Fight Scenes

CandlestickJay · Oct 25, 2007

Alright, apologies if there is already a topic on this. I looked around and didn't find one, so here goes.

Within the next five chapters of my WIP, I need a fight scene. Its for a YA fantasy (not high fantasy) genre novel. There is magyc, but its not the usual brand. I've never written a scene like this before, though i've read plenty.

I was wondering, if anyone with any kind of experience at writing any kind of small scale (4 good guys, four bad and very very large bad guys) could drop their techniques at writing this kind of thing, or any websites that may be able to help. I'm trying to read up on the different ways of writing these (from only technical stuff, to from one person's pov, switching around etc) but any information or advice ya'll could give me would most definitely be welcome.

Thanks in advance,

Jay

blacbird · Oct 25, 2007

For any kind of action scene, including fight scenes, control of POV is crucial. Credibility and verisimilitude depend on it. I've always felt that such scenes are most effective when rendered through a single character POV, be it first-person or third-limited. My prejudice, obviously, but for me as a reader, that's a lot more effective than presenting details from an omniscient or (God forbid) multiple-character viewpoint. Now, there might be reasons to present the action from the differing viewpoints of two characters (I wouldn't recommend more), but then they really become two separate scenes, juxtaposed.

caw

Gillhoughly · Oct 25, 2007

I tend to read how other writers do such scenes to get a feel for their technique. How Mike Hammer writes a fight is going to be different from how Raymond Chandler would do one.

Another good source would be autobiographies of people who might have been in fist fights. Errol Flynn's favorite way to get out of confrontations was to stomp hard on the other guy's instep then run like hell. He needed his face intact to keep working. (My Wicked, Wicked Ways--which is a heck of a good read!)

There are many ways to write a fight depending how deeply you are inside the skin of your viewpoint character.

You need not even get detailed about the specifics of the action, but keep things subjective to the physical impressions the MC is getting. The reader's only going to get what the MC knows, and he might not be able to keep tabs on the others.

The few fights I've ever been in were fast, and I was blinking too much to really see what was going on. It was hard to get enough air, cause you're moving flat out and busy. Bing-bang, and it was over. You only notice the bruises and ouchies after the adrenalin's worn off.

Talk to people who take martial arts or take a class for yourself to understand what it's like.

Good luck!

Chasing the Horizon · Oct 25, 2007

I'm not generally opposed to switching POVs mid-scene, but fight scenes aren't the place to be doing it. Any battle scene involving more than two combatants can quickly become very jumbled and confusing, and switching POVs is only going to make this worse.

Pacing in fight scenes needs to be very fast, so you have to concentrate exclusively on what your POV character would be experiencing and basically ignore the rest of the combatants when they're not interacting with the POV character. Fight scenes are not the place for any character to contemplate anything and you want to keep internal monologue to a bare minimum (or better yet, get rid of it altogether). There's no time to think, only to act. There's actually minimum time to feel as well, and with all the adrenaline it's not uncommon for someone to be injured and not even realize it until after the fight is over. Try to work in some of the other senses beyond sight and hearing as well (the smell of gun powder, taste of blood, etc.) to heighten the impact of the scene. Fights, particularly small-scale ones like what you're doing, are generally short-lived affairs, not going on for more than four or five pages (assuming it's a serious to-the-death battle without any regrouping/running breaks).

If your multiple combatants separate into different fights then you can switch POVs and have it work (usually using a return or scene break to separate them). In one of my big battle scenes I switch back and fourth between a fight on the quarterdeck and another on the gun deck, but this isn't so much switching POVs as it is switching between scenes which are happening simultaneously (like blacbird said). Done effectively, this can make the scene longer and more exciting without slowing it down or confusing anyone.

Most of what I've said is true for hand to hand combat and fights using distance weapons, but any battle involving magic or ships/vehicles is going to play very differently, so I'm basically assuming you're wanting help with a conventional fight scene.

I love writing fight scenes and my betas say I'm good at them, but I'm unpublished so I may be wrong and actually have no idea what I'm doing. Just a general disclaimer.

blacbird · Oct 25, 2007

Gillhoughly said:
You need not even get detailed about the specifics of the action, but keep things subjective to the physical impressions the MC is getting. The reader's only going to get what the MC knows, and he might not be able to keep tabs on the others.

