Clumsy Fight Scene?

lilmamaross · Feb 18, 2010

I've come to a scene where my MC is going to be surprise-attacked. I'm not sure how to write the scene. I want her to be a bit clumsy and get in a lucky final blow, yet I want survival instinct to take over, guiding her more than anything else. It's simple hand-to-hand, no weapons. It's in first person, if that matters. I have the first part (MC attempting to run away and failing) but I need help with the rest. I've looked at some topics and they will definitely help in later scenes! Thanks in advance! <3

aadams73 · Feb 18, 2010

This may not seem terribly helpful, but I promise it is: pick up some other first-person books and see how they did it.

I know the perfect one: Kelly Meding's Three Days to Dead. The main character is resurrected in a body that's not her own, one that's not as strong, agile or trained to fight. As a result, she has some clumsiness to compensate for. So you may find those scenes helpful.

hammerklavier · Feb 18, 2010

Visualize, set to words, clarify (revise in such a way that the visual aspect is clear to your reader).

blacbird · Feb 18, 2010

Act it out. Make sure that the physical actions you are describing can actually be performed. This is good advice for any physical motions you are narrating, not just for fighting. More than once I've found myself floundering with describing physical activity, to find that the way I was narrating it could only be performed by an invertebrate with tentacles and two heads. Which is okay if you're writing about an invertebrate with tentacles and two heads, but not so good if you're actually describing humans.

Remember always the infamous Nixon tapes 18-minute gap, which was "accidentally" erased by his secretary, using motions she later tried to demonstrate, and were obviously and hilariously absurd.

caw

Wavy_Blue · Feb 18, 2010

lilmamaross said:
I've come to a scene where my MC is going to be surprise-attacked. I'm not sure how to write the scene. I want her to be a bit clumsy and get in a lucky final blow, yet I want survival instinct to take over, guiding her more than anything else. It's simple hand-to-hand, no weapons. It's in first person, if that matters. I have the first part (MC attempting to run away and failing) but I need help with the rest. I've looked at some topics and they will definitely help in later scenes! Thanks in advance! <3

Is the ambusher a trained fighter? If so, then your MC is not going to get a lucky strike. If the ambusher has skill, she isn't going to get lucky. There's only so many times the old airplane-blade-chops-someone-to-bits trick can work. We've got to be able to buy that she won the fight against an experienced fighter. Otherwise it's just a cop out.

Make sure it's believable, and for it to believable, she's got to be facing someone with little to no skill. Not sure how that will work in with your story.

Mara · Feb 18, 2010

Wavy_Blue said:
Is the ambusher a trained fighter? If so, then your MC is not going to get a lucky strike.

Why not?

The OP doesn't say that the MC is untrained, just that she's a bit clumsy. Being a bit clumsy is not automatically going to result in a loss. And luck plays a role in a fight at any skill level. Even an incredibly skilled opponent can slip on terrain, and if the opponent is reasonably skilled and just a little clumsy, she could easily take advantage and win.

kaitie · Feb 18, 2010

Wavy_Blue said:
Is the ambusher a trained fighter? If so, then your MC is not going to get a lucky strike. If the ambusher has skill, she isn't going to get lucky. There's only so many times the old airplane-blade-chops-someone-to-bits trick can work. We've got to be able to buy that she won the fight against an experienced fighter. Otherwise it's just a cop out.

Make sure it's believable, and for it to believable, she's got to be facing someone with little to no skill. Not sure how that will work in with your story.

I disagree. A few years back I did taekwondo for awhile. In one of the first classes me, the lonely little white belt, was put in the middle of a circle with a black belt and told to close my eyes, then the black belt would grab me and I'd have to figure out how to get out of the hold. The person in question was a friend of mine who thought it would be funny to put me into a hold I wouldn't possibly be able to get out of (behind my back, arms around my arms and neck, I don't know what it's called but there's a name for it). Now, she was supposed to just grab my wrist, for example. I knew she'd do something crazy like that, though, and I remembered having heard once that if someone gets you like that you can drop out of the hold. I'd never done it before, it was just something I'd heard. So I, completely inexperienced and blind, managed to not only get out of the hold, but to pin the black belt on the ground.

