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Writing a fight scene

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Senketsu Matoi

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:44 am


I've writen a couple of stories and the one thing I always find difficult to do is write a fight scene. I don't know weather I'm supposed to write every detail of the fight like attacks and moves or if I'm just supposed to put that the character had a hard or easy fight.
PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:12 pm


It depends on how detailed you want to get. If you're not sure which way would work best, you may want to write a few different versions with different levels of details and see which feels right.

It's important to note a couple things. First off, the same level of detail might not work for every situation. The tone of the piece might not call for the same thing you did in another. Second, you don't necessarily have to keep the same level of detail going the entire way throughout the piece. If it seems right to back off a little on the detail part of the way through and focus on something else, like the character's thoughts instead, don't hesitate to do so.

Berz.

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DM_Melkhar
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:05 pm


This is something I have difficulty with as well. We did have a writing action scenes thread somewhere, but it wasn't specific to fighting.

Anyway, I want to add atmosphere into my writing and half the time I find it to be rather difficult. With fighting, so much happens in so little time that writing it at the correct pace annoys me a lot because when I've written something I read it over and think "that's utter cack!" So, I delete it and start again.
PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:11 pm


yea I always find it hard to keep pace with the time in the story cause sometimes fight seem so short in the grand scale of the story.

Berz you made some really good points that I think will help me alot. Now I just have to work on my detail. lots of times I can't write down what I see in my head cause I don't know what words to use plus a have bad grammer so I gotta work twice as hard.

Senketsu Matoi

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:11 pm


Another thing is, write what you know. If you don't know much about fighting, details may not always be a good idea. I know next to nothing about it so I'm always wary of fight scenes, afraid to write something humanly impossible (even when it's a non-human fighting). Not all readers may notice or care too much, but it would bother me.

Reading books where the authors know what they're talking about might help. Look at how they do it, observe which words they use, gain inspiration.

Unfortunately I can't recommend any good ones.
PostPosted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:08 am


The sad thing about that is I don't read to often unless I'm playing FF or I actually finds something intersting to read but thats almost never. I usual right out all the attacks and movements like dodging and countering and alot of powerful attacks but my characters are usual half demon or very powerful knights like in FFT. And my newest character has power thats been in his family for generations I still don't have the orgin of those powers though.

Senketsu Matoi

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:01 pm


You don't read unless you're playing FF? Hmm, how? Do you mean reading the dialogue on the screen or something like that?

I'm always afraid that the writing may appear too slow to read at the pace that combat plays out.
PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:48 pm


One thing I've heard several people say when it comes to pacing is that short, simple sentences work best when you want to pick up the pace. Sorta like peppering the reader with a lot of little bullets of drive-by writing. I've found that it works well enough, but it isn't always to my taste.

A lot of very strange things have been done with (to?) the narrative form in the name of pacing. Faulkner once did an interesting thing in one part of The Sound and the Fury. The character, while pondering suicide, was recalling a conversation with his father that he had had a couple days prior. The idea was that the memory of the conversation was zipping through the character's mind at the speed of thought. In order to make it feel that way, Faulkner wrote out the entire conversation without any grammar, punctuation, or paragraph breaks. It was interesting but the thing was a b***h and a half to read. In general, you want to be easier on your reader than that. sweatdrop

Berz.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 9:57 am


I found the complete and unabridged version of Treasure Island to be a pain to read. It's a great story and there's not a great many fight scenes in it, but by means of actual reading it I had to go over the same page repeatedly sometimes to make sure I'd read it all correctly.

Anyway, short, sharp sentences you say? I'll give it a go when I next write a fight scene.
PostPosted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 3:36 pm


I think it first of all depends on the importance of the battle. Is it a long and/or much-anticipated battle? This type would require more detail, I think. However, if it's a sort of short battle and/or one that is rather common or somewhat unimportant, not as much detail is necessary.

In either instance, it may no be necessary to describe every stroke delivered; just enough to get an idea of a character's fighting style and how rigorous the battle is. I agree in the previous mention of atmosphere being important--giving a sense of the surroundings, the sights and sounds, what the characters are feeling. I think it's atmosphere that really makes a difference between a squabble and a battle.

Maia Jacomus

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Senketsu Matoi

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:34 pm


Yeah I usually metion alot about the area because alot of the time the fighting gets so feirce lots of the surrounding will get destroyed or damaged.
PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:38 pm


Try describing the battlefield both before and after. As long as your POV character survives the battle, they will see it at either end and can thus be a source for comparison.

Berz.

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DM_Melkhar
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:10 pm


I'm not sure I always have a POV character. Sometimes it switches, and sometimes it's an outside view.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:28 pm


When you're writing a fight scene, know what your focus is. What is the point of the fight scene in your story (if it doesn't have a point, out it goes)? If the point is to demonstrate the physical prowess of a certain character, then your writing of the fight should emphasize just that. Likewise, if it's meant to show how brutal a villain is, then just have him win in a couple devastating, low moves. If it's for your character to learn and become more experienced, then emphasize the chaos in his mind and on the battlefield as he struggles to stay alive.

Do you see what I'm saying? Every fight scene should be written differently, and very, very few should be written with a sole focus on making all the participants look bad-a**. Having characters one-upping each other back-and-forth with cool moves doesn't contribute to the story.

EDIT: Maia made some worthwhile points in the same vein above.

Nebulance

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