I think starting from a position of having no knowledge and discarding pre conceptions I can get a basic alright flowing "scene" that won't alienate an expert or a hobbyist in the fields.
The characters in question would also be "starting out" as well so it makes sense if the best they can do is basic technique.
Secondly, keep in mind that fighting hurts when the body and mind aren't conditioned for it... Okay, I'll admit: it can hurt, anyway. However, the first time a person punches or kicks something even remotely hard, the results for the attacker can range from a temporary stinging sensation to broken bones. Sword practice, even with practice sword made of light wood (or with an imaginary sword!), quickly tires a beginner's muscles. A person who is strong in the fields isn't necessarily strong on the battlefield, because different muscles are used.
Thirdly, keep the description short. Your ignorance will come through in a too-long fight scene, and you'd risk boring your audience. As with other types of scenes, provide only as much as necessary to set the mood, progress the plot, or show characterization. Don't try to show off.
RECOMMENDED REFERENCES
Decent as a starting point - Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_swords
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts
Even better for the sword fighting - Society for Creative Anachronism:
http://www.sca.org/geography/findsca.html
Find out if there's an SCA group near you. Call up that group's "Seneschal" and tell him/her that you're a writer in need of a fighter's help for a story. They'll probably give you way too much information, so make sure you're ready to direct them with questions.
[This message has been edited by aspirit (edited October 20, 2009).]
I would also add not to get too into the blow-by-blow. It isn't uncommon for martial arts or battle experts to write about their art and be completely boring, because the mechanics of fighting are only exciting to the people that understand those mechanics. Now, if you explain those mechanics first, you won't have to do it in the action bit. But if you are explaining offensive and defensive manoeuvres during the action, it risks being boring.
A way around this is to describe it in metaphor. Use a few blows early on to relay that your characters know their swords or spears or martial arts, but slip into how the characters think of it.
Wheel of Time books do this very well. Rand learns sword forms. Bull rushes the reeds, or swallow in flight, or what-have-you. The good thing about this is that it conjures a mental picture during the action, and it flows in a way that conveys the action, excitement, adrenaline, and danger without ever getting boring.
So I would suggest mixing a few details of the technicalities, or prep your reader with training sequences for the terminology, that way the fight itself can flow. It needs to move fast, feel fast, and be visceral.
As others have said, though, a little goes a long way.
It is important to slow it down enough to know which actions are attributed to each combatant. I cannot tell you how many fight scenes that are too jumbled to read with comprehension on the first go around. Also POV is very important. Blows hurt and this will not only affect the clarity of the POV characters frame of mind but will also disable he or she from the physical abilities he or she may have had before. There are some adrenaline rush characteristics which will amplify these abilities but I read too many times with disbelfief that a character uses an arm which has a severed tendon and muscle damage to swing a forty five pound sword to deliver a game saving blow.
I find that scenes in which a paragragh is reserved to describe each "turn" seems to work well. Even if the paragragh is very short the sepparation make it easier to comprehend.
[This message has been edited by Bent Tree (edited October 20, 2009).]
And I agree with Bent Tree, the POV character is very important. Choose one character and stick with him or her throughout the fight. Describe what happens to him or her and how s/he responds, moment to moment. Afterwards, if it's important, you can have the entire battle described to the character.
http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/sword-fighting-schools.html
The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts might provide useful information as well:
You could also search for 'fechtbuch' on Google books to see if some of the German books are available. If you are the scholarly type and seek more sources there is a fulltext bibliography from the 1890's available for download.
I recall that there is a 15th or 16th century Italian book available on line with illustrations, but it may not be all that useful. It is principally a practical guide to killing or maiming with as little 'fighting' as possible.
If you want to write a realistic fight scene then I suggest the recent news video of the schoolboy being beaten to death in Chicago is as real as it gets:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33057768/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts
A quick review of the article on the Johns Hopkins student who recently killed an intruder with a Japanese sword is also instructive:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0, 114199.story
[This message has been edited by posulliv (edited October 20, 2009).]
There are even different styles for using the katana.
I would recommending reading The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum. He handles fight scenes well.
The knife fight scene is Dune is good.
You could go to, umm, http://www.expertvillage.com/categories.htm
and type in Katana or whatever. There are lots of videos you can learn from. You could also go to ehow and read short bulleted articles about subjects like fighting techniques with katana and such.
Have fun.