Yeah, I wasn't some random person who knew absolutely nothing. I'd taken a couple of classes at this point and heard advice about self-defense even if I'd never had to use any of it. The point is, I essentially got a lucky shot, and I think 90% of the reason I did is because the other person didn't expect me to.

It's entirely possible that a newbie might be able to take down someone more experienced in the right circumstances, especially if the more experienced person is overconfident and not expecting a fight. The point is to surprise someone, and I definitely believe it's possible.

DeadlyAccurate · Feb 18, 2010

In college, I took a physical education class that included fencing. Our teacher knew nothing about fencing, but one of the things she did was invite a local fencing club from another college to show us some stuff. Their coach mentioned she no longer trains newbies, because the swings are so crazy and uncoordinated she ends up getting hurt. (She leaves that to her senior-level students). So yeah, you can get in a lucky shot against an expert opponent.

JackinElgin · Feb 18, 2010

maybe you should use the perspective that the character isn't fighting at all. Perhaps they're being beaten up and land a lucky punch?

kangolNcurlz · Feb 18, 2010

DeadlyAccurate said:
In college, I took a physical education class that included fencing. Our teacher knew nothing about fencing, but one of the things she did was invite a local fencing club from another college to show us some stuff. Their coach mentioned she no longer trains newbies, because the swings are so crazy and uncoordinated she ends up getting hurt. (She leaves that to her senior-level students). So yeah, you can get in a lucky shot against an expert opponent.

Ha, that was funny.

Khimera9 · Feb 18, 2010

Try playing a little book movie in your head over and over to try to flesh out the idea before putting it on paper.

Or try writing down a basic fight scene choreography like-
- three guys jump out, attack from behind
- MC turns around
- notices them
- stumbles away
- swing wildly at opponents
-get surrounded
etc.
etc.
etc.

Wavy_Blue · Feb 18, 2010

I never said it was impossible, just hard to buy.

shaldna · Feb 19, 2010

watch bar fights.

seriously.

or just amateur wrestling/boxing/martial arts. those guys and girls still look amazing, but try to imagine what would happen if they were up against a real pro.

RJK · Feb 19, 2010

I can vouch for the disadvantaged getting in lucky punches or kicks. I had a few occasions when I tried to subdue a person literally half my size. Their advantage, I wasn't trying to hurt them, just subdue them. I took some damn good kicks, punches, scratches, and occasional bites before I got the cuffs on them.
On the other hand, they didn't get away.
As far as lucky punches, I took one from a guy (they call it a sucker punch) right in the name-of-the-father. I saw stars and my knees buckled. There were other cops there to hold the guy, otherwise he would have had time to get away.

Lordofthehunt · Feb 19, 2010

DeadlyAccurate said:
In college, I took a physical education class that included fencing. Our teacher knew nothing about fencing, but one of the things she did was invite a local fencing club from another college to show us some stuff. Their coach mentioned she no longer trains newbies, because the swings are so crazy and uncoordinated she ends up getting hurt. (She leaves that to her senior-level students). So yeah, you can get in a lucky shot against an expert opponent.

In LARP fighting, we call this newbie-fu. As a trained fighter, you expect certain things from other trained fighters; certain angles being more effective, certain styles to counter your own. But when it comes to someone who has absolutely no training, no understanding of body mechanics, they do things that make no sense. As such, it's real easy for them to catch a trained fighter off guard because they would have never thought to defend against something so blatantly wrong, so technically faulty.

Namatu · Feb 19, 2010

How much does your MC know about self-defense? If not much, then I recommend you remember that eyes are quite vulnerable, and fingers go in them (as well as jab at throats). The elbow is the hardest part of the human body, and a good punch/knee to the kidneys can hurt a lot. A palm of the hand to the nose can break the nose. And, as ever, knee to groin.

