Writing battle Scenes/action scenes

I think it all depends on the frequency of the fight/action scenes in your story. Let's say you're writing an average YA fantasy novel (65-80K). There are three or four scenes in total. One of them being deemed as a climax fight scene and another one being deemed as the final fight scene of the novel. Then throughout the novel, you have sprinkled scenes that showcase your character's abilities. You said one of your character has empathy. If that character is interrogating a goon of a bad guy to find out some information then they can induce pain. That is one way of tossing a tiny bit of action in there. Sometimes, action doesn't have to be big and loud.

If you have too many action scenes then things might get a little redundant. What I try to do is put my characters in different settings and situations that could enhance the fight and create a variety of outcomes. If a character with water manipulation is having a fight in the middle of the desert (really crappy example) and all they have is a bottle of water to use as a weapon then the battle can go either way. Also, I think it's important not to let your characters win all of the time and show downsides of having superhuman powers.

The first and most crucial element of writing an action scene is to not think of it as an "action" scene. It must be a character scene, first and foremost. Almost like a mini-story, action scenes must have highs & lows, shifting odds, and emotional impact.

Don't write about how she keeps punching the bad guy while he's sprawled on the floor, write about what she's feeling as she beats the animal who killed her mother senseless, and how she's struggling to keep herself from killing him in return. Then, when he grabs a knife and stabs her in the side, write about her recriminating against herself as she crawls desperately away. Give us sensory details about the pain, about how her arms are failing her, about how terrified she is as he casually kicks her arms out from under her. Write about how she thinks she's going to die, right before pulling herself together just in time to take a wild swing and knock his sword away and punch him in the face.

That's how you write a good action scene: it's an emotional give & take, where characters struggle for control, and loaded with sensory details, but not too many sensory details that it disrupts the pace.

Better yet...even if they are Ordinary humans and it's essentially a fight scene, how do you plot your fight scenes where it doesn't sound redundant and so blah like.

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Here's the thing about real life action scenes:

They're bloody short.

Other than endurance action scenes like car chases, most physical contests between two people last for maybe one or two moves at most before the winner is clear. The key to writing these scenes is to make the outcome uncertain in both character's minds before they start the action, as the above poster says. Doubt of one's ability to win is always a safe go-to for emotional impact. But once the fists fly, the outcome should be obvious in short order. There are only so many "near hits" the audience can take before their willing suspension of disbelief starts to crack.

Also remember to keep the pacing in line with an action scene. Don't navel gaze or be vivid in descriptions while an ass whooping is going down. You keep it short and staccato for the most part. The pacing and rhythm should match what's going on.

And remember that fight scenes have to be choreographed or you'll run into "how is he punching her in the stomach if both hands are around her neck?" so it's best if you can clearly see it in your head.

But also, read more action scenes. Watching them won't help you write them. If you recognize that yours aren't up to par, you're ahead of most people. But do your homework.

I choreograph them, sometimes even acting out with a friend to get a feel of the "beats," and I try to write them in a short and clear way.

As for the powers, they are part of the plot, a lot of the magic/paranormal stuff allows to take a fight on a more epic level or to get creative, but my rule is that nothing should look or feel random. There are rules to the powers and their use, and those rules restrict and order everything.

CharacterInWhite said:

Here's the thing about real life action scenes:

They're bloody short.

Other than endurance action scenes like car chases, most physical contests between two people last for maybe one or two moves at most before the winner is clear. The key to writing these scenes is to make the outcome uncertain in both character's minds before they start the action, as the above poster says. Doubt of one's ability to win is always a safe go-to for emotional impact. But once the fists fly, the outcome should be obvious in short order. There are only so many "near hits" the audience can take before their willing suspension of disbelief starts to crack.

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Actually, I haven't found this to be true, even in real life, unless one person is trained in martial arts and the other isn't. Two untrained people of about equal strength can wrestle around and throw punches for quite a while, mainly because their hits aren't generally doing a huge amount of damage. Two highly trained people can also go on for a while because they're dodging nearly everything. Fights involving magic/superpowers have even more leeway in length.

I've written battles (magical and non) which lasted multiple chapters and "fights" that lasted exactly two seconds and one move. The only thing I pre-plan when I write fight scenes is the ending. I visualize everything I write anyway, so I just write what I see playing out.

I do NOT change my sentence-structure for action scenes. A mixture of short, medium, and long sentences is what reads nicely, and this rule doesn't change depending on the type of scene you're writing. Recently I read a romance writer who changed her normally-graceful prose to nothing but short sentences for action scenes. It was cringe-worthy and ridiculous.

Of course the middle of a battle isn't a good time to navel-gaze and reflect on the whole story up to this point. But when the adrenaline really kicks in, it's true that everything gets brighter and seems to slow down. That's part of our natural hard-wiring for surviving fights. So my characters are usually very aware of what's going on, seeing more than they might in a scene without adrenaline enhancing their senses.

Definitely incorporate all five senses into the scene. This will make it feel much more real. How you pace beyond that really depends on how important the scene is. The climatic battle scene will probably need to be more detailed than a skirmish in chapter eight. If the point of the scene is the MC using their powers for the first time, focus on that rather than on the actions of the antagonists (except insofar as those actions are leading the MC to use their powers).

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn books have beautiful action scenes with magical powers if you want to read some good examples.

