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That might have been a good idea. I can recall fights to the death that were almost instantaneous and others that were more like day-long chess games.
Fight scenes?
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That might have been a good idea. I can recall fights to the death that were almost instantaneous and others that were more like day-long chess games.
Liosse de Velishaf
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Well, there's a specific scene involved clearly, but they did ask more about scenes in general. So both approaches are fair game.
Have you had a great deal of experience with day long fights? Which also brings up the question of what kind of fight one is trying to describe: Gun fight, sword fight, knife fight, fist fit, etc.
That is what I was trying to point out makes a big difference in fight length and style. One on one hand to hand combat between human beings is a minuscule in the spectrum of possibilities.
You could have one side barricaded inside a cabin/warehouse/castle and the other side trying to either bait them out, or exchanging fire hoping their opponents will use up all their ammunition, or keep them pinned hoping they run out of water, etc. Or shooting flaming arrows into their cabin so the defenders run screaming into the open if it manages to catch fire. That sort of fight could go on for hours to days.
You could have a shepherd whose flock is attacked by several wolves. He and his trusty dog have to fight the predators off by themselves and the odds aren't good. Maybe they will survive, but how many sheep will they lose? That sort of fight has the potential to last more than two minutes.
When an author spends a chapter or more building up to a confrontation, and that confrontation ends with maybe one or two paragraphs of fighting, I feel kind of let down. Not saying it has to be long and drawn out, but there needs to be a balance. In real life fights are thrilling. The adrenaline is pumping and it feels awesome, or dreadful. That's what I want to feel when I read a fight scene. Even if it's not that extreme, I shouldn't be sitting there skimming over it because it's so dang boring. If any parts of a book are like that, then there is something else fundamentally wrong. And it isn't the fact that it's a fight scene.
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This is so very true. My boyfriend used to fence and I was always agog when I watched the matches between the master fencers. It moved so quickly and was over even before my brain even processed what was going on.
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I don't know if I write fight scenes well, since only my relatives and friends have read my work. I make my scenes short and brutal rather than drawn out and unrealistic. I liked the movie 300 okay until I saw the battle scenes when they began fighting out of formation as individuals. That wasn't how they fought back then...
Maybe at times they did break ranks. But the point of the film was not about the formation fighting but rather the over-the-top action fights. I have done a small amount of fighting, mainly one-on-one; I have also watched programs and done research on armed combat. What has that taught me?
Well that it pays to know your surroundings, your style of combat, and your weaknesses. In a forest the trees will form barriers to aid or hinder you. Inside a room an over-head swing from a sword might hit the celling if you are not careful (I have a dent in the celling not far from where I'm sitting right now). Footing is also important. A shield in the face hurts (even if it is yours).
There is so much to think about when crafting a fight scene it's amazing.
BTW: I have heard many times of bouncers being in fights and not notice they've been hurt until much later. Sometimes people had to point out the damage to the bouncer. We're talking knife wounds here.
PS: In a recent book I've read (about the recent war in Afgan, which is well worth a read for modern shootie combat, and soliders in those situations) bullets flew around soliders and even landed, kicking up dust, by the soliders feet. Some of the tales are quite remarkable. It's called Spoken from the Front and is edited by Andy McNab. (Also it might be worth looking up other front-line soliders stories and reading them.)
The biggest problem I've seen in descriptions of fight scenes, whether in SF or any other genre, comes from writers who've never personally been in a physical fight of any kind, or even witnessed enough of them to understand the dynamics. These bad fight descriptions give themselves away pretty quickly through a variety of physically impossible descriptions and/or large slugs of internalized mental analysis simultaneous with the physical stuff. POV is also crucial. Are you (as first-person narrator) actually in the fight, or are you an outside (3rd-person) observer? How many individuals are involved? What can you actually observe, in either case?
You could always go down to a biker bar and call somebody a poopyhead and do some solid personal lab research.
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Some more advice in writing a fight scene:
Avoid floating body parts: "An elbow struck him in the stomach. A fist hit him in the face." It can get confusing and sounds weird.
Make sure your fighting styles make sense and that people are able to do the things you're writing down. This means making sure Character X will actually be able to reach Character Y from where he is on the ground. If you need action figures or just figures made out of pipe cleaners to choreograph a few things, then do it. Also, if you know someone familiar with fighting styles and who spars and so forth, ask them to read it to see if it makes sense.
If weapons are involved, know what they can do, how far they can reach, and what sort of damage they can cause. Certain swords are used to stab, others to slash. Some guns are better than others at close range. Certain bullets will do more damage than others. Also make sure weapons make sense in whatever world/time your novel may take place in.
Avoid floating body parts: "An elbow struck him in the stomach. A fist hit him in the face." It can get confusing and sounds weird.
Make sure your fighting styles make sense and that people are able to do the things you're writing down. This means making sure Character X will actually be able to reach Character Y from where he is on the ground. If you need action figures or just figures made out of pipe cleaners to choreograph a few things, then do it. Also, if you know someone familiar with fighting styles and who spars and so forth, ask them to read it to see if it makes sense.
If weapons are involved, know what they can do, how far they can reach, and what sort of damage they can cause. Certain swords are used to stab, others to slash. Some guns are better than others at close range. Certain bullets will do more damage than others. Also make sure weapons make sense in whatever world/time your novel may take place in.