Yes. Exactly. What I was trying to say, but didn't do as well.

caw

Voyager · Oct 25, 2007

I had to write a fight scene once. I put in a bunch of movies and just started describing the actions and movement on a note pad. After I had about 20 pages, I pretty much knew what I wanted to describe and how to do it. It was a swordfight so I watched the fight scenes from movies like Last Samurai and Lord of the Rings.

Zelenka · Oct 25, 2007

Gillhoughly said:
I tend to read how other writers do such scenes to get a feel for their technique. How Mike Hammer writes a fight is going to be different from how Raymond Chandler would do one.

Another good source would be autobiographies of people who might have been in fist fights. Errol Flynn's favorite way to get out of confrontations was to stomp hard on the other guy's instep then run like hell. He needed his face intact to keep working. (My Wicked, Wicked Ways--which is a heck of a good read!)

There are many ways to write a fight depending how deeply you are inside the skin of your viewpoint character.

You need not even get detailed about the specifics of the action, but keep things subjective to the physical impressions the MC is getting. The reader's only going to get what the MC knows, and he might not be able to keep tabs on the others.

The few fights I've ever been in were fast, and I was blinking too much to really see what was going on. It was hard to get enough air, cause you're moving flat out and busy. Bing-bang, and it was over. You only notice the bruises and ouchies after the adrenalin's worn off.

Talk to people who take martial arts or take a class for yourself to understand what it's like.

Good luck!

That's pretty much what I was going to say. I have a few books I've found with really good fight scenes in them and I have a look at those to see how the author did it.

I kind of look at fight scenes the same way as sex scenes - I can only write them from my POV character's perspective and I tend to focus more on what's going through the character's head than the physicalities of it. Like sex scenes, I think a fight could easily end up boring if it's a blow by blow description. If I'm following the character and experiencing what he / she experiences, then I'm drawn into it more, I think.

I did have a real problem with my magical fight scenes in my current WIP, especially the duel that takes place. I ended up blocking it out and then thinking about how the magic actually affected the environment, for instance my magic leaves a weird smell on the air when a spell is cast, the way a gunshot would leave a smell and smoke. Don't know if that's of any help.

ETA - blocking as in mapping out each move, I mean.

DVGuru · Oct 25, 2007

I'm of the opinion that long fight scenes belong in movies, and short ones belong in novels. Blow by blow descriptions of fights don't do it for me, and that's coming from a huge fan of gratuitous violence.

Judg · Oct 25, 2007

I am impressed by the quality of advice given in this thread...

wayndom · Oct 25, 2007

From what I've read and written, I'd say KEEP IT SIMPLE.

One of my favorite novels is Gorky Park, but there's a fight scene in it that I find completely unintelligible. Smith tries to do the fight from Arkady's POV, but it's confusing and unsatisfying (since you can't really "see" what's going on).

I had a scene in my novel THOR where the German shepherd hero fights with a werewolf. I had to rewrite it several times before it made any sense to readers.

I would absolutely advise against changing POV's in a fight scene -- they're too inherently confusing to begin with. If I ever have to write a fight scene again, I'll make sure it's a short fight with a quick outcome. Nothing unrealistic about that.

PeeDee · Oct 26, 2007

We talked about fight scenes a bit yesterday, in another thread. Here's the thread, and here's my bit.

Pete said:
Question 2) Right. Fight scenes. The biggest problem I have with fight scenes is that too many people pull their inspiration from movies and comic books, rather than other books. As a result, you can practically see the author trying so hard to pan the camera around the fight scene, to set the stage, to do cool special effects moves...except it just doesn't apply the same in a book. Books pull their "wow" from things which do not include Neo and Agent Smith hitting each other so hard that it creates a shock-wave of water.

This is because while books affect other things -- emotions, ideas, views of the world -- so strongly that you go "I want to write that!" it's the movies and comics and TV shows which affect our fight scenes and make us go "Wow, I want to do THAT!" It just doesn't work.

I have said it before: The smartest, best fight scene in recent years was in the movie Kingdom of Heaven (frankly, one of the best movies out there, and I wish Ridley Scott had made the Lord of the Rings. They would have been a different beast altogether). The wall is breached, the invading army is rushing in, we have already had a battle scene previously. The two armies rush to meet over the broken rubble of the wall. Our hero charges at the enemy...