I echo what has been said. I really don't want a blow by blow description, I only want to know how it impacts the story. For instance, if your character has a fighting style of dancing, I don't suppose it will go over well in text unless it somehow impacts the plot: Is such a style harder to learn? If so, does it put her at a disadvantage to opponents? If so, why does she choose it? Does it make her more deadly? How does she use it? Are there styles she can't defeat? People who can't defeat her?
To me, these questions are what drives a story. How does it impact the story? What is the reason they need one style vs another? That is more moving than the technical details of one foot goes here, and then she punched here, and then she twisted and kicked... etc...
A cool movie that demonstrates this is The Cleric. There is an entire martial arts style that would be impossible to describe well in writing (it is fun to watch, though...) But how it impacts the story is what strengths a knowledge of this style gives the MC, and how he uses it to defeat the bad guys.
my $0.02
I try to avoid characters coming to blows...in my last story (the one I was complaining about over in the "Did You Write?" section) one character attacks another, but the action takes place under the surface of a lake and out of the sight of the narrator. Realistic? Probably not.
(Not that I haven't learned a few things...I was watching a movie ("Secondhand Lions") and watched a knife fight...I started bitching about how they don't know how to hold a knife...imagine my amusement when, a couple seconds after I bitched, one of the guys in the fight starts bitching about the same thing...amused me no end, let me tell you.)
It's a fantasy based forum but this thread was about realism.
Another thing that is common to all fighting (as far as I can tell from doing fencing and watching UFC, boxing, etc...) is distance and timing. The distance will change depending on the length of your weapon, but it is something you need to be aware of at all times. Surprising your opponent, striking while they are off-balance, or drawing an attack when they are out of distance are all common tactics.
Please take all the following with a grain of salt. My experience is based upon a handful of very low-level (and technically sloppy) MMA fights and about five years sporadic training. I’ve also done four or five classes in blade fighting, but it wasn’t really my thing.
IMO, the most important thing is the POV character’s emotions, thoughts and reactions as most of the others have said. Fights are fast and visceral. The only additional comment I have there is that the POV character’s thoughts and reactions would be most explicit before and after the fight.As per Elan, I care about the moments leading up to the fight and the moments afterwards when I’m reading. During a fight, there’s not a great deal of intricate thought. Someone very experienced can note technical gaps in their opponent’s technique, but it’s more instinctual than rational. As Bent Tree has mentioned, good command of POV is important for the reader’s sake in battle scenes. One point I’ll add is that it may not necessarily be clear to the POV character what is happening in a fight. I can imagine a big melee is pretty confusing.
My comments below are restricted to one-on-one combat. Most movies, etc. are ridiculously unrealistic when it comes to multiple fighters against one person. Everything I’ve read about melees is that they normally involved a great deal of random stabbing and hacking rather than delicate swordplay.
quote:
Isn't most more 'realistic' fighting though short in real life
In pure unarmed combat, fights between two untrained people are usually pretty short and don’t result in much damage before someone breaks it up. Both parties usually get exhausted within a minute or so. There are three reasons; the big adrenaline dump at the start of the fight is absolutely exhausting, poor technique is very energy inefficient (most people hold their breath as they punch…try doing it for thirty seconds at a high rate and see how tired you get) and most people don’t have the very specific type of fitness required for fighting (as noted by Aspirit). Most people will be exhausted after 30 seconds.
For two experienced fighters (and I’ll extrapolate to armed fighters) here, the adrenaline dump can be handled, they know how relax under pressure (i.e. keep breathing regularly) and they have trained for specific actions used in fighting.
My very brief experience in blade fighting (each party had a wooden “knife”) is that fights are also pretty short just because it’s very, very hard to avoid getting hit. With the proviso that the only defense in knife fighting is good distancing, most bouts lasted about five seconds before someone got stabbed in the face (usually me). I don’t know whether the true is the same in Kendo (which I imagine is the closest extrapolation for your type of fighting).
quote:
Another thing that is common to all fighting (as far as I can tell from doing fencing and watching UFC, boxing, etc...) is distance and timing.
Great point. Different types of weapons involve different ranges. While I don’t think of distance per se in sparring (might be different in fencing/weapons), a lot of the time I’ll be trying to find my distance and I’d imagine this is common across types of fighting. You might want to look at the sites mentioned by people above to get a feel for the length and weight of weapons. Your “gunblade” sounds like it would be huge advantage.
A good example of weapons + martial arts is the Dog Brothers and you can get a good idea of very unrestricted one on one combat through watching them on Youtube. While it is stick fighting combined with MMA, it should give you an idea of the distancing involved when the reach of weapons is a factor. If you ever felt the need to do this yourself, I would question your sanity.
Regards,
Nick