The guide for aspiring fiction writers who want to improve, sharpen, review, and/or learn.
Warning! This book encourages editing and contains many tips that often require revision. Practice makes perfect, and it's good to workout your mental musc...
While small-scale pacing is on my mind, I wanted to dip into fight scenes a moment before moving onto larger pacing.
All writers have different areas that may give them pause to write about. For a lot of newer writers, fight scenes and sex scenes tend to get them a little jumpy. They want to do it right, and everyone tells them:
GO READ A FIGHT SCENE. GO READ A SEX SCENE. WATCH A FIGHT (in the style you need). WATCH PORN.
Okay, fantastic. We can all do that, but that doesn't mean we can translate everything perfectly onto a page in our story. I've watched a ton of training videos for some new tricks to train my golden retriever. That doesn't mean that when I go to train him, everything is going to go as smoothly as it did in the video!
So here's some help at making your fight scene read like a fight scene.
1. Shorter sentences speed the fight/pace up. Longer sentences slow the fight/pace down.
2. Leave a moment hanging by ending on a verb, and/or separating the action from the reaction. For example: Zorg scrambled backward, but there was no where to run. Lara lifted her sword and swung.
3. Not every fight needs to show every motion to sound convincing. Sometimes you don't want to show every little action- but the big stuff, the gist of it. Often, that's what readers remember, anyway. The pivot that lets you punch the brute, but not the hundred little twists to get there.
This is excellent for minor scenes, or scenes where you want to advance the plot without dragging. For example: Samson and Tefli engaged in a dizzying dance of sword and shield until morning light seeped through the stained glass, but when Tef 's foot slipped upon the brightened tile, it was over. In a swift motion, Samson plunged his sword through the soft leather of Tef's vest. The blacksmith fell upon the altar, his mouth moving in one final, frothing "fuck."
4. Keep in mind character-wise what a character observes and what they observe when they're in a rush, nervous, or reacting. Fights are fast. Fights are physical. You like to think you have all this time to react and act perfectly, but you don't. So pay attention to your character, because the nervous girl suddenly caught in a convenience store robbery doesn't always have time to swallow her fear and go badass. Often, by the time you realize something's happening, it's already over. The robber's shot the clerk and reached across the counter for the open register.
Characters have their own personalities. Keep that in mind when you write how they fight. Someone who doesn't want to kill anyone or is just trying to escape, will fight differently than someone with no way out, or someone who wants to kill, or someone who is protecting someone else.
5. Fights are fast. Sometimes action writers put too many thoughts in, and it starts to sound unrealistic. Think about how long your fight is supposed to take, and when you read it over, see how long the written version is. Obviously writing takes longer, but it shouldn't take too long to show a flurry of blows.
Don't forget that if you give the reader just enough detail, they'll do a lot of the imagining for you!
6. Research the weapons before you use them! Sometimes the difference between sounding real vs stupid is just a simple google search. You don't need to know everything, just see what it looks like, how its handled. If you're doing something specific with it that you aren't sure of, try googling to see if it's been done. Especially if you're writing about a different time period. There are different kinds of fights, and weapons (and availability) across time and continents!
A word of caution: If you're in first person, and your character isn't able to tell a rifle from a shotgun or a revolver from a semi-automatic, it might sound really odd for them to spout off that the enemy is holding a Zastava M76!
And you don't have to get crazy specific, if the weapon doesn't much matter. Sometimes you just need a revolver and a gunshot. Details on the firearm aren't necessary for every scene. You don't need to describe the barrel length or the ammunition if the point is just to show that Count Hrolf murdered Fiona in the parlor after she admitted to knowing about his affair with the foreign Princess Elisa. Just do yourself a favor and see if they had revolvers at that time.
7. Give and take. Fights involve action and reaction from both parties. It's easy to forget one side.
8. Reserve dodges. Bodies are big. Even the quick ones, and you have to remember that fights involve a lot more than "He looked at her balled fist and pulled back, easily escaping." You've got your entire body, and theirs, to account for as you navigate emotions, physical reactions, defense, offense, etc!
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Most fights aren't like the Mountain vs Oberyn, sorry.
9. Offense vs Defense. Separate them when you can. To help sound natural/fast, don't have your characters doing too many things in one sentence (the more they do, in the hands of a bad writer, often the more god-like the character becomes).
10. Use gritty words. Use literal words. Try not to use a lot of adverbs. If you want it to be more flowery, by all means compare the arc of blood to a rainbow or have your character easily dodge, but in general, if you want a tougher sounding scene, consider just telling it like it is. The tip of the lance burst from between his ribs.
11. Remember, it's not always the fight that matters- it's what you do to make it a unique fight! You want readers to remember your fight, not just lump it in with every other fight they've read. Ask yourself- what is the important part of this fight? Is it the fight? A death? An injury? Maybe the character's reaction to being forced to do something they never wanted to? Whatever it may be, use that to help guide your focus.
What if I'm not feeling it? I still don't really know what to include.
Overwrite the scene. Draw things out, put in all the details that you want or think you need. Every punch. Every grunt. When you read through it after, you'll probably wince and go" woooah, too much." At which point just take out what you see you now don't need, and you'll see what essentials were, well, essential to your scene!