...and the camera pulls up, and pulls away, and fades to black, and we come back after the ball.

That is the smartest fight scene I've ever seen.

Read Terry Pratchett. If you watch carefully, you'll notice that fight scenes, and tense scenes, and loud scenes, he tends to skip them entirely. He then has a conversation scene -- which he excels at-- afterward which gives you what you needed to know from the fight. You get the build up, you get the aftermath, the fight takes care of itself in your mind, mostly.

That said, writing fight scenes is perfectly fine. Just remember: In a book, we are caring about the characters.

I recently got stumped in my Roman novel because I had reached the page where the battle starts, the biggest battle in the book. I knew how the battle went. But I wasn't writing it. Why not? Because I had no character story in there, aside from "hack and slash until the reinforcements arrive," and that does nothing. Then, an old character plot I couldn't work in anywhere else made itself known and fitted into the battle. The battle scene, about six thousand words, ran itself off in a couple of hours.

And that's all I know about battle scenes.

jodiodi · Oct 26, 2007

The only thing I can add (something a judge in a writing contest I entered told me) is to keep the sentences very short in fight scenes to convey the urgency and confusion that real fights have. I've always written violence including epic battles and one-on-one fights. Even if I have a cast of thousands, stick with at least your MCs PoV for the fight. He/she can note seeing one of the other characters from time to time, but we don't need to see what everyone's doing simultaneously.

Good luck.

III · Oct 26, 2007

Great advice above. I'd add a seemingly silly piece of advice. Get 8 GI Joe action figures and physically plot/act out the fight scene.

Co-ordinating the timing of the fights is very important and can be very tricky and there are lots of details that you can miss if you don't properly visualize the scene beforehand. Does one of the fights end first and the winner double up on someone else? Do any of the fights bump into each other? How much space do they have to maneuver? What objects are in the room/nearby that would impact the fight?

Acting out the scene with dolls can solidify alot of those types of details. Just make sure your door is closed while you're doing it.

Namatu · Oct 26, 2007

Good advice here. I concur with the single POV. Don't make it too detailed, but some basic and simple actions can add a sufficient amount of spice. Usually I use my knowledge of martial arts. If I'm stuck with a vague idea of something cool, I ask a friend who knows more than me if she'll demonstrate on me.

CandlestickJay · Oct 27, 2007

Wow, this helps enormously! Thank you all so much for your advice, now I can't wait to get started! I think i'm definitely gonna try to dolls idea. I'm such a visual person (when I don't see the words in my head, it plays out like I'm watching a movie that I've never seen before....weird.) that this may actually help me. Plus I'm a theatre nerd, so maybe I'll even make a set. That'd be cool.

But anyways, some great advice here, and I just wanted to say thanks for helping me out! I hope other people find this helpful as well!

Dave.C.Robinson · Oct 27, 2007

I second the idea of short sentences; I'd also make judicious use of sentence fragments as well. Combat is chaotic and the last thing you want the reader to do is take a breath. Keep things coming at them fast. A good fight scene is not a sequence of events, it's a series of images and impressions that add up to violence.

Rowdymama · Oct 27, 2007

I believe an observer is the best person to report on the overall fight. But if your MC MUST be in the fight, don't let him/er get hit, because once you get hit, you are on the ground, in pain and kind of fuzzy-headed, and your nose may be bleeding all over your shirt, your eyes are watering, you may feel like throwing up, and all you want to do is crawl under the nearest picnic table and hide. As a reader, I'd rather know how the fight affected one character, than to be delivered a blow-by-blow. Make it realistic, PLEASE.

David I · Oct 28, 2007

jodiodi said:
The only thing I can add (something a judge in a writing contest I entered told me) is to keep the sentences very short in fight scenes to convey the urgency and confusion that real fights have.

This can also be done quite effectively by going exactly the opposite direction, though. A really good run-on sentence that sometimes spins on the balls of its feet and lunges in another direction can be just the thing. Adds a variation in pace--but you have to be in pretty close POV for it to work.

Not for the timid, though.

Rowdymama · Oct 29, 2007

Exactly. If you want to speed things up, use longer sentences with plenty of verbs. Short, punchy sentences are great in their place, but every period slows things down. A good way to render hesitation, confusion, etc., though.

