Could I have made this work?

Hi Ian.

I haven't read a martial art fight scene before, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work in a completely written medium - although perhaps very challenging to write. I agree with you that it's better suited as a graphic novel though, and I think it's a unique idea. Good luck

Well, the story itself certainly offers possibilities overall. However, I do agree with your assessment about the fight scenes. Fast-action fights are difficult to describe anyway. You always run the risk of not being able to quite convey the movement or you overdo it and readers are confused and put-off because the five minute fight took 20 pages to describe.

The fast-paced Jeet Kune Do and its rip-offs from the era you refer to would be dazzling to have in text, especially if there are a lot of fight scenes, since you would have to describe each fight in a way that it doesn't feel like a repeat of the one before it, even if they are using similar moves.

Anything is possible. The story could have been written as a conventional novel, but the challenge would have been Russian Roulette; most of the time you'd be firing blanks with only a small chance of actually firing off a shot that'll kill the critics.

Your move to comic book/manga may very well be a wise choice. Just remember the following:

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

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Yep, you guessed it. Bruce Lee himself. Good luck.

so sword-fighting, trench combat in the military, and high-speed car chases are less visceral and more intellectual/literary? Because they've certainly all been seen in print. Many times over.

quicklime said:

so sword-fighting, trench combat in the military, and high-speed car chases are less visceral and more intellectual/literary? Because they've certainly all been seen in print. Many times over.

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Oh certainly they've been seen in print. I never said it couldn't be done. In fact, I said quite the contrary.

My point was that the style of martial arts combat the OP is looking to emulate is often incredibly fast-paced, encompasses slight movements not only to every part of the combatants' bodies but also to mental states, and relies heavily on a visual dynamic that I think would be difficult to capture on page without being "too wordy".

The essence of the fight is fast, but in order to really describe everything going on, the description is likely to be so drawn out that the tempo of the moment is lost.

The other elements you mentioned suffer from the same curse, but have a solid history of being covered in a literary sense. Many have been extensively covered even before television. The era of Bruceploitation was specifically designed for movies because it was visually dynamic and required less acting skill. As long as you had one guy that looked a little like Bruce Lee and was an okay martial artist then all the other actors were just punching bags.

Can you effectively describe action on the page that was specifically designed to be completely visual? Sure. I'm just saying that capturing that element would present it's own challenge that other difficult-to-write action doesn't necessarily experience.

I hope that made sense, speaking of wordy...

Ian Nathaniel Cohen said:

I've made my decision and I don't regret having done so, but all the same I can't help wondering...is there any way I could have made this work as a novel? Is there any way I could have translated this or this into written words? (The final fight would have been modeled on that second clip.)

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I watched the clips and think you absolutely could have. I could think of all kinds of ways to describe it. I wouldn't have focused on the blow-by-blow part, except perhaps when the actors were training, but rather on the comedic aspects of the corny background music, exaggerated facial expressions and movements when sizing up their opponents while writing the making of the movie part, and then go on to the more serious side of it and their speed, quickness, agility, whirling, kicking etc. But I'd limit the fight scenes and keep them short. Readers probably aren't looking for a long lesson in martial arts in a murder mystery, just a good sense of it. There'd definitely be more to that movie world than just the fight scenes in the movie or there'd be no mystery. It seems like they'd be quirky, hot-headed characters that would be interesting to write about.

An overabundance of fight scenes in a novel can weaken the story unless there are good, solid reasons for them to be there. It's kind of like writing historicals, which I know you write. The research material used needs to have a reason for inclusion and flow from the storyline. There'd probably be more leeway in a graphic novel.

But it's definitely doable and would be great fun.