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Fight!

 


                                                                                                                                 Image by klimkin from Pixabay 

A lot of writers are good at writing fight scenes. For my money, one of the best is Lois McMaster Bujold. It doesn’t matter whether it is swords and arrows, or plasma arcs and laser cannons. She writes engaging and logical action that is easy for the reader to follow. Yet her attention to detail about the logistics of a fight makes one wonder if she has had training in military tactics.

I have also read fight scenes written by authors who are not as skilled as Lois McMaster Bujold, and some of them are cringe-worthy. I have written a few fight scenes myself, and it seems to me there are a few guidelines a writer should keep in mind when writing action sequences. Do you have to be an expert in the style of combat you are engaging in? No, but you should have a basic understanding of the skills and tactics. If you are using an existing weapon system like say, sabers, you should understand the basic of how to fight with a saber. If you are employing a weapon that does not exist in our world, either because it is magical or hasn’t been invented yet, then there are no basics to be had, but you still have to use some logic. A fight has to be believable otherwise you will lose the interest of your audience. You don’t have to be an expert in mixed martial arts to describe a bar fight. But if your protagonist is supposed to be an expert in mixed martial arts, then you need to have a better than passing acquaintance with the subject yourself.

You should also be realistic about what the body can take. One thing I hate is reading a scene where the hero is hit on the head with a pipe wrench, shakes it off and resumes fighting. No. Unless your head is protected by magic or a deflector shield, if you get hit on the head with a pipe wrench, you are done. At the very least, you will be knocked out. The same with getting shot. “oh, it’s just a flesh wound.” Flesh wounds hurt. Even if it is not in a vital part of the body, it is going to catch up with you. You may be able to run on adrenaline for a bit, but pretty soon shock is going to set in. This also goes for the balance of relative strengths. If your hero is small of stature and of build and is facing a 1000 lb. mutant grizzly bear, I don’t care how good their fighting skills are, they are going to lose that fight. Now, that hero could win by outsmarting the bear or finding other resources, but it has to be something other than a physical one-on-one hand to hand fight. David defeated Goliath by utilizing a weapon that Goliath did not have. He didn’t beat Goliath by his superior skill in fisticuffs.  

It is also possible to get so wrapped up describing the positions and directions, the minutia of choreography of the scene, that you lose the reader. This is particularly problematic if you are describing the landscape of the arena with pieces of geography that haven’t been well established before-hand.

Spike grabbed the less prominent fin of the actuator while using the cover of the dorsal flange of a bobo tree and vaulted himself to the second niche in the easternmost plinth.

These things can be hard for me to visualize as a reader, and if I can’t visualize it, I am going to stop paying attention, and if I stop paying attention, that means I am starting to lose interest.

If you are going to write a fight scene, my advice is to make it as simple as you can within the necessities of the story. And keep it realistic. Even if you are writing fantasy or futuristic sci-fi, if the fight isn’t believable, then there is not much investment in the outcome.

Star Liner

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