reader can quickly become fatigued from extended usage, so keep it brief.

Always let your reader know what the characters are fighting for. What's at stake (besides survival)? Let us into your characters' heads, whether they are fighting, making love, or climbing mountains.

Don't be afraid to show your knowledge, but remember that your first goal is to tell a story, not write a fighting manual.

Good luck.

[Michael V. R.]

I will disagree with many and say you can get pretty detailed with some fights, especially if they don't last TOO long. A real fight is usually pretty quick.

Unless it was a BIG part of the book, like a book where the climax is a boxing match or something, a simple 1v1 'fight' probably won't be more than a couple paragraphs. But WITHIN that couple of paragraphs i'd say you can be detailed, as long as it is described with a bit of skill and as a logical sequence of events.

Don't say someone was knocked down, then in the next sentance say they preform a jump kick to someone's face or something. The reader will think 'i though they were on the floor, how'd he/she do that?'. I sometimes read fight scenes where the author tries to be detailed, but it's hard to follow.

Best advice, IMO... if you are confident in your ability to write it well, go with some detail. Maybe have someone else read it and then have them describe how they saw it in their mind, and ask if they were unclear about it. If not, be vague, and let people imagine it themselfes. Both can work well.

[Lucanus]

When you describe the jump kick from flat on the back manuever, I'm reminded of a senior film project I wrote when I was 18. When my friends and I filmed it, the action scenes had so many continuity errors we decided to edit in parts of real Hollywood films to make it more logical. lol It was hilarious.

Reading some of my stuff after all of your responses, I see that my details are pretty logical and make sense but there are places I could do less describing and trim it down. Not everything or every element of what amounts to a riot is important. I need to shift my emphasis slightly but not much. Thanks everyone. Keep the thoughts coming if you have any others.