J. R. Tomlin · Oct 29, 2007

It's a matter of style, I suppose. I pretty strongly disagree about long sentences in fight scenes. Those seem to me to be slowed to a crawl by long, ponderous sentences. For most writing I like a mix. But for fights, the shorter the better.

Rowdymama · Oct 29, 2007

If the sequence is written well, it will not be ponderous. As I said, use plenty of verbs, and cut all extraneous words. Besides, there's the matter of flow. For example, which flows better to you:

"George snatched up his cudgel and aimed a blow at the creature's head, but the arm came up and blocked it, causing the weapon to fly out of George's hand."

" George immediately snatched up his cudgel. He aimed a blow. The creature's arm came up. It blocked it. The cudgel flew back. It flew out of George's hand."

To me, the answer is obvious, but it may not be to others. So maybe it is a matter of style.

Wraith · Oct 29, 2007

What about a combo of both:

"George snatched up his cudgel and aimed a blow at the creature's head, but the arm came up and blocked it. The weapon flew out of George's hand."

Too many short sentences, and it comes out as choppy; too many long ones and you lose the sense of action. I agree with Rowdymama that long phrases aren't necessary ponderous - the key is the rythm, the balance of short and long ones. It's a matter of style, in the end - I always write fights in rather long phrases, that's just the way it flows for me (sort of like DavidI said, I just hope it works), but I'll balance with shorter and simpler ones, which have a dramatic effect by comparison.

I think the same stuff about balance is necessary in the actual account of the fight: you need to show the action, but rather than a blow-by-blow, the feelings of the POV character should tinge the description, making it intense. Creating the atmosphere of a battle can also be tricky - depending on how dark/detailed you want to go.

I tend to try for simple, but striking words to create vivid pictures of what's going on without slowing down the pace. I have no clue if that works, though, and also, when I write a tense scene I'm hardly conscious of what exactly I'm doing.

Just my two cents (or less).

Rowdymama · Oct 29, 2007

Very astute, Wraith! I learned something from your post. You are absolutely right; a combo is exactly what is called for. What do you think of that, J. R.?

David I · Oct 29, 2007

I think variation is the key.

But I wasn't simply speaking of including longer sentences, but literal run-on sentences with impressions and summarized dialogue and action all mixed together. I have one in my recent novel that is an entire paragraph and runs 106 words. If you send a sentence stumbling along as if it can't even bother to be properly punctuated, it can have a sort of delirious rushed feel, especially if done in a very close-in POV.

Mind you, I don't keep on going like that. The next sentence was long, but not that long, and less quirly in punctuation, and the one after that shorter and more conventional, and then it culminates in a series of sentence fragments--sort of the equivalent of panting for breath.

You have to earn this sort of thing with the proper build-up. And if you do it poorly, you will look silly.

But, as Arthur Miller said, the best writing is always on the very edge of embarrassing the writer...

Wraith · Oct 29, 2007

David I said:
I think variation is the key.

But I wasn't simply speaking of including longer sentences, but literal run-on sentences with impressions and summarized dialogue and action all mixed together. I have one in my recent novel that is an entire paragraph and runs 106 words. If you send a sentence stumbling along as if it can't even bother to be properly punctuated, it can have a sort of delirious rushed feel, especially if done in a very close-in POV.

Mind you, I don't keep on going like that. The next sentence was long, but not that long, and less quirly in punctuation, and the one after that shorter and more conventional, and then it culminates in a series of sentence fragments--sort of the equivalent of panting for breath.

You have to earn this sort of thing with the proper build-up. And if you do it poorly, you will look silly.

But, as Arthur Miller said, the best writing is always on the very edge of embarrassing the writer...

I'm really curious how that sounds in your writing! Cause it seems a bit similar to what I sometimes do. I think of it as my 'hallucinatory' voice - it works in strange scenes where everything's kinda mixed and confusing (for the characters), or in really fast-paced ones. I tend to write very simple then, but in long flowing phrases that mix action and feelings; they have a strange tone and sometimes repetitive structure - makes them alert, but easy to overdo. I generally slip in and out of it without noticing, though - I only noticed in re-reads. But the whole story is rather surreal, so I guess it's not that strange.

And nice quote, that one. How come you're always the one with the quotes? :tongue

Sorry to go off-topic. Ahem...fight scenes.

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