Is the attacker trying to kill her or kidnap her? That makes a difference in the attacker's approach: grab v. take-down.

Also, what blacbird said. Physically act is out with a shadow opponent or willing ~~victim~~volunteer. This will help your description.

lilmamaross · Feb 19, 2010

Thanks for the help so far! I failed to point out some things before. The attacker is a vampire, mostly toying with her, trying to get her to come with him (where isn't important. He's a throwaway character.) so it's more of a kidnapping attempt until she fights back. MC is a slayer (thinking for a new term!) and this is where she comes into her new abilities. I've got an appointment to get to so I can't get into details but I promise it's not as simple as it sounds and it's not a Buffy ripoff either lol!

hester · Feb 19, 2010

Read up on Krav Maga for some basic defensive moves (or look for a video demonstrating the techniques). A good kick to the nuts is always effective (not sure how well that works with a vampire tho

).

Willowmound · Feb 19, 2010

Wavy_Blue said:
I never said it was impossible, just hard to buy.

Yeah, there is a reason why people practice things. An amateur beating a professional at the professional's game can happen but it's not very likely.

Now, unlikely things happen all the time in real life. That still doesn't mean unlikely things wok well in fiction. Especially when they help the MC.

Mara · Feb 19, 2010

I think unlikely things are generally tolerated pretty well in fiction.

"Hey, look, I was crawling through some goblin caves and I found the One Ring!"

aadams73 · Feb 19, 2010

Wavy_Blue said:
Is the ambusher a trained fighter? If so, then your MC is not going to get a lucky strike. If the ambusher has skill, she isn't going to get lucky.

Define: lucky

occurring by chance; "a lucky escape"; "a lucky guess"
having or bringing good fortune; "my lucky day"; "a lucky man"
golden: presaging or likely to bring good luck; "a favorable time to ask for a raise"; "lucky stars"; "a prosperous moment to make a decision"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Wavy_Blue · Feb 19, 2010

aadams73 said:
Define: lucky

occurring by chance; "a lucky escape"; "a lucky guess"

having or bringing good fortune; "my lucky day"; "a lucky man"

golden: presaging or likely to bring good luck; "a favorable time to ask for a raise"; "lucky stars"; "a prosperous moment to make a decision"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

And your point is...?

aadams73 · Feb 20, 2010

Wavy_Blue said:
And your point is...?

The logic in your original post is flawed. Training schmaining, a lucky strike is lucky--it can happen by CHANCE--therefore it's possible and believable.

job · Feb 20, 2010

I have a couple of thoughts on this, but will defer to those who engage in bar fights on a regular basis.

-- You are not describing the reality.
You are using 50 or 200 or 400 words to create a picture in the reader's mind.

So it is not a blow-by-blow 'his straight hand, stiff as a small board, struck just above the kidney'.

But more, Something hit my shoulder. Ouch. Oh hell. That hurt.
because that conveys the spirit of the fight to the reader,
the bewilderment and confusion and lack of precision.

(Look at Jim Butcher and how he talks about fights.)

-- In a fight, the participants do not see what is going on in a global way. They see the cubic meter of fight they are involved in. They don't see the rest of it.

-- Fights do not choreograph like the bar fights in a Western or the kungfu demonstations in dubbed Chinese movies.
Real physical attacks last maybe two minutes.

-- If you want an inexperienced fighter to hurt his attacker, it might be more credible if your novice picks up a rock and hits back than if he does damage with his bare hands.

ETA -- I see in a later posting that this is someone with supernormal reflexes and strength, so this last doesn't necessarily apply.

Willowmound · Feb 20, 2010

Mara said:
I think unlikely things are generally tolerated pretty well in fiction.

"Hey, look, I was crawling through some goblin caves and I found the One Ring!"

Unlikely things that start off the plot: yes.

Unlikely things that make things more difficult for the protagonist: yes.

Unlikely things that HELP the protagonist: no. That will always feel like deus ex machina (even if the reader doesn't know the term).

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