is this anygood?

[Mattikus]

hey, this is my first sword fight i've ever written, and i was wondering if someone could tell me what they think of it?

Kaden’s eyes met his opponents. He knew his name; they had been in this position before.

“Hello Rico” Kaden spoke grimly. The other man gave a sly smirk and drew his sword. Kaden followed suit and charged. The twenty meter distance between them closed almost instantly. Rico raised his sword above his head and sliced down at Kaden planning to cleave his body in two. Kaden parried high and spun to the left using the momentum from his spin to slash at Rico’s flank. Kaden’s blade cleaved only air as Rico rolled forward narrowly missing the blow. Recovered from his roll Rico turned and faced his opponent only to see Kaden’s blade stabbing towards his stomach. Rico parried the blow up and to the left causing the blade to glance just past his ear. Kaden expecting to have sunk his blade deep into Rico’s abdomen fell forward as his blade piercing nothing. Rico spun and elbowed Kaden in the jaw sending him even further off-balance and as Kaden passed him Rico turned and slashed at Kaden’s exposed back. Kaden, mid fall managed to turn his body and blocked the incoming sword. Rico tried to cleave Kaden once again with an overhead stroke, but Kaden parried. Rico spun left attacking Kaden’s right flank, Kaden parried. Rico spun to the right slicing at Kaden’s left side with such force that it broke Kaden’s blocking stance. Rico saw his opportunity and sunk his blade deep into Kaden’s chest.

Kaden’s body went numb and as he screamed his voice sounded metallic as if it were reverberating of a thousand metal surfaces. He fell to his knees and the grassy field he was once in melted away, forming itself into an open room. The simulation ended.

Staring down at the floor, Kaden could see his reflection, and his bleeding lip. He looked up to see Rico leaning against one the polished metal wall of the room.

“You bastard. You elbowed me in the jaw.” He said wiping his lip. Rico, giving the same sly smile he had before replied “Heat of the moment, what can I say?”

[ChrisW]

Umm this should be in the writers forum but don't worry a mod will move it there for you.:)

As to the scene, hrm it was ok I guess but is there any way you could not use their names so much during the scene?

[Mattikus]

yeah i kinda expected that someone would say that... its just hard because i'm not sure if i'd be confusing the reader or not. but thanks for the info, i'll try and take some of the names out.

[kahnovitch]

Reminds me of an Animatrix episode I saw.
I'm guessing you put the combat scene all in a big block of text to give a feel of fast pace, but I did find it hard to follow and it seemed a little clumsy in places.

e.g.

"Recovered from his roll Rico turned and faced his opponent only to see Kaden’s blade stabbing towards his stomach. Rico parried the blow up and to the left causing the blade to glance just past his ear. "

Could be a bit tighter. e.g.

"As Rico rose, he parried a thrust at his stomach upward to miss his ear by hair's breadth"

I think a shorter, tighter description of each attack/defence would also improve the pace using less words.

[funky_fantasist]

My suggestion would be to keep your sentences a little shorter in order to give pace & convey speed...

Good action though!

Funky
:D

[JRMurdock]

I'm just throwing my agreement out there. This could have been done with about half the words you used. And if you shorten it that much, you could continue the battle for another two or three paragraphs. Battle scenes should read fast just as the action moves fast. Most battle scenes aren't in slow motion, unless that's what you want to convey.

Best of luck.

[choppy]

For the first sword fight you've ever written, I think this is pretty good. You have some good interaction between the characters and aside from ending with "it was all a simulation/dream" (which is a tad cliche), the conflict is there.

Here are some thoughts:
- You focus on the move-by-move action. While this does demonstrate attention to detail, it can get tiresome if the sequence gets much longer. Instead focus on the conflict, the fear of getting cut, the emotion, the strategy etc.

- What are they fighting over?

- You mention flanks. This is just personal opinion, but I associate flanks with groups of people, or animals, and not so much an individual person.

- What are the consequences to Kaden for losing? Now he has a fat lip. (Maybe this is geeting too deep into the bigger picture - and you were just interested in comments on the fight sequence after all.)

[user123]

This was good for a first time fight scene, but you need to speed it up a bit. Battles are fast moving things and you should try to make the reader feel like they are right there in the center of it. Other then the pace being a tad slow this was good and made me want to know what was the reason behind the fight. Why are these two there? What kind of problem do they have with one another? Anyway I did like it.:)

[Jacquin]

Not bad at all, if this is your first attempt I am indeed impressed.

I love writing combat but I try to keep it as brief as I can. The reader doesn't need to know all the nuances of the moves, just who attacks and who wins unless of course you have a really nice move you want to work in.

You need to be very careful when you go into so much detail because thhere are plenty of people like me around who study historical fencing and will be immediately turned off by innacurate/impossible moves. Not thhat any leapt out at me from your piece, but it did give the impression of a standard Hollywood fight.

As everyone has suggested you need to speed up the pace, but I feel you could improve by including a little more about the characters. What are they fighting for? What are they thinking? What kind of weapons are they using? What do they look like?

Hope this helps.

J

[Mattikus]

alright thanks for the info everyone. helped alot :)