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Sports fencing is like tag played with car aerials. When you move over to "real" steel weapons, it's still fast, but not blindingly so.
I'm chiming into this a bit late, but here are my two cents:
Having been in a few fights myself, I can attest that they are almost always brutal and brief, regardless of the emotions, weapons, or skills of the involved combatants. The human body is easy to break. It's just that simple.
I think timing is the hardest part of writing a fight scene. The scene needs enough detail and drama to make it exciting and comprehensible, but it shouldn't take much longer to read than it would take to actually do. If it's taking you two minutes to read about a fight that would last thirty seconds, you've put too much into it.
Also, (and this is personal preference based on experience, but) I find there isn't much time or room to worry about emotions and motivations during a fight. The fight scene will flow faster and smoother if you show only who does what to whom, and the result of those actions. Any fight boils down to basic physics, cause and effect.
Establish why the characters are fighting and how they feel about it before the action starts. On the flip side, worry about the emotional aftermath after the fight is done.
Having been in a few fights myself, I can attest that they are almost always brutal and brief, regardless of the emotions, weapons, or skills of the involved combatants. The human body is easy to break. It's just that simple.
I think timing is the hardest part of writing a fight scene. The scene needs enough detail and drama to make it exciting and comprehensible, but it shouldn't take much longer to read than it would take to actually do. If it's taking you two minutes to read about a fight that would last thirty seconds, you've put too much into it.
Also, (and this is personal preference based on experience, but) I find there isn't much time or room to worry about emotions and motivations during a fight. The fight scene will flow faster and smoother if you show only who does what to whom, and the result of those actions. Any fight boils down to basic physics, cause and effect.
Establish why the characters are fighting and how they feel about it before the action starts. On the flip side, worry about the emotional aftermath after the fight is done.
I missed this thread the first time around, and am glad it was revived. defcon's link is helpful.
Here's something that I've been trying the last few days. It helped a little.
Step 1. Find a fight scene in a book. It should be one you like.
Step 2. Retype the fight scene, but double space between each sentence. (That means hit Enter twice, not hit Spacebar twice.)
Step 3. Consider deleting the sentences that aren't describing action.
Step 4. Under each sentence, retype it with the words replaced by descriptors of what kind of word they are.
Example: "Bob hit Joe with an axe, hurting him" would become "(Attacker) (Verb: Attack) (Target) (Description Phrase) (Result)." If your actual chosen book has a sentence as boring as "Bob hit Joe with an axe," find a better book though.
Now, do that for every sentence and you'll start noticing patterns and a sort of flow to the writing.
Step 5. Switch to another book and repeat this.
Do this enough, and you start getting a subconscious idea of how most writers format action sentences. This doesn't mean its necessarily the best way to write, just the most common way, but that's a good start, right?
Formatting an entire action paragraph, action page, or action scene is much more complicated, but you could also break them down if necessary. (Sentence: Antagonist Attacks.) (Sentence: Main Character Defends.) (New Paragraph) (Sentence: Main Character Thinks and Attacks).
But more importantly, retyping from a lot of different books and then reading the sentences for structure can kinda imprint paragraph/scene patterns in your mind and give you a slightly better idea of pacing.
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Also, I tried the "heavy description of sights, sounds, smells, etc." and everyone told me that it was too wordy and boring and nobody cared about that stuff. Rereading my favorite action novels, the description is always very bare-bones and leaves a lot to the imagination. So I'd recommend not describing much.
On the other hand, it's really great if each thing you do describe is really symbolic or emotional in some way. A few short but important sentences can go a long way.
Here's something that I've been trying the last few days. It helped a little.
Step 1. Find a fight scene in a book. It should be one you like.
Step 2. Retype the fight scene, but double space between each sentence. (That means hit Enter twice, not hit Spacebar twice.)
Step 3. Consider deleting the sentences that aren't describing action.
Step 4. Under each sentence, retype it with the words replaced by descriptors of what kind of word they are.
Example: "Bob hit Joe with an axe, hurting him" would become "(Attacker) (Verb: Attack) (Target) (Description Phrase) (Result)." If your actual chosen book has a sentence as boring as "Bob hit Joe with an axe," find a better book though.
Now, do that for every sentence and you'll start noticing patterns and a sort of flow to the writing.
Step 5. Switch to another book and repeat this.
Do this enough, and you start getting a subconscious idea of how most writers format action sentences. This doesn't mean its necessarily the best way to write, just the most common way, but that's a good start, right?
Formatting an entire action paragraph, action page, or action scene is much more complicated, but you could also break them down if necessary. (Sentence: Antagonist Attacks.) (Sentence: Main Character Defends.) (New Paragraph) (Sentence: Main Character Thinks and Attacks).
But more importantly, retyping from a lot of different books and then reading the sentences for structure can kinda imprint paragraph/scene patterns in your mind and give you a slightly better idea of pacing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, I tried the "heavy description of sights, sounds, smells, etc." and everyone told me that it was too wordy and boring and nobody cared about that stuff. Rereading my favorite action novels, the description is always very bare-bones and leaves a lot to the imagination. So I'd recommend not describing much.
On the other hand, it's really great if each thing you do describe is really symbolic or emotional in some way. A few short but important sentences can go a long way.
It's really helpful ^_^- Status