An addendum about action scenes:

They don't have to have action. Sometimes, the best way to ratchet up the tension is to make it into a game of cat & mouse. Have the hero almost passed out in a pool of his own blood, on the verge of death and hallucinating about his murdered parents, while two mooks hunt for him. Or have the heroine hiding in an air duct, waiting for just the right moment to pop out and take a mook by surprise while her subconscious tells her she's an idiot and a foolish little girl who'll never take a big burly guy like that. That's one scenario where a slower pacer, some light navel-gazing about the character's ability to win, and lots of vivid, lengthy description (about who's doing what, that is, not about how pretty the scenery is) really helps, because it stretches the moment out and makes it interminable. It's one of the "highs & lows" I talked about earlier. Have the character brought low, and it'll be that much more satisfying when they win at the very last second.

Two highly trained people can also go on for a while because they're dodging nearly everything.

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I guess this depends on the context. I'm sure soldiers will disagree.

Two professional fighters will land a solid hit (whether that means scoring a point in a tournament or killing/incapacitating someone in a combat scenario) in one move. That's what makes them professionals. When I did competitive sparring in Taekwondo, I knew that in a "real" fight the first point ("proper hit") would be all that mattered, since it would translate to broken ribs or unconsciousness without the padded armour. In every match I competed, the first point was scored in under 10 seconds. That means if we decided to fight each other on the street, one of us would be down in the space of one move, or at most two.

Professional fights aren't chess games. They're a rock-paper-scissors match. You can tie every once in a while, but it usually doesn't happen very often.

Two pros going at it know their first mistake is their last. Don't get caught up in the Hollywood antics of action movies or "professional" wrestling--outcomes in real martial arts like judo or fencing are evident mere moments after one side attacks. Of course, as the writer, you can set what that outcome is. A fight scene might last considerably longer between a professional and an amateur of all the professional is doing is avoiding harm.

But my suggestion to the OP stands--if he has two characters of comparable power ("skill"), then most of the tension in their fight would be in anticipation. Extending the scene could be plausibly done if one side does not want to harm the other, but the more the two combatants want blood, the shorter it should be.

Chasing the Horizon said:

Actually, I haven't found this to be true, even in real life, unless one person is trained in martial arts and the other isn't. Two untrained people of about equal strength can wrestle around and throw punches for quite a while, mainly because their hits aren't generally doing a huge amount of damage. Two highly trained people can also go on for a while because they're dodging nearly everything. Fights involving magic/superpowers have even more leeway in length.

I've written battles (magical and non) which lasted multiple chapters and "fights" that lasted exactly two seconds and one move. The only thing I pre-plan when I write fight scenes is the ending. I visualize everything I write anyway, so I just write what I see playing out.

I do NOT change my sentence-structure for action scenes. A mixture of short, medium, and long sentences is what reads nicely, and this rule doesn't change depending on the type of scene you're writing. Recently I read a romance writer who changed her normally-graceful prose to nothing but short sentences for action scenes. It was cringe-worthy and ridiculous.

Of course the middle of a battle isn't a good time to navel-gaze and reflect on the whole story up to this point. But when the adrenaline really kicks in, it's true that everything gets brighter and seems to slow down. That's part of our natural hard-wiring for surviving fights. So my characters are usually very aware of what's going on, seeing more than they might in a scene without adrenaline enhancing their senses.

Definitely incorporate all five senses into the scene. This will make it feel much more real. How you pace beyond that really depends on how important the scene is. The climatic battle scene will probably need to be more detailed than a skirmish in chapter eight. If the point of the scene is the MC using their powers for the first time, focus on that rather than on the actions of the antagonists (except insofar as those actions are leading the MC to use their powers).

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn books have beautiful action scenes with magical powers if you want to read some good examples.

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I should have specified it depends entirely on your POV. But if you're writing first or a very close third, it doesn't make sense to write long, detailed descriptions when your character is supposedly getting their ass kicked. It won't reflects the pacing of their thoughts. So if you're writing a distant third, or omni, sure, keep the structure the same. But if you inside someone's head, adrenaline is going to change the nature of their thoughts, including the length and what they observe.

And multiple chapter battle scenes sound absolutely excruciating. But I don't read high fantasy.

I know I'm kinda jumping in but I wanted to ask. How many battle scenes is to many? My current WIP has my heroes fighting monsters almost every two chapters. But going by comments in here maybe I should scale it back?

Delio, unless each scene moves the plot forward in a vital way, it does sound like overkill. In film we can take a lot of battles (although what you have would still be too many) because it's visual. But in books it becomes repetitive really quickly. Think about why you have the scene and whether it's plot or just filler.

I'd say it depends on the audience. If those scenes aren't interrupted by any other kind of scene, that's too much, there should be ups and downs, breathers in between all the asskickery.

Thank you guys for the replies. Seems will need to scale back the fights a bit. The way I had a set up was every victim kinda had a chapter to flesh out why they are targeted then the actual fight with whatever spawned from them. But It seems i'm thinking of it like some tv show in that way.

Delio... just go at it A-Team style!

The book I'm currently revising is written in close third and has a fair number of fight scenes. I agree with most of the advice on this post, but there have been a couple points that have been helpful for me to remember. (Keep in mind though, my story is a contemporary thriller, not anything fantastical.)

For one thing, changing up the setting helps change up your fight scenes. If your characters are always in the same place, your scenes will inevitably start to sound a little redundant. I've written chases that don't quite become fights, shoot-outs, and legitimate hand-to-hand combat as seen through both an observer and the person involved, and it's always helped me to dump as much detail in as I can during the first draft stage.

If my fight scenes are big and long and unwieldy at the end of the first draft, it means that I have an abundance of details to pick from when I actually go back through and edit. I frequently write long fight scenes on the first time through because I'm trying to get everything down the way I see it. Setting the scene, so to speak. Then, when I'm editing, I go through and break up the prose, make it shorter and choppier and picking the details that I want to stay while removing the ones that need to go. For me, getting it all down the first time is a way to have the scene concretely in my brain when I go back for later drafts.

Hope